Dune and Foundation and The Expanse. A Hit and a Near Hit and a Hit
I’m one of the few people who don’t think the previous version of Dune was awful. It wasn’t great but it did okay with the technology of the time and a massive story to condense. The new version, which is only half (I wouldn’t be surprised to suddenly find it becomes a trilogy; remember how that guy Tolkien took a trilogy of films and managed to write one book, The Hobbit out of it? Sort of the opposite.)
Dune is brilliantly filmed. The film has moved pieces and parts from the book around as needed for understanding. My wife, who had never read the book, understood the story and thought it was great so the film hit that key checkmark.
When I teach creative writing, I tell people to read Dune to learn how to world build. More than world build; universe build. There’s a lot going on there. The film, so far, manages to encapsulate this new universe without overly info dumping. What’s really hard is the infodump. Although never recommended, is where the novel writer has an advantage over the screenwriter; we call it narrative. There are right and wrong ways to weave it into story. One key rule: don’t tell the reader anything they need to know until the moment they absolutely need to know it.
However, the problem for those of us who’ve read the book is that it almost does the story…
