Read a Book, then Watch Its Movie!

[mkaroly]

To Dune fans - if I missed anything or got something wrong, please call me out!! It took me a few months to read the book and only a few days to watch the movies, so I did my best to remember everything and look the stuff up I had forgotten but I may have made mistakes.

DUNE by Frank Herbert (1965, 884 pages) – The planet Arrakis (Dune) has a commodity that all the universe needs (and wants) – mélange, a powerful spice. The one who controls the production and distribution of mélange essentially holds the universe in its grip; because of this, many factions in the universe seek to control it, such as the Padishah Emperor, the Dukes and Barons of the Great Houses, and the Space/Spicing Guilds. DUNE tells the story of Paul Atriedes, son of Duke Leto of the House of Atreides and his concubine the Lady Jessica. Paul is a unique child; not only is he the ducal heir to House Atreides but his mother, being a Bene Gesserit, has trained him in her weirding ways. When the Atriedes family is given command of the planet Arrakis by the Padishah Emperor, they leave their home planet of Caladan and begin to build a new life on Arrakis. But treachery and betrayal are afoot, for House Harkonnen (led by the evil Baron Vladimir), who once ruled in Arrakis, has set up a trap to eliminate Duke Leto and his family. Although Paul and the Lady Jessica manage to escape, they have to survive the planet’s harsh climate and make friends with Arrakis’ indigenous people the Fremen, the free desert dwelling tribes of the planet. From there Paul eventually becomes a messiah and prophet to the Fremen on his way to fulfilling a pre–determined (and hoped for) destiny…but not quite in the way anyone expected.

This book is a science–fiction classic, and I’m afraid my brief summary above cannot do justice to the grandiose scope, depth, imagination, complexity, and profundity of the narrative. Herbert created his own unique universe with its own terminology (there is a glossary of terms in the back of the book) and history that is simply astounding. Full and fair disclosure – I initially struggled to engage with the book and found it hard to navigate. However, once I determined to finish the story and embraced it, I was swept away in all the intricate relationships between the characters, entities, religious mysticisms, and mythologies that Herbert included in the narrative. It would take pages upon pages to explain how everything is related to everything else; the themes of the book are timeless which make the story, at its core, relatable and applicable to contemporary situations: political intrigue/treachery, the interconnectivity between people, land, and resources (ecology), oppression, human hopes and dreams for freedom and Eden, and any number of things. The characters are well drawn out and interesting, especially in their motivations and their internal reflections. To get maximum enjoyment out of the book you have to allow yourself to be immersed in the language, customs, and context of the narrative and its characters. I am so glad I finally read DUNE – it is a visionary work of fiction, and while not everyone would be interested in reading it, I highly recommend it for people who love this type of fiction. I plan to read the other five books written by Frank Herbert in this series as time goes on.

As far as I know, two adaptations of DUNE have been made to date: David Lynch’s film from 1984 and The Sci-Fi Channel’s mini-series adaptation from 2000. Each has its merits and flaws; DUNE 2000 is the more thorough adaptation of the novel since it runs over 4.5 hours. Lynch’s adaptation follows the book generally well, though due to time limits much of the work print/rough cut got left on the cutting room floor. DUNE 1984 makes several changes to the book and, at least to me, has more of an ominous tone to it than DUNE 2000. Visually, DUNE 1984 is certainly rooted in its time (musically as well, with a score by Toto), though the renditions of some of the environments were interesting. I really liked the opening of the film as Lynch knew he had to give some background/context to the Dune universe as he told the story; since each chapter of the book is introduced by Princess Irulan’s writings on Muad’Dib, Lynch’s opening was a nice nod to the way the narrative was set up and told in the book. However, the film has many excisions and weaknesses:

-for one thing, the unnecessary gore and gross–out moments surrounding Baron Harkonnen and his sons were a big turn off.
-for some weird reason the movie included an Atriedes family dog which Gurney Halleck supposedly saves and then carries into battle with him once the Harkonnens stormed the palace. It was a very weird inclusion.
-unless I missed something, the revelation that Paul and the Lady Jessica are related to the Harkonnens is left out of the movie (this is a major plot point in the book).
-although DUNE 1984 does include Thufir Hawat’s capture by the Harkonnens, nothing is made of it so his story is left out.
-the side plot with Jamis is left out, where Jamis declares kanly against Paul for besting him when his Fremen tribe, under the leadership of Stilgar, finds Paul and the Lady Jessica. In the book this confrontation sets up the explanation of a Fremen tribal tradition which Paul as Muad’Dib later questions and changes as he fulfils his destiny. It is a shame this hit the cutting room floor.
-Paul’s Fremen wife Chani (played by Sean Young) is given very little to do in Lynch’s film. Herbert’s female characters (from Shadout Mapes to the Lady Jessica and Chani) are very strong characters. Chani is acknowledged in Lynch’s film but has little screen time.
-in a significant moment in the book Paul decides himself to drink the Water of Life – he goes off and does it without the Lady Jessica’s or Chani’s knowledge. In DUNE 1984, in order to cut the film down and bring several strands together in one moment, Chani and Muad’Dib go out into the desert where she gives him the Water of Life to drink. I don’t feel this works very well.
-the ending is perhaps the film’s biggest weakness, where Paul Muad’Dib Atreides is declared to be the Kwisatz Haderach (“a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time,” p. 847). After that declaration he causes rain to fall on Arrakis which is a way of saying Paul has become/is a god. The book does not make Paul out to actually be divine but to fulfil his prophetic/messianic role (set up by the Bene Gesserit) – he led the Fremen in jihad and freed them from the control of the Padishah Emperor, the Harkonnens, and the Space/Spicing Guilds. He is not a god but plays god, something that adds a dimension to Paul’s character and is not all that positive.
-while I like Sting as a musician, as an actor he was a dud in this film…laughable.

By comparison, DUNE 2000 is a much better adaptation of the book, though it too has its weaknesses. I enjoyed several things about the TV mini–series. For one, the TV series I feel does justice to the characters of the Lady Jessica and Chani. Both are integral to the story and the actresses who played them both deserve credit for their portrayals. I also thoroughly enjoyed the amount of material that was represented in the TV mini–series; the novel is divided into three parts, and each part is represented in the TV mini–series in 1.5 hour increments. I saw the Director’s Cut of DUNE 2000, so I saw the fullest version possible. The acting is pretty good (though Stilgar seems a little more ‘laid back’ as a leader in the TV mini–series compared to the book, and the Baron is cartoonish at times), and I feel the mini–series does a much better job of showing the interconnectivity of land, people, and resources than DUNE 1984 does. While DUNE 2000 is a more faithful adaptation of the book, it does take several liberties with the book’s narrative, mostly by introducing characters earlier than the book does or by allowing a different character to do something someone else did in the book (for example, the Lady Jessica declaring that Arrakis’ water custom be stopped instead of the Duke Leto). Among the weaknesses I found most annoying:

-Paul’s character starts off as kind of a whiney brat. I did not get that initial impression of Paul when I read the book. I thought William Hurt’s portrayal of the Duke was not very stately or impressive either.
-Thufir Hawat’s character is completely written off after the Harkonnen’s take over the Arrakis palace. In the book Hawat (Duke Leto’s Mentat) is spared by the Baron and enlisted in his service. Hawat believes the Lady Jessica had betrayed Duke Leto and seeks to get revenge against her while at the same time plotting against the Baron while in his service.
-in its effort to introduce characters early on, DUNE 2000 gives a much larger role to Princess Irulan than the book does. She basically plays a detective spy to get to the bottom of her father’s (the Padishah Emperor’s) treacherous alliance with House Harkonnen to rid themselves of House Atreides. I found her place in the story to be very intrusive.
-the most crushing disappointment with the mini–series has to do with how it handled my favorite part of the whole book. In the book, after Paul reunites with Gurney Halleck (who suspects the Lady Jessica of betraying the Duke), Halleck confronts the Lady Jessica with the intent to kill her. Paul intervenes and explains that his mother is innocent, that it was Dr. Yueh who was the traitor. Paul then describes the love the Duke had for the Lady Jessica (their relationship in the book is more stately and stoic due to the danger and seriousness of their new assignment to Arrakis) which practically moves her to tears for several reasons. Halleck realizes he was wrong, and the Lady Jessica realizes she has been wrong in trying to manipulate and determine Paul’s destiny according to the Bene Gesserit plan. She releases Paul to his own choices and the three of them re–establish their relationships with each other. It is an incredibly powerful moment the mini–series mishandles by moving too quickly through it. I never felt the impact of the sequence between the three of them. The bottom line is that a few plot strands come together at this point in the book’s narrative that the mini–series does not do justice to in my opinion. Huge missed opportunity.
-the ending of the film collapses into a weird samurai/martial arts-type fight with one of the dumbest lines of dialogue they wrote – “So it comes down to this?” I expect a line of dialogue like this in a Jean Claude Van Damme film or an Ah-nuld film, but not here.

All in all, if there is one to watch over the other I would choose DUNE 2000, but I still feel a more definitive version can be made. As my good friend Al suggested, DUNE needs to be a 13 part series a la GAME OF THRONES in order to get everything in there faithfully. I shudder to think what DUNE 2020 may be in light of the political and social contexts of the West nowadays, but I guess we will see. Reading this book and watching its adaptations has been a lot of fun, and I hope this review has done justice to the book and movies associated with DUNE.

[jkholm]

Great analysis, Michael! I finished listening to the audio book yesterday. I had read Dune many years ago but had forgotten much of it and thought it was time for a re-read, especially since the new movie version is coming later this year. The audio book is excellent with a full cast reading much of the dialogue.

