All 3 screen adaptations of Dune made so far, ranked

2. Frank Herbert's Dune (2000)

In the year 2000, the Sci-Fi Channel (now called SyFy) aired a three-part miniseries entitled Frank Herbert's Dune. Directed by John Harrison, the intent was to keep the adaptation as close to the source material as possible, which it does. Everything in this miniseries is more or less drawn straight from the book, although they do make room for new stuff, including a larger role for Princess Irulan. (Director Denis Villeneuve would take that cue for his Dune movie 20 years later.) The movie stars Alec Newman as Paul Atreides and William Hurt as Paul's father Duke Leto. Hurt is by far the biggest name attached to the miniseries.

Frank Herbert's Dune was a success for the Sci-Fi Channel, drawing in a lot of viewers and winning Emmys for cinematography and special effects. That may come as a surprise, because one of the show's biggest weaknesses is that it looks, by modern standards, very cheap. Just watch that trailer above; those sandworms and spaceships look like they were rendered on a PlayStation 2. Some of the costumes are inventively designed, but too often everyone looks like they just arrived at sci-fi Halloween fresh from Party City.

We don't need to spend too much time dragging the show for looking cheap, as it was pushing boundaries at the time. As an adaptation, it fares much better than Lynch's Dune, digging deeper into the story and making sure audiences understand what the twists and turns mean. In fact, the miniseries may over-explain itself, seemingly out of fear that viewers won't be able to disentangle Herbert's knotty themes and arcane plot.

Despite the cheesy look, Frank Herbert's Dune is still worth watching today. All three episodes are available to watch on YouTube. The show means well, but it didn't have the resources to do everything it wanted. That would change with...