In the 11th century after Guild, Paul Atreides is the new Emperor of the known Universe, ruling from the desert planet Arrakis "Dune", while his followers killed millions across the planets to suppress any resistance. The former Emperor's daughter, Princess Wensicia, plots to restore House Corrino to power. A ploy causes an explosion that leaves Paul blind, but he can still see visions of the future. His wife is Princess Irulan, while his mistress Chani dies after giving birth to twins Leto II and Ghanima. Paul disappears in the desert... 16 years later. Paul's sister Alia took over the rule, but is possessed by the evil ghost of Vladimir Harkonnen, turning her reign into a dictatorship which persecutes any enemies. Leto II and Ghanima flee into the desert... Leto II meets Paul alive in the desert. Wearing a robe, Paul arrives at the palace and renounces his own religion, but is killed by a fanatic. Leto II gains superpowers from the sandworms, confronts Aila who commits suicide. Wensicia is arrested for her plots against the government. Leto II goes into the desert to initiate the "Golden Path" to save humanity.
After D. Villeneuve achieved a huge success with his film adaptation of "Dune", many viewers retroactively gained re-newed interest for the only other two adaptations of Frank Herbert's cult novel "Dune". One was Lynch's film, the other was this three-part mini-series by the Sci-fi Channel which actually even took it a step further, since it adapted Herbert's two follow-up novels "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune". Its three episodes each span a running time of approximately 83 minutes, yet its overall quality is disparate, since the storyline undergoes a steady lapse since the 2nd episode. The 1st episode is the best, since it is a direct continuation of the first novel, giving again interesting symbolism—Paul Atreides' followers killing millions of people across the known Universe to establish his religion is reminiscent of the 7th century Arab conquests of the Middle East and northern Africa—and sharp observations—namely that maybe even Paul himself lost control of the movement he created, which took on a life of its own, and is now on a campaign to establish its ideology everywhere regardless of his wishes. Some dialogues are clever—the opening narration goes: "If history teaches us anything, it is simply this: every revolution carries within it the seeds of its own destruction, and empires that rise will one day fall"; Princess Wensicia (Susan Sarandon in a playful performance) at one moment says: "Learn the lesson my father ignored. It's not who controls the spice, but who has the ability to disrupt the spice who controls the Universe".
The 2nd episode entered an erosion of quality due to Herbert's decline in writing which didn't aim anymore to reach a conclusion in a rounded-up story, but was rather reoriented to constantly shoehorn new mysteries, puzzles, subplots and cryptic visions in order to prolong the storyline indefinitely, much to the viewers' annoyance. Already some halfway into the 2nd episode, the magic is gone and the viewing experience is strained beyond belief, whereas a certain irrelevance starts to appear. Certain subplot were introduced, but never resolved (for instance, the idea to "kidnap" a sandworm from Arrakis via a giant aircraft, to be transported to another planet to try to create a new spice production and break the monopoly). The 3rd episode is the weakest: instead of a new enagement, the story just simply becomes boring, among others due to bland, monotone dialogues and a lack of a clear point. There are some good observations here—for instance, the irony that a disguised Paul Atreides returns to the palace to protest against the fundamentalism of his own religion that he unwillingly created, and declares that he wants to disolve it, meaning that he himself became a "heretic"; the inevitable fall into dictatorship of all giant kingdoms, since its rulers are afraid of conspiracies against all these various people they control—but many of them just become ridiculous, such as when Leto II gained "superpowers" from the worms and is now able to run across the desert as superfast as the Flash. And, instead of an ending, the finale is again open to a continuation, in the form of the bizarre novel "God Emperor of Dune" which was (luckily?) left out of the scope of this adaptation due to its too obscure concepts. The whole story became, just like the planet it is set on, too dry in the end, yet the competent acting performances and the ability of writers to shorten the writing to its essence manage to turn this into a curious viewing experience.
Grade:++
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