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From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Books into movies
Message-ID: <18@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 19:52:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.18
Posted: Mon Sep 23 19:52:59 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Sep-85 00:43:47 EDT
References: <497@linus.UUCP> <1839@mnetor.UUCP> <527@linus.UUCP> <273@cisden.UUCP> <692@tpvax.fluke.UUCP> <278@cisden.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Distribution: net
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 26
Summary: 

In article <278@cisden.UUCP> phillips@trantor.UUCP (Tom Phillips) writes:
> ...  ...
>Did you see the "ornithopter" flapping it's wings in the movie?  Did the
>Baron look to you as if he was too fat to walk without suspensor globes?
>The book specifically mentions that the stillsuits were a slick gray
>material, not black leather.
> ...  ...
     The thing is that these are two different media, which treat stories in
two distinct ways.  It's easy to write a book which accurately follows a movie,
but often almost impossible to make a movie which accurately follows a book.
Everyone has a different idea of how faithfully a book could have been followed;
in this case, the author's opinion happens to be not as hard-line as yours.
     I read that they tried to make the ornithopter wings flap, but it just
looked too hokey on film.  (I thought that the whole idea of ornithopters was
hokey when I first read it!)  As for the black stillsuits - I'm sure that
getting suits of the exact colour mentioned in the book was not a prime
consideration, and certainly can't affect the story line too too much.

>Frank Herbert had a very strong motivation for lying about how good the
>movie was.  Money....
     Why not complain instead about the totally bogus preface that Herbert
put in front of the latest _Dune_ clones?  To paraphrase:  "I did not write
_Dune_ to make money or to interest others.  I wrote it merely because this
story was burning inside me to be Written..."
     Sure.  And my real name's Kchula-Rrit.
     --Jamie.