Frank Herbert's
DUNE

EPISODE 1

The desert planet Arrakis is the most important place in the universe, for it is the only place where the Spice is produced. Spice makes space travel possible, allows Mentats to act like human computers and heightens sensory perception. The House of Harkonnen has controlled the Spice production and gloried in the power that gave them, but now the Emperor has removed the Harkonnens and placed Duke Leto Atreides in charge. Along with his son Paul and his concubine Jessica, the Duke must learn as much as possible about the planet and the mysterious desert dwellers known as Fremen if they are all to survive the revenge the evil Vladimir Harkonnen is planning.

DUNE is a huge, almost sacred, text in the science fiction genre. Peopled by a huge cast against a vast canvas of desert plains and rocks, its plot is dense and twisting, its setting detailed and intricate. 'Plots within plots' and 'schemes within schemes'. To adapt all that into a comprehensible and compelling screen adventure is a huge challenge and not something to be taken lightly, as David Lynch found out with his troubled production sixteen years before this version and Alejandro Jodorowsky was to learn years later when his attempt to make a film version failed. It is therefore welcome to see any screen version of this story, though much is expected of it from the book's faithful audience.

On the evidence of this opening episode, those expectations are going to be met only in part. The script is admirably faithful to the book. Being a television miniseries it has the luxury of an extended running time in which to let the story breathe, something the Lynch version did not. Scenes of the family coming to terms with their new home, learning its ways and forging a link with its people are not rushed, or excised altogether. The universal scope of the plotting is displayed by the inclusion of the Emperor and his daughter Irulan, characters who were all but sidelined in the Lynch version, despite being vitally important to the bigger picture. Yes, there are too many monologues with the characters explaining the plot to each other, but that is almost inevitable since there is so much detailed background to the actual events. at this point, the story is that of a multi-player chess game, various factions moving their pieces around the board with incremental advances that are often too subtle to be seen as attacks. This complexity of situation is well presented and layered.

As is the world of Arrakis, or the central city of Arrakeen, at least. The Atreides' attempts to create a new stewardship of the planet and gain the support of the locals are given time to make an impression rather than being compressed into the one action sequence where the Duke risks his life to save the crew of spice harvester from imminent giant worm attack. The extended dinner banquet sequence, Jessica's opening of the water garden to the people and the provision of free water at the palace gates are all important moments that seem minor, but build towards later loyalties and alliances. That they are presented at an appropriate length and pace makes the episode seem leisurely, but also provides some of the book's depth to the intricacies of scheming and the nature of the characters.

The main cast is impressive. William Hurt is the nominal star as Duke Leto, and he brings all the gravitas to the role that might be expected, but anyone familiar with coming events will know that the story focuses on his son Paul. Alec Newman is intense enough as the young and headstrong boy, managing to hold the centre against the scale of the events around him. Saskia Reeves is intelligent and empathetic as the Duke's concubine and mother of Paul, a woman of the Bene Gesserit order, one of the factions in play, but one whose importance is reduced to alliance building through marriage. Ian McNiece is delightfully slimy as the gross Duke Vladimir Harkonnen, though this is television, so some of his vices are hinted at rather than shown full on.

There is no doubting the ambition and scope of writer/director John Harrison's vision of the story, but there is also little doubting the Sci Fi Channel's ability to deliver it. What really lets the production down are the special effects,which are variable at best and at worst are both horrible and horribly cheap. The contrast is best seen in sequences involving the Spacing Guild's giant transport ship. Where we see this ship in orbit around the Atreides homeworld of Caladan, the design is impressive and the visuals match. When we see the guild's navigator, mutated by the Spice, emerge to guide the ship across the universe, both design and visuals fail miserably. When the effect is this bad, it is best just to cut it out altogether. How the navigator folds space to allow interstellar travel may be an interesting point in the book, highlighting the importance of the Spice, on screen it could be sacrificed for the benefit of the production. This was also true of the Lynch version, so the lesson has not been learned.

The production design is excellent throughout. The visions of the cities on Arrakis and Giedi Prime are initially impressive, the Arrakeen palace sets are large and set the scene well, the ornithopters are delightfully insectlike in their design. Unfortunately, the visual effects that bring them to life don't do them full justice. The CGI is not up to the task of making the ornithopters fly believably or the floating worm of the hunter-killer assassin robot look like it is actually part of the scene rather than just added over the top of it. And, unfortunately, where the effects fail they fail so completely that the audience is torn out of the story.

The action, too, is left wanting by the production. Whilst hinting at the scale of the story, when it comes to the inevitable climactic confrontation, the battle scenes are constrained to a few small groups of men in front of, admittedly impressive, explosions. What should have been an intense and epic battle is over in moments. This betrays the ambition of the piece.

This first episode is a frustrating mix of the excellent adaptation of plot, setting and character versus the disappointingly poor visual effects.

