Well the miniseries has concluded and I've got to say that I was disapointed. I thought that it was a serious mistake to replace any of the actors from the previous series (most notably: Stilgar, who went from this awesome warrior-leader with an accent to an uptight british bald dude). I found a lot of it to be boring, and also found the special effects to be even more lacking than the previous series. The difference, though, is that the director in the previous series may have known that the effects were bad, and endeavored to keep them out of the movie as much as possible. This is not the case in Children of Dune. We see special effects everywhere, and, except for the worms, remarkably poor ones.

The Effects
In the original series, I really, really liked the beginning. I don't know if any of you remember, but it started out with this very calm and tacit music, and it gave the impression of it being very old. The background, which was covered in sand, fell away and picked into the planet, which we see is apparently made of sand, and it gives this great impression that this place really is the driest speck of dust in the universe. That was not repeated in Children of Dune. Instead, the planet, at least to me, looked very fake. I'm afraid I can't go into that detail any further, but that's just how it looked to me. I didn't believe it was there, whereas, I believed that Dune was on my screen when I saw the first miniseries.

The cities looked absolutely appaling, the architecture, everything was so distracting in that it looked fake. I'm sorry to be so shallow, but they really could have done a much better job.

The Acting

Well, in some ways, the acting wasn't so bad. Some of the actors I duly enjoyed--Leto, Paul, Chani and Irulan. I didn't like Susan Sarandon, she seemed just out of place, I guess, even though her costumes were cool. As I said before, the guy who replaces Stilgar I couldn't become attached to, whereas the previous guy was just plain awesome. Farad'n wasn't bad, but he wasn't there for long. Ghanima wasn't bad either, but I don't think she had quite enough lines. Jessica, I felt, played by Alice Krige (one of the big names) was also not that great. I really liked the woman who played Jessica before, and she seemed to play a totally different character. Alia wasn't a bad actress, but I think the part was meant for someone else. Her "normal" accent didn't seem to fit in that well with all the Europeans, I guess. The Baron Harkonnen was incredible in the last miniseries, and he does well with what he has in this one. Paul was awesome, I hope I see Alec Newman in more films. I thought that Gurney Halleck was better directed in the previous series, or else he had a poorly written part. Which brings me to the writing...

The Writing

Parts of the miniseries seemed very boring, and in the first third I thought it was merely because they were covering the worst book in the series IMO, which can be described very simply:

A bunch of people talk and then there's a big explosion.

Anyhoo, I felt that the "cool lines" absolutely necessary to a scifi film, like "I find your lack of faith disturbing" or "tell them to look into the future and see that I will be staring back at them!" were missing from this endeavor. In fact, I don't think they were there at all. It seemed like some of the actors, Alia in particular, couldn't connect with what was written for her. They didn't fit her appearance. Like the special effects, the writing could have been better.

The Directing

I've got to say, some of the scenes weren't that bad. The part where Chani dies and Paul loses his sight was really cool, probably one of the best parts in the whole series, however, there really wasn't much more to it than that. The dialogue, the acting, the tension, was all either nonexistent or boring. He either just left the actors to do as they pleased or told them to be boring. I don't know. The directing could have been better.

Bottom Line:

Can't stand up to the first series (which was excellent in all respects), could have been done much better.

You are right pollux! (in reference to the post you made in my thread)

But you are wrong with everything else.

First of all I thought the first one was done not that great at all. I saw it a few weeks ago (dled the entire thing) and I was dissapointed. When I saw it oriniginally, it must have looked much better.

My biggest complaint with the first one was the backdrops. My favorite one was when it was nighttime during when Jessica was drinking the water of life, etc. The background was of buildings in the daytime... and it was night.... I could literally picture the camera to the left and somone accidently running into the hanging painting that were buildings in the background. That was sad.

Children of Dune was a different story. they computer generated he backgrounds and made it look MUCH better. Thank god!

Yea, so some people couldnt make their big appearence for Children of Dune. But I thought all the "replacements" worked out fine.

And as far as the city overview, what do you expect? Its not a 500 million dollar super movie production. And that city they did was damn complicated from what I could see. So for the probably 10 mill they spent on the production (more than dune 2000), it was sweet.

It seems as if you just want a little story, some killing, lots of explosions, lots of fightingt, bright lights and whipper snappers.
Children of Dune didnt have as much action, but the story was well done. No offence of course:D

Later
T;)

WANNA SEE IT, QUIT RUINING IT, RUINERS!!!

These threads make me wanna see it more, I might just download them off the net, gonna take a while :(

I already Dled the first episode. DVD quality too. Its going to be released May 20 of this year on DVD. Yay!

Later
T

First of all I thought the first one was done not that great at all. I saw it a few weeks ago (dled the entire thing) and I was dissapointed. When I saw it oriniginally, it must have looked much better.

No way, man! Seriously!

My biggest complaint with the first one was the backdrops. My favorite one was when it was nighttime during when Jessica was drinking the water of life, etc. The background was of buildings in the daytime... and it was night.... I could literally picture the camera to the left and somone accidently running into the hanging painting that were buildings in the background. That was sad

I'd have to agree with you there. But I think that in Children of Dune, with all the outdoor sets, you could tell that they were in a studio. Which means that it still needs work. I think the story, the writing, the acting, the directing, the characters, urgghh, everything in the dune2000 was awesome. Honestly, man, you make me want to cry!!

And as far as the city overview, what do you expect? Its not a 500 million dollar super movie production. And that city they did was damn complicated from what I could see. So for the probably 10 mill they spent on the production (more than dune 2000), it was sweet.

The effects were worse than any other modern tv-show I've seen on the scifi channel. They needed a lot more work. They didn't look real at all.

It seems as if you just want a little story, some killing, lots of explosions, lots of fightingt, bright lights and whipper snappers.

No, no it doesn't need that at all! It just needs to be interesting and engaging, and I didn't find that in COD as often as I did in D2000.

The thing I didn't like about it was that it was SO damn slow. I'm all for dramatic pauses, but not after every sentence. It seems like they just wanted to fill time. On top of that, the SciFi channel loaded the thing with commercials.

Yeah, half an hour of commercials for each episode. That was so painful.

Damn canadian sci-fi(called space) channel is too cheap to get anything good and original nowadays. I managed to get the first ep in dvd quality off the net, and am going to watch it today.

It's so funny. My sister was obsessed with it and i intially had no interest in it, infact i was rather apathetic to it but hence my sister being older and just louder she got TV rights. I tried not i have any interest in it but it kept intriguing me though the story is way to confusing if you haven't seen Dune. I kept asking questions because the story seemed interesting (i am a sucker for cool costumes, alien planet themed series, etc). I really found the main character, son of maudib, to be very interesting. But eventually too lack of interest, confusing storyline, and too many commercials kept me away.


"fear is the mind killer"

Not as good as the book. Slow as anything. Good Props.

Of course you have to consider that the book was also crap from my viewpoint. Good story, lousy writing.