So, I have now had a chance to watch the first installment of the Dune miniseries on Sci-Fi Channel. All-in-all, I'm very impressed.

It's hard to get used to all the visual changes, I must say. I'm going to have to watch it numerous times to erase the hold the original movie has on my visual conceptions of Dune. I knew that would be a problem - I've watched it so many times that at this point I even see Kyle MacLachlan in my mind when I reread the book. But it was worse than I thought. Still, while the David Lynch movie succeeded better in capturing the essense of Dune visually than in any other category, I am confident that I will eventually decide this one's got the edge.

First of all, the worms are much, much better - and far more menacing. In fact, they're brilliant! One could say as much of quite a few other aspects, as well, but I don't want to be too unfair: Computer imaging technology is light years ahead of the mid-eighties tech Lynch had to work with so it's only natural that the look is smoother. But it is fair to say that some of the artistic choices here are superior. The Baron Harkonnen is a delight (though Rabban isn't nearly as brutal - or stupid - here as one expects him to be; he's more of a foil to the Baron than anything else) and his realm looks a lot more like the seat of a band of sybarites than Lynch's Planet-wide Industrial Wasteland ever did (to his credit, Lynch may have more accurately captured the look of Geidi Prime itself as the books would have it, but we haven't seen that yet and here all the palaces look more like palaces - and less like caves, or slag pits - than what Lynch gave us). The glowing in the Fremen's eyes is astonishly good. The way they've done the body shields is outstanding - they are invisible excect when struck and then show only as a flash of blue at the point of contact (I always hated the way Lynch did them, these are perfect!). And the Guild Heighliner was nothing short of stupendous. There are moments, to be sure, when it's a bit too obvious that the computer graphics are computer graphics, but the overall look and feel is gorgeous (there is an incongruity, though, between magnificently rendered CGI for some shots - like the Heighliners - and the fairly cheap soundstage imagery in most of the desert scenes, but I suppose we must make some allowances for their budget; all-in-all, I can't fault them for their prioritization).

Other choices are not obviously better. There are several moments when the dialogue is almost exactly the same. ["What's in the box?" - - - "Pain."] But this can't be helped, I suppose; a point which is pretty well proven by the moments when this screenwriter was obviously trying to avoid replicating the dialogue - the phraseology is occasionally rather tortured by the effort. Quite a few people have made comments about Director John Harrison's choice not to put in any interior monologues. This was a risky choice since so much of the deeper content of the novel is made up of internal self-dialogue, but ultimately I think it was a good one. It forced some minour revisions, of course (for instance, when the hunter-seeker comes after Paul, they had to put another character in the room so that he could explain what was happening without having him "think" it aloud). And there's an added value for true Dune fanatics like me: I already know what they're thinking without being told. Also, the pronunciation of quite a few names is a real distraction, perhaps inflicted on us to make another departure from Lynch's film. But one does get used to it. Sort of. Eventually.

The one choice that most disturbs me, because it departs so sharply from the plot (though certainly not as much as those sound weapons in Lynch's flick!), is the highly visible role given to Irulan Corrino. She is, at most, a minor character in the novel. Lynch took advantage of her "role" as an historian who had chronicled Paul's life after the events in the novel took place (which is only suggested by the book's chapter headings) by making her the film's Narrator. Here she is an active character, appearing in scenes doing things that are nowhere suggested by the novel. Harrison has taken great pains to be true to the book otherwise, so I suppose we can accept this change - I expect it serves some larger narrative purpose which may become clearer in part two or three (so I shall suspend judgment - for now).

That is the best part of this mini-series, though: It is as true to the book as can be expected, perhaps even more than I really had hoped, truth be told. In the end, after the commercials are taken out, I guess we're going to end up with about an hour more than the 3 1/2 hour Extended (Alan Smithee) version of the original film (I understand the European version is 30 minutes longer, actually, so I guess I'll be looking about for that version soon). Since the book really needs to be a 12-hour mini-series, some choices have to be made. But Harrison has found time for a lot of bits I always missed. I am overjoyed that he will have the time (presumably tomorrow and part of Tuesday) to truly present Paul's rise to the leadership of the Fremen and some great scenes that never got into Lynch's work - time contraints turn two years of Paul's life into a two minute voiceover ("Paul and Chani's love grew...." Blech!). I will be eternally grateful to Harrison if he does as good a job of finally getting that terrific stuff onto film as he did with the early parts tonight (Part 1 dealt with the move to Arrakis, the consolidation, and the Harkonnen attack; it ended with Paul and Jessica running for their lives but not yet having met up with the Fremen).

So, I am pleased so far and expect even better things down the road. I fully expect to love this when it's done and to watch it over and over in the years to come. Come back tomorrow for more on Part II after it airs.