the dune miniseries open with a flashforward montage of action sequence . the realisation quickly dawn that these be the best scene out of the 265 minute run time and and theyre not good . not good at all . oh dear . but let u not judge a book by it cover ( even though that exactly what be be invite to do ) . let give dune a chance to redeem itself . well and here the expected watery open on caladan . but who this petulant and strangely ugly man . paul atreides . this be paul atreides . this generic plastic puppet . and why do he look so old . what that . the actor only 25. well and he doesn not look it and and that way too old anyway . but at least he have charisma and right . wrong . alec newman be a stumbling and mumble buffoon . i be picture him be discover sit in the dark in a remedial acting class because nobody like him enough to tell him the class be over and and he just too dumb to realise it . when your paul atreides have all the screen prescence of soggy toast and and an acting range from petulant to blank your production of dune be doom from the start . the other actor take pity on poor alec though and and give uniformly insipid and incomprehensible performance so that he doesn not look too bad by comparison . at least and i assume that be what they be do . because i be charitable and you see . to be fair and they be clearly be give no direction at all . random gesture and blank or inconsistent delivery and miss their mark and it all here . this be like a master class in how not to do it . and sure and there be more element of the book in this miniseries than there be in the 1984 movie and but there aren not twice a many and because of all the . pause . to fill . time . but we can forgive all this because of the small budget of $ 20 million and or only $ 5 million per hour . nobody could be expect make quality science fiction on that sort of budget . except perhaps stargate sg 1 which make do with $ 1 . 4 million per 50 minute episode and or farscape at $ 2 million . and frankly i would rather watch four episode of either of those while be punch in the kidney and than have to sit though the travesty that be dune the miniseries again .