A little something for the weekend?

Recommended Watching

DUNE (2021)

This film is just plain beautiful. Well-scripted, well-cast, well-acted, beautifully filmed, and the effects are done so perfectly you’ll forget they’re CGI. True, the script does deviate from Frank Herbert’s original 1965 novel in ways that are in some cases trivial and in other cases significant, but in nearly all cases the deviations improve on the original material. 

But…

It’s long. Holy mackerel, is it long! The running time on this one approaches three hours, and at that length it still makes it to only slightly past the halfway mark in the original novel. If you’re familiar with the original story—

Okay, I don’t want to hear any complaining about spoilers here. The original novel has been out since 1965 and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Even the damaged David Lynch film adaptation of the novel has been out for nearly 40 years. If you’re still in a position to be surprised by anything in this story, it’s your own fault. Were you also surprised when the titular ship in Titanic sank? 

Back to the movie. It’s difficult to draw direct comparisons to the novel because Frank Herbert didn’t use chapters or chapter numbers, but in the Ace mass-market paperback I have on my desk right now the novel is 500 pages long (with an additional 50 or so pages of appendices and glossaries), and this movie ends with the scene on page 318, in which Paul and Jessica have been taken under Stilgar’s protection and provisionally accepted into the Fremen community.

Which means there’s nearly 200 more pages of novel waiting to be scripted, shot, and filmed, and Dune Part 2 is not scheduled to be released until October of 2023. It’s supposed to be a two-parter, but if the filmmakers keep to the pace they’ve established in this movie it may well turn into a trilogy.

Recommendation: If you have three hours to kill and don’t mind waiting a few years to see how it ends, this one is definitely worth streaming. If not…

Recommended Watching (?)

DUNE (1984)

David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune is… challenging. It’s probably best to think of this one as a marvelous buffet of cinematic junk food, from the same people who brought you Barbarella and the 1980 version of Flash Gordon. Parts of it are brilliant. Parts of it are awful. If you are familiar with the original novel, parts of it will leave you wondering, “Where the f*** did they find that in the book?”

Parts of it had me going back to the novel, to realize that yes, Frank Herbert did in fact write that scene exactly as it was filmed. The excessive use of voice-overs, for example, to reveal what characters were thinking: yes, Herbert was constantly switching points of view and diving into and out of his characters’ interior monologues. 

Father, the sleeper wants to hit snooze!

Still, this one remains in my permanent collection and I bring it out every few years to watch again. For me it’s become a guilty pleasure; a great movie to watch when I just want to make a big bowl of popcorn and take my mind off the hook for a few hours. It’s a trippy artifact of its times, with some really impressive practical effects balanced off against some really terrible traveling matte shots, and every time I re-watch it I feel more strongly it’s a shame the writers for Star Trek: The Next Generation never gave Jean-Luc Piccard the line, “ATOMICS!” Patrick Stewart delivers it so well.

Ultimately, David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune belongs right up there the 1980 version of Flash Gordon. It’s loud, noisy, garish, stupid, over-the-top fun.

And sadly, it really highlights the fact that Toto was not Queen. One can only imagine what this movie would have been like with a really great big bombastic 1980s arena-rock score.

Recommendation: If you have an affinity for cheesy sci-fi, this one is an all-you-can-eat cheese plate. Bon appetit!