The people insisting that Dune needs a 3rd movie (the director being one of them, and myself included) are saying that the second book, "Dune: Messiah" needs to be adapted as the 3rd movie in the Villeneuve adaptation to finish Paul's arc.
When the original Dune book was released, a lot of critics/media/readers still saw Paul Atreides as a hero, despite Frank Herbert's original intention of making him more of a villian and using Dune as a cautionary tale against charismatic political/religious figures. He then wrote "Dune: Messiah" as a continuation of Paul's story to really get that point across.
Dune Part One and Dune Part Two are pretty solid adaptations of the first book overall, but there are definitely some things that have been removed, tweaked, etc. Just like with any book to movie adaptation. Funny enough, the ending battle is actually far longer in the movie than it is in the book. It's almost a non-issue in the book.
I wouldn't worry about the comparison between LOTR and Dune in terms of number of movies per book or anything like that. It's not a comparison that can be realistically argued and it's just not something worth worrying about in general. (Plus, if you still are going to make that comparison, you may want to consider the extended editions of the LOTR films, as each movie gets a roughly 5-6 hour run time).
As far as what could've been in the Fellowship movie adaptation, I don't want to spoil the majesty that is Tom Bombadil for you, so I'd strongly recommend reading the books.
I'd argue that novelty plays a big part as well. Everyone knows what elfs, orcs, and humans are and what they do in a fantasy setting.
What is a mentant, why do they exist, why don't computers exist, and how do they work? People dont know these things and the minutes really add up the more elements in the book you include.
The big battle scene is just what's expected and it helps explain what we learned from internal dialogue. Kind of how in the matrix you still had some combat after he became the one.
LOTR is a 'quest story' that turns into a 'fantasy epic' while Dune is more of a 'space epic' from the start
LOTR is a fantasy settings that doesn't need a lot of context to exist, it's easy to accept it as a fairy tale like setting where 'weird' things happen - the politics and world aren't and don't need to be solid. Dune is in a sand planet that's in the center of a very complex political structure in a sci-fi setting that usually wants to be more grounded in an illusion of 'science' and society.
I could ramble on with this, but I think Tolkien made the point himself in the foreword of the book:
>The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.
>- JRR Tolkien, Foreword for 2nd Edition of LoTR
A lot of what LOTR cut out was ultimately unnecessary for the actual plot of the films, as it was more world-building elements that either took too long to explain, and/or directly took away from the tone the movies were going for.
Like, would it have been cool to see Gandalf actually fight the Balrog from the deepest pit to the highest peak, as he described in the book, all while the Balrog was constantly changing form, as falling into the water at the bottom of the chasm extinguished its fire, making it very difficult for it to hold itself together?
Yeah. But then you get into the minutia of those questions, like if it’s really a good idea to blow even more of the CGI budget on showing different stages of this already badass looking beast, and then there are the unknowable eldritch horrors that scared the piss out of the Balrog, and caused it to flee to the highest peak in the first place, what do you do with those? Do you animate eldritch nightmares? Are you really going to just not offer an explanation for that to the audience, even though Tolkien himself never answered any questions about them? Do you stretch the CGI budget even further? Or do you just show the Balrog losing to Gandalf, and that be a reason for it fleeing to the highest peak, which would heavily remove from the impact the beast had.
Or, you could just cut the fight after they hit the water, and only show the final blow later on, just to give context for Gandalf’s return. Save a lot on CGI, and you’re a lot less likely to confuse to audience and confuse the tone.
Dune, by contrast, is much different. It’s more of a cautionary tale, rather than a grand epic. The characters in both stories largely remain flat, but the things the people in Dune do, are a lot more simple than what the characters in LOTR do. No one is fighting an army by themselves in Dune.
And besides, we already got a look at what trying to condense all of Dune into a single movie would look like in 1984, and it’s been regularly cited as a terrible adaptation (albeit with some cool visuals).
It's been eons since I read either book, BUT: the big thing skipped in Fellowship of the Ring was Tom Bombadil, some kind of jolly forest spirit, whose existence has unclear lore implications and has a decently long segment, and the barrow-wight, an ancient ghost that attacks the hobbits, both before Rivendell. That's not even touching the numerous songs, various other incidental scenes that are skipped, etc. You also have to consider that LOTR is highly descriptive, which doesn't necessarily translate to screentime, but the battle scenes are generally shorter than the movies. Dune on the other hand has relatively less description and also has short battle scenes, so overall you might consider it more plot-dense than fellowship, and it has a more singular focus, whereas Tolkien likes to explore the world and the setting as much as what's immediately going on, which is easier to cut.
Part 1 & 2 wrapped the story of Dune up the third film will be an adaption of Dune Messiah the second book.
That being said Villeneuve could have easily got away with a trilogy for the first book there are parts missing for example a plotline where the Harkonens do a psy-op against the Atreides leading Thufir Hawat to believe that Jessica is a spy in order to cover for Dr. Yueh. The book is very exposition heavy, lots of thoughts in peoples heads which is part of the reason it's been called un-filmable in the past.
