Dune — A Quick Comparison

My Perspective

I think by now, Dune has been out long enough that most people who want to read it have done so and those who want to watch the movies should have. So yes *SPOILERS AHEAD* well maybe. There, no excuses, I’m here to give my thoughts on the first book, the 1984 movie and the new 2021 edition. Feel free to agree, disagree or just ignore me.

What exactly is Dune?

So what can be said about the original Frank Herbert book that hasn’t already been said? This is a sci-fi classic plain and simple. It’s hard to remember that Mr. Herbert wrote this in the early 1960’s and that the book was released in 1965. I mention this because that means this story predates Star Trek and many other stories that we base our ideas about space and sci-fi around.

The original books had a very unique tone. The story is political, filled with intrigue and the plot is very calculated. The chess pieces are set on the board and you are brought in to watch the game unfold.

So what isn’t Dune?

It’s not an action sequence. It’s not a space opera. It’s not light or easy or a quick read. The characters are deep. The 1984 movie seems to have been hoping to entertain audiences in an era when Star Wars had set the world on fire with it’s tale of Jedi wielding light sabers and space magic.

What 1984 Got Right and Wrong

Dune builds an intricate world that is immersive and well realized. The 1984 movie was a mess, but it did lay out for the reader what was going on. It was cheesy and garbled, but you understood who the players were and what their significance was to the story. The over dubbed thoughts are laughable, but you at least get an idea that the characters knew what was really happening to them and you had an idea of why it was happening.

Looking back at other movies of the time period and then watching Dune, you really see that they missed the mark on quality. The tone of what they were going for is there, but the special effects were poor. The biggest issue with the 1984 movie has to be the odds and ends that got injected to cater to the audience of the time period. The addition of “the weirding modules”, goofy scenes with Baron Harkonnen and the use of Sting as Feyd-Rautha are enough to turn anyone off.

So is it worth watching? In 1984 it was a good laugh. From personal experience, you probably needed to see it 2–3 times to really understand it. That being said, it was interesting enough to get a lot of folks reading the book to try to figure out what on Earth they’d just seen.

What 2021 Got Right and Wrong

In my opinion, the 2021 movie got a lot right and was fairly entertaining. The movie stayed a bit closer to the book as far as the feel and tone and while it did inject a bit of action, it didn’t try to come up with any new or goofy ideas that strayed to heavily away from what the book was doing. The betrayal of the Atreides and the invasion felt about right for example.

The casting of Paul, Gurney and Duke Leto was superb. I also felt that Dave Bautista as Beast Rabban was spot on. That being said, I felt that the casting of Jessica and Chani was a bit weak. I’m probably going to take a lot of flak for this, but I really didn’t feel that Jason Momoa was a great fit for Duncan Idaho. If you’ve read the books, you know where the series goes with Duncan. I really like Jason and his portrayal of Aquaman, but this just didn’t feel right to me.

For all the things the movie got right, I felt that it glossed over a lot of critical detail. There was a lot of tension between the Duke’s followers because they knew they had a traitor amongst them. The one character nobody suspected was Dr. Yueh because of his background. The detail about the Suk doctors would have been welcome. I think it would have also done everyone some good to understand why Thufir was critical and that Piter was his rival. Both characters deserved much more time and thought. This was nearly 3 hours of movie, and yet it felt like it lacked the detail it could have had.

Finally, I felt that the lack of a Feyd-Rautha in the 2021 movie was a mistake. I anticipate this character popping up in the next film, but I think he should have been there earlier.

Conclusion

As a long time fan of the Dune universe, I was very relieved and pleased with what we got. The movie should stand up and be something fans of Dune can watch for a few decades and not be ashamed to admit they enjoy. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait another 20 years for someone to hit reset again and give this a go. Hopefully a blue print has been created here and the next big novel adaptation can do an even better job of moving the genre forward.