Peter Berg is obsessed with the jerky hand-held camera. As well as hot women! And loud sound effects! So the new version will be a lot like an MTV video, which can't be all bad, right?

I'm so fucking tired of remakes. But in this case, the original was so boring that I feel like anything will be an improvement.

When I saw this at fourteen I thought it was the worst film I'd ever paid money to see. Over time I've come to appreciate the perverse strangeness of it.

"He who controls the spice, controls the universe!!! Bwaaaahahahahaaa!!!" (Spirals towards ceiling on jet-pack belt).

Can Peter Berg top that? I don't think so.

They should remake it with Vanilla Ice in Sting's role:

"He who controls the ICE, controls the universe".

Instead of that big brainy looking thing floating in the glass container, it should be Ben Stein.

...if only Berg would go back to acting in rememberable classics like Crooked Hearts - I laughed, I cried, I used Noah Wyle as material for a month...

Berg is only onboard until Hancock tanks, if the early negative reviews are right. Then he will quietly be replaced by McG due to creative differences.

I had the same reaction to Dune. It was like, okay, this acid was made by the people who make Agent Orange. I watched it a couple of times and finally gave up. It wasn't that it was weird. I loved Farscape, and you can't outweird that.

Curiously, it was the film made by David Lynch as part of an agreement so he could make Mullholland Drive, an amazing masterpiece for some filmheads (like me). But why have Toto score the music? I'm still waiting for Toto to show up on my PBS channel fund raiser night. And has anyone seen those actors lately, other that Kyle and Francesca?

BTW, isn't the ending the oddest thing? I've had the most fights over what exactly happened, or didn't.

I don't know why everyone hates on Lynch's dune, it's Lynch doing sci-fi, it's awesome.

Though the greatest version of dune was never made: it was to be directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, starring Salvador Dali and music by Pink Floyd.

The miniseries remake sucked, and so will the new one.

Dune is just one of those books that will never be as cool of a series or movie as it was a book. The book is long, labyrinthine, archaic, overly articulate, requires a glossary (helpfully provided) in order to follow, and has already been extensively cribbed from and ripped off to the point where the cribbings and ripoffs are ingrained in popular culture moreso than Dune is (Star Wars, for instance).

As long as the re-remake also stars Captain Picard, Al from "Quantum Leap" and a member of The Police, it should be okay.

@In Other News...: Why must you hate?

@Ian Spiegelman: I said it would be okay, with those prerequisites! Or, we can all just watch the totally timeless, totally awesome iterations of Star Trek.

Dune was weird on too big a scale to work. Large scale stories don't work without a likeable central character -- such as Luke Sykwalker -- to hold them together. There was no one likeable in Dune, at least in the David Lynch version.

@Mike_Jahn: "But I was going to Toshi Station to get some power converters!!!!" Still likeable? ;-)

@Furious George: Ok -- I was going to give a snarky response about you -- but I decided to check Wikipedia. Yep. No Dune influences on Star Wars. Kurosawa (Yojimbo and Hidden Fortress), Lawrence of Arabia -- Sergio Leone, Isaac Asimov -- but no Dune. Sorry buddy.

Excuse me, but Peter Berg's greatest performance was with Linda Fiorentino in Last Seduction. That was a classic.

If they can do a remake without somebody looking ridiculous with neon blue contacts hissing 'The Spice Must FLOOOOOWW' then it'll get a thumbs-up from me. And losing the metallic undies too. We don't need them.

If you don't get David Lynch's "Dune" (screw any other lookalikes)... if you don't get Terry Malick's "The Thin Red Line" -- well then I expect we don't need to talk about what the medium is really about... at which point I will leave you to the brilliance of Judd Apatow, or whatever other TV-based retardation you would rather believe in?

I am feeling expansive tonight: will leave the Fox Searchlight/Sundance/SXSW people alone.

Hugs!

Read this: TimeWarnerRhymeAnaheim out loud in the voice of The Comic Book Guy and immerse yourself in pure comic genius.

