To many, the best Dune adaptation that made it to film is Denis Villeneuve's recent efforts. Managing to capture the spirit of Herbert's novel without alienating general audiences is a big feat, but back in the 70s Herbert himself thought he'd have a go.
The screenplay has recently been brought to light thanks to a new article by Inverse, and there are some big changes from what movie-only fans might have expected. Herbet injected all the weirdness that's in his novel in the script, and a lot of it revolves around Alia.
The unborn child of Jessica is actually a two-year-old in the novel, but she's still gifted and cursed with the knowledge of an adult, which would have honestly made for the hardest casting call of all time and a strange character in any movie.
With a more book-accurate adaptation, we would have also seen much more of Thurfir Hawat, who is abandoned after Villeneuve's first movie despite him having a pretty big role in the rest of the book's plot.
Would you have watched Frank Herbert's Dune movie?