Sci-fi pronunciation geek
David Lynch’s “Dune” was on the Sci-Fi Channel the other night, and I sat and watched the whole thing. This was the extra-long director’s cut, so it probably had a lot more stuff in it than I remembered. I mostly was interested to watch it because I got the DVD of the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Dune” miniseries as an early birthday present, and had watched that one just before Lynch’s was on.
Lynch’s version is more of a comic book telling of the Dune story – lots of amazing images with very little dialogue, and the plot advanced mostly through exposition. The miniseries is sort of like a junior high production version – it tells the story more completely, but in a flat, affectless way. So neither is a quite satisfying telling of the book, if that’s even possible.
But what annoyed me most about the miniseries was the way they pronounced names. Probably Frank Herbert didn’t publish a pronunciation guide with the book, and the names are unusual enough to leave some interpretation open. But to pronounce Chani “Chaney”? It made me laugh every time they said it, thinking about the vice president. And they pronounced Leto “Lay-toe” (as if casting the nearly comatose William Hurt as the dynamic duke wasn’t bad enough).
And to answer your inevitable question, yes, I will be seeking treatment.
