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Dune TV Mini-series for 2000 on Syfy
You can watch the four and half hour cut of Syfy‘s Dune (2000). It has been released online. The regular cut of this Dune TV mini-series is 265 minutes long and the Director’s Cut is 295 minutes long.
The censored 265 minute version is presented below. The first of the three TV mini-series episodes originally aired on Syfy (called Sci Fi Channel back then) on December 3, 2000. “The miniseries was shot in Univisium (2.00:1) aspect ratio, although it was broadcast in 1.78:1.”
Original Airing’s Reception
The mini-series was well received by audiences and critics.
The first installment achieved a 4.6 rating with 3 million homes, and the miniseries averaged a 4.4/2.9 million households over all three nights. This doubled all viewership records for Sci Fi, placing Dune among the top ten of basic cable’s original miniseries in the five years previous. Two of the three installments also rated among the year’s top 10 original cable movies. To date, The 2000 Dune miniseries and its 2003 sequel are two of the three highest-rated programs ever to be broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel.
And it did well when it came to awards as well.
Frank Herbert’s Dune won two Emmy Awards in 2001 for Outstanding Cinematography and Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a miniseries or movie, and was nominated for a third Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing.
New Material
There is a plethora of new narrative added to this adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Recently watching it, I had forgotten that Princess Irulan’s character is substantially beefed up from her original incarnation in the book, to the point where is she is almost a main character in the storyline. Instead of a character in the background, Irulan becomes a bridge, connecting certain storylines together, putting nebulous things together for herself (and the audience).
The character clothing and art design are also particularly striking in this mini-series, as well as some of the violence and the nudity (the latter is completely cut in the version below).
I particularly enjoyed how intelligent the Baron is portrayed in this on-screen version of Dune.
At the end of the series, they even insert a line of dialogue from David Lynch‘s Dune: “The Spice will not flow.”
View here the 3-hour version of Dune (1984).
Cast
Dune stars Alec Newman, William Hurt, Saskia Reeves, James Watson, P. H. Moriarty, Ian McNeice, Giancarlo Giannini, Jan Vlasák, Robert Russell, Laura Burton, Matt Keeslar, László I. Kish, Jan Unger, and Julie Cox.
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