*** Mild Spoilers***

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I had trouble getting through the mid-section as Herbert spends a lot of time developing characters and setting the stage for the finale. (I felt this way the last time I read the book too.) The world-building is fascinating. There’s a tremendous amount of detail and backstory that adds depth to the story. Characterizations are great too. Hebert has a knack for introducing characters you want to know more about (especially considering some of them don’t make it to the end of the book.) In particular I like Dr. Yueh, whose actions have significant repercussions throughout the novel. I hope the actor who plays him in the new movie makes the most of his screen time.

As far as the ’84 movie, it’s always been a favorite of mine, even with Lynch’s eccentricities. I once spent an afternoon as a teen comparing the Lynch version to the extended “Alan Smithee” version. I would watch 10-15 minutes of one version, then switch the VHS tapes and watch the other. That’s when I first learned how movies are edited. It wasn’t just a matter of cutting or adding entire scenes, but individual scenes being cut in various ways, or having spoken dialogue in one version become overheard dialogue in the other.

Some things I’m curious about in the new version:

How will they portray Baron Harkonnen? Lynch took the Baron’s morbid obesity to an extreme. Will that be the same? I doubt that the Baron’s homosexuality and pedophilia will be a part of the new movie.

What about Alia, the creepy little girl who talks like an adult?

How will the new movie deal with the religious aspects of the story? The Fremen are clearly modeled after Muslims with Paul worried about jihad and even his title “Muad’dib” sounding a lot like Mahdi.

I’ve already checked out the audio book of Dune Messiah. Please post a review when you finish that one, Michael.

[mkaroly]

Thanks jkholm! After writing up the review I actually went and ordered Dune Messiah...lol...the TV series CHILDREN OF DUNE is based on it and Children of Dune, so I have a way to go before reviewing those books and the mini-series. But I am looking forward to it. Herbert's really created a unique universe with all this...the more I think about it the more amazed I am.

You raise some excellent questions - I am not sure what they will do to show the Baron's depravity; I thought DUNE 1984 was more "in your face" about it than either the book or DUNE 2000. Maybe they will leave the homosexuality out of it - not sure what they would substitute it with if anything. I imagine they have to keep Alia in it...the religious stuff/influence is going to be really hard to avoid.

As far as the politics of it all, it is possible that the Baron or the Padishah Emperor might be characterized in a way that calls Trump to mind, but I have no idea. I just hope the filmmakers don't overdo the "stong female character" thing by making the Lady Jessica's and Chani's characters take on more than the book gives them. Both characters are very stong female characters in both the book and DUNE 2000...you don't have to deviate much at all from the book to get that point across. Strong female lead characters are important in DUNE, and it is a great credit to Herbert that he wrote them that way.

[AndyDursin]

Make sure you see the great documentary JODOROWSKY'S DUNE for a look at the all star 70s spectacle he was about to make, complete with Douglas Trumbull doing the FX. It's a terrific watch and a bittersweet one because the film itself may have been totally bonkers and more interesting than Lynch's weird, and unsuccessful, endeavor.

And if you didn't hear this Michael, it's definitely of interest: a 1984 Waldenbooks interview with Frank Herbert and David Lynch prior to DUNE coming out. It's followed by a second half where Herbert talks about general ideas and concepts of his work and views. Very interesting!

[mkaroly]

Thanks Andy - I did not know this existed! Will have to check it out.

Edit: that was absolutely fascinating. I will make a comment in the Politics Thread concerning something I wholeheartedly agree with Herbert on. Makes me really want to read the other books now!

[Eric Paddon]

Red Alert/Dr. Strangelove

-Well, as follow-up to my reading and watching of "On The Beach" I went through "Red Alert" the serious novel that became the basis for "Dr. Strangelove." Peter George (writing under the pseudonym Peter Bryant) was an RAF officer who wrote a number of serious novels that included crime thrillers under his own name, but this book as well as some spy novels set in Hong Kong he wrote under pseudonyms because he was drawing more from his personal experiences. He was also active in the whole ban-the-bomb movement which accounted for his writing this book.

-It's fairly easy to see why the novel wasn't adapted straight once "Fail Safe" was published and also hit the big screen because a straight adaptation would have been a carbon copy of the other in more ways than we realize. Fans of "Strangelove" will immediately recognize the plot. In this case, an Air Force General (named Quentin) has decided to stage an attack on Russia and he believes that once he sets things in motion, his superiors will take advantage of the opportunity to dispose of Russia once and for all. General Quentin is much like the General Scott character of "Seven Days In May". He is charismatic, dedicated and when he explains his reasons to his stunned executive officer, Colonel Paul Howard (who is not an RAF exchange officer. Obviously that invention was made from the film from the get-go to give Sellers a showcase part), Howard is almost lulled into accepting his reasons. Quentin rails on about how containment has failed to stem the tide of Soviet advances since the end of the War and that the defensive posture is only creating a scenario where weapons are being built with no chance of being used because America has foolishly said they'd never strike first and that this will make the Soviets more aggressive. Ultimately it is better to have the big war now at a point where America can take advantage of a situation and minimize the total casualties and eliminate the Soviet threat. In the end, Howard pulls back from accepting this because the human toll of these actions still appalls him.

-Other familiar elements are there. The plan Quentin is using to let him bypass Presidential authority is "Plan R" and he commands the 843rd group (just like in the film). There is cross-cutting between the crew of the bomber pilot (here named "Alabama Angel" and the painted gags on the missiles we remember in the film are mentioned too although in stead of "Hi There!" it's "BIM" and "BAM"), the War Room at the Pentagon and the scenes at the base as Quentin has sealed things up tight and had all radios confiscated (but like in the film, the exec realizes things are actually normal when he turns on a confiscated radio) and has his men prepared to fight off the Army units from nearby. General Franklin of the Air Force is the template for the General Turgidson character, who like in the film at first suggests to the President that maybe they should go ahead with this, but the President coldly shoots that down. And the Russian Ambassador shows up at the President's request (to Franklin's consternation which shows how Kubrick could then turn that into the satirical, "He'll see the Big Board!").

-Now here we come to the key differences. First, there is no template for the eventual Strangelove character. Second, while the Soviets have a Doomsday device, it is not computer run, but is in effect a weapon of last resort that the Premier would use in case things seem so desperate. If there is a successful bombing, the Premier (referred to as the Marshal) would set it off in a suicidal gesture similar to Hitler killing himself in his bunker. Kubrick, for reasons known only to himself, didn't think the idea of a Soviet leader acting in this mad fashion was somehow credible so he made it a scenario where the computer runs everything to do it automatically etc. and that it can't be stopped.

-As in the eventual film, the Army manages to overpower their way into the base (unlike General Ripper, General Quentin upon realizing that Washington isn't going along with his thinking, has his men stand down before he kills himself). Colonel Howard figures out the recall code to the planes is based on the OPE, POE (Peace On Earth) combination from scribblings by the general (the "purity of essence" phrase though was Kubrick). The one bomber is not able to answer because its radio was disabled by Soviet fire and so there is one bomber left that if it gets through would result in the Doomsday device being set off (since in the book, it would drive the Marshal over the edge).

-Now this is where the original book ends up duplicating (or anticipating since I can't recall which book was published first) "Fail Safe." The President works out a deal to have one American city bombed to equalize the destruction the Soviets will receive and that will prevent the Marshal from setting off his Doomsday device. To equalize the Soviet target, they pick Atlantic City. The climactic final section of the book is a back and forth where the plane crashes outside its target but doesn't detonate its full load, meaning no Soviet casualties took place so therefore the Soviets *shouldn't* have to bomb Atlantic City and the President threatens retaliation if Atlantic City goes ahead......it finally ends with both sides pulling back from the edge and the President noting the irony that Quentin's actions may well really result in "peace on earth" after all since the whole experience has exposed the follies of the entire nuclear race.

-Again, one can see the blueprint for where Kubrick decided he could go off in a satirical direction. I will admit, there is unintentional hilarity in the back and forth over "Yes, you can bomb Atlantic City!" "No, now you don't have to!" that could have also made for even better comedy but to do that, Kubrick would have had to present the story as one of the President trying to get the Soviets from acting irrationally and that obviously wasn't going to fit his bigger narrative.

-What I really come away with in reading the novel though is where the liberal mind of the 60s to the 80s became convinced that if you ever spoke of the idea that the Cold War was something that should be won, the thinking was that represented the viewpoints of trigger-happy warmongering. The liberals saw the likes of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan not as would-be General Rippers per se railing about flouridation but as would-be General Quentins (or General Scott in "Seven Days in May") using charisma to convince Americans they could do something that was totally impossible since the only way you could think of "winning" the Cold War was to follow the General Quentin strategy of a pre-emptive strike. The idea that the Cold War could be won peacefully without nuclear war was something beyond their thinking (and admittedly not even thought of by many conservatives who resigned themselves to the idea that eternal stalemate was the only "realistic" solution. This was where Reagan was unique).

-Peter George would go on to write a novelization of the Strangelove script (or at least the earlier draft he was working from). I haven't finished it yet, but it's interesting how he structured it exactly like "Red Alert" with the cross-cutting etc. So far, a couple scenes that didn't make the film at all had President Muffley arriving at the Pentagon and getting into an argument with a sergeant who won't let him into the War Room because he's lost his ID pass, and then Muffley is led to a circular chair in an empty room that then lifts him up through the ceiling into the War Room! (but it gets stuck along the way). He also recycled the names of the bomber crew from "Red Alert" and assigned them to the soldiers at the base blindly obeying General Ripper's orders.

