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Comment by dmreedy | Hacker News Reader

I think the one we've seen so far had to pick and choose which pieces of the broader tangle of themes to engage with, by necessity of the constraints of the medium. But it did a very, very good job taking a movie-formattable slice out of the thing and presenting it with the honesty and scope of the source material.

> HBO paved the way for high value high production series,

HBO also paved the way to the superficialization of the stories of those series, the loss of themes and the reversion to sort of base storytelling patterns.

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> HBO also paved the way to the superficialization of the stories of those series

Completely agree. Modern TV is excellent in many ways – I think it's great at showing complex inter-character relationships and "politics" over long running stories, telling stories that are just a bit more complex than a 2.5 hour film, and things like cinematography have become really good.

But I don't think it's good at capturing the peak of the art of film-making. Dune is a subtle story in many ways, it doesn't really need 8-10 hours for a miniseries, it needs ~4-5 hours of really considered storytelling. The cinematography in the first film, like Villenueves other films, is also a cut above modern TV.

Other than turning Paul into a crusader, what did they really leave out of the book? The dinner scene, and some of the more minor Leto scheming was all I could remember. Did they have the Jessica finding the conservatory scene? I can’t remember…

They left out pretty much the entirety of the Butlerian Jihad and Orange Catholicism as themes motivating the world. Mentats are barely discussed even though they are present.

And yeah, no dinner scene, and no conservatory, as far as story telling beats

Oh yeah, I guess they did… I imagine they’ll have to expand on that a little bit more in the part 2 for the rest of Thufir’s story to make sense though. Now that I think about it they didn’t put much effort into Piter de Vries either.

Honestly I'm not even sure they're going to do more than unceremoniously kill Thufir off in the background. But it's possible that they took the first movie as a chance to explore Arrakis, and will take the second to explore the broader galaxy and its politics, players, and philosophies.

We still haven't met the Emperor or his Daughter, the Imperial Court (beyond an emissary. No dinner party means no Fenrig and Margot), the Guild (as political players) CHOAM? (I forget if it's even mentioned). All of these could be worked in (and it seems like they will be given we see casting of Irulan at the very least), but you can imagine a version of the story that is less concerned with the broader politicking than it is with the action on Arrakis.

They also fundamentally changed the nature of Kynes' death. So it is possible they are not even interested in (or, to be kinder, that they feel they don't have time for) the planetological lifecycle of the worms and the spice. That it will serve only as a mcguffin. But that's pure speculation.

> Other than turning Paul into a crusader

Are you referring to Paul's visions of future jihad? That is definitely in the novel. Paul takes advantage of the Fremen seeing him as their Mahdi, and uses their zeal to fight the Harkonnen, avenge his family, and win control of the Imperium, all the while having visions of a future bloody galactic-scale jihad, which he struggles with, ultimately causing him to leave The Path, and in the sequel, become The Preacher.

The 2022 screenplay is more or less identical to the 1984 screenplay, scene for scene, except for giving Duncan Idaho his due, at which the 1984 film notably failed. They did not reinvent the wheel here, and I don't blame them. It would be a daunting task.

> Did they have the Jessica finding the conservatory scene?

No.

Also: no confrontation scene between Jessica and Gurney.

I missed the conservatory scene. I know it could be covered in other ways, but I love the other-worldly feel of a lush, moisture-laden room, against the harsh dry dustiness of Arrakeen.

I might add an except for Station Eleven to that rule. It was an excellent adaptation imo.

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