David Lynch was the first to take a stab at bringing Dune to celluloid, and he did a very... eccentric job. In a way, I really enjoy it. It shows how two people can read the same book, with the same words, and the same dialog, but see it so differently. Lynch's twisted imagination really shows itself in his Dune. I think Lynch saw the word "feud" in the novel and used it as the primary motif that ruled all the film's artistic decisions. However, the movie uses voice-overs in almost every scene, so I must admit that it sucks. When a director needs to use voice-overs to tell a story, you know he's desperate. Narration is for books, not movies. There are two things that I hate in films and TV: 1. narrators and voice-overs, 2. actors who whisper. Speak up! You're in a frikkin' movie! Anyway, Lynch did a crappy job on Dune version 1.

Next, the Sci-Fi channel gave it a try with a mini-series. I liked it because it took its time to tell the story more coherently without voice-overs whispering in the audience's ears. However, production quality was undeniably TV-quality, not big budget. You could easily tell that the desert was just a small sound stage. In a movie called "Dune", you really should have a good budget on the desert scenes! "Arrakis! Dune! Desert planet!" Idiots.

Also, the script was unpolished and often failed to make clear the plotting, scheming, and double-crossing, despite the long scenes of wooden dialog. I don't understand why they felt the need to add more characters to the story, like Irulan. The story had plenty of strong women. There was no need to add more. Dune is a hard enough story to portray on screen (apparently...), so don't shoot yourself in the foot by adding more complexity to it. Irulan appears at the end of the story in Herbert's original, and I think it is an interesting reveal in the end-game. What kind of person is Irulan, who promises to be the only one in the feud who can keep the human universe together? By keeping her invisible for most of the story, I think the impact of her arrival is increased a great deal. Good writing and direction would be able to pull this off.

Ok, I've given myself away. I'm a Dune fan. It's the kind of story that gets better with age. Frank Herbert clearly saw oil for what it is: a finite resource that will soon run out and has the potential to destroy human civilization as we know it today. In the end-game, whoever controls the last reserves of oil stands to win it all. How might that play out? How is it playing out today? Who are the big players? It's science fiction at its best, I say!

Good luck to Peter Berg on his attempt at Dune. Third time's a charm? I would like to see the rest of the series brought to life, so I'm hoping that Berg's Dune will be the start of a great new sci-fi franchise.

In other news, Berg is also set to do a Bran Mak Morn film. Could this be paving the way for a big-budget The Call of Cthulhu film? Geeks will dream.

Overall, I found that Phoenix was a much better wizard movie than the previous movies. All the magic was more powerful, and the locations were more fantastical and wondrous. I especially liked the locations of the wizards' headquarters, all done up with marble and lit by magical light and green flames. Now that's what I want to see in a Harry Potter movie! The film is well paced, leading to a great climax with powerful magic that I've always thought was lacking in earlier films. Battles between wizards should be powerful and epic, and finally we see the clash of mighty wizards dueling.

Go see it. There aren't very many fantasy movies that portray magic like this, so it's a rare treat. Good times.

Geeks Can Write Screenplays Too

Back a few decades ago, there was this independent film maker named George Lucas who wrote a fresh new script for a movie called Star Wars. Audiences went into this movie and were amazed and thrilled by what they saw. As a group, they shared in that experience as only movie audiences can. Is Lucas the only filmmaker with fresh fantasy/sci-fi ideas?

There are some great writers working in TV and film today. J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are three writers that I have become a fan of through Lost. Clearly they have both fresh ideas and the skill to write good dialog (a weakness of Star Wars). Currently they are working on Star Trek XI, sure to be next year’s Christmas blockbuster.

It’s nice that they will cash in on the Star Trek franchise, but given the chance to create their own franchise from the ground up, would they take it? What writer would turn down such an offer? Create your own mythology, characters, plot, worlds, everything! I’ve never heard an aspiring writer say he was in it to adapt existing stories. Sounds tedious to me.

So Lucasfilm, how about you hire some new geek writers and help them start some new franchises? Please?

Adapt THIS!

Here are some adaptations worth looking at:

Watchmen: Based on the 12-issue comic series written by Alan Moore.

A Song of Ice and Fire: An HBO series based on the amazing fantasy series by George R. R. Martin. This project sounds too ambitious to be true, but I hope it will be half as good as the books.

World of Warcraft: I have no idea how this MMO will be adapted into a movie. I expect it will be awful. Sadly, I also expect that I will see it opening week.

Michael Moorcock’s Elric Saga: This is a fantasy writer that I want to get into. There are so many books in his “multiverse” that I don’t know where to start... Anyone have suggestions? It was announced in 2003 that an Elric movie was in the works, but nothing has materialized yet.

Coraline: Adaptation of Neil Gaiman's award-winning novella for children. Surely Gaiman can write some great new screenplays?

One scene has the Invisible Woman trying to understand why the Silver Surfer says he has no choice but to destroy the Earth. Jessica Alba delivers the worst line of the movie with equally awful acting skill: “You’ve always got a choice!” The horror of this scene was so shocking that I turned my head away from the screen, groaned, and then said “Oh shut up!” a little too loudly. Alba’s performance throughout was embarrassing, but this scene was especially amateur. We can’t blame Alba alone for the horrible scene she had to work with. Shame goes to the writers and director, and maybe to the editor who could have deleted all trace of this scene to spare us the horror.

Ioan Gruffudd’s (Mr. Fantastic) performance was also weak. This was disappointing, since I know he can act. Time to watch some Horatio Hornblower again. The personality of Mr. Fantastic was muddled and inconsistent. He was supposed to be a nerd, a genius, and a leader, while delivering bad puns and lame jokes. Gruffudd did a passable job when he was allowed to play the leader, but failed as the dancing, elastic, comical nerd. Why does every character have to crack jokes and perform visual gags throughout the movie? I would like to see Mr. Fantastic played as the straight man in future iterations of this franchise, if it’s allowed to continue.

However, even when he wasn’t cracking jokes, he was given plenty of crappy lines. For example, he used the term “cross-reference” too many times, and it doesn’t seem like the writers even know what that term means. Mr. Fantastic’s scientific computers were flashy and showed nonsense. All of his science talk was laughable. No effort was made to do research.

The Thing’s performance is worse than Alba’s, in my opinion. I attribute this to the rubber suit and disgusting synthesized voice with which actor Michael Chiklis had to deliver his (bad) lines. He looks like a cheddar cheese creature. That suit looks nothing like stone. Who looked at that suit and said, “Yes, that is what The Thing looks like.” Idiots. It looks like a big, delicious cheese man.

Chris Evans (Human Torch) gave the only good performance of the movie. His character was well-defined and he played it well. He could actually deliver the bad lines without inducing a groan or even a flinch. That’s a skill that is much needed in geek genre movies, like fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero. If you can’t deliver awkward, campy lines, then you shouldn’t be in geek movies.

The Silver Surfer was well done, and grabbed my interest enough so that I look forward to the Silver Surfer movie which is being written by J. Michael Straczynski, the mastermind behind Babylon 5. With a good script and a decent superhero, we might have a good movie on our hands. The Surfer was the only guy in the movie who wasn’t delivering bad jokes, so that’s probably why I liked him. Let’s hope that doesn’t change.

See Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer if you can stomach bad dialog delivered badly. The special effects are good enough to get you through this 90 minute film, but not good enough to forget that you’re being taken for a ride, and not the good kind.