I love Frank Herbert’s original Dune novel — it’s one of my favourite books, and I have a real soft-spot for David Lynch’s bizarro adaptation as well.

But I’m still waiting for a Dune film that works as a piece of cinema in its own right. Lynch’s Dune captured the atmosphere of the novel but its narrative was a confusing mess; the TV miniseries was a dull and uninspired retelling of the events of the novel without any kind of vision. Is it too much to expect an adaptation to be both bold and coherent? (For the record, I found Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films fairly sterile and dry as well.)

Now there’s a new Dune film on the horizon. Could this be the Holy Grail? Probably not, but I hope I’m wrong.