The biggest obstacle in adapting Dune to the screen - so far as I see it - is that so much of the narrative in the novel is told through the inner dialogue of the characters.
Herbert uses this device constantly. The basic outline of a scene is sketched, then the subtle details are filled in with Paul or Jessica or Thufir Hawat or whomever using their superior mental faculties to interpret what is really going on. As the reader, we share in this information by essentially being privy to a transcript of the inner dialogues of the characters.
I mean, that's the substance of the novel. Pretty much the entire story is told in this fashion. As a narrative device, it works fine on the page. But how the hell you get that on the screen is anybody's guess. Lynch tried to reproduce Herbert's style like for like by having his actors doing voiceover narrations of their inner dialogue during the scenes. But this simply doesn't work in a movie. It's too much of a case of telling not showing, which is not how film narrative works, or at least not good film narrative.
Adapting Dune for the screen, then, really requires a reconceptualization of the entire narrative. The problem being, though, that you risk losing much of what makes Dune a multi-layered and fascinating work. The shadings of meaning, the layers of intrigue inside intrigue which drive the plot, would be difficult to convey without those inner dialogues.
The other issue that Dune faces is that none of the characters are particularly relatable for a general audience. That's not really a problem for me or for the numerous other fans of the novel, but for a general movie audience, it might well be.
The essence of Dune is that we are dealing chiefly with characters who have managed to develop their mental and physical capabilities to well beyond "normal" human capacity or comprehension. The future of Dune is not necessarily a future of advanced technology (although it is in some respects) but rather a future of advanced human mental and physical potential. The characters of Dune, then, are distant, lordly and superior beings, completely alien in outlook and ability to ourselves. There are no cuddly little Hobbits to provide an entry point for the audience or provide comic relief. Interestingly enough, this would also be an issue in adapting some of the more esoteric Tolkien material, such as the Silmarillion.
Note that the "alienness" of the characters extends also into the moral sphere. The Atreides are ostensibly the "good guys" when contrasted with the diabolical Harkonnens, but it's only a relative matter. They are still ruthless and devious in protecting their own interests. Paul Atreides himself was never intended by Herbert to be taken as a hero in the conventional sense, in that he saves the Universe from evil in the same sense that Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins do. He is rather ultimately an interplanetary military dictator who ruthlessly overthrows the existing order by means of a fanatical religious war that devastates planets and results in the deaths of billions.
The Universe of Dune is one of moral relativity in which there are no fixed absolutes of good and evil. Unfortunately, that's just not something that traditionally sits very well with a casual movie going audience accustomed to easily relatable characters, broad comic relief and clear delineations as to who the good guys are.
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