[Reading Dune for the first time] Update 3: I recently read the scene in which Paul sees one of the giant worms rise from the sand before him. They have this scene in the trailer for the upcoming film. Remembering that got me wondering if they had the same scene in the 1984 movie.

I know I said I didn’t want to see any more of that movie, but I don’t think the worms were the bad part. I found a WatchMojo video of ten reasons people hate Dune (1984), and now I really have seen as much as I need to see of it. Yeah, there are spoilers, but this movie doesn’t stick close to the book, so it’s matters less. And no worm rising from the sand–maybe that was the good part.

One main complaint is overacting. I remember catching an old sci-fi flick Solar Crisis somewhere in the middle. I think I started watching when Charlton Heston was on screen. After a few minutes, I thought, “Heston is the only good actor in this movie.” At least, he was the only believable figure walking around. Cut to a scene in a spaceship, and I wondered if these were the people who had been looking for clerical and janitorial work when all the real astronauts were deciding who would draw the short straws.

That’s something I’ve appreciated in what I’ve read of Dune so far. The characters, at least the good ones, aren’t peevish and bratty. Actually, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is not only evil, he’s full of bile. He probably wakes up every morning with a leer, but he gets little lime light in Book One, so he doesn’t weigh it down. Duke Leto, the Sean Bean character in this part of the story, has flaws, which Paul notes, but is predominately an admirable man. One of the native politicians feels pressed to like the Duke against his better judgement because he naturally commands loyalty. He inspires fidelity with his passion and generosity.

The overacting, what there may be of it, comes across as cutthroat politics. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, is quoted as saying, “Politics is like bad cinema — people overact, take it too far. When I speak with politicians, I see this in their facial expressions, their eyes, the way they squint. I look at things like a producer. I would often watch a scene on the monitor, and the director and I would yell, ‘Stop, no more, this is unwatchable! No one will believe this.'”

I hope I don’t get much of it in the rest of Dune. It would ruin the whole experience.

Image by Parker_West from Pixabay