Thursday 24 November 2016

Dune: A Thought ...

Can I ask how long you’ve reading Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar?

Hopefully?

It's been for some time.

Long or short,  you may not know I'm a fan of a few things.

Doctor Who, for example.

Macs, as another.

The works of the late Terry Pratchett are in there.

Oh ...

And the Frank Herbert novel, Dune.

Ever since I first read it, when I was seventeen.

~≈Ê≈~


Watching the David Lynch film version was good ...

Good: although I believe it’s not perfect.

The death of the Freddie Jones character, Thufir Hawat, is overlooked.

The fact another character, Duncan Idaho, is black*, is ignored.

Whitewashing, I believe they now call it.

And the Lynch version didn’t give us menacing Harkonnens, but the Three Stooges.

And, while Herbert himself like what was done with the Navigators, they don't look like that in the original book.

It’s good.

But flawed.

As was the TV miniseries, a few years ago, I felt was was similar.

Good.   In casting Ian McNiece as Vladimir Harkonnen, it got something  spot on.

But flawed.

So recent news the production company, Legendary, had picked up the rights to a new film version?

Had me interested.

But concerned.

As gorgeous as Lynch's version looked, as wonderful as the TV version was?

I’d like to see one that puts what's on the page, onto celluloid ...

Here’s hoping.






*        Black: or, at least, non-white.   Herbert doesn’t get too specific, beyond saying Idaho has ‘curly black hair.’   Something I feel refers to the hair of someone’s who’s of Afro-Caribbean origin.   In a picture for Eye, a Herbert short story collection, the character is definitely non-European.


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