I remember reading Frank Herbert’s Dune, and quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed. I knew it was a beloved book with a devoted fanbase, but it didn’t work for me. Likewise, I knew the 1984 film version was something of a flop critically and commercially when it came out in 1984, that it was director David Lynch’s first and only attempt at a big budget studio film, and it has itself developed something of a cult following in the years since. Normally, I might avoid it. Lynch himself is supposedly not too happy with the final product, and even if I have started watching some of his work, he is something of an acquired taste. If anything, my sole reason to watch the older movie is to prep myself for the new one coming out this week, and my desire to see that is more because of my affection for the work of director Denis Villeneuve than anything else. If anyone can get me to invest in this universe, it’s Villeneuve.
I’ll probably say more about my impressions of the book when I review the new movie. In the meantime, I opted to check out the older one just to at least refresh my memory of the general plot.
After some rather lengthy exposition setting up how the Emperor of the Universe (Jose Ferrer) is setting up Duke Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillian) to take out the more benevolent Duke Leto of House Atreides (Jurgen Prochnow), we cut to the main plot, namely the fight over whoever controls the spice. House Atreides has just been given the assignment to mine spice off the planet known as Dune, and spice is needed to give some people psychic powers and to fold space for near instantaneous transportation across the universe. However, there is also prophesy or a premonition or something that the real danger is Leto’s son Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) for reasons none can say, aside from maybe the psychic sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit, particularly since Paul’s mother Jessica (Francesca Annