Dune – David Lynch original theatric release version 1984
By mrs. kirk - Saturday, October 14th, 2006
What can you say about a film that Director David Lynch says is the only real failure of his career. (I would nominate Wild at Heart for that honor!) Lynch claims that revisiting the film through the DVD edition would be too painful an experience to endure.
I revisited it this past weekend and it was indeed a painful experience. I remember reading the books in high school and thinking they were ok, nothing earth-shattering, just typical sci-fi, some prophesy being fulfilled thing by a young man who is great at everything and has no clue why. Ho-hum.
Some of it was bizarre and I could not get my head around it. Like the sand-worms. What’s up with that? And the women all being subordinate but having the power of telepathy. Oh, that makes sense. And the Fremen and their liquid blue eyes? Then there is the folding of space and the creatures eating the spice to actually fold space. People eat it too and its like an enlightenment drug if you are not using it to fold space and it makes you live forever or something. But the people are addicted to it and have Hershey’s syrup stains all around their mouths. Nice.
Then there are these beings called the Navigators that live in giant fish-tanks and they smoke when you cook ‘em, I mean, smoke comes out of their mouths which look very much like enormous um…anuses with tiny tentacles. Trying – so – hard – Â to – Â get – Â the – Â image – Â out – of – Â my – mind.Â
The Baron Harkonnen has a thing for the flower-boy who wears little more than a hospital gown and hospital paper booties and apparentally how the Baron gets off is by undoing the uh…”heart-valve” in the guys chest which causes him to bleed to death very quickly. Though the blood looks somewhat like motor oil. Which almost makes sense as the Harkonnens are kind of like not nearly as clean or groovy looking Borg. They are into merging biology with metal parts and sewing up mouths, ears and eyes etc. Oh, bad dream, bad dream!
And the eyebrows that look like living squirrels? Hunh? And yet Kyle MacLachlan looks pretty good in or out of his stillsuit (which the Fremen use to survive on Dune since there is no water). Why are there all these ridiculous looking people then the occasional super-babe like a young Virginia Madsen playing the Emperor’s daughter?
What all of this clearly establishes is that David Lynch is utterly insane. I don’t mean that in a bad way since his being insane has worked very well for his career. Yet being insane didn’t work well for Dune. It just made the whole thing look like – someone utterly insane had written and directed it.
Some fans (yes, there are four on the planet currently) praised the acting (Captain Jean-Luc Picard aka Patrick Stewart has a small part – turns out he was always kind of old and bald, but really a much better actor than most of the people in this film), others ooed and ahhed about the sets and costumes, which were ludicrous in an over the top, punk-baroque way. Still others claim that the muddled screenplay and absurd dialouge is actually brilliant and only makes sense to those of us who might actually be the Kwatch Hatrack. Yeah, whatever. It made as much sense to me as Paris Hilton’s music career.
I only went to see it in the theatre in 1984Â because Sting was in it and boy howdy he was HOT back then!
When I sat down to watch it yesterday I was determined to really pay attention, now that I am smarter than I was at 15 and see what I could get out of it.
Bad idea.
I may be smarter but this movie is like a nightmare after eating too much Mexican food and a McDonalds strawberry thickshake. It’s like it should have come with a primer explaining – well, everything! Like the book had! (Note to self: Beware of books with 100 page glossaries and notes.)
Honestly though, what I liked about the books (I read a bunch of them but not the entire series) was too confusing in the film. It wasn’t at all how I had imagined it. (Except for the almost naked Sting part.)Â
Why do other planets and outer space have to be so fetishistic (The Harkonnens) and dreary and depressing looking (the planet the Atreides are from)? Why do sci-fi and fantasy authors have to mix up normal English names like Paul and Jessica and Duncan Idaho, with names like Feyd Rautha and Kwisatz Haderach. I mean what the hell? That just makes my head swim.
Why is everything militaristic and space-faring, yet the Atreides live in a medieval castle? Um, hello? No one has heard of plastic? No one has a computer? What about those old microphone looking things the Harkonnens use as translators – ok, nice and stylized but ya know, these people can FOLD SPACE. And they can’t make a decent pocket-sized translator?
The computer graphics are so laughable it is actually jarring to see them. Someone should cut them out. Or re-do them, like Lucas did. No, don’t bother, it will still not be a watchable film.
On IMDB, I just read about 30 of the worst reviews ever on this film. No wonder Lynch doesn’t want to recall it. One of my personal favorites is this from Mr. Cranky: “Let’s face it: People who drink their own urine bond fast.”
That sums it up, believe me. It is a huge, warm, chug-a-lug of desert pee!
October 14th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Yes, it was/is horrible. I’d read the books and *I* was confused, let alone trying to explain it to my brother who saw it with me but hadn’t read them.
On the other hand it makes the TV mini-series with William Hurt in it (and which I hired on DVD a while back) look much better than it perhaps was.
October 20th, 2006 at 1:06 am
I also saw this in the theater in ’84. DUNE is my fave sci-fi novel. I’ve read it at least a dozen times since 1976. I found the subsequent books not as satisfying, and gave up partway through God Emperor of Dune. I just stopped caring. But I still love book one and to a lesser extent, can read book 2 and 3 with some pleasure.
The Sci-Fi channel miniseries, I thought, was pretty terrific. I liked the visuals, the colors, the outfits better. I didn’t like the casting on Jessica, and I hated that they pronounced CHANI as if it were CHAINey. I always think of her name as CHAH-NEE. Other than that, I liked it fine.
