me when movies are a different medium: wow i cant believe this is a different medium

Writing third person omniscient is insanely hard. Making a movie with a narrative that relies on that almost impossible

So what you are telling me is that an Anime could make a perfect book adaptation.

The problem with dune is that the inner thoughts of the characters are one of the main plot points, its not just that the characters have thoughts , its that the thoughts themselves are the story. Thoughts, planning and scheming controls everyone and everything

As someone who did not read the books, not knowing exactly what the characters think greatly enhanced my experience watching the movies. Part II especially benefited from it, as I feel like Paul's morality and objectives are purposefully left ambiguous. It may not be the original take from the books, but it's a different one and I appreciate that an adaptation does NOT try to be a perfect copycat from the original material. Anyway, loved the movies - and from what I heard I'm pretty sure i'll love the books as well.

Depends on what the adapter is trying to do in the first place doesn't it? "Adapt - to make fit (as for a new use) often by modification". This is exactly what Villeneuve has done. He knows that even with two movies and 5 hours run time that it's impossible to do the novel even taking into account the point you make about characters thoughts not being translatable to the screen. Even for what is translatable you'd probably need at least twice the amount of time (so 4 x 150 minute movies). As he said himself he did a Bene Gesserit movie so effectively excising the Mentat, Space Guild and other context while also making a movie that works for the Star Wars generation of film-making much like Jackson did with LOTR. Those movies are excellent as well but they are very different from the books but as they got 3 long movies (with later extended editions) they could cover off that much more as opposed to if they had done the initial two movie proposal before they got the third movie.

Actually they do have internal monologues for both Dune movie attempts. Plus Villeneuve is using familial characters to internalise thoughts, thru trust and familiarity of family connections

I think you're missing the point, movies make up for the lack of internal exposition by having it expressed through characters' actions, or exposited to other characters. Often you'll see movies represent thoughts and emotions visually, as well, like how 500 days of summer uses the colour blue to express love, or how Perfect Blue uses colour to show the main character's descent into insanity. Of course, you're still right in saying that we miss some key points about characters' internal dialogue and their motivations, but I just think we have to accept that movies will never do this in the way books do, and I think that's actually a good thing. It means I can watch the Dune movies and also read the books, and have a somewhat unique experience of the story with each medium, and use them to understand each other more. For example, the book and its companion books help me understand a lot of the subtleties of culture, technology, and politics in the world of Dune, but the film visually imagines the world in a way I'd never thought of, and has details in the background that make the world feel much more alive that I wouldn't have imagined in my own head while reading.

Consider this: Anime is a medium which actually incorporates inner voices and thoughts effortlessly. And it does it A LOT. Nice video tho, Liked!

Denis has already said. He didnt want to capture the essence of the novel he wanted to honour Frank Herbet's original intentions because Dune was perceived the wrong way in his eyes.

The voiceover in movies sorta holds the hand of the viewer and explains too much, books can do it because it’s a different type of showing in our mind instead of to our eyes

As someone who loved the book, i loved Villeneuves adaption. It was a masterpiece, and included what needed to be included, and left out what would have made it too long or slow or feel unconnected.

I've been a fan of Dune for 20 years. I recently watched Dune Part 1 and found it to be a typical Hollywood action movie cosplaying as Dune using a summary of the script put together from TikTok shorts. It was just bad and boring. The books are amazing. And as another commenter said, we can hear characters' thoughts all the time in anime and I have never thought it to be ridiculous. Let's not pretend a movie with thoughts displayed as audio is an inherently, objectively ridiculous thing. Those are just habits people have and habits can be changed. Now, I'm not saying the movie would be better with the thoughts read out loud; I actually much rather prefer a high-budget miniseries (although an anime would be my ideal choice). I don't even think this is the main problem with the movie. It certainly does not help. My biggest gripe is removing canonical scenes and adding meaningless explosions.

I think a better argument like this is Catch-22, which doesn't only require the character thoughts but exactly how the text is written around the dialogue. And sometimes it's precisely because you're being told to imagine what you're reading, so you can be surprised. Like the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back". We're told he knows exactly what he means, so we assume he's telling the truth, is correct, and then we're told what's physically happening and it's a surprise which makes it funny. Yes you can make an adaptation but it really wouldn't capture the essence, even more so than Dune imo

As someone who watched the 2 movies back to back and then read the books, my opinion is obviously influenced by my love for the movies, but i feel like the director did a good job in general of making the expressions of the characters speak volumes, however Dune in particular is a strange case, cause a lot of things in the book make no sense on screen, unless overtly explained. Namely, Pauls whole episode in the stilltent in part 1, and the Alia/Jessica dynamic had me confused in particular, though i still feel that the movies are incredible, and a great adaptation, cant wait for Dune Messiah!

