[Thor Joachim Haga]

Great write-up, Nick! I can understand why it’s difficult to be satisfied with an adaptation if you’ve read the book. That usually happens for me too; I think the only time I’ve NOT been disappointed was when I saw THE SHINING after having read the book. The film takes many liberties and eschews the nuances of the book, but the atmosphere was shockingly similar to what I felt while reading.

But if I understood you correctly, you would have had issues with the DUNE films even if you hadn’t read the books? I can see your point — they ARE lacking as far as emotional connection is concerned; or rather, character-bound engrossment. For me, though, that is often less important than the world they inhabit, and I find myself completely absorbed by both of Villeneuve’s films.

I never read the Frank Herbert source material, sadly. My first meeting with the DUNE universe was actually the videogame DUNE II, which I didn’t play, but I watched other people play it in the 90s (I didn’t like strategy games). The Frank Klepacki score for this is a masterpiece, and I don’t use that term lightly. Then I saw the Lynch film, which bored me at first – as the impatient teenager that I was – but that I later came to love, through all its slow movements, typical of the director, and the broad poetic strokes it used, underlined by the fantastic Toto score.

I never saw the television series – FRANK HERBERT’S DUNE and CHILDREN OF DUNE. Although I have the wonderful soundtracks by Graeme Revell and Brian Tyler, respectively.