I never read the books, but I saw the videos and played the games of Dune and I must said that this mini-series est outstanding!It's one of few movies where I felt so much emotion! The 3D is a bit old, but so much better than "Dune the movie" and everything else is just perfect.Two little bad things... 1. You must know about the universe of Dune or else you will be lost in no time. There's not so much description or what are what and who is who. 2. Sometime there are long scene for nothing.Overall, it's a "you must see" mini-series if you like the universe of Dune or Sci-Fi politic movie.

This sequel to Dune 2000 was better by far than the earlier film. The actors seem to have finally gotten comfortable with their roles and the story (based on the second and third "Dune" books of Frank Herbert were more on the mark. This production was more stylish and took pains to get it right, and while I still feel that it could have been done better I was heartened after the disappointment of the earlier mini-series. Once again, if I had one complaint it would be the Fremen still suits which looked more like used cammo uniforms of some third world army. They do not give the impression of survival capability that the costumes from the 1984 theatrical version did. Other than that this version manages to accomplish the second and third book stories rather well.

Frankly, after watching The Dune mini series, I didn't think much of this sequel at all. The cast was pretty bad, awful acting, somewhat unbelievable characters, cheesy accents. Visuals were disturbingly cheap. I think Babylon 5 used the same CGI effects in 1996. Extremely poorly textured models, very bad green screen integration, bad costumes and makeup. Although the series follows closely the storyline of the book, I think sometime one has to deviate from the story in order to make a movie a bit more believable. Unfortunately, what worked in the book, did not work in the movie. Of all things in particular, the progression is not smooth and many scenes feel disjointed and out of place. Overall, this felt like a very amateur adaptation of a great book, at least in my opinion. Then again, I am probably a bit spoiled by Peter Jackson's LOTR adaptation and expect everything to be on par with it.Overall, I give this 5/10. Mostly for low quality of everything.

Totally Flawed!Sci Fi's Battle Star Galactica, with no great source material shows that with a TV budget you can make decent Sci Fi drama. This just misses in almost every way, and is much, much, much worse than the (couple of years earlier) Sci Fi's Dune.(And my put on the David Lynch Dune of 1984--wonderful stuff, it just was too short, which made reading the book first almost mandatory to "get it".)Firstly one has to preface this with the "fact" (or at least almost universal agreement) that while Dune (the book) was a science fiction/fantasy work that transcended the genre, his later books were more of a muddle. It just was not clear what they were really about. The source material for this movie was particularly so. In it Frank Herbert essentially said, "Oh, the whole moral, religious, and ecological basis of the the original book were all a big mistake." It is still good sci-fi, but it made the book much less universal. (And the subsequent books and especially most of the ghost written books by his son (supposed to be based on Franks notes) are more so. Some to the point of silliness.)So the very long source material is more problematic than in the original very long Dune book.OK, that out of the way . . .This is just very, very, very made for TV Movie. Poorly acted. OK Alia was not so bad (Daniella Amavia), but her psychotic episodes got pretty tedious, and it was very small. In the source material Alia was a goddess, here she is just crazy mean bitch. Julie Cox as Princess Irulan gave a better than average performance; but as noted by many here and for the first Sci Fi channel, she was a minor character in the source material (the books). It seems pointless to expand characters when your already cannot fit the source material into the movie. I also agree that Alec Newman playing Paul has learned how to act between Dune and Children of Dune. He was tolerable here.This is not a comic book kind of story. Susan Sarandon made it so. She was not scary, she was silly. She if a phenomenal actress, which makes me believe that the direction is mainly at fault. Like William Hurt (also an academy award winner) in the Sci Fi channel's Dune it is a fairly small part. They paid for a name who apparently came in for a day or two of quick shooting. (Funny Hurt was kind of wooden when he should have been charismatic. They took Sarandon exactly the opposite way.)The other acceptable performance was in the Baron Harkonan part, Ian McNiece. He was OK, but not close to the how the book's character as a total moral abomination. Big Star Trek fans will like Alice Krige. She has a real physical presence but the acting is just OK.For the rest (to quote from the original books and movies), "nothing". The twins were apparently extracted from some mediocre daytime soap opera. Very pretty blonds who smile constantly.Dialogue has been partially updated but dumb.-- Story: You just don't care. In the book, even though it isn't close to the the original Dune in quality, you really do. There is mystery. There confusion (in a good way). There is a premise (even if it is opposite of the first book). Gone.I'm not going to go into the relationship to time and place and religion of the 1960's that produced Frank Herbert's original material. Just will say, this is not about anything. A good movie needs to be about something, or have a riveting plot, or have great (or OK) acting. This is just a movie that is sort-of about the book. -- Special effects: Good special effects alone don't make for a good movie, they make for a very good video game. You need the rest for a good movie. That being said. These are not good special effects. I watch it and think, O, I could do that on my Mac at home with Apple's software. Which is what I think they mainly did. Lots of it doesn't get there. And those stupid tigers---so video game-ish. CGI characters just aren't there yet (for movies), and these are not good ones.And what is with the racing across the desert lots and lots and lots. And lots. And lots. BFD.---And the absolute worst: The costumes and overall look and feel. Lots of velvet Jester's hats. Dark clothing for the desert. Green jungle camouflage stillsuits. Hello? Jungle? Really distracting. Cheap. They do not drape properly. Wigs look like they are made of yarn. The human species is supposed to be diverging, there is not attempt at representing this. The "reverend mother's" head pieces barely stay on their heads and seem to be made out of rice paper. Oh, and the Bene Gesserit are not supposed to age, so the actresses are just too old (except for Susan Sarandon who is just too silly).---And the final resolution between the women . . . Huh? Dumb. Stupid. A comedy's ending, not a drama of a thousand worlds.