Details
Movie Description
David Lynch's baroque rendering of Frank Herbert's detailed, complex, and deliberately paced epic science-fiction novel is a muddled but visually stunning affair. It's 10991, and the desert planet Dune has been taken over by the Harkonnens, oppressive conquerors who desire the precious spice that lies beneath Dune's arid sands. The story concerns the attempts of a young warrior messiah, Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan), to lead the native inhabitants in an uprising against the evil empire--and battle the giant man-eating worms that guard the coveted spice.
Lynch shot much more footage than ended up in the finished film, but executive producer Dino De Laurentiis didn't want a three-hour-plus sci-fi epic on his hands, so he coerced Lynch into trimming it. The result is one of cinema's most infamous cases of personal vision colliding with studio politics. Nonetheless, Lynch still manages to cram in so many visual ideas and captures the tone of the book so well that these production issues can be easily set aside once the story starts rolling. Refusing to further edit the film for television, Lynch took his name off the director and screenwriter credits. As troubling as DUNE might have been for Lynch, the experience greatly inspired 1986's brilliant BLUE VELVET, for which audiences should be thankful.
Synopsis
DUNE seemed to generally baffle audiences and critics when it was released. And rightfully so, as the finished version of the film condenses much of the detail in the novel so necessary to understanding the action in the movie. The result is one of the most brilliant failures in motion picture history. Lynch crams in so many visual ideas and gets the feel of the book so well that viewers don't want to admit to themselves that after the halfway point, the film seems to zip through the action so quickly that it's impossible to get all of what is going on. Still, it looks so amazing that it has certainly earned its somewhat fanatical cult following.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1 encoding
theatrical trailer
cast biographies
production notes
Keep Case
Theatrical release: December 14, 1984.
Filmed on location in California and Mexico.
The credited name attributed to director David Lynch on the televison versions is "Judas Booth."
Lynch turned down an offer from George Lucas to direct RETURN OF THE JEDI in order to collaborate with Dino De Laurentiis on DUNE.
Directors Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ridley Scott also tried to adapt Herbert's novel to the screen.
Industry Reviews
"...Imaginative....Visually unique and teeming with incident....There's just about always something going on for the senses to appreciate....[The] cast is also first-rate..."
Variety - Cart. (12/05/1984)
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