@dandles: Totally agree, an underated gem. As for Berg's Dune, if he can get Taylor Kitsch in that little blue speedo thingy, I'm there.

@donmiguel: The sand planet where Luke lives, the giant worm-like thing that eats Jabba the Hutt's prisoners, Jabba the Hutt as clever fatass with sex slaves, the whole Jedi mind trick business, hell, Jedis in general... No, you're right. No Dune cribbings whatsoever.

I always wondered what a giant slug found attractive in Carrie Fisher. I mean, giant slugs aren't programmed to get turned on by Jewish princesses, are they? I, on the other hand, was totes turned on by watching Princess Leia in a bikini strangle the worm.

There's absolutely no way to get Lynch's Dune on first viewing. You must watch it at least half a dozen times to understand its full brilliance.

Also, you must be stoned.

Also also, Georgie's absolutely right about the abundance of Dune references in Star Wars. In fact, The Honey is reminding me that there was even a reference to "the spice mines" in SW!

Lynch's Dune rocks and it's not even that weird or difficult, it's a pretty straightforward narrative with cool production design. Apparently Lynch hates it but whatever, it's out there.

I would give a leg to see Jodorowsky's Dune. Possibly even one of my own.

The "Navigators" were the best part, so doped on the Spice that their Kristie Alley bodies could move whole fleets. Can Britney do that? Not! Also Francesca Annis, one of the most beautiful women alive (well, along with Catherine Deneuve, Julie Christie, and yes, dare I say it, Elizabeth Taylor)

I've always wondered, why don't they remake shitty films into good ones, instead of always making classics over into duds? So, this could have a real chance.

Wasn't this about the time when we heard that Sting did yoga?

Kyle McClaughlin lives in my apartment building in New York City. Would love to know if he will get a part. Hopefully that housewife t.v. show will be the nadir of his film career.

Fuck! This means more DVDs/Blu-rays for the hubby to eventually buy and drive me crazy pointing out the minutiae of every scene and why it's just not as good as the book. We already have like 20 versions of this ...well, ok at least we have both the Lynch Dune and the TV series as well as Children of Dune.

The only enjoyment I have ever had while watching the Lynch version was spotting Michael Bolton playing one of the spice-eyed drummers before Sting, whom I nearly ran over one time, and Kyle McLachlan fight at the end.

I wished I'd been faster on the gas pedal and we could have all been spared subsequent Jaguar ads and discussions of tantric sex.

@I Don't Get It: I used to vacation at Long Beach, NC, just south of where Dino DeLaurentis had his movie studio. I would see Lyle and Laura Dern at breakfast all the time during Blue Velvet and then when Dune was filming, wow, look out, I saw Sting and Trudy buying boiled peanuts. Even I wouldn't buy them, much less eat them. Lord knows what they thought.

@Calaverius:
@Furious George:

People hate on Lynch's Dune because it was massively disappointing in almost every regard, and it deserves every bit of scorn heaved its way. I love almost everything else Lynch has made, and I've read and enjoyed almost all of the Dune books (though none other as much as the first two books), but the product of their union was a hideous and disfigured creature. The problem is, more or less, what Furious said: the books is simply too long and intricate to translate well into a standard feature-length movie. And who the hell wants to sit through a 7-hour movie? Or 3 2-hour movies with little-to-no resolution at the end of the first two (LOTR notwithstanding, apparently).

As an aside, I'm also concerned that the forthcoming Watchmen movie will suffer for similar reasons. I love Watchmen, and I have almost no hope that the movie will come close to source material.

Needs more Sting.

i'm man enough to admit that '84 Dune was a terrible, terrible movie. i also enjoy watching it at least ten times a year. and then i follow it up with one of the newer episodes of law and order: criminal intent and laugh and laugh and laugh at little alia all grown up and playing detective.

"and how can this BEEEEEEEEE? for he IIIIIIISSSSSS the kwisatz haderach!"