-Reading this earlier "straight" version of the story was enlightening to say the least. It made going back to the film for the first time in many years for me worth it. The film itself I think is brilliant as a showcase for Peter Sellers and it has some other amusing moments, but I am not among those who think it is this sacred cow untouchable work of art that was spot-on-right about everything which is the reputation the film seems to have acquired over the decades. As one who isn't enamored with Kubrick's work in general, I think the film along with similar fare of the period like "Fail Safe", "Seven Days In May" etc. reflect more of a paranoid mentality of the day than anything particularly prescient.

[Eric Paddon]

Fail Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler

-Well, having gone through Dr. Strangelove it was time to also revisit the "serious" take on the concept in novel and film. These were properties I remember devouring back in the 80s more because I was fascinated by the basic subject than thinking more deeply about the subtext/agenda and this represented I think my first revisiting of book and film in a long while. I have to admit I was a bit more surprised to find that book and film is considerably less "in your face" about agenda stuff of the day than one might say is the case with "Dr. Strangelove" where IMO Kubrick just reeks of saying, "Look at how brilliant I am being!" in almost every scene. When you strip away the setting, "Fail Safe" is ultimately more about a general timeless concept of relying too much on computers for decisions of life and death that can end up overtaking us regardless of time and place. If we can appreciate that message in a Star Trek episode like "The Ultimate Computer" we can certainly appreciate the basic story of "Fail Safe" and put all matters of Cold War era political debates aside which is easier to do with this film than with say, "Strangelove" or "Seven Days In May."

-The story of course is about how a group of bombers commanded by Colonel Grady, instructed to hold at their "Fail safe" position (the limit of how far they can go on their training exercises until they get an order to attack) through computer error and malfunction get a "go" message to attack Russia, target Moscow. We cross-cut to the frantic efforts of the President (in the book while unnamed he is clearly meant to be John F. Kennedy, as he is described as having a distinct New England accent, has a famous father and a glamorous wife who took the country by storm) to convince Nikita Khrushchev (actually named in the book) that it's all an accident and that he will allow the resources of SAC, commanded by General Bogan to assist the Soviet effort in shooting down the bombers. The Pentagon is giving its input too. The President's old college chum, Brigadier General Warren Black is a man troubled by his profession and suffering from a recurring nightmare of seeing a bull flayed alive by an unseen matador and feeling himself becoming the bull before he wakes up. There is also the academic Professor Walter Groteschele who has spent his career theorizing about the prospects of surviving a nuclear exchange and who believes the President should do nothing and let the Americans get in the first strike. The efforts to get the SAC men to reveal information to the Soviets to help them in the effort, in defiance of all they have been trained to do, soon causes General Bogan's exec, Colonel Cascio, to crack under pressure. When efforts to get the bombers downed fail, the President must make a fateful decision that will help preserve the balance of power by preventing full-scale nuclear war from breaking out.

-The novel is a techno-thriller that tries to demonstrate the dual problems of (1) the increased reliance on computer technology as an increased deterrent factor that characters like General Black feel are overly redundant and (2) the matter of how men who are well-trained like Colonel Grady ultimately lose their humanity because they are rigidly programmed themselves to obey the computer instructions (faulty) and disregard the human voice plea of the President that it is a mistake because their training has told them to not trust verbal messages of any kind, period. The underlying message is ultimately that the increased levels of build-up to maintain a deterrence element makes such an accident inevitable one day and that only overcoming the mutual distrust barrier can lead to the necessary disarmament needed to make the world safer again. This is the contemporary philosophy of the book (and film) that simply does not withstand the test of time. In both book and film, there is a scene where Professor Groteschele advocates going full-in because he says the Soviet leaders will simply surrender because Marxist doctrine won't allow them to see Russia destroyed and General Bogan brushes this off as "a load of crap" because Soviet Generals will act just like he would to this crisis and not give a damn what Marx would think. That is sound thinking and sound philosophy but unfortunately what people who always saw this and "Strangelove" as so prescient always overlooked is that while Russian Marxists would react "rationally" and not like programmed ideological automatons in a crisis, their ideology *did* control their diplomatic thinking and their foreign policy posturing. It was only when they were willing to abandon their ideological convictions that real disarmament and the real end of tensions actually took place and it still amazes to me to this day how this part of history is still conveniently forgotten by those who want to look back at the films of this era and think the greatest threats to world peace were the anti-communist fanatics embodied by the fictional Grotecheles, Strangeloves and General Quentins and General Scott's. How easy we forget the victims of that regime.

-But putting that quibble aside, the story remains a good, tense thriller and in the end it's hard to quarrel with the solution that the President ultimately comes up with, even though it will come at great personal cost to himself, to General Black (who is ordered to carry it out) and to the world. It is all things considered, the only one that can defuse the terrible crisis that emerged.

-The film adaptation is a case of almost total straightforwardness from book to film, with most of the dialogue replicated. It's in looking at the film again all these years later that I feel relieved that there isn't a lot that is unique to Walter Bernstein the screenplay writer (Bernstein as we know was blacklisted; what's not widely known is that when the VENONA papers were declassified it was revealed that Bernstein at one point offered his services to the KGB as an operative). Consequently, the film plays more like a literal adaptation with minimal changes:

1-A key change from a cinematic standpoint. In the novel, the President has his translator, Peter Buck as a dual translator for himself and Khrushchev to "save time". Obviously that would never work on film to show the translator (in the film effectively played by Larry Hagman) talking English, then Russian, then English, so it is a simple case of him translating into English while over the crackle of the phone line we can hear English being translated to Russian to give us the illusion of a real-time conversation (even though it would never be so quick and real-time in real-life).

2-Another key change is that as the final bomber commanded by Colonel Grady nears Moscow a last-ditch effort to contact him is made by having his hysterical wife brought in. This wasn't in the book and I almost wonder if it was added to throw a curve at the audience that was familiar with the book, and making them wonder if the film was going to give us this unexpected twist that might result in a different ending for the film. In the end though it turns out to be a red herring, though frankly it makes the image of Colonel Grady acting so robotically and not seeing his facade crack more to just wonder a *little* more unbelievable.

3-Some other streamlining. We get scenes presented as backstory for some characters that are shoehorned into the narrative. Colonel Cascio for instance gets a backstory in the book of his parents being Tennessee hill people who moved to New York and never adjusted and became drunkards. This is to show Cascio as someone who because of his unhappy background is so committed to his Air Force career that when he is asked to violate his training, it suddenly renders his life meaningless. In the film this scene is shown in the film proper the morning of events. But in the film, the whole background scene comes off as extraneous and unnecessary (and the fact that it shows the Colonel's parents live in Omaha, not New York make an unintended change as well). We also see Professor Groteschele at a party in Washington that has lasted to 5 AM that in the book was in New York the night before and had General Black and his wife attending. The purpose of the scene in the film is to let Groteschele spout off his theories of winnable nuclear war to a dubious liberal (Dana Elcar) and to also recreate a scene from the book (which takes place at another event much earlier chronology wise) where a glamorous drunken party guest tries to seduce Groteschele when he drives her home.

4-The SAC base is being visited in the novel by a New York Congressman named Raskob. In the film his state isn't specified but it's clear ultimately in the film that he's not from New York. It's a streamlining touch that works better.

The film's cast is solid. Henry Fonda plays the President (he would play the President one other time in "Meteor" and the consistency is that both times, bad things happen to New York!). The rest of the cast though is predominantly made up of second-tier names who were more familiar from television than the movies with Dan O'Herlihy in the lead role of General Black. Frank Overton, who had a big film role in "To Kill A Mockingbird" but who many know from the "Walking Distance" episode of "The Twilight Zone" and "This Side of Paradise" from "Star Trek" (which aired just a month before his death) is a solid General Bogan. Fritz Weaver gets a special "introducing" credit as the ultimately unstable Colonel Cascio. The breakout performance though is Walter Matthau as Groteschele. Matthau at this point was starting to get more visibility in film roles ("Charade") but nothing really this big and he gives the part of the nuclear strategist some authenticity that is chilling but at the same time not laughably one-dimensional (which is how Hank Azaira plays the part in the 2000 TV remake). The film wisely retains from the novel the fact that Groteschele and his family escaped Germany in the 1930s and that his father, his biggest influence, had impressed upon him the idea that if only every Jew had been armed the Nazis would have given up. In the end, this makes Groteschele a man with context, even if as Black reproaches him, "You learned too well."

-There is also a surreal moment when as Cascio cracks, General Bogan must have a sergeant come in to give the Russians the info they need. Playing the sergeant is Dom DeLuise. Fortunately he doesn't make you think of what he became later (just as thankfully Larry Hagman as Buck, the translator, doesn't make you think for one minute he's only a year away from "I Dream Of Jeannie")

-The film is also remembered for its chilling final tag scene. I will admit it's lost a little bit of its impact today but I do remember being creeped out by it the first time I saw the film and it does make its point (The ending of the 1982 TV-movie "World War III" basically borrowed a page from it).

-I should get in a final word about the 2000 remake with Richard Dreyfuss and George Clooney which aired live on CBS at the time in an attempt to evoke the days of live-TV dramas like "Playhouse 90" (I watched it on Amazon Prime on my computer) To me, the production is unnecessary on all levels. The two hour TV running time means ultimately because of commercials, 28 minutes less content and because the teleplay is sticking to the Bernstein script, all we're getting is a novelty piece (reading further, I learn that Clooney produced this and this was in effect his little personal vanity piece that he used his clout with to get CBS to make. Talk about runamuck egotism!). It was not uncommon in the days of live TV for shorter "Playhouse 90" type dramas to then be expanded into feature films but to do it in reverse with a property that takes place on closed sets and which in its original incarnation wasn't that dissimilar from a live TV production for the most part just doesn't impress me. Not the least of which is the fact that the 2000 production tries to let politics intrude more by presenting Groteschele as a Strangelove style nutcase who in one new line for the production is said by the President (Dreyfuss) that he "tells the Pentagon what they want to hear." (they also keep calling him "Mr." instead of "Professor" as if somehow it's considered bad form to suggest elite academia could produce a "bad guy") There is an unbelievably bad performance by John Diehl as Cascio (his story gets changed at the end as well and the net effect renders his character incomplete) and this time instead of the wife trying to talk to Grady (played here by George Clooney) they get his ten year old son to try and do it. It again makes Grady's refusal to doubt things less credible IMO than how the book presented things with no family member attempted contact.

