Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you caught the ethnic tones of Graeme Revell's fatally understated music in the film itself, which would immediately put you in the minority. Avoid it... if you expect the necessary balance of epic, romantic, and ethnic elements recorded with much better success by Brian Tyler for the 2003 television sequel, Children of Dune. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Frank Herbert's Dune (TV): (Graeme Revell) With so much cult controversy revolving around the David Lynch adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic novel in 1984, it was inevitable that another attempt would be made to better conceptualize Herbert's plot. Writer and director John Harrison's 288-minute television miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune, airing on the Sci-Fi Channel in December, 2000, is neither perfect nor necessarily better than the feature film version by Lynch. Where the 1984 film failed, the new television film improved drastically, though, catapulting it to high ratings and a sequel production in 2003. Unfortunately, while attempting to correct the weaknesses of the previous film, this Sci-Fi Channel extravaganza forgot to take a lesson or two from the strengths of the Lynch version. The acting in the 2000 film is a stunning embarrassment, with William Hurt as an expressionless and seemingly medicated Duke Leto and Alec Newman portraying an uninspiring and desensitized Paul Atreides. Also completely lost in the television film is the epic scope of the story, with few special effects and entire scenes of action simply omitted to avoid costs and keep the production based at ground level with the characters. The story of Dune can be described using all sorts of adjectives, but in the basic sense, it can be accurately described in three: epic, romantic, and ethnic. The feature film of 1984 went overboard on the epic and romantic, bordering on delusional. The Sci-Fi Channel film of 2000 nearly abandons both the epic and romantic aspects of the story and instead overflows with the element of ethnicity. The cinematography and art direction in Harrison's film are nothing short of brilliant, correcting the silliness that obviously tainted the visuals of the earlier adaptation. But with a seemingly endless budget for sets, the new film completely lost track of both the characters and the larger political battle, ignoring the reflective meditations of the first film and, as already mentioned, skipping entire battle scenes (such as the invasion of Arrakis by the Harkonnens). With these aspects of the story missing, the 2000 film lacks the passion and scope of the first version, dwelling instead on lengthy and rather boring, unnecessary scenes involving characters whose actors don't seem to care one bit for their roles. Certainly respectable is Frank Herbert's Dune, for its attention paid to the ethnic elements of the story is incredible, but at its lengthy running time, there did not remain enough of the epic or romantic elements to keep audiences from losing interest. This fatal flaw carries over to Graeme Revell's two-hour score for the production. In retrospect, the composer was placed at a disadvantage not only because of the highly flashy and memorable score by Toto for the 1984 film, but also because of Brian Tyler's absolutely magnificent work for the 2003 sequel, Children of Dune. While Revell obviously did his best for this production (unlike the subsequent, last-minute disaster for Tomb Raider), history has not been particularly kind to this work. Still, few could argue with his hiring at the time. A rising star of the sci-fi genre of film scoring, Revell was a diverse enough composer to tackle the project. He charted several motifs to run throughout the film, including a theme for each major house in the tale. To address the overwhelming ethnicity of this version of the story, Revell returned to Middle Eastern and former Soviet region instrumentation that was heard in his dramatic, suspense scores such as The Siege, producing the perfect kind of exotic feeling that the first film lacked. But in so doing, Revell, restricted by the weaknesses of the film, could not inject the necessary romance or action into the score (and anyone familiar with The Saint knows that he is capable of both). Because the film has no epic battle scenes, there are no satisfyingly harmonic moments of decent length (especially disappointing in terms of the Jessica and Leto part of the story, which was agonizing in the first film), and Revell therefore never had an opportunity to give this score as much epic power as it needed. That isn't to say that a space opera sound closer to the title theme by Toto was mandatory, but certainly a comfortable middle ground was to be found somewhere. Several scenes in the film are badly underscored by Revell, who could have easily stepped up a notch with the full force of the City of Prague Philharmonic and Chorus, which is no slacking group of musicians. The power of that performing group was wasted, with the only highlights of the score coming from incessant pounding of the timpani and some occasionally interesting woodwind solos. Only one of the score's primary four themes makes any kind of lasting impression, the others poorly enunciated and therefore ineffective. The title theme for Paul does have a memorable allure, heard at the beginning and end of the production (and in a handful of cues in the middle, such as "Paul Drinks"). If you came looking for a triumphant-sounding score, though, then you're watching the wrong film; even with the valiant finish to the story, Revell's finale simply restates the title theme without bells, whistles, victorious horns, or, come to think of it, anything that would give you the impression that the Fremen rebels had actually won. In sum, the score for the 2000 television film is underdeveloped and underperformed. The texture of Revell's electronics and specialty instruments cannot sustain the cues in which they are solely utilized, and embarrassingly grating synthetic cues like "Jihad Begins/Last Fight" sound cheap. Given Revell's talents, you have to wonder how much of this heavily restrained scale of the score was dictated from the director and/or producers. What Revell did produce in terms of epic material was undermixed in the film, often at barely audible levels at times when the score badly needed to make an impact. For entire ten minute sequences, the low mixing of the music caused Revell's effort to wash away into meaningless background noise, so the blame for the ultimate failure of the score does not rest solely on Revells' shoulders. One interesting note is a short passage at 0:40 into "Paul Chooses: Finale," during which Revell pays tribute to Toto's title theme for the original film. It will be a nice touch for those have the 1984 score memorized, but it was far too little to salvage this work from the murky depths of despair that the film's drudgery placed it in. This entire production was a monumental disappointment in its neglect of key epic and romantic elements of the story, and no overemphasized ethnic flavor provided by Revell in his music could compensate for the lack of the other two elements. Taking advantage of a better rounded film with some of the same cast, Brian Tyler would find a much superior balance of all three elements in 2003's Children of Dune, recording a best-selling score with no relation to Revell's and considered among the most impressive ever for a television production. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 67:16
All artwork and sound clips from Frank Herbert's Dune are Copyright © 2001, GNP Crescendo Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/3/01, updated 1/27/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2001-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
