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OR EMAILMovie Notes: Dune: Extended Edition
= 3 stars
Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Kenneth McMillan, Francesca Annis
Directed by David Lynch
Amazon Link
I saw Dune upon its debut in the early eighties, after having read the Frank Herbert book. The biggest complaint at that time was the film made little sense if one hadn’t read the novel; a sentiment I totally agree with. Dune is an epic, complex world, featuring several factions from different planets fighting over a mysterious spice on the desert planet Arrakis. Mix in prophetic religion, mysticism, truly warped imagery, and gigantic alien worms, and it’s confusing to the initiated. Watching the film version with no previous familiarity almost certainly leads to a gigantic “WTF?”
The simplest analogy towards understanding Dune is to consider the spice as crude oil. Its primary importance is for interplanetary transportation, explaining why the civilizations fight over it. The Spacing Guild navigators use it to fold space and time, therefore enabling space travel between planets. In addition, spice comes from gigantic sandworms. It has hallucinogenic and religious purposes. Lastly, a tribe of people (the Fremen), surrounded by spice, hide out in the desert, have a messiah prophecy. That “chosen one” turns out to be Paul Atredies (Kyle MacLachlan), an off-worlder who finds his way to the Fremen and eventually takes the name of Paul Mua’Dib.
The antagonists of Dune are the Harkonnen, red-haired, sadistic, and warped by technology. Their grossly obese leader, Baron Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan), flies around in a plastic bondage suit, laughing maniacally. One of his henchmen is Feyd (Sting - yes, that Sting) who has a surreal scene emerging from a hot steam bath in a metal bikini. The twisted style of the Harkkonen’s world includes a blindfolded cow hung upside down and a cat in a box with a mouse taped to its underside.
All of this only scratches the surface - Dune is really complicated, and the original film does little to make it accessible. One hope of the Extended Edition is to alleviate this. The added scenes and narration do fill out a lot of the back story and the basics of the different factions fighting for power.
In the original version, a brief introduction from Princess Irulan (Virginia Madsen) hopelessly tried to preface everything, and failed. The Extended Edition features a longer, more involved introduction, but has some crappy planet paintings and a voice over that looks embarrassingly low budget. The same narrator sporadically returns throughout the film to introduce major characters and shed some light on confusing plot points.
While this added explanation does help, Dune still has serious problems that added scenes can’t fix. The original version just doesn’t capture the scope of the novel. Many characters end up as completely unnecessary, namely Duncan Idaho (Richard Jordan), Gurney Halleck (Patrick Stewart), and Princess Irulan. Much technology isn’t really explained, such as the still-suits and the spice mining vehicles. One moment that’s supposed to be awe inspiring ends up looking rather ridiculous - when Paul Mau’Dib climbs onto a gigantic sandworm to ride it across the desert, backed by Toto electric guitars.
Perhaps Dune is simply unfilmable, but Peter Jackson made film gold out of Lord of the Rings, making me believe that an awesome Dune movie could still be made (but probably won’t). The blame for the box office failure largely fell on director David Lynch, and although several Dune films were considered, the first was the only one completed.
After two decades, I feel the David Lynch film is decent. While horribly flawed, I like film’s look and casting better than the SciFi Channel miniseries. The unfortunate thing is the the Extended Edition doesn’t improve anything beyond the original mediocrity, and therefore, a great film version of Dune does not yet exist.
Additional Reading: David Lynch’s Dune: What Went Wrong?
IMDB: Dune
Wikipedia: Dune
Rotten Tomatoes: Dune 62%
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I love Herbert’s book and I might consider it unfilmable, but there is still hope that someone can make a decent movie based on it.
Visually, Lynch’s version is far superior to the Sci-Fi channel version. The worms are just like they should be and stillsuits are even cooler than a stormtrooper armor.
I read that a Dune movie, prior to Lynch’s, was going to be made. Alejandro Jodorowski directing and none other than H. R. Giger in design (I have a book with some sketches), but for some reason was aborted.
Good mention of the Jodorwski version - I guess he worked with Salvador Dali and HR Giger in an attempt to get it made. Truly bizarre.
I recall watching the film as a teenager in the 80s on the big screen. I had no idea what the film was about for I hadn’t read the book. Unlike the review above, I enjoyed it immensely. Not only that the film was made to look totally different from the contemporary and fashionable Star-Wars white plastic look, it successfully decided on a Baroque and industrial style. The cast is international and superb taking some of the best drama actors on the globe and allowing them a solid royal English script–No R2D2 gibberish, mind you.
The movie is long yet spell-bounding as it gathers pace.
David Lynch’s Dune has inspired me to read Herbert’s whole saga and realize how much Lynch kept loyal to Herbert’s world.
5-Stars.
The TV series (Dune and Children of Dune) is a laugh.
Hey Yoram, this is why I have comments, so people can leave their own thoughts. I certainly agree with you that the look of Dune is unique. Oh, and I didn’t like the TV series much either, as I mentioned above.
Guys, that narrator — is that Rip Torn, or what?! I just watched Dodgeball two nights ago and then Dune last night, and it really sounds like him - or Walter Matthau in earlier days. Seriously, it’s a midwestern no-BS codger voice and Rip Torn kept coming to mind while I watched. I liked the narration, I hated the sketches - it reminded me of the cheesiest parts of a Ralph Bakshi such as Wizards or even LotR where we are watching some son-et-lumiere of somebody’s chalk sketches. I also disliked the re-use of the “Fremen running along the top of a sandworm” footage - you just get the feeling that they figure the audience is too stoned to notice - and that the original film was made partially with the assistance of massive high-grade pharmaceuticals (and we’re not talking melange, here).
Hmmm I don’t know that bit of trivia - that may call for some further research. As a side note, I’m also a bit scarred regarding Rip Torn after suffering through Freddy Got Fingered.
The narrator sounds like Lewis Black to me