I think that if you give the audience enough key information, they should be able to infer approximately what the characters are thinking, especially with good acting and editing.

we needed that slow burn like Jacksons lotr. 3 parts, directors cuts, more parts from the book.

Howd you feel abt the effort time to be true to the novels by Syfy productions that were proto GoThrones spreading across days the books into 2 mini series

I take your point but I disagree, I think this is totally doable but in a series.

Oh, pretty short, concise and.. factual

You raise valid points. Dune (and its sequel books) employ a third-person omniscient voice, a narrative perspective more common in earlier literary periods and less prevalent in contemporary fiction. Unlike first-person or third-person limited perspectives, the omniscient narrator is not a character within the story; rather, it provides insights into the thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of multiple characters and settings. Adapting such a narrative for film presents inherent challenges. Achieving the same tone and atmosphere experienced in reading the book is not easily achievable within the predominant cinematographic techniques and norms of today's cinema. However, it might be overly absolute to claim that adapting literature written in a third-person omniscient point of view is "impossible." Instead, it requires innovative and perhaps unconventional approaches to film-making that embrace the differences in storytelling techniques between mediums. These adaptations should strive to effectively convey the richness and complexity of the original text in a cinematic format. Scholars in adaptation studies and narrative theory have extensively discussed the challenges of adapting narratives with a third-person omniscient voice to film. Despite these obstacles, numerous works of fiction using this narrative style have been successfully adapted into effective and well-received films over the course of cinema's history. Exploring some of these older adaptations could offer fertile ground to expand on the themes you address here. For instance, Gone with the Wind, Atonement, Anna Karenina, and The English Patient are examples of novels with a third-person omniscient voice that received successful film adaptations. Additionally, it's worth noting that Lord of the Rings and To Kill a Mockingbird, while not written in third-person omniscient voice, were adapted into highly successful and well-received films. They utilized a third-person limited perspective, similar to omniscient but focused on the perspective of one character at a time, providing insights only into their thoughts and emotions. Personally, I have not watched either of Villeneuve's recent adaptations of Dune. Though I am not in anyway opposed to viewing them, I simply have not had the time nor inclination to sit down and watch them. Based on the limited excerpts I have seen, it seems that the movies focus a great deal on atmosphere and inter-character interactions, much as the Lynch movie did in decades past. While I could be in error here, and I'm going out on a limb given I have not seen the movies, I must say: I find this focus on atmosphere, scenery and visuals to be somewhat surprising, given that Herbert's original prose included so very little of this. The focus on interactions between characters and on character states, moods, and actions does fit well with Herbert's original novel(s). It would be interesting to hear both Lynch and Villeneuve's thoughts on this apparent "discrepancy" in their movies and the books. In the interest of closing with a whimsical anecdote, one scene I will remark on from the second book "Dune Messiah," which I presume was either not covered in Villeneuve's number 2 movie, or else has not been reached in the progression through the whole series by those movies, is the scene perhaps one-third through Dune Messiah in which Paul's little sister "Alia," who has grown up into a full-grown woman has returned to her quarters and is sparring with robot opponents. The reader is told that, in order for the practice to be "effective" the robots need to have actual deadly blades they are whirling around, and Alia chooses to spar buck naked because . . . well reasons? In the scene, she is savoring the incredible power of defeating these robot opponents on higher and higher difficulties and is pressing herself to the breaking point, dripping in sweat, panting and coming incredibly close to being severely wounded or killed by the bots. It is at that point when Paul and Stilgar enter her quarters and see that she is fighting the bots "on 11" and if memory serves Paul chastises her for taking unnecessary risks and gives the override command to shut down the sparring routine. Stilgar then comments "Muadib . . .we really gotta find a husband for your sister . . ." This scene integrates seamlessly into Herbert's engaging and satisfying third-person omniscient narrative and offers intriguing, if somewhat disturbing insights into the Alia character, whose fetal gestation was reshaped by the almost inconceivable process of her having been mystically infused with the entire psyches, memories and lived experiences of all her female ancestors for 10,000 years previous. While the scene could easily be replicated in cinema and manage to convey much of the same suggestive insights into the characters, I have the impression that some of the themes suggested might be a bit "too much" for the moral standards of the day. This introduces yet another dimension to consider: film adaptations of literature from previous generations are almost universally subject to editorial oversight from the standards of ethics, morals and virtues of the age when they are film adapted.

