Why Dune Was Considered Unadaptable

There is one thing that’s consistent about the many adaptations of Dune … some element of the story is always missing. Whether it's the original David Lynch Dune adaptation from 1984, or the current iteration of Dune from Denis Villeneuve, it seems some sacrifices need to be made to bring the novel to theaters. Denis Villeneuve may have gotten the closest, but after all these adaptations of Dune, it seems the book might be unadaptable in it's truest form.

#dune #duneparttwo #timotheechalamet #nerdstalgic

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[tymek]

I just imagine Denis saying "We choose to adapt Dune, not because it is easy, but because it is hard"

[anthonyalienz]

I think the hardest part of adapting Dune is all of the terminology and getting an audience who didn't read the books to fully understand all of it.

[Fishpasta]

I'd say the main difficulty is with the optics. Dune is not a happy story of good guys defeating bad guys. It's a story of people having terrible things done to them and in turn doing terrible things to others.
Paul loses his father and then goes on to cripple the spice flow that enables galactic travel before overthrowing the emperor and starting a universe wide jihad in his name, his sister gets possessed and goes completely mad, then his son gets transformed into a worm hybrid and enslaves the universe to teach people the value of freedom. You try selling that story to investors.

[Wilphart]

My sons are obsessed with Dune. If one of them does something stupid, the other one says "...as it was written." And if one of their friends hears that, he'll yell "Lisan al Ghaib!" And if one of them makes a dumb pun like pointing to a car and saying "Nissan al Ghaib, " then the other son will say "...as it was driven." It's kinda funny, but kinda weird.

[ragingtomato]

The thing that is hardest to adapt in dune is not the Worms or Arrakis. It is the fact that most dialogue are internal dialogues. Add to that, it is written with third-person perspective omniscient. So it's like, you're in someone's head in this sentence and then suddenly you're in somebody else's head in the next sentence. Previous dune adaptations just adapted it with heavy use of internal voices, which are never good. Denis V. on the hand just streamlines the dialog part of the book and make it short or just not adapt scenes with heavy dialogues at all(i.e banquet scene, Hawat and Jessica confrontation).

[datdudeinred]

I hope dune 2 video is coming soon too.
&why does this video feels like it was recorded 1-2yrs ago?

[PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworth]

Feels to me like Dune could work as a long-running TV show if you pitched it as a Game of Thrones style high-budget political thriller.

[salmarix]

An adaptation is not a translation. When taking a story from one medium to another it is not meant to be the same.

[juancabardo]

“Is Dune truly unadaptable?”
The recent 2 Dune movies:
sigh
*boi*

[MrPoke]

The syfy series might look cheap nowadays, but back then it was one of the highest budget and most innovative series for it's time. Children of Dune is leagues better and might be the only book 3 adaptation we get

[seen]

Seeing Dune 2 tomorrow.

Part One was so good and Villeneuve not only chose the right parts to adapt, they were executed so well. Heard good things so far so cross fingers.

[creatroyer]

Saying Dune is "Unadaptable" is a sign of weakness, it should be thrown in the middle of Arrakis desert and fed to Shai Hulud. If Cloud Atlas had been adapted into a movie surely Dune can too. It is a film making obstacle of how would you tackle the internal dialogue of the books into the medium of motion picture.

[waltsapartment-]

Kind of odd that this video was published after Dune II was released lol.

Edit: Btw, I did not mean any disrespect to the video’s creator. It is a great video and good analysis. If I saw it between 2021-2023, it would feel very much on point. The majority of the video, especially in reference to the books and older adaptations are succinct and well formulated.

My one and only critique is that it came out after I saw Dune II… which addresses many of the issues raised in the discussion regarding the 2021 film. :)

Edit 2: When I first commented, the video had a different title.

[penttikoivuniemi]

I recently re-read the book for the first time in over 15 years, and what really struck me as odd was how Herbert repeatedly has these insane build-ups to important scenes that are suddenly just over. Even the ending of the book just kind of drops on the reader out of nowhere... At least I was expecting some sort of epilogue or another scene showing the new normal in the universe instead of Paul just telling the antagonist how things are going to be from here on out. Also, that one lord or whatever his title was with incredible fencing skills gets introduced at the end as the biggest threat to Paul, and then he just chooses to not do anything. Why even introduce a character like that, especially at the end?

[christinedefehr]

Definitely agree... but also aren't all books difficult to adapt fully. Visual mediums, like movies, are so different from books and to aid the transition items are always left out or changed to make it easier to adapt. Even the best adaptations, like Lord of the Rings, have missing or changed pieces in the visual adaptation to support the flow and viewing of the movie.

[Dannycuddy]

Why would you post this video after Dune 2 came out?? Feyd Rautha was a major character in Dune 2, and this video is saying he’s book-only 😂

[vitorviotti]

I never read the book, but from all the essays about the adaptations, I have a feeling the best version would be a high budget series like Game of Thrones was. Not considering the whole thing on the last seasons...

[SrirajaPanich]

DUNE 2 was incredible! I think it delivers on the promises made in the first movie!

[dune]

Dune is such a huge collection of books, but unfortunately only the first three really allow a visual adaptation. Which is such a shame, as the alter books deal with philosophical and existentialism themes that cannot be put into cinema.

[Zyzzyx]

I would love to see Denis Villeneuve give his take to Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. Adapting that one to movie would make Dune look simple.