DUNE is one of my favorite books but I have to laugh at them having another go at an adaptation. Firstly just because of the subject matter- Religious zealots who live in the desert battle with a foreign empire over precious resources. Hmmm I wonder if THAT would be controversial today?
The other thing is that much of the story is just unfilmable, half the original books are internal monologues, characters just thinking to themselves, examining the situation. You can't really film that, even if you had a constant running inner monologue narration you couldn't hope to fit the philosophy and the nuance into a 3 hour movie. The more complex concepts of the mythology would have to be delivered with bald exposition. So I think I'll probably have more fun watching the inevitable controversy surrounding this film than the movie itself.
I'm going to be probably in the minority here but I liked the 84 Dune but then again I haven't finished the first book (I started it a few weeks ago). Yeah, I know it has problems but I think it has an interesting feel to it. From my understanding, it was supposed to be longer but they had problems in the studio. Anywho, I like their take on the future and the weird things in it. I tried watching the Dune made in like 2000 but I just wasn't into it as much. I'm not saying it wasn't good but the atmosphere didn't capture me (once again I'm watching it as a movie and not so much a comparison to the book). I'd be down for a remake, though. My alarm is Paul yelling the sleeper has awakened haha.
The 84 film is interesting, deeply flawed but it has some appealing things about it. Mostly great art design, except for the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen-without-headcoverings. A good soundtrack, some excellent performances. The greatest disservice of that film is to Baron Harkonnen, who had almost all of the cunning and depth cut out of his character. Going from a cold blooded Machiavellian strategist to a Saturday morning cartoon villain. Oh and that ending makes no sense. Paul isn't straight up magic to make rain appear from the sky. He is just cursed/blessed with the ability (created through many generations of genetic selection + mental enhancement from the spice and lifelong training) to correlate all possible factors/probabilities to predict the future and what effect all of his possible actions will have on it. Plus, if it suddenly started raining on Arrakis like that all those sandworms would be dying or at least fleeing in that scene anyway.
I bought the first 3 books last fall, Only got a few pages in, though. :-\
Read'em! Or at least the first one. Many people love the first book and don't care for the sequels. But the first is an undisputed classic.
Paul's terraforming is quite a major element in the story. It's also what makes it ironic.
The whole beauty of it is the symbolism. Paul promises to transform Arrakis into a blooming paradise - and delivers. However, the desert starts off as the symbol of a horrible life; and in the later parts is turned into a symbol of heroic and romantic existence that is no more. Rain is first seen as a miracle, than as just an ordinary phenomenon. "The desert is dying" means the death of tradition, the death of the past, and perhaps the death of what defines a nation.