Thanks for clarifying so neatly and concisely the core limitation of any Dune movie adaption: Literature is the place where internal conflict can be thoroughly explored. Cinema, unfortunately, is not.

adaptation key word, It ahs to adapt to the movie medium

Well messiah wont have naked alia fencing that is for sure

That's why I think comics is the most feature rich format to tell stories. You can put thoughts, dialog, action, cool imagery...

good video but I wish it was 30 minutes longer with deeper analysis of specifc places where the movie fails to capture the books themes. I totally agree with your take

I had this same thought even way back then with the hunger games

We could adapt it into an anime! Just like deatnote we can have internal monolouge

Tolkien said something to the effect of, literature is the only medium of this type of mythic fantasy, drama doesn't work for it. It's like taking Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and translating it into a haiku. Two incompatible things.

Dune movies are peak

Good take, and reasonable, even though new Dune movies are amazing

I like inner thoughts moments in film. Adds dimension and is often a clever creative choice. Saying one should not use it seems odd and judgmental and limits the delightfully creativity that is film. Not every film needs to fit a cookie cutter of someones making.

DUNE is a very complex novel! Adaptation is impossible unless you do it as a miniseries! But it would have to be at least 20 episodes for just the first book! Only a few channels could do this! HBO, Showtime or maybe Prime! But it would have to be given a huge budget! For an accurate, faithful version of DUNE

I disagree, Lynch; 1984, does it justice! The effects are dated now yes, and no such thing as rain at the end, but the pronunciations, feel and mood was great. Its Shakespearian approach gives the the weight which is missing from thr newer version! The spice navigation scene in 1984...at least they tried lol

I personally think that the new Dune movies are still amazing. They may not have followed the books perfectly, but the story is still extremely good.

True some books are impossible to adepted as a movie. Peter Jackson did a good job with the first two hobbit movies( last movie was bad and wasn't part of the book). At least directors who follow the original story are respecting the writer or creator. People who change it in everyway and put nonsense in it are really avoidable Imo.

Falhou para você, não para mim.

It doesn’t ruin the reality. I watched a lot of anime with inner dialogue/monologue and they felt very real, more real than anything, Death Note, for example. It’s just western directors and scriptwriters hate inner dialogue and cannot implement it. And your voiceover doesn’t ruin the reality too.

With the money earned, i would say it's a success

The book dune was way better

both can be great at the same time, get off your high horse lol

"Dune Messiah", going forward I going to be an extremely hard slog for an audience.. Especially "God Emperor of Dune".... think "Dallas" [1978 - 1991] in Space... A soap opera in space... With the soap bubbles turning turgid...

You don't have to be bias about it, I just enjoyed Dune, and it wasn't a bad film. Stop being bias towards it, seriously.

The mini-series was the most faithful of the 3 adaptations, but suffered from its low production budget. Some of the actors were good, others, not so much. Best soundtrack by far. 1984, had interesting set design and a unique style, some good, (and some over-the-top) acting, but took significant liberties with the source and suffered from studio interference. A very mixed bag. DV film claims it is a faithful adaptation, but in reality, is anything but. Features the best* visuals to be sure, but suffers from poor casting, and bad writing that deviates wildly from source. I dont remember the soundtrack from that one at all. *It looks nice and clean in a lot of places. Maybe too clean and sterile for some tastes. I like the Ornithopters and the worms look good too, but, I found the overall style pretty lifeless.

ok

I get what you're trying to say, but I don't think "fail" is the right word to describe this phenomenon. Rather, the novel and the movie are two different versions of the same story, using their respective strengths and weaknesses to highlight different aspects of that story, and I think that's a good thing. Take old fairy tales for example. The people who created these stories and anyone who was alive when they were created, are long gone, so they're basically royalty-free stock narratives at this point. They have been retold, parodied and reimagined countless times by countless individuals. The core of the story remains intact, but the details can vary wildly depending on who is telling the story, and hardly anyone has the same favourite version or even knows every version of that story. Can new versions of a story deviate from what the original creator was attempting to convey? Absolutley. Is this bad? I don't think so. Retelling a story ensures that it reaches a greater audience and increases its total contribution to human culture. The fact that bad stories pop up occaisionally doesn't matter, because they'll be forgotten in the long run. Many of the greatest works of fiction are quite old, but that's not because people used to tell better stories, it's because good stories are the only ones that'll be remembered. So, if you prefer the subtle complexity of the novel, that's beautiful. If you prefer the grand spectacle of the movie, that's beautiful. The two can coexist perfectly fine without conflict, and a hundred years from now, they might just be a small part of the grand cultural awareness of Dune.

