Dune (the movie - David Lynch 1984)

Johnny Storm

Dune was on TV on Sat afternoon.
I had seen it in the cinema when it first came out and rewatched a few bits of it on TV previously. I was disappointed with it (Dune being one of my favourite ever SF books) but didn't think it was all that bad.

My reaction on watching it this Saturday was that is is incredibly, unbelieveably awful. It has virtually no redeeming features at all. It is 1000 times worse than I remembered. I checked on Wiki to see if this was some kind of recut version but its not.
How the **** did it ever get released in the first place?

Dades

I liked the movie (Sting was deadly) but I saw it before reading the book.

I haven't seen the movie since loving the book though, so maybe I'd be disgusted now.

ixoy

I liked the movie when I saw it years ago but, like dades, haven't really watched it properly since developing a love for the book. I'll be torn between by love for David Lynch and Frank Herbert on this one.

Dan_Solo

I think the book is great and the film is great. Hurrah!:)

Trojan

Aww cmon, it's brilliant. I love it

Morag

It is dated, cheesey and flawed on many levels but glorious all the same.

The scifi channel's mini series had much better production values and was truer to the books but it never felt as Epic as that movie did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2Nfvc8WMw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVx6bXoCnC0

Skerries

one of my favourite films of all time, i think it is pure genius

Paddy Samurai

Still have a copy in my collection(the so called collectors edition,with an extra 40mins mainly narrated drawings LOL ),but overall the film has'nt dated well.
Lynch had an impossible task IMO. He needed to make a 4hr+ film to have a chance of making a half decent attempt at such an epic story.Sting was great as Feyd Rautha and I loved kenneth mcmillan as Baron Harkonnen.
I would love to see another attempt made at it.Maybe a HBO type 10 hr series ,or a Lord of the Rings type Trilogy.

Morag

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/

Dune (TV mini-series 2000)
A three part mini-series based on Frank Herbert's classic Science Fiction novel entailing politics, betrayal, lust, greed and the coming of a Messiah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fJxR4x5l4s

Funglegunk

I really like the movie, and I saw it after reading the first three books. The soundtrack, when not dipping into cheesy electric guitar, is absolutely beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLiwTUCoeEI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4SwFhfNh1w

I think Dune is a bit too esoteric to ever be made into a successful movie, and the inner narration of the characters didn't work 100% on screen (and there are pages and pages of it in the books).

However, I think Lynch made a pretty good stab at it, some pros:

The above mentioned music, some memorable scenes ("Put your hand in the box." "What's in the box?" "Pain."), it had great casting (the one who played Reverend Mother Mohiam was fantastic, and Jurgen Prochnow made a good Duke, and of course Sting), great sets for the most part (the sietchs felt like painted styrofoam though), and the general Lynch weirdness mostly suited Dune (I LOVE the beginning narration scenes, both the princess and the subsequent 'Secret Report from with the Guild').

I'm a big believer in the importance of great sound design in science fiction movies (the pinnacle of which, IMHO, is achieved by the movie in my sig! ), and the Dune movie has this in spades. Listen to the voice of the guild navigator in the emperor's palace for example, ("We've just folded space from Ix..."), epic stuff.

Slydice

ye think the film is bad, try reading what his son and anderson did to the last few novels:(

Funglegunk

I read the Butlerian Jihad. Reads like it was written by a child.

5uspect

First of all I'm a huge Lynch fan so the following is probably biased.

After the success of The Elephant Man (his only other feature to date being Eraserhead) Lynch was in demand. George Lucas wanted him to direct the third Star Wars film, then called Revenge of the Jedi. Of course Lynch is not your typical director and he turned Lucas down. He did decide to make Dune for some reason, even though he had zero knowledge of it. He discusses it in Lynch on Lynch and he probably needed the cash when another project, Ronnie Rocket, fell through iirc.

To his credit he didn't have final cut of the film, something which he has never relinquished since. Had he been able to have made the film he wanted we would have had a very different and much longer film. That said it still probably wouldn't have been anything like the novel and would have been as divisive as any of his work. I've heard Herbert quite liked it.

The film itself has moments of greatness and many others of pure rubbish. I'm not so bothered about the cheesy bits, anyone who has seen Blue Velvet knows what Lynch can do with a healthy layer of cheese.

I think Kyle MacLachlan was miscast but I guess that helped give us Twin Peaks. Also IMDB tell me we have another Dune movie scheduled for 2014...

I've watched the SciFi channels mini series and wasn't blown away by it. It was okay but still didn't feel right. Any opinions on Children of Dune?

Funglegunk

I thought the mini-series was absolutely awful. Paul was woefully miscast (again), in fact almost every character was woefully miscast. The Emperor, Alia, the Baron, Stilgar....ugh. I actually couldn't sit through it, the acting left me reeling.

Johnny Storm

I thought the re-casting in the second mini-series was better, Alice SexyBorgQueen as Lady Jessica and 'Ansome Stevie Berkoff as Stilgar.
+1 on the Paul actor being out of his depth.
The CGI in the second one was way better too.

shrapnel222

i'm a huge fan of both DL and Dune and i absolutely loved this movie. i must have watched it 10 times when i was growing up. I haven't watched it in 15 years and i'm sure it hasn't aged too well, but it was already slightly cheesy back then anyhow. Going to have to dig it up for a rewatch. Al in all, it's an impossibly complex book to put on the screen, and i think he did a very good job of making a movie out of it, even though huge parts had to be left out. Both the book and the film have to be seen as separate entities.

Trojan

My favourite bit is the narrated montage where they manage to cram 400 pages of the book into 30 seconds

Cionn

On discovering this thread I watched the mini series to compare it to the original film. I think the casting of Paul was terrible (as mentioned by a previous poster) and I had to force myself to watch the whole thing.

1984 version all the way for me.

Also I was reminded that I must pick up some spice at the weekend.

C

Branoic

Loved the film for the feel and atmosphere, which it captured brilliantly.

1st mini series was pretty crap. 2nd one was excellent - a million times better apart from some crappy animal cgi.

johnnyskeleton

Sharrow wrote: »

It is dated, cheesey and flawed on many levels but glorious all the same.

The scifi channel's mini series had much better production values and was truer to the books but it never felt as Epic as that movie did.

+1

In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is an extreme example of how difficult it is to turn a good book into a good movie. Massive bits are cut out and it is incredibly zany. But, when you see the Sci Fi version where they include much more and try to tone down the zani-ness, they actually lose a lot more of the feel of the thing.

The scene where

Baron Harkonen pulls out the heart plug from a subordinate and watches him die in a grotesque manner

stands out in my mind and is true to the spirit, if not the actual content, of the book.

Surion

Having watched all that I'm so hot for it...I've never read/seen books or films, but will include this for an early read. Which is better first? I respond well to both media.

Anyone note vague similarities to Mists of Avalon (or vice-versatile) ? Don't attack me, I just know very vague outline of Dune! But the been geseret (sp) are similar in motivation to the Druids in the former.

Sur

5uspect

I would read the book first, the film may make very little sense without the knowledge you only get in the book.