Feb
11
With reports signalling that a mooted Dune remake is still moving forward (well, it has a new screenwriter), we thought it would be only right to get that rumour mill spinning with some suggestions for directors that could helm this feature.
David Lynch’s version of Dune split audiences, and with numerous cuts of this movie still knocking around you can’t help but feel that we are yet to truly experience Frank Herbert’s vision on screen. So can any of these chaps make a credible Dune feature? Was the original such a classic that a remake/reboot isn’t merited? Let your thoughts be heard after the jump.
Darren Aronofsky
When he isn’t making films about junkies, washed up wrestlers and ballerinas, Darren Aronofsky has been known to turn his hand to science fiction. His one foray into the genre was the divisive The Fountain. Love or hate this mind-busting movie, there’s no denying that Aronofsky can set imaginations running wild with the right subject material.
JJ Abrams
Now this is a total long shot, but wouldn’t Abrams and his team make an interesting Dune movie? With Abrams’ eye for drama and special effects, this could really work in a rebooted fashion. But would Abrams be able to stick to Herbert’s text, or will he feel the urge to take a few deviations? We’ll probably never know.
Steven Spielberg
From E.T. all the way to Minority Report, the ’Berg has more than proved his worth in the sci-fi arena. Sure, War Of The Worlds sucked, and wasn’t a great adaptation of a classic novel, but with Dune we remain confident that Spielberg would craft a film that packs political punch, intergalactic action and, with all probability, some kind of father-orientated issue.
McG
Yeah right.
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Why would you even suggest Spielberg if you think his dune would be packed with “political punch, intergalactic action”. Dune isn’t about dogfights in space, and the cool thing about it is that it isn’t just representing our political climate in futuristic fiction. Dune is smarter than that. It shows the political climate of it’s own time – several thousand years in the future. As much as I’ve enjoyed Spielberg films in the past, if some political message and “action” are what he would bring to the series then count me out.
Aronofsky is an excellent director but I doubt he would want to get involved. His “The Fountain” was supposed to be a sci-fi epic. The project suffered budget problems, and what we wound up with was a long shot from the film he wanted to make (though I still though it was excellent). I would think it might hurt on some creative / emotional level to commit yourself to such an epic and probably demanding project based on someone else’s source material, when he never really got to tell the story he wanted to, despite all the work he put into it.
I don’t know enough about Abrams or McG to comment further… Neither of them strike me as a stand out candidate, but I guess I don’t see anything wrong with them either.
I was going to make my own list of acceptable directors, but so far I’ve only come up with one name:
Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) – His visual style is so out of place with a modern setting that I think it could be a fit for the feudal empire of the year 10191AG. The Dune series takes a lot of its names and philosophical themes from the East (and largely from Islam and Buddhism). Singh I think could add a visual element fitting to that.
The problem with any Dune film is that it either won’t capture enough of what the novel is, or it will capture too much. This is the case with Lynch’s Dune and the re-cut of the movie released more recently. The re-cut movie tries to explain everything the original left out. I enjoyed both though. I like to think of myself as a person who can appreciate a film and a book without necessarily having to say “the book was better.” They’re different media, so they’re going to be different. I’ve yet to watch “Dune” or “Children of Dune” from 2000 and 2003 respectively, but they are at the top of my list.
What were the recent adaptations of Dune like as I never saw them? Can you get them on DVD? The thought of a big screen remake of Dune fills me with excitement and dread at the same time. Excitement for the wonders and effects and story, but also because it could be a big let down. Hoepfully it won’t be. Ridley Scott would be a great choice to direct Dune, as would Clint Eastwood. Bizzare, but they could turn Frank Herbert’s classic into a great film.