Good vid, good point.

Sir i respect your opinion but i don't thinks i need perfect adaption

The book is better🙄 typical book readers response after seeing the film. Try and see a movie you haven’t read a book for and see how much more enjoyable it is.

Sorry for all this dislikes, this is one of the more fair takes on the Dune movies, the title was just attention grabbing because that's how you play the KZfaq game. I'm not a book person, but the movies, specifically the Denis Villeneuve ones, are still very good movies that adapt the ideas of never trusting leaders and subverts the tropes that "Lawrence of Arabia" made. I still think your point of internal conflict being central to the story is a good and fair point as to why you prefer the books, certainly better than complaining about it being "woke" There's a comment down here that said Dune would be better off as an anime, and I gotta agree, and what's funny is that I thought Paul and Feyd had a Shonen anime rival dynamic. And with how big anime is, I can imagine there being an anime adaptation of one of the spin off books written by Brian Herbert

Hmmmm.... 🤔 Intriguing! That's a really interesting point!! Also, I think it's time for me to read Dune again! (◠‿◠)

to be honest, there’s a group of people that you fall into, and with every book to movie adaptation you will say the same thing. The problem is adding all of those extra elements to a MOVIE, would make it worse. Yes in a book, it works because you have hundreds if not thousands of pages to read. But no one really wants that in a movie or Tv series, it wouldn’t be as good.

3min is not enough time to make a point that requires way more than "A book has a characters thoughts." and you didn't even say why it fails. It's not a failure because films can't do what books can. It's like saying you can never write a book based on a concept you saw visually. Retarded argumentation and nothing was said.

The point is it is two different mediums of storytelling one cannot replicate the other in the exact same manner. That is why it is called an adaptation. We have few morons expecting the movie to represent the book 100%. That is stupidity do not understand the two mediums and the difference. Including the person who made this video… Do me a favor enjoy the movie for what it is and stop comparing and expecting everything that is on the book to be in the movie for God sake. It is an adaptation. !!!

I always thought that anime series is the best way to adapt my mavorite novels because of this. In anime you can have a twenty minutes episode of two dudes staring at each other a "just" thinking, it's business as usual. Ideal format for the Yueh VS Jessica confrontation. Ideal to make you swallow better some sillyness too (the little sister killing the barron in Dune, the daemons and combat bears in His Dark Materials, etc)

As far as the movies go, they're not so bad, I like them for what they are. But overall, for most all adaptations, animation is such a perfect medium that honestly, it's insane that it isn't done more often Percy Jackson was a perfect example of this. Animated show with the same budget that the live action got? Lmao, would've been stellar. Imagine the insane work they could've pulled off? But nah, live action is chosen regardless. And once again, it's proven to plague other once animated shows. ATLA could've gotten a Remastered Animated Version, but instead they made it live action 😮‍💨

🧑‍🔬🕵️🤔

When you try to be different for views

one solution for incorporating the internal monologues into visual media: breaking the fourth wall! House of Cards did it and got away with it.....

English is not my first language: WOW, people are in such need for "next great thing"(like Star Wars/LOTR trilogies), that they go nuts(look at that like/dislike ratio, and some comments..), they try to elevate first decent SF/Space Fantasy movie in LONG TIME, to one in generation masterpiece, and it is sad, cos it is not even close. My gen. had LOTR trilogy, previous generation had Star Wars, current gen. has pent-up anger caused by decades of mid, boring sequels, prequels, reboots, reimaginations... I read those books in late 90's, quit after third(first was very good). I like Lynch goofy version, this? Desaturated 2h+ trailers, vistas on Valium. BTW, valid arguments, maybe people who did not read the books see something different, something new, but after books: those adaptations are just empty(inner monologue might be reason).

The Dune TV Series is The Most fateful Dune Book Adaptation to date

That's doesn't mean it's a failoure

I agree after watching part 2 Paul seemed less likeable towards the end of the movie, but I don’t remember the same feeling when reading the book years ago. I’m assuming it was because we had more access to his thoughts

Dune is filmable as a HBO TV series like GOT.