-The original book and film I think I can judge with a lot more open-mindedness and in the end, it helped me see them as good doomsday entertainment less weighed than I realized with distracting polemics. I'll pass on the "making of" supplements in the new Criterion Blu-Ray (which I got with my credits for a mere 32 cents!) though.

[Eric Paddon]

Telefon by Walter Wager

-This is one case where I am very happy I read the book first, thanks to Kindle and then caught the film on Amazon Prime. Written in the era of detente, the Soviet government has just purged a group of hardcore Stalinists and then discovered that one who has got away, Nicolal Dalchimsky is loose in America planning to active a group of sleeper agents from decades ago in a project called "Telefon" which through a coded signal sent over the phone will reawaken their programming (They were all Soviet citizens trained to become Americans, taking the place of dead ones and forgetting their true identities until activated) and make them destroy key US installations that are based near where they're living as innocent ordinary Americans.

-The KGB sends an agent well-versed in American culture (with a fondness for Sinatra records) named Grigory Tabbat to track down Dalchimsky and stop this from escalating after the first two sleepers in Denver and Augusta, Maine are set off with devastating effect on nearby installations. He is dropped off the coast of Long Island and arrives on the beach in scuba gear met by his contact, "Barbara" and the two will pose as man and wife as they try to find Dalchimsky. The novel then becomes a fascinating, complex travelogue to a myriad of locations across the country (and Wager has a very good informal "travelogue" style of writing) that takes us from New York to Leavenworth, Kansas to Las Vegas to the Berksires to Boston to a climax in Wyoming. The KGB who knows how unorthodox Tabbat is, soon gets nervous about the idea of him having a copy of the Telefon "book" with all the agents names after he is to eliminate Dalchimsky, so they decide to send another assassin codenamed "Leon" to take Grigory out and take the book back once the mission is over. Ultimately, Grigory kills Dalchimsky and Leon in a climax in Wyoming (where the last sleeper agent activated could have destroyed a dam that would have taken out a key SAC base as well as the whole town) but in a very clever final twist, Barbara is revealed to be a double agent working for the CIA who relieves him of the copy of the book and sends him back to Moscow while the Americans are able to round up all the unactivated sleeper agents.

-The film version directed by Don Siegel from a script by Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant stars Charles Bronson (renamed Grigory Borzov) and Lee Remick. I was already aware of their casting so when I read the book, I was mentally envisioning them both and their voices fit the characters perfectly. Watching the film, I felt both were still good choices but soon the problem of changes came up. Some of them were understandable, others were not.

-First, the changes I understood. Donald Pleasance is well-cast as Dalchimsky, the Stalinist rogue (the film doesn't show his occasional sexual deviances that are in the book where he coldbloodedly kills a pair of Boston prostitutes but you can envision him doing that). The book had him calling the Telefon contacts from different points in the country, but in the film he calls them up only when he's in the same town so that way he can watch and observe them carrying out their mission. Cinematically, this makes sense because the film obviously couldn't afford to go to so many locations. Another change is that a key supporting character in the novel, CIA Russian expert and computer whiz Dorothy Putterman goes from being a well-endowed blonde starting to dabble in women's lib into the bookish Tyne Daly. Obviously, a rule of thumb that you couldn't have someone upstaging the leading lady in the looks department! (which also explains why Sheree North, who is cast as one of the sleeper agents for one scene is shown only in a housecoat doing her work).

-Also, the complex way Grigory and Barbara meet of him scuba-diving in is dispensed with (in addition to cost/staging issues, it would also be a steal from the 1956 novel "Forbidden Area"). He just flies into Canada and Barbara meets him there and they're off on the mission. This lower budget alas means no scenes of them in locales from the novel like New York and Las Vegas. These changes are regrettable, but at least I do get them.

-But then we come to the changes that show how much better the book is and why streamlining things makes the plot less gripping. For instance, the location of one key scene is changed from Leavenworth to Los Angeles. This made sense from a film budget standpoint but it also meant this part of the plot was less believable. In the novel, one of the sleepers is gunned down and put in an Army hospital at Leavenworth under relatively high guard. Barbara is told to slip in disguised as a nurse by getting through on an Army bus to do the elimination that's necessary. In the film, this takes place in an LA hospital that is less guarded (implausibly) and Barbara's ability to slip in just looks silly.

-Another bad change from novel to screen is that the suspense factor is reduced. In the novel, the Telefon operation is still causing damage to a number of ACTIVE and key US installations where people are getting killed and thus makes the threat level of possible nuclear war greater. The film sucks this all out completely because the targets the Telefon contacts are destroying have in the years since become declassified and decommissioned, so consequently the threat level is way down in the film compared to the novel. Dalchimsky is not at a stage where what he's doing is going to trigger potential nuclear war if all he's destroying are obsolete, non-critical facilities. This may have been a change precipitated by lack of a budget to show sophisticated installations getting destroyed, but it does end up reducing the tension level of what the stakes are and that's not a good development.

-We also tellingly, because this is 1970s Hollywood, lose the parts of the novel that make the Soviets look worse and the Americans better. Gone is the subplot of the extra Soviet assassin Leon sent to take out Grigory. Instead, Barbara is the one ordered to do so. This sets things up so that the revelation of who Barbara is really working for comes at the two-thirds point rather than the end, and she gets ordered by her real boss to take him out when the mission is over which has her all troubled and upset. This is to set the ending up as a case of the "detente" style solution that doesn't favor the US side as we see in the novel. More and more, this whole approach just comes off as so ludicrously out of date in light of later history of how the Cold War ended and it mars the film a good deal IMO (and also IMO also mars Remick's performance by making her character weaker than it is in the novel).

-This ultimately ends up being the second good novel by Walter Wager that Hollywood didn't do right by. His fine 1971 novel "Viper Three" was ruined as "Twilight's Last Gleaming" because Robert Aldrich felt a need to inject crazy left-wing politics into that one. "Telefon" isn't guilty of that sin in that it only changes things to reflect 1970s "detente" trends (which also ruined the film version of "Raise The Titanic") where America shouldn't be permitted to gain any advantages in the Cold War, but it still compromises a better novel ultimately (though I would still recommend giving the film a view)

[mkaroly]

So this is kind of cheating, but because the CHILDREN OF DUNE TV mini-series incorporates material from both DUNE MESSIAH and CHILDREN OF DUNE, I am going to include my brief book review of DUNE MESSIAH on the thread in preparation for CHILDREN OF DUNE (which I just started reading). This is fresh in my mind for right now and I don't want to try to remember all of this in a month or two...lol...I am choosing not to watch the MESSIAH parts of the mini-series as I am afraid of spoilers with the CHILDREN OF DUNE material (i.e. where the mini-series does a flash-forward or something). So, for now here is the book review for DUNE MESSIAH. Working on CHILDREN OF DUNE currently...very interested to read what happens next (and then see how the mini-series handled it)!

DUNE MESSIAH by Frank Herbert (1969, 337 pages). Paul Atreides (Muad’Dib) has successfully assumed the throne as Emperor of the universe. He has liberated the Fremen inhabitants of Arrakis (aka Dune) from the tyranny of the former Emperor and House Harkonnen. The planet's ecological system is changing. His followers (those who worship him as a god) have gone to other places in the universe and carried out jihad in his name, killing billions upon billions of people. Most importantly perhaps, Paul controls the spice mélange (the single most valuable economic resource in the universe) which is found only on Dune. Yet all is not well. Paul has disturbingly dark and opaque visions of the future, his Fremen concubine Chani cannot conceive while he refuses to bear children with his official wife Princess Irulan (herself a Bene Gesserit), and his enemies (including the Princess, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Guild Steersman Edric) have hatched out a plan to destroy him for their own individual selfish purposes. Led by Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale (a “twisted” Mentat), the group gives Paul the gift of a ghola (a clone/cyborg type human) named Hayt (his appearance is exactly that of Paul’s deceased and beloved friend Duncan Idaho). Paul has to maneuver through the minefields of deception and danger to come to terms with who he is, what he has become, and which future will be the best for humanity and for his rule.

If you haven’t read any of the DUNE series (MESSIAH is book 2 of 6), then none of that summary is going to make sense. Frankly, I am not really sure I understand all the ins-and-outs of the world of DUNE myself; this is the basest summary of the plot which leaves out many details. I feel like Frank Herbert’s genius with this series of books is that they were written to be read over and over again. Unlike many novels which one reads, digests, and then never has to read again, Herbert’s DUNE universe is full of subtext and detail that one does not pick up on a first reading. Once you read through the series once you are meant to go back and read it again with the knowledge you have from before – that knowledge and comfort level with the universe will illumine the books again and again as you discover more detail and things start making more sense. I applaud Herbert for that – the incredible depth, breadth and scope in this series has made it addictive to read and reflect on. MESSIAH is a much darker novel than DUNE; it is meant to be the bridge that links DUNE with CHILDREN OF DUNE (book 3). MESSIAH’s subtext includes the dark side of hero worship and incorporates the axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely (so never completely trust leadership whether political, religious, etc.). Always be wary of those in power and their motives/agendas. As much as Paul was a hero figure in DUNE, he is faced with people committing atrocities in his name across the universe and coming to terms with what his motives and agendas have brought about. Aside from perhaps Chani, no other character in the book is really all that likeable; everyone has an agenda and everyone wants something for his or her own personal gain. There are a few twists and turns in the book I enjoyed, and while it is a darker novel it is also very sobering and moving toward the end as Paul makes his choices as a leader and a lover. I am looking forward to CHILDREN OF DUNE as the story continues.

