Acquiring the television rights to Frank Herbert's original six Dune novels, executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein envisioned the complex material adapted in a miniseries format, as he had done previously with Stephen King's The Stand and The Langoliers.

He told The New York Times in 2003, "I have found there's a wonderful marriage to be had between long, complicated books and the television miniseries.

[6] Director John Harrison has described his adaptation as a "faithful interpretation" in which any changes he made served to suggest what Herbert had explained subtly or not at all.

A fan of the novel, he told The New York Times, "I was a science fiction junkie ... [Harrison] captured Herbert's prophetic reflection of our own age, where nation-states are competing with the new global economy and its corporate elements.

[9] The miniseries invents an extensive subplot for Princess Irulan, a character who plays little part in the plot of the first novel.

Harrison felt the need to expand Irulan's role because she played such an important part in later books, and epigraphs from her later writings opened each chapter of Dune.

[12] This doubled all viewership records for Sci Fi, placing Dune among the top ten of basic cable's original miniseries in the five years previous.

[2][13] Emmet Asher-Perrin of Tor.com deemed the miniseries a better adaptation than the 1984 Lynch film, but wrote that "it doesn't reach spectacular heights due to the desire to be as close to the written text as possible."

She wrote that "the story naturally drags at certain points in the book that work in prose but not on screen", and added that "the narrative gets over-explained in an effort to be sure that no one watching is left behind."