Dune is not a subset of anything. It was positively the worst film every made. I too am very familiar with the books and I had not a clue as to what was going on in the movie.
By familiar, I mean that I read it every year for a decade or so. I still can’t figure out how they glued the dinner plates to the fat guy’s (Baron Harkonen?) belt and had him float around.
It probably could be made into a decology of movies but the novels are so dense that it might take two movies per novel to do it justice. FX are so much better now that when it was made that it might just be worth it.
Part of it was really good, but the end was boring, and awful. If they had ended it 1/2 hour earlier, it would not have ended up on my list, the end just ruined it.
I agree that the books are so dense with detail and character and history that it could easily support a whole chain of movies. The mini-series was decently done.
I refuse to call a movie horrible just because it wasn’t as good as the book. If that were the case, most of them would be horrible.
For something like Dune, I have to forget the book and watch the movie on its own. About the only movie where they’re equal is 2001, because the script and book were written together.