[MUD-Dev] OT: Books

[Mike Sellers]

At 11:28 PM 12/22/97 PST8PDT, coder at ibm.net wrote:
>On 18/12/97 at 10:43 PM, Matt Chatterley <root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> said: >On
>Wed, 17 Dec 1997, Maddy wrote:
>>> On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, Matt Chatterley wrote: 
>>> > On Sat, 13 Dec 1997, Sauron wrote:
>>> > > Matt Chatterley wrote:
>>> > > > On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 s001gmu at nova.wright.edu wrote:
>>> > > > > On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
>>> > > > > > Frank Herbert's Dune.  See Tolkien.
>>> 
>>> [Lengthy discussion about the Dune books]
>...
>>> > And the film was *dire*!
>>> 
>>> Actually I liked the film - it helps if you disassociate the book from it
>>> and treat it as a seperate thing.
>
>The Dune film had for me one extremely notable point:  They used the sound
>track and only the sound track to carry the pacing and continuity for the
>entire movie.  Turn the sound off and the movie falls apart into a
>collection of fractionally related scenes.  Put it back on and all of a
>sudden it starts back together, items relate, a plot starts to appear,
>there is continuity, etc.

It depends which (of several, I understand) version of the movie you saw.
The one shown in most theatre releases was execrable, tedious, long,
ponderous, etc.  However, the one shown in some dollar-type theaters and in
at least one case on TV was actually quite good.  It was, as I recall,
nearly four hours long (!), but it told a good story.  It wasn't the same
as the book (no movie of a book is), but it seemed to me to keep the spirit
of it and actually make sense.  I have no idea why, other than length
restrictions, the other, more prevalent version was released as it was.  

--

Mike Sellers   Chief Alchemist -- Online Alchemy   mike at online-alchemy.com

"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others 
may despise it, is the invention of good games.  And it cannot be done 
by men out of touch with their instinctive values."  - Carl Jung