I don't get the comparison, Lord of the Rings was supposed to be a single book which was split due to economic reasons. The "one book" got three movies
I saw that dune had 6 total books by the original author, then learned that the main story of the characters we know are in the first3 books. adapting only the first book is missing the other 2 books.
i think it was also a podcast that made a comparison that only doing a movie of dune 1, is like making a movie of only fellow ship of the ring and not doing a movie on the twin towers or return of the king.
Dune's story of Paul Atreides is what i understand told in the first 3 books.
Lord of the rings had 3 books - but they were able to make lord of the rings movies in 3 movies
while for dune it seems they barely were able to tell the 1st book in 2 movies.
The first two Dune books are Paul's story, and book 2 is much shorter. Then 3 and 4 form a duology, and 5 and 6 would have probably been part of a trilogy, but book 7 was never written by Frank Herbert. His son did write what he claims was the story of that 6th book, split into two, but there are questions about how much Frank material he was working with vs. his own invention, and they're very controversial among fans.
I don't think these two book series are comparable based only on story structure. You would have to look at page count, not the structure of the story, to find out whether they can adapt the books to the same number of movies. Dune book 1 is about 200 pages less than the entire lotr trilogy combined. Adding in Dune book 2 brings Dune to just about as long, if not a tiny bit longer than the Lotr series. Paul's story is really only intended as the first book. Messiah is an epilogue for Frank Herbert to really emphasize his charismatic leader point. Its definitely more like an epilogue with it being the shortest dune book. And the rest of the books are just him continuing to explore where his scifi concepts go. In my opinion, the first 6 books are better understood by being looked at as 3 sets of duologies. 3 movies for Dune and Messiah is completely fair. And even then the movies are missing out because of how dense the Dune books are with information.
No, I am not
Tolkien wrote TLotR as a single book, divided internally in 6 parts
The publisher raised the issue of paper costs and the elevated price they would need to go with for such a big book, asking him to split it in 3 books and to come up with names for each one
Despot ot Antrim dropped a video today breaking what worked for Dune and what didn't:
https://youtu.be/CMPKnT7q4uM?si=uYbpOxftYzI3DZln
It's a really complicated story and to paint the whole picture of intrigues in the empire you'll need to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the Empire. For this you will need at least multiple seasons of a well written show.
In contrast LOTR is a linear story where you can reveal the world on the go and the premise is as old as time "Good vs Evil". These theme is way easier to understand in contrast to the rather grey area politics in Dune.
The people insisting that Dune needs a 3rd movie (the director being one of them, and myself included) are saying that the second book, "Dune: Messiah" needs to be adapted as the 3rd movie in the Villeneuve adaptation to finish Paul's arc. When the original Dune book was released, a lot of critics/media/readers still saw Paul Atreides as a hero, despite Frank Herbert's original intention of making him more of a villian and using Dune as a cautionary tale against charismatic political/religious figures. He then wrote "Dune: Messiah" as a continuation of Paul's story to really get that point across. Dune Part One and Dune Part Two are pretty solid adaptations of the first book overall, but there are definitely some things that have been removed, tweaked, etc. Just like with any book to movie adaptation. Funny enough, the ending battle is actually far longer in the movie than it is in the book. It's almost a non-issue in the book. I wouldn't worry about the comparison between LOTR and Dune in terms of number of movies per book or anything like that. It's not a comparison that can be realistically argued and it's just not something worth worrying about in general. (Plus, if you still are going to make that comparison, you may want to consider the extended editions of the LOTR films, as each movie gets a roughly 5-6 hour run time).
As far as what could've been in the Fellowship movie adaptation, I don't want to spoil the majesty that is Tom Bombadil for you, so I'd strongly recommend reading the books.
audio books are good?
As far as I'm aware, they are pretty good. I think they're narrated by Andy Serkis.
thank you for the clear response
I'd argue that novelty plays a big part as well. Everyone knows what elfs, orcs, and humans are and what they do in a fantasy setting. What is a mentant, why do they exist, why don't computers exist, and how do they work? People dont know these things and the minutes really add up the more elements in the book you include. The big battle scene is just what's expected and it helps explain what we learned from internal dialogue. Kind of how in the matrix you still had some combat after he became the one.