DUNE by Lynch? Well, it doesn’t age well. I found it tolerable at the beginning, and I watched it mostly for 1. Kyle (who was toothsome back then) and 2. Max Von Sydow and mainly 3. the love I bear for the story itself. The scenes with the Baron (who even in the book is a repulsive creature) were unbearable. I had to cover my eyes at the pustule popping scenes.
But no..it’s unwatchable to me now. I tried watching a bit on tv this past week. I had to switch it pretty fast. Egads.
And yeah..Wild at Heart may actually be even less watchable than DUNE. I dunno. I may have to ponder that…but no. Can I just skip this one. It hurts my head to try and imagine either crap movie.
Mir
October 20th, 2006 at 1:09 am
Hey, the miniseries was cool, even if William Hurt was not IMO the best choice for Duke Leto. Take that back.
William Hurt…is it just me, or is he becoming a pain to watch. I can’t believe they cast him as ROCHESTER in Jane Eyre. Oh, gross. That’s not my Edward!
I wish they’d put Gerard Butler in some really good sci-fi movie I could watch over and over and over…er…sorry, sidetracked.
Mir
October 20th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Mrs. Kirk. You have rocking taste in men, baby! Let’s sit here and hyperventilate together.
Do visit my Gerry Crush site: http://butleriancrushgirl.blogspot.com
Enjoy the beauty that is Gerry.
(Have you bought your chin-strapped drool cup for March 2007′s 300?)
Mir
November 3rd, 2006 at 9:01 am
I read Frank Herbert’s comments on the movie recently in his short story collection ‘Eye’. Apparently they originaly filmed 5 hours worth; no wonder it made even less sense after they cut it right down!
December 15th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Thanks to Mrs. Kirk for echoing what I felt after watching “Dune,” which I got out of the library today because at the age of 74 I want to catch up on some of the “cult” stuff I have missed in the past 40 years or so.
After watching the DVD, I just HAD to surf the ‘Net to find out what the hell I had just seen. I am still confused. What were those weird space-objects shooting flames out their blowholes and seeming to explode planets, or at least wrap them in flames? Were they Navigators?
Why did that dude have acne all over his face, and why was he floating around like some fat Russki cosmonaut?
Who the hell built all those massive palaces and giant spaceships? I didn’t see single workingman with a union card anywhere on any of the planets.
Why didn’t those warriors fall off or get blasted off their worm-steeds? (Worms? The mind boggles.)
Maybe I should stick with my “Blondie” movies or watch Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet” again. Nah! I am on a quest to Catch Up. Tomorrow I will try to find a copy of “Matrix.”
Sincerely,
George G.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:56 am
um you are so wrong. this movie was a grate flick for its time. i love it and own 2 copies one on VHS and once on DVD if you want to write about a bad sci fi movie how about the 2nd DUNE children of DUNE or some shit like that it was like 4 hours of crap haha. any way i think DUNE was and is grate one of my favorite movies.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
maybe you just have to think a little.
the book explains, multiple times, that they don’t have computers because before, they did have computers but it took over and the computers killed them (ala matrix). that’s what the mentats were, human computers. people decided they couldn’t rely on technology.
i like the books and the movie because they are complex and unsettling. the future isn’t always going to be a shiny happy FuTurE RoBot world. i mean, the 50s thought we’d be flying around in space cars and no one would have to work. life isn’t always perfect.
i think david lynch and herbert are trying to comment on and expose the bad parts of the eternal human problem.
i thought the movie, while wierd and silly in parts, was AWESOME! the mood was great! And I totally agree with Keith that the scf-fi series SUCKED!
It was shallow and completely missed so many points and subleties. i have no idea why people who have read the books like that…thing! i’ve come to realize that people just don’t pick up on the subtlies and the sci-fi series makes it palatable and dumb.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I know that probably no one will read this comment, given the age of this blog post, but I gotta give me two cents:
Dune is my favorite movie. It is definitely worth seeing. Twice.
Why? Okay, I know that it’s not really a great movie, at least not in the sense that, say, The Seven Samurai, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, The Seventh Seal, Citizen Kane, and Touch of Evil are great movies. Not even in the sense that The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and Eraserhead are great movies. And Lynch himself finds the movie regrettable. But it’s a beautiful movie (the sets and costumes are extraordinary, except towards the very end), a movie with satisfyingly bizarre Lynch acting (the Baron Harkonnen is something to behold), and, well, I think that it captures the spirit or “essence” of the book better than I could ever have hoped – the sense of ritual and a feeling for the complex, interwoven history of many different races. It feels, as it should, like some sort of freaky futuristic Bible story.
I also love the way in which it deals with the backstory – things just happen and you’re left to piece together what it all means. Bewildering though it is when you first see it, it makes a lot more sense with repeated viewings. Or you can read the book first (it takes a couple of days) so you’re not completely lost, and then just enjoy the imagery and watch all that you’ve been imagining come to life. Oh, and the music rules (Toto and Eno!). And it stars Max Von Sydow, Sting, Patrick Stewart, and then, just to top it off, some familiar Lynch faces: Kyle McLaughlin, Everett McGill, and Dean Stockwell.
So just do yourself a favor and see this movie, and then don’t forget to see it again shortly thereafter for full appreciation. And unless you have absolutely no imagination, taste, patience, or intelligence, don’t bother with the Sci-Fi miniseries, which has terrible acting (lots of Polish actors with noticeable accents and a terrible William Hurt), hideously tacky sets and costumes, TERRIBLE music, and, well, none of the mystery and magic of the original Lynch effort.