Posted on 03/19/2020 8:33:25 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The book sucked and any movie will too.
Roots was eight episodes that aired from January 23-January 30, 1977.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots_(1977_miniseries)
Dune is my all time favorite book series. I actually liked the 1st movie. Never had opportunity to watch mini series. I have the original comic books from 1st movie. Are they worth anything yet?...lol
I was a Lieutenant in the Big Red One when the first desk tops started showing up in company orderly rooms (286s, possibly 386s, IIRC.) This was in '91. Battalion headquarters and higher echelons were using them before that. As a frame of reference, our Division commander was William Hartzog, born in 1941. He'd have already been in his mid-20s when Star Trek came out.
My only point is that the "True Story" in the opening paragraph seems very unlikely as any officer who enjoyed Star Trek as a kid or even a teen, would not have made general officer ranks until sometime after the Army had already well-integrated computers into military operations.
One thing that goes unmentioned is that the evil Baron Harkonen is a vile, diseased queer who gets his jollies raping and murdering young male slaves. That isnt going to fit well with modern Hollywood sensibilities.
My problem w/ adaptations of great fantasy novels like this and Lord Of The Rings is that part of the attraction is the fantasy part. I have a visual image in my mind of what a Hobbit looks like, but the movie creates that for me and then loses my interest.
Or you do it like HP or MCU... have the movies within the franchise break at times what work well dramatically in the novel.
But then there’s the risk of the first one tanking miserably and then there’s no second or third. Dune fans would NOT be happy!
The HP/MCU thing could work if done correctly.
The thing is you would need directors and producers who have actually read the book and appreciate it.
The reason Heinleins Starship Troopers was such a crappy movie was that the director, the Dutch Paul Verhoeven, hated the book so much he never read past the first chapter.
He instead asked someone who had read the book to give him a synopsis and ran with that.
He pursued his distaste of what he saw as right wing militarism instead of the books indictment of society.
Paul Verhoeven preferred blending graphic violence and sexual content with social satire.
Not good for a book written by one of the top writers of his age.
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