1984' Dune movie had internal dialogues and that's one of the things I liked about it. That was closer to the book and it didn't feel odd or funny to me. I prefer the 1984 movie than the new ones. The new ones are all about well composed shots, great cinematography, effects & score. But the dialogues and character development is lacking imo. The dialogues dont do justice to the source material and they feel as lucklaster as the ones in the latter seasons of game of thrones.

Just like people who only saw part 1 now, people still thought of Paul as a choosen one and saviour even after reading the whole book back then. For most people, the little hints in the story were too subtle to understand. Ofc now in hindsight everyone can pretend they "got" the core message from Dune from the start. Reality is different though, in fact, Frank Herbert was so bothered by people not understanding the message of the first book, he wrote Dune Messiah to hammer in once and for all, that Paul is not a savior into the minds of the readers. The second book was not recieved well by many when it released. Enter Denis Villeneuve, who clearly understood Frank's original intention and you get movies that are still cinematic, while getting the core themes right without making a stiff stage-play with stilted monologues no one in a cinema would bother to listen to.

like we don't know about it

Direct and to the point. In their greed to cash in on what is generally considered to be possibly the greatest science fiction series ever written, they ignore this very fact that its unfilmable! Too many internal thoughts that make the various subplot combinations go round and round in " Herbert's phrase , " Wheels within wheels ".

Yep, whilst listening to dune messiah recently I came to the same conclusion.

It's too bad the movies failed to capitalize on Prana-bindu training (Paul teaches this to the Fremen), which focuses on precise control of nerves and musculature. This shifts the individual's perception of space-time granting practitioners near blinding physical speed in combat. This is why it was the Fremen who coined the term "Weirding Way" as they believed they were seeing magic. This was an exciting part of Dune's close quarters-combat and becomes even more so with the introduction of the evil Honored Matres, an all-women group who kill with their feet. (fast unblockable kicks). The movies fumbled the ball on this.

Anime uses it to great effect, but that's one reason their fights span multiple episodes I guess

The biggest problem isn't what you've highlighted here but the obvious white-washing of Middle Eastern and Islamic cultures from Dune, especially as they were a big influence on Frank Herbert whilst writing the novels and quite obviously used throughout to represent various tribes like the Freman people. Both movie adaptations completely removed this important aspect and replacing it with a completely different culture which weakened them as adaptations.

They failed because Denis Villeneuve is a hack and David Lynch lacked creative control.

A lot of downvotes from people who have not read the book(s) and really don't understand how most of what's written in them isn't visual. Anyway, I always felt like in the OT Star Wars trilogy - we never really saw much of the conflict 'to join the dark side' in Luke. We were always being TOLD about it, but never shown exactly what, if any, attraction to the Dark Side he had. We don't see much of anything of him being scared of the power he's gaining, or finding his own actions immoral. Literally the only moral conflict Luke has in the entire trilogy is leaving Yoda's training to help his friends. This choice seemingly had no negative consequences (as shown in the films, anyway.) Did Yoda not want him to confront Vader? What was he training Luke for, if not? Any moral aspect to this is so vague that I still don't get it. I think the many SW novels find ways to go deeper to explain how the Dark Side is a tempting and corrupting force. But we literally see none of it in the OT films. When the emperor is telling him to "Join the Dark Side"...what exactly is going to be the benefit to Luke? He sees that his own father is basically a prisoner of the emperor..., so what would make him want to take that position. The only explanation we can deduce is that The Dark Side is just alluring and corrupting, with no real substance to a person's desires being necessary. As adults we can better-understand the "dark side" to a person's psyche, and negative traits like greed, jealousy, spite, etc. But in most cases, those sins don't really offer a person power and prestige in real life - like The Dark Side in Star Wars is presented as doing, especially for Anakin and Luke. As a kid I really did not have any understanding of what "Going to the Dark Side" would mean other than that he would no longer be a Jedi but a Sith, and have to hang out with the Empire and be evil. Going by the movies, that's really all it ever is shown as.

Not really true for the new Dune movies. The books didnt really delve too far into anyones heads. Still havent seen enders game though. Judging by the reviews, and my initial thought of "Theres no way they could adapt this into a movie" I would say its a much better example of what youre describing.

the only thing that failed is this video.

I agree. And Books>Films every time (maybe not LOTR maybe)

Shitty title. No new truth on books vs movies. Nothing to do with Dune.