[Eric Paddon]

Airport by Arthur Hailey

-Arthur Hailey first explored the drama of airplane disaster in his 1950s book "Runway Zero-Eight" (aka Flight Into Danger) which got made into the 1957 film "Zero Hour" and then was mericlessly remade as "Airplane". But in the 1960s he turned to a new genre of novel in which he would set the storyline in a particular business or place and allow the reader to be caught up in a detailed profile of how things are run as we meet the characters who work there and how they respond to events etc. and how things are drawn together. With "Airport", Hailey gave us a sweeping look at how a modern airport of the late 1960s functioned, letting the reader learn about all the behind-the-scenes functions that go on and never give thought to. It showed airports at the tail end of the glamorous "jet age" of the 1960s with the dawning of the jumbo jets just around the corner and an underlying warning about how airports as they were, were typically unprepared to handle all the nuances that came with the rapid advances of air travel.

Today, when re-reading the book, the descriptions of so many different facets of how an airport functions (by setting the book in the fictional Lincoln International Airport of Chicago, Hailey had the freedom to design an airport to his own specifications and not be bound by the specifics of one particular real airport like O'Hare or Midway) can still be fascinating. The warnings of how these glamorous "jet age" airports of the 1960s would become obsolete in short order proved to be spot on, though amazingly amidst all the things Hailey touches on in the book about what goes into the functioning of an airport, the one thing he left out was the issue of airport security. Given how the book ultimately hinges on the element of an unstable man smuggling a bomb on-board a 707 and setting it off in the hopes of his family collecting a flight insurance policy, Hailey does NOT go into the areas of how airport security could be improved to prevent things like that in the future. Whereas Hailey will often have his characters (especially the book's focal point, Lincoln Airport Manager Mel Bakersfeld) ruminate on the proposed changes to make airlines and airports better, not once does someone raise the issue of things that would come into play in the 1970s like metal detectors and luggage screening etc. What's more surprising is that Hailey also never touches on the issue of airplane hijackings even though the late 1960s was the age when this was starting to become a serious problem with hijackings to Cuba etc. Instead, what comes in for a drubbing in Hailey's book is airport flight insurance. In a subplot that was excised from the movie script, one of the many reasons why Mel Bakersfeld and his philandering brother-in-law Captain Vernon Demarest have been at loggerheads is because Demarest has been pushing for the abolition of airport flight insurance but Mel had defended it before the Airport commissioners. There is even a moment at the climax as the wounded Flight #2 is making its way back to Lincoln where an angry Demarest makes a point of sending a message to Mel that goes, "You helped make this trouble, you bastard by not listening to me about airport flight insurance!" This leads to more ruminating about perhaps how should it be gotten rid of, but the issue of airport security and the ability to smuggle an explosive device aboard never comes up. It's probably the one aspect from the technical side of Hailey's novel that fails miserably.

Ultimately, it's more than just the "behind the scenes" look that made "Airport" a runaway best-seller. It was Hailey's effective use of characters in key positions to focus on to bring together the suspenseful moment of unstable passenger D.O.Guerrero setting off a bomb in the Rome-bound flight and the frantic efforts to get the wounded 707 back on the ground safely while dealing with the problem that the runway they need is blocked by a stuck 707 that only super-mechanic Joe Patroni can try to get out. From a story standpoint, the novel's one flaw is that he gets way too soapy at times in areas that really don't advance the main plot. For instance we get too much about how Mel Bakersfeld's lifelong commitment to aviation and airports has now cost him his marriage to the bitchy Cindy, who is only interested in social climbing. Where Hailey takes it too far is he feels the need to focus on Cindy two-timing Mel in that she not only has one lover that she wants to leave Mel for and marry because he shares her social ambitions, but because lover #1 is bad in bed, she then finds a second lover who can be her outlet for sex once she marries lover #1 and thus frees her from her last tie to Mel in that Mel at least could still turn her on in bed!

There is also another subplot that wisely didn't make it to the film version regarding Mel's brother Keith, an air traffic controller at Lincoln Airport who that night of the big blizzard has decided after his shift to commit suicide. The reason stemming from long-term guilt over the fact that several years earlier he escaped responsibility for being the cause of a mid-air collision that took the life of a family in a private plane. This story is an annoying distraction since we already have Mel's dysfunctional marriage coming to an end, and also his antagonism with his brother-in-law and HIS soap opera of getting stewardess Gwen Meighen pregnant. The only purpose the plotline served was to show us presumably the stressed-out lives air traffic controllers of the day led but it wasn't well integrated. By book's end, while Keith has overcome his suicidal impulse when he makes the bold decision to finally quit ATC and aviation, there are no scenes with his brother. Mel in fact seems to have forgotten all about his brother's plight!

A few other things about the book that are different from the move that followed. There is a hostile undercurrent in the relationship between Captain Demarest and Captain Anson Harris. Demarest regards Harris as an "old maid" and frequently tries to rattle him. Interestingly Harris is given the chance to rattle off about the evil of abortion at length when Demarest is probing the subject. Another change that is *really* something of a surprise if one sees the movie first before reading the book is that at novel's end, Demarest isn't going to leave his wife (Mel's sister, who unlike the film never appears in the book and is only referred to), he's instead going to confess his affair and plead that they adopt Gwen's baby. Demarest is haunted by the fact that eleven years earlier he previously got a stewardess pregnant and the child was given up for adoption and the records destroyed so that he never knew where his daughter ended up. That kind of unconventional ending I doubt would have worked cinematically so we get the more painful but simpler ending that implies he's going to leave his wife for Gwen.

And a couple other notable differences. The fictional airline in the book is "TransAmerica" rather than "TransGlobal". I suspect that when the film was made the change was made to avoid offending the corporate owners of United Artists at the time! (though in "Airplane" "TransAmerica" becomes the fictional airline!). Also in the book, the stuck 707 on the runway in the blizzard is a Mexican airline and the ground crew at one point makes a crack how, "Right now the captain is probably up there crying in his sombrero." In the film this became another TransGlobal plane. Also, there is more attention given to the Meadowood community's protests over airport noise. A shyster attorney representing the community confronts Mel at one point giving Mel the opportunity to explain to the protesters that the law isn't on their side and the situation will only get worse as time goes on.

But in the end it's remarkable that the film in most other regards is an amazingly faithful adaptation of the novel with a great deal of Hailey's dialogue making it into George Seaton's screenplay. This was the sort of self-awareness of how big a bestseller the novel was that many people would go to the film knowing the plot and the dialogue and seeing their mental impressions of what they'd read confirmed or not. Even some of Joe Patroni's great asides like telling a guy leaning on his shovel, "You'll freeze like Lot's wife!" come out of the book. Seaton knew where to trim the literary fat (Keith Bakersfield and also the airport flight insurance argument) and give a good throughline that retained the essence of the novel perfectly.

The cast is first-rate. Burt Lancaster pretty much nails the Mel Bakersfeld of the novel. Devoted to his work, and full of idealism about what the future must bring for airports. Its easy to see him in some of the aspects of the novel that didn't make the film like the fact that Mel was once in line to become FAA Administrator but for the JFK assassination. Lancaster, whose days as a leading man were starting to decline fits the image of a tired ex-New Frontier figure with loads of scars picked up along the way.

Dean Martin isn't really the Demarest of the novel, who is a more egocentric, arrogant figure. But those sides of Demarest the know-it-all are basically jettisoned from the script so Martin can play the captain as a solid professional pilot but whose Lothario ways (that are pure Dean Martin) catch up with him as his affair with sexy stewardess Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset, who but for the fact that the book describes her as black haired is perfect casting).

Jean Seberg is cast as Mel's potential new romantic interest, TransGlobal rep Tanya Livingston. Of the three leads she probably makes the least impression overall. She's adequate but largely unmemorable. Hailey's novel describes her as a redhead which Seberg isn't and interestingly, the literary Tanya Livingston is a divorcee with a child at home (her husband had left her when she revealed her pregnancy) whereas the film Tanya is simply a young widow.

The truly great acting performances are in the supporting roles. First, there's Helen Hayes as the lovable old lady stowaway Ada Quonsett, and who won an Oscar (the only one the film won despite 11 nominations) for her part. It's a great comedic scene-stealing part. By contrast, Maureen Stapleton, who was also Oscar nominated, manages to bring some powerful heartbreak to her performance as Inez Guerrero, the wife of the bomber. Her moment when she realizes her husband is on the flight to Rome (after telling her he was going to Milwaukee for a job) showing her leaning against the terminal window watching the plane depart is powerful (especialy with Alfred Newman's music).

Van Heflin, in one of his final roles plays the part of bomber D.O. Guerrero. Unlike Hailey's novel, where Guerrero isn't given any humanity at all and is snarling and surly, Helfin manages to put a human face to the part. His one scene with Stapleton shows that he probably was once a decent human being who then because of his inner demons lost his way completely so that he bottomed out with this act of pathetic desperation. And you can tell that perhaps but for the obnoxious passenger who shouted, "Grab him, he's got a bomb!" maybe he would have surrendered the bomb.