Top

EPISODE 2

House Atreides has fallen, but Jessica and Paul have survived. Lost in the desert, they must survive long enough to find friends amongst the Fremen who will keep them alive and teach them their ways. In return, they will teach the Fremen the secret Atreides fighting style that will allow their warriors to become a match for the Emperor's Sardaukar.

The focus turns away from the interstellar politics a little and settles upon Paul and Jessica's time with the Fremen. Short interludes show us the factions still manouevring for position and Princess Irulan is coming into her own as the daughter of the Emperor, but it is the domestic politics of the Fremen that fills the majority of the running time. Paul must fight for his life and Lady Jessica must risk her own life in a far more mystical and psychedelic way. Some of the clarity of storytelling is lost here. Paul's rise through the ranks of the Fremen towards apparent godhood is straightforward enough, as is his burgeoning relationship with Chani, but the mumbo jumbo around Jessica drinking the water of life from a stunted worm and turning its poison into an elixir that sparks an orgy is somewhat opaque. The passing of the memories of all previous Bene Gesserit mothers in the line and what that means for the unborn baby in Jessica's womb are woefully inadequately explained and the accompanying light show doesn't help either.

With the focus now shifted to life within Sietch Tabr, the scope of the show has been diminished as well, apart from a few brief visits to the homeworld of the Harkonnen and the Emperor. The lack of scope is made all the more apparent by the obvious stage sets and false backdrops that are OK when dealing with the interior of the sietch, but prove woefully inadequate to mimic the open swathes of desert. That's a shame because it betrays the production's limitations only too clearly.

There is limited action as well, with only a few attacks on Spice warehouses to provide combat. The time doesn't drag though, as the audience learns the Fremen ways, just as Paul and Jessica do. The main characters are well established now and they are sufficient to take us through the episode without time dragging even though the plot is not moving forward with any great speed. There is even more of a feeling of the intricate plotting of the splintered factions than there was in the first episode. At the end, though, there is a certain sense of treading water rather than surging ahead.

Top

EPISODE 3

On the desert planet of Arrakis, Paul Atreides, his mother Jessica and sister Alia find their lives, and minds, altered by the plentiful Spice. As Paul raises his Fremen army and continues to disrupt Harkonnen Spice mining operations, he risks everything by experimenting with the mystical poison that is the Water of Life. Already considered more as a prophet than a leader, he learns secrets of past and future. When the Emperor himself is forced to intercede to get spice production back on track, the time has come for the Fremen to rise.

The final episode of this mounting of the DUNE story is one of two halves. The first covers the mystical forces that are at work on all the surviving members of the Atreides family. This consists of more swirling light shows that don't adequately explain what is actually going on. The true nature of the Kwisatz Haderach is not clarified even though Paul has become, and surpassed, it. His sister Alia received the entire knowledge and history of the Reverend mothers whilst in the womb, but comes across more as a bratty child than a wise woman trapped in a child's body. Yes, that might send her mad, but it seems to do little more than make her waspish.

And this plays out in a limited number of sets, consisting apparently of a single Arrakeen square, one Sietch set and one Harkonnen loading dock. No matter how many angles these are shot from, they do not create the illusion of a whole world.

Once the messy mumbo jumbo is dealt with, the matter of the final climactic battle can be resolved. The budgetary limits of the production are less felt here as efforts are made to provide lots of explosions and people fighting and dying in the streets. Whilst that is laudable, there are some odd directorial choices that undermine the experience. Much is made of the storm under which Paul's forces attack. It is necessary to prevent bombardment from the sky and reinforcement from orbit. The storm is what allows Paul's much vaunted 'desert power' to prevail. Why then are we shown ornithopters dogfighting with Sardaukar shuttles in apparently clear skies? The storm also negates the use of personal shields, so important in the early parts of the story, but there is no sand flying about in the city streets and nobody appears to be using a shield of any kind. Gurney Halleck, a stalwart of the Atreides family fights double-handed with crysknives whilst Stilgar, a Fremen warlord chieftain, fights with a stolen Harkonnen rifle. Surely that ought to be the other way around. And the worms, which are the ultimate expression of power on this world, do nothing other than act as troop carriers. Even the fate of one of the most significant characters is muted by the action all around, the big moment lost in the chaos surrounding it.

The big battle, though, is not the end. The factions are brought together in the main hall and laid low by Paul. There, he must fight his final duel, his last kill ironically mimicking his first, only with vastly increased stakes. The politics of this showdown are not spelled out for the audience, which is expected to have the intelligence to work it out. If they could understand the visions and powers of the Kwisatch Haderach, they can manage a few political machinations.

In the final analysis, Frank Herbert's DUNE is an intelligent script ultimately hamstrung by the financial constraints and technical limitations of the production.

Top