After the gig on Friday night I went home and watched Dune. It might be one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I loved the book and even semi enjoyed the Dune miniseries on the Sci-Fi channel a few years back, but 1984’s Dune directed by David Lynch is so bad I think it should be eradicated from history. The acting is weak and the directing is worse. Must we get an internal narrative from every character? Weirding modules? What the hell are they? The dumbest part is that they make Paul in his late 20s like they did in the mini-series when he’s supposed to be in his early teens. I wouldn’t recommend anyone seeing it unless you’ve got the hots for Sting. Or Patrick Stewart.
Comments
4 responses to “Dune”
Waaaay Wrong! Think about the timeframe. For 1984 Dune was very much ahead of its time. I do believe the weirding modules are in the second book as well as the beginning sequence where the space guild visits with the worm guy who kneads the fabric of time and space. I think they did a good job at sticking to the story while making it “movie like”. Plus I think Kyle M. was in his early 20s during the filming of this. And remember this guy was nominated as best director several times, and is often referred to as a genuis (see Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Elephant Man etc.) Also, its safe to say that with Twin Peaks, he altered the acceptable wierdness level for what you could put on TV.
Plus there is a TV version and theatre version of this film, as well as a japanese cut of it. But if you saw it on TV, then that’s not the david lynch approved version.
Plus Plus, David lynch turned down Return of the Jedi to do this movie. I don’t think a David Lynch jedi would have been good. So easy back with that time machine!
Check out… http://www.davidlynch.de/
-MH
1. Every Star Wars movie was better than Dune, so I wouldn’t say it was ahead of it’s time.
2. I read the first three books and don’t remember anything about weirding modules.
3. Kyle might have been in his early 20’s, but was still much older than Paul Atreides in the book.
4. David Lynch is awesome. I think Mulholland Drive is amazing. Dune still sucks.
5. I watched it on DVD.
David Lynch’s 1984 film “Dune” was the first complete attempt to capture Frank Herbert’s vision onto film.
The film had a long and torturous history – it was extremely difficult to make: for example in order to give the illusion of a completely barren desert, film crews were sent out to pick the desert near the studio clean of any vegetation or hint of plant or animal life.
The film also ended up at being more than three hours in length. Unwisely the decision was made to cut it down to just over 2. However this cut hurt the film’s exposition, and thus made it nearly incomprehensible to anyone who hadn’t read the book.
However to those who had read the book, it was a lavish vision (with an excellent cast including Patrick Stewart, Kyle MacLachlan, Jurgen Prochnow and Francesca Annis) of the Dune world. It is also a vision that Frank Herbert was actually able to approve while still alive.
Jimmy Daloose
You can’t cut them slack for making a bad movie just because it was hard.