And finally, there is George Kennedy who made Joe Patroni the signature role of his career. He is dead solid perfect as the determined mechanic and ultimately steals the film even more than the Oscar winning Hayes IMO. That became clear when he became the only one brought back in the Airport sequels that followed (though his profession kept changing with each film as he went from mechanic to airline executive and then improbably to pilot in the pathetic final film of the series). The scene of him finally driving the 707 out of the stuck mud is a classic.

Other familiar faces show up in smaller roles. Dana Wynter nails the part of the bitchy Cindy well, though the character is different background wise from the book (in the book Cindy is a failed actress and not from a socially prominent background) but it's a little hard to figure out how she and Mel ever hooked up in the first place. Lloyd Nolan gets a great scene as the Customs Chief (taken from the book) when he spots haughty Jessie Royce Landis (Cary Grant's mother in "North By Northwest") trying to smuggle in gifts bought in Europe to avoid paying the duty fee. Barry Nelson and Gary Collins round out the flight crew while poor Barbara Hale gets stuck with the thankless role of Mrs. Demarest. This being a Universal film, many familiar contract players from TV are visible in small roles like Wiliam Boyett (Sergeant MacDonald from "Adam-12") and Clark Howatt (a frequent "Dragnet" performer as a police Captain) to name a couple.

Production wise, the film was shot on location at Minneapolis International Airport (with the front facade changed to "Lincoln International Airport" to accommodate filming). This lets us see in full detail what airports were like in this tail end of the 60s jet age when air travel still represented style (the fact that the Flight has the name "The Golden Argosy" was part of that sense of style) and the terminals and the airline food even represented higher-class fare than what they would become in later eras. So as a document of the times, "Airport" is also fascinating in that regard (you could never have a poignant scene of Inez Guerrero frantically racing to the gate at the last moment and having that scene of watching the plane depart again because that isn't possible in the prison security conditions of today's airports).

And a final word of course for Alfred Newman's last film score and what a great one he closed out on. I hope someday we get the full film version on a new CD release, which is one of the few remaining film score releases I'd still consider a Grail at this point.

[Eric Paddon]

When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer

-The novel "When Worlds Collide" was written in 1933, nearly two decades before it eventually reached the big screen. Consequently, those weaned on the film all these years have to get used to a lot of differences not just in characters and storyline, but also the fact that there was a gigantic gap between the world of the early 30s and the early 50s on so many levels.

-A Scandinavian astronomer based in South Africa, Sven Bronson, discovers that two large planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta are entering Earth's solar system after journeying through space. Their initial pass by the Earth will cause unspeakable cataclysms and then after coming around the sun, Bronson Alpha will collide with the Earth destroying it. The hope is that Bronson Beta, a smaller, conceivably Earth-like planet, can sustain life if spaceships can be constructed that will reach Bronson Beta.

-We are then introduced to the primary characters of the story. Tony Drake, a Wall Street broker. Dr. Cole Hendron, the scientist who takes charge of the effort to build a ship that will be able to leave the Earth. Hendron's daughter Eve, whom Tony is in love with, and also the South African pilot David Ransdell, who flew the Bronson photographs from South Africa to present to Hendron, and whom Eve is also interested in. As the two Bronson planets draw close, Americans are evacuated inland into the continent because of the warnings of tidal cataclysms. Cole Hendron's team that works on building the spaceship is based in Michigan. When the planets pass by we get a lot of description of the upheavals to America and by inference the rest of the world (though this mostly fragmentary information owing of course to the limited communications of the early 1930s world this book takes place in). Despite the catastrophe, the Michigan base endures though it has to ward off threats from shell-shocked survivors elsewhere in the country who have reverted to Lord of the Flies level savagery. A raid on the base is turned back when Dr. Hendron activates the atomic engines of the spaceship in order to kill the invaders. Ultimately, the ship is completed and able to launch because the first cataclysm with its volcanic upheavals from within the Earth revealed a new kind of heat-resistant metal that could make the spaceship indestructible for the journey. They are even able to construct a second ship piloted by David Ransdell to accommodate more people. When the planets return both spaceships launch and we are also told that other nations around the world have been launching their ships as well, but as the book ends we have only seen the primary American spaceship with Tony, Eve and Hendron make it. But this basically sets things up for the sequel "After Worlds Collide" written one year later which shows the adventure continuing on Bronson Beta. Eventually, the second spaceship of David Ransdell is found to have survived but ultimately the awkward triangle between him, Tony and Eve is resolved in Tony's favor. The exploration of Bronson Beta leads to the discovery of elaborate cities built by the long-dead original inhabitants of the world that are still functioning. However, it also becomes apparent that a spacecraft manned by totalitarians from Japan, Germany and Russia have also landed on Bronson Beta and settled in the most advanced of the cities, and the one that controls the power for all others. They demand total submission by the American group. The sequel novel gets a bit tedious toward the end in that instead of dealing with the threat, more time is given to learning about the dead "Other People" of Bronson Beta so that the final, hopeful resolution of things comes off as a bit too abrupt.

-Cecil B. DeMille supposedly was hopeful about filming "When Worlds Collide" in the 1930s but it never came off and we had to wait until 1951 for George Pal to bring the book to the screen. As mentioned, there are a number of changes because of the dated source material by this point. While an astronomer named Bronson still discovers what's happening, the two bodies are renamed Bellus and Zyra, the former being a rogue star and the latter the planet the survivors will hopefully reach. David Ransdell becomes David Randell and he becomes the nominal romantic lead of the story in place of Tony Drake (now a doctor) who while still attached to Dr. Hendron's daughter (renamed Joyce) is too square basically for her to want to marry even in the waning days. The biggest change character wise to the story is the addition of a sinister wheelchair bound industrialist, Sidney Stanton, who fearful of dying is willing to put up the money needed to finance the construction of the rocket ship (because the government apparently doesn't believe in the danger and thus won't fund it!). As in the original, the first passage leads to cataclysm that includes the submerging of New York in the film's most dramatic visual. Then two weeks later, as Zyra nears we see the ship launched in the face of angry workers who haven't been picked by lot for the survivors trying to storm their way on. The ending is the same as the hopeful "first day on the new world had begun" that the original novel ended on.

-The movie had a fairly low budget overall and despite its impressive F/X work in some scenes also gave us some cheap matte painting moments like the sight of submerged New York and the film's end on the planet (a Pyramid structure in the distance perhaps is a nod to "After Worlds Collide" which Pal had hoped to film as well but it was not to be). The cast is very low-budget "B" movie. Nominal lead Richard Derr as Randell did not have a particularly notable career and fifteen years later appeared in two "Star Trek" episodes as a Starfleet Admiral ("Alternative Factor" and "Mark Of Gideon"). The fact that Derr is a total dead-ringer for comedian Danny Kaye probably didn't help either. Barbara Rush, as Joyce Hendron, would go on to have a successful career but here she's just starting out and still a bit lacking in the gravitas she would have as her career progressed. The film's supporting cast also has a number of actors familiar from 1950s-1960s television. Hayden Roarke ("I Dream of Jeannie") as the ultimately doomed Dr. Bronson. Larry Keating ("Burns and Allen", "Mister Ed") as Dr. Hendron. John Hoyt from the Trek pilot "The Cage" and so many other guest shots up to the 80s as the villainous Stanton and Frank Cady (Mr. Drucker from "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres") as his lapdog aide. It's a testament to the fact that they're all solid professionals and the storyline so compelling that you can avoid self-consciously thinking about their later sitcom TV fame.

-The film though has some flaws that probably come from its streamlining of the book (out of budgetary necessity). Dr. Hendron comes off as very naive and arrogant in that he doesn't believe in having the camp where the ship is being constructed, armed and guarded so it's sealed off from disgruntled survivors of the outside world he rather cavalierly puts his own interests first by making room for Randall simply because he wants his daughter to be happy on the new world. We also get a VERY annoying supporting character with a perpetual goofy grin who when he sees his name on the bulletin board of those who'll make it is callously whooping it up while everyone around him who is going to die because they're not among those picked look on (but when he discovers his girl is not on the list he asks Hendron to take his name off, but Hendron decides instead to let his girlfriend go even though that could threaten the ability of them to make it!) Still, when the launch finally comes it is an effective moment and notwithstanding the poor matte painting of the alien landscape, the overall end is satisfying. It would have been interesting to see how "After Worlds Collide" might have unfolded given how the character relationships are quite different from how they played out in the book.

-I'd note that I've seen a lot of shots at the film on imdb discussion boards for the film's religious tone at the beginning and the end, because these are written by people who are so instinctively bigoted and think that sci-fi is the exclusive domain of atheist secularism. I'd note that the original book is basically neutral when it comes to religion. It isn't overt (Wylie was an agnostic) but it does have characters pondering the question of whether or not Earth's end is a new form of Old Testament style Judgment, and in "After Worlds Collide" the Old Testament parallels continue in other areas.

-The book I'd note also reflects racial attitudes of the early 1930s that would cause an uproar today. Tony Drake has a Japanese "houseboy" character (the only Asian we see). The phrase "that's white of you" comes up at one point, and the enemy on Bronson Beta, despite including Germans is described as principally "Asiatics" (reflecting no doubt the early 1930s fear of a militarist Japan). And the film gets drubbed for the fact that of the 44 survivors of the Earth, all of them are of one general racial classification. These things can't be ignored, but at the same time they shouldn't be beaten over our heads excessively.

[mkaroly]

So...I finally finished CHILDREN OF DUNE and am getting ready to watch the mini-series this week (fingers crossed the used DVDs I bought work). I am going to re-post DUNE MESSIAH and then post my book review of CHILDREN OF DUNE...after that I will compare the mini-series with the books. Just getting a head start...