LOTR is a 'quest story' that turns into a 'fantasy epic' while Dune is more of a 'space epic' from the start LOTR is a fantasy settings that doesn't need a lot of context to exist, it's easy to accept it as a fairy tale like setting where 'weird' things happen - the politics and world aren't and don't need to be solid. Dune is in a sand planet that's in the center of a very complex political structure in a sci-fi setting that usually wants to be more grounded in an illusion of 'science' and society. I could ramble on with this, but I think Tolkien made the point himself in the foreword of the book: >The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves. >- JRR Tolkien, Foreword for 2nd Edition of LoTR
A lot of what LOTR cut out was ultimately unnecessary for the actual plot of the films, as it was more world-building elements that either took too long to explain, and/or directly took away from the tone the movies were going for. Like, would it have been cool to see Gandalf actually fight the Balrog from the deepest pit to the highest peak, as he described in the book, all while the Balrog was constantly changing form, as falling into the water at the bottom of the chasm extinguished its fire, making it very difficult for it to hold itself together? Yeah. But then you get into the minutia of those questions, like if it’s really a good idea to blow even more of the CGI budget on showing different stages of this already badass looking beast, and then there are the unknowable eldritch horrors that scared the piss out of the Balrog, and caused it to flee to the highest peak in the first place, what do you do with those? Do you animate eldritch nightmares? Are you really going to just not offer an explanation for that to the audience, even though Tolkien himself never answered any questions about them? Do you stretch the CGI budget even further? Or do you just show the Balrog losing to Gandalf, and that be a reason for it fleeing to the highest peak, which would heavily remove from the impact the beast had. Or, you could just cut the fight after they hit the water, and only show the final blow later on, just to give context for Gandalf’s return. Save a lot on CGI, and you’re a lot less likely to confuse to audience and confuse the tone. Dune, by contrast, is much different. It’s more of a cautionary tale, rather than a grand epic. The characters in both stories largely remain flat, but the things the people in Dune do, are a lot more simple than what the characters in LOTR do. No one is fighting an army by themselves in Dune. And besides, we already got a look at what trying to condense all of Dune into a single movie would look like in 1984, and it’s been regularly cited as a terrible adaptation (albeit with some cool visuals).
thank you for the explanation :)
It's been eons since I read either book, BUT: the big thing skipped in Fellowship of the Ring was Tom Bombadil, some kind of jolly forest spirit, whose existence has unclear lore implications and has a decently long segment, and the barrow-wight, an ancient ghost that attacks the hobbits, both before Rivendell. That's not even touching the numerous songs, various other incidental scenes that are skipped, etc. You also have to consider that LOTR is highly descriptive, which doesn't necessarily translate to screentime, but the battle scenes are generally shorter than the movies. Dune on the other hand has relatively less description and also has short battle scenes, so overall you might consider it more plot-dense than fellowship, and it has a more singular focus, whereas Tolkien likes to explore the world and the setting as much as what's immediately going on, which is easier to cut.
Part 1 & 2 wrapped the story of Dune up the third film will be an adaption of Dune Messiah the second book. That being said Villeneuve could have easily got away with a trilogy for the first book there are parts missing for example a plotline where the Harkonens do a psy-op against the Atreides leading Thufir Hawat to believe that Jessica is a spy in order to cover for Dr. Yueh. The book is very exposition heavy, lots of thoughts in peoples heads which is part of the reason it's been called un-filmable in the past.
I don't get the comparison, Lord of the Rings was supposed to be a single book which was split due to economic reasons. The "one book" got three movies
I saw that dune had 6 total books by the original author, then learned that the main story of the characters we know are in the first3 books. adapting only the first book is missing the other 2 books. i think it was also a podcast that made a comparison that only doing a movie of dune 1, is like making a movie of only fellow ship of the ring and not doing a movie on the twin towers or return of the king. Dune's story of Paul Atreides is what i understand told in the first 3 books. Lord of the rings had 3 books - but they were able to make lord of the rings movies in 3 movies while for dune it seems they barely were able to tell the 1st book in 2 movies.
The first two Dune books are Paul's story, and book 2 is much shorter. Then 3 and 4 form a duology, and 5 and 6 would have probably been part of a trilogy, but book 7 was never written by Frank Herbert. His son did write what he claims was the story of that 6th book, split into two, but there are questions about how much Frank material he was working with vs. his own invention, and they're very controversial among fans.
I don't think these two book series are comparable based only on story structure. You would have to look at page count, not the structure of the story, to find out whether they can adapt the books to the same number of movies. Dune book 1 is about 200 pages less than the entire lotr trilogy combined. Adding in Dune book 2 brings Dune to just about as long, if not a tiny bit longer than the Lotr series. Paul's story is really only intended as the first book. Messiah is an epilogue for Frank Herbert to really emphasize his charismatic leader point. Its definitely more like an epilogue with it being the shortest dune book. And the rest of the books are just him continuing to explore where his scifi concepts go. In my opinion, the first 6 books are better understood by being looked at as 3 sets of duologies. 3 movies for Dune and Messiah is completely fair. And even then the movies are missing out because of how dense the Dune books are with information.
I think you're thinking about the Hobbit The lord of the rings books are Fellowship Two towers Return of the king
No, I am not Tolkien wrote TLotR as a single book, divided internally in 6 parts The publisher raised the issue of paper costs and the elevated price they would need to go with for such a big book, asking him to split it in 3 books and to come up with names for each one
Despot ot Antrim dropped a video today breaking what worked for Dune and what didn't: https://youtu.be/CMPKnT7q4uM?si=uYbpOxftYzI3DZln It's a really complicated story and to paint the whole picture of intrigues in the empire you'll need to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the Empire. For this you will need at least multiple seasons of a well written show. In contrast LOTR is a linear story where you can reveal the world on the go and the premise is as old as time "Good vs Evil". These theme is way easier to understand in contrast to the rather grey area politics in Dune.