DUNE MESSIAH by Frank Herbert (1969, 337 pages). Paul Atreides (Muad’Dib) has successfully assumed the throne as Emperor of the universe. He has liberated the Fremen inhabitants of Arrakis (aka Dune) from the tyranny of the former Emperor and House Harkonnen. The planet's ecological system is changing. His followers (those who worship him as a god) have gone to other places in the universe and carried out jihad in his name, killing billions upon billions of people. Most importantly perhaps, Paul controls the spice mélange (the single most valuable economic resource in the universe) which is found only on Dune. Yet all is not well. Paul has disturbingly dark and opaque visions of the future, his Fremen concubine Chani cannot conceive while he refuses to bear children with his official wife Princess Irulan (herself a Bene Gesserit), and his enemies (including the Princess, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Guild Steersman Edric) have hatched out a plan to destroy him for their own individual selfish purposes. Led by Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale (a “twisted” Mentat), the group gives Paul the gift of a ghola (a clone/cyborg type human) named Hayt (his appearance is exactly that of Paul’s deceased and beloved friend Duncan Idaho). Paul has to maneuver through the minefields of deception and danger to come to terms with who he is, what he has become, and which future will be the best for humanity and for his rule.

If you haven’t read any of the DUNE series (MESSIAH is book 2 of 6), then none of that summary is going to make sense. Frankly, I am not really sure I understand all the ins-and-outs of the world of DUNE myself; this is the basest summary of the plot which leaves out many details. I feel like Frank Herbert’s genius with this series of books is that they were written to be read over and over again. Unlike many novels which one reads, digests, and then never has to read again, Herbert’s DUNE universe is full of subtext and detail that one does not pick up on a first reading. Once you read through the series once you are meant to go back and read it again with the knowledge you have from before – that knowledge and comfort level with the universe will illumine the books again and again as you discover more detail and things start making more sense. I applaud Herbert for that – the incredible depth, breadth and scope in this series has made it addictive to read and reflect on. MESSIAH is a much darker novel than DUNE; it is meant to be the bridge that links DUNE with CHILDREN OF DUNE (book 3). MESSIAH’s subtext includes the dark side of hero worship and incorporates the axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely (so never completely trust leadership whether political, religious, etc.). Always be wary of those in power and their motives/agendas. As much as Paul was a hero figure in DUNE, he is faced with people committing atrocities in his name across the universe and coming to terms with what his motives and agendas have brought about. Aside from perhaps Chani, no other character in the book is really all that likeable; everyone has an agenda and everyone wants something for his or her own personal gain. There are a few twists and turns in the book I enjoyed, and while it is a darker novel it is also very sobering and moving toward the end as Paul makes his choices as a leader and a lover. I am looking forward to CHILDREN OF DUNE as the story continues.

[mkaroly]

Here is the book review for CHILDREN OF DUNE. Review of mini-series later this week (the mini-series includes material from both DUNE MESSIAH and CHILDREN OF DUNE). Beware as there are a couple spoilers below - I cannot talk about these books without giving spoilers.

CHILDREN OF DUNE (1976, 609 pages). This novel’s story begins nine years after Paul Atreides (Muad’Dib) had walked off into the desert to die. His two children (the young twins Leto II and Ghanima) who share the same traits as Paul (prescience, etc.) are left with their Aunt Alia on Arrakis (Dune) to carry out his rule. House Atreides has the throne and rule over the universe; yet all is not well. House Corrino, which lost the emperorship to Paul and House Atreides, plots to get it back by assassinating Leto II and Ghanima. The Lady Jessica, a Reverend Mother in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, wants control of the twins in order to carry out her faction’s hope to produce another Kwisatz Haderach. Alia, who has succumbed to the inner lives within her, desires control of the twins to continue her despotic rule. There are also Fremen disloyal to House Atreides but loyal to Muad’Dib who are being instigated to rebel by a mysterious desert figure known only as The Preacher (who many believe is Paul Muad’Dib). Worse still, the ecological transformation of the planet (begun under Paul’s rule) is making the sandworm extinct, which in turn is decreasing the amount of mélange (the most valuable item in the universe) that can be produced. In the face of all these dangers and after Leto II has a vision, the twins attempt to undo what Paul had done by splitting up – Ghanima goes back to be with Alia while Leto II sets out on his own journey into the heart of the sands of Dune to find the mythological Jacurutu, confront The Preacher, and undeify Paul Muad’Dib by taking the “Golden Path” in the hopes of setting the universe to rights.

As with the other books in this series so far, the plot of CHILDREN OF DUNE is full of complex relationships and plots all interweaving together into a bold conclusion. As I read through this book I thought more often than not how the people of a planet are mostly playthings in the hands of powerful leaders (whether political, religious, or otherwise) – those who control the people control the universe they live in. Some will gladly give themselves over to the ruling power; some will rebel to the bitter end. Yet all people have to live with the rewards and consequences of powerful people making power plays and alliances amongst each other so that they can retain or gain control for their own personal purposes. That extends to both heroes and villains in the DUNE universe; what is most fascinating about this story as a whole so far is that even the heroes (Paul, Leto II, etc.), in attempting to make the best decision they can for the whole, have to make a decision that is not wholly good. In other words, even the best decisions have some measure of bad consequences. Thus each character in DUNE is kind of a both/and character – both good and evil, depending on how you look at it. And I appreciate that; it makes for a more impactful reading experience. At times as I read this novel I also thought of the latter parts of the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis as well as the early chapters of the Book of Exodus. There are many twists and turns; the story really picks up after the twins overcome the assassination attempt on their lives and split up. Of all the characters in the book, I would argue Alia is the most tragic; Herbert wrote a very powerful sequence at the end of the book where she was concerned that made me cry. The confrontations between Leto II and The Preacher are very powerful as well (it would be interesting to know if George Lucas read these novels while he was compiling ideas for his STAR WARS trilogy). At any rate, this series remains relevant to our times and is a massive work of genius by Frank Herbert. Imaginative and well thought out, full of depth, pathos, and suspense with characters and situations that are thought-provoking, if you are a fan of science fiction you really owe it to yourself to read this series. It is so much more than just a work of fiction.

[mkaroly]

Aaaand here is the mini-series "review." I am kind of sad finishing this...the next three books in the series (GOD EMPEROR DUNE, HERETICS OF DUNE, and CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE) do not have movies associated with them. I have started GOD EMPEROR DUNE (which takes place 3500 years+ after the events of CHILDREN OF DUNE) and look forward to finishing the series written by Frank Herbert...two more books were written by his son and Kevin J Anderson based on Frank's notes/outlines to close out the Dune saga after Frank died. Anyway, for Dune fans out there...this is an amazing set of books! Lol...glad I finally started reading them.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

The CHILDREN OF DUNE three part mini-series made in 2003 combines DUNE MESSIAH (part one) and CHILDREN OF DUNE (parts two and three) into one epic story. As one would expect, the mini-series condenses the material in the books as well as tries to heighten the unspoken drama and emotions that run through the books to make the movie viewing experience more exciting. On the whole, I feel that the mini-series captures the spirit and essence of the books. However, I must admit being very disappointed with some aspects of part three of the story. If the universe of DUNE had not first been written as a series of books but had been created as a show for TV, I would have not had as many issues with the mini-series as I did (in part three). Unfortunately, by making the changes he did to the story in adapting it into a mini-series, the writer changed the dynamics of the characters and the narrative. I imagine the writer made the changes he did in order to elevate the drama of a very dense set of novels and make the story appealing to a wider audience; in the end, I do not feel he made wise choices at every turn. This is, of course, a personal opinion based on what I personally liked and disliked; for all I know, DUNE fans love this mini-series (DUNE and CHILDREN OF DUNE were two of the three highest rated SyFy shows at the time). At any rate, I will praise it for some things before I explain a couple of things I did not like about part three.

First the good and some general observations: the mini-series handled the death of Chani (played once again by Barbora Kodetova) extremely well. For me she is the one character who stood out as the truest character in the novels so far. Her character was easy to respect, and her death was quite moving. The mini-series chose to go the GODFATHER route – while Chani gave birth to Leto and Ghanima and then died shortly thereafter, Paul had the conspirators tracked down and killed (DUNE MESSIAH)…life juxtaposed with death. The montage was well done; it was operatic and sweeping. The acting throughout the series was strong for the most part; it was difficult to show on film the depth and scope of the visions Paul and Leto have in the books – the filmmakers did the best they could and I applaud their efforts (the butterfly kind of annoyed me though). It was also very difficult to show Alia’s inner battle with the voices of her inner lives – the actress who played her (Daniela Amavia) had a tough job playing someone who was possessed but she did a magnificent job throughout the series (including her suicide scene). James McEvoy (Leto), Jessica Brooks (Ghanima) and Julie Cox (Princess Irulan) also gave strong performances. The sets were outstanding, and the special effects were good as well. It bears noting that the Leto and Ghanima of the books are younger than they were in the mini-series, but that isn’t necessarily a big deal. What was a big deal for me, however, was a major story change that occurred in part one: instead of Princess Irulan being part of the conspiracy against Paul (as she was in DUNE MESSIAH), in the mini-series it was Princess Wensicia, mother of Farad’n and daughter of Shaddam IV (who was defeated and dethroned by Paul in DUNE) who was part of the conspiracy. More of that anon…

Parts one and two of the mini-series were solid, though admittedly I did not like Alice Krige as the Lady Jessica. Her mannerisms and looks never fit how I heard and saw Jessica as I read the books. There were some deviations from the novels in these parts but nothing that undermined the spirit and essence of the books. The end of part two, however, troubled me because while the assassination attempt on the twins did occur with tigers (as it did in the book), in the mini-series Ghanima makes it to the cave relatively unscathed while Leto fends off the two tigers outside. She goes outside the cave and does not find Paul; thinking he is dead, she walks away broken-hearted. In the book, Ghanima is injured badly by the tigers though both manage to kill their assassins. While bandaging Ghanima up, brother and sister have an intimate moment where they say their goodbyes, discuss the plan, and Ghanima is left to “forget” Paul using her powers (at least until the two magic words are spoken which will awaken her memory). Personally I did not like the way it was handled in the mini-series…that intimate moment between brother and sister, knowing their plan could fail but trusting in each other to the deepest extent, was not there.

And then comes part three. If you make a change in a story early on, you have to see it all the way through, and the change in bringing in Princess Wensicia as part of the conspiracy against Paul meant a radical change in the dynamics and motivations between the Lady Jessica and Farad’n. In the book Farad’n is a wiser and more thoughtful person than he is portrayed in the mini-series; during a bargaining session at which his mother is present, he and the Lady Jessica make a deal which results in Farad’n banishing Wensicia while the Lady Jessica trains him in the way she trained Paul. This plays into Jessica’s motives and intrigue: if she trains him as a Bene Gesserit as she had done with Paul and, if Farad’n marries Ghanima, through them the Sisterhood could perhaps produce another Kwisatz Haderach. This is lost in the mini-series since it is Wensicia (Susan Sarandon) who suggests to the Lady Jessica that she train up her weak son Farad’n in Bene Gesserit ways during a bargaining session. In the mini-series Farad’n is very weak – a good-for-nothing bookworm who doesn’t want the throne. Yet Farad’n eventually finds his courage – when he meets Ghanima on Arrakis he divulges that his mother was behind the assassination plot against the twins and both he and Alia banish her. There is more to this story thread that would take too long to describe, but I did not like how the mini-series undermined the Lady Jessica and Farad'n while elevating Princess Wensicia’s role beyond the scope of the book.

Alia’s suicide scene was moving, but not nearly as moving as it was for me with the book. Prior to the suicide scene in the mini-series, the filmmakers inexplicably stitch together four different parts of the story concerning The Preacher (who is Paul Muad’dib…Alia’s brother) and insert it right before Alia’s big moment. It is completely out of place and very clunky (in the book, Alia wants to kill The Preacher for speaking out against her; when she discovers it is her brother it is a moment of intense shock that adds to the turmoil she is experiencing. That is not in the mini-series). Furthermore, in the book Alia’s death comes about in her upper chambers – she sets a trap for Farad’n and Ghanima when Leto breaks into the room and surprises her. Our final moments with Alia are spent with family – it is an incredibly moving climax as Alia’s possession by the Baron Harkonnen is confirmed. Leto and Ghanima offer to help her conquer the inner voices she has but she refuses. Leto gives her the choice of a Trial of Possession or she could take her own life by throwing herself out her balcony window. As I said in my book review, I cried reading it. The mini-series takes this intimate moment and places it against the backdrop of a wedding – the scene is reminiscent of the ending of the DUNE mini-series as it takes place in a large hall with lots of people watching. Maybe I am weird, but despite the amazing performances of the cast, the ending of the mini-series loses something important in the way it was staged. Those final moments with Alia needed to be more intimate in my opinion. She is THE tragic character of the first three books. I could talk a lot about Alia…lol…anyway, for the most part the spirit and essence of the narratives in the books are here in the mini-series, and I will applaud it for that. However, I just wish they had stuck more closely to the book at certain points in the story which I found important or moving…a selfish wish for sure. At least the books will always be there!

[mkaroly]

THE LOST WORLD by Michael Crichton (1995, 417 pages). Several years after the incidents at “Jurassic Park” in Isla Nublar, Ian Malcom is giving a lecture at the Santa Fe Institute when a nerdy paleontologist named Richard Levine starts asking him questions about the possible existence of a “lost world” out there as well as the mysterious activities of a defunct company called InGen. These questions set in motion a sequence of events that leads Levine to discover Site B on Isla Sorna, the site were InGen had mass produced the dinosaurs which were seen at Jurassic Park. Levine journeys to the island himself and gets into trouble, so Ian Malcolm along with engineer Jack Thorne and his assistant Eddie Carr travel to the island to rescue him. In addition, Malcolm’s former girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (an animal behaviorist specialist) sets out from Africa to join them in the search, making her own way to the island. But Malcolm is unaware of some variables that might hinder their plans: two seventh grade kids and friends of Levine (Kelly and Arby) who stowaway in the field equipment on the trip to Isla Sorna as well as Biosyn’s Lewis Dodgson, an expert at industrial espionage who wants the secrets of Site B to exploit for profit. Oh…and Isla Sorna is full of dinosaurs, including two Tyrannosaurus Rexes and their babies, a mess-load of very intelligent velociraptors, and other surprises.

It is easy to get settled into a Michael Crichton book, and this one delivers the goods as much as any of his previous novels. It has an ebb and flow to it that makes reading it an entertaining journey. Granted, at times the book does get very technical (chaos theory, the theory that changes in animal behavior led to the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs rather than a catastrophic meteor crash, etc.), but that is to be expected from a Crichton novel. I appreciate the research he did for these works of fiction. It is interesting that Ian Malcolm returns as the main character in THE LOST WORLD, for at the end of JURASSIC PARK both he and John Hammond died. Lewis Dodgson is the other carry-over from the previous novel – Dodgson was the one who had hired Dennis Nedry to get the embryos from Jurassic Park. This novel takes place mostly on Isla Sorna, and like JURASSIC PARK there are some suspenseful moments (which Crichton was an expert at creating), some dry humor, and exciting cinematic action set-pieces. Crichton makes it easy with his writing style to become so absorbed in the narrative that you don’t want to put the book down. The characters are easy to root for or against, and Dodgson’s come-uppance is especially satisfying. Well written and well-conceived, THE LOST WORLD is a fantastic, quick read.

Steven Spielberg very loosely adapted the novel into his film THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK in 1997. It is my least favorite Spielberg film, and watching it again after reading the book made me dislike it even more. Spielberg basically gutted most of the novel (though he did keep the Tyrannosaurus attack on the field trailer) in order to make the film less dark, more entertaining, and more appealing to a wider audience. He added several characters as well (including the Big Game Hunter Roland and his sidekick Ajay, InGen “bloodsucking lawyer” Ludlow, and videographer/field photographer Nick Van Owen); the only character that “makes sense” in the movie is Ludlow who, unlike Hammond, is an unsympathetic greedy corporate villain wanting to exploit the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna in order to recoup the cost of all the lawsuits against a non-defunct InGen corporation. I am not sure why Roland is there – maybe he is there as a critique of animal cruelty/exploitation of endangered species, or maybe he was needed in order to bag the T. Rex so that Ludlow could take it back to San Diego as an attraction. Nick Van Owen is there because he is an environmentalist/animal rights activist. Anyway, none of these people have anything to do with Crichton’s novel.

In addition, the character of Ian Malcolm is significantly changed. In the book Malcolm is a very dry character who honestly is all talk and not a whole lot of action. I would argue that Sarah Harding and Jack Thorne are the key heroic characters in the book. Goldblum gives Malcolm much more personality than he has in the book, so I am not going to be too critical of Goldblum’s performance. Spielberg changes the dynamics of the Malcolm and Harding relationship in the movie to add a love story/family dimension in the film narrative that is not in the book. In the book Malcolm is childless, and while he and Sarah were involved in the past they no longer are. In Spielberg’s film Malcolm has an interracial child named Kelly, and he and Sarah are actively (?) dating but distant from each other. At one moment in the film Malcolm and Harding are arguing about their relationship in the field trailer in front of Kelly – it is incredibly awkward and grinds the story to a halt. In the movie Malcolm saves Sarah after the T. Rex attack on the field trailer; in the book, Sarah is the one who saves Malcolm at the end of the same attack. In the book the team goes to Isla Sorna to rescue Levine; in the movie, Malcolm goes to the island to "rescue" Sarah (Sarah is a much stronger character in the book). Spielberg’s film becomes mostly about the restoration of the family unit (which is definitely not a theme in Crichton’s book); in both his adaptations of Crichton’s books the family unit, marriage, and the maturation of the male protagonist in realizing the importance of fatherhood are all emphasized as key themes.

A few more things: first, John Hammond (who died in the JURASSIC PARK book) is back in THE LOST WORLD, recruiting Ian Malcolm, Sarah Harding, Nick Van Owen, and Eddie Carr to go to Isla Sorna and take lots of pictures and video to document the ecosystem InGen created there. Since his power in the company had just been taken away by Levine (his nephew), he wants to preserve Site B in order to save it from exploitation. Maybe it is because Richard Attenborough played him in the films, but Spielberg turns John Hammond into a hero of sorts. In all honesty I don’t think Hammond learned anything – to give him the last word in the film was pretty irritating to me. Second, Spielberg decided against a Pterodactyl/helicopter battle at the end and chose instead to bring the T. Rex into San Diego to wreak havoc in order to end the movie and give Ludlow his come-uppance. I hated the sequence when I saw it in the theater and still do…I get that he was probably trying to do a King Kong/Godzilla homage or something, but I just don’t think it works (neither Spielbergian ending is original to the book). Finally, I still get massively irritated that the character of Kelly in the movie, who was cut from her school gymnastics team, did some high bar swinging to knock a velociraptor through some boards and out of a shed. It is such an incredibly dumb sequence and impossible. I know I have to suspend disbelief but…sorry, I can’t. In the end, THE LOST WORLD is my least favorite Spielberg film and should be avoided like a velociraptor. Stick to the book which is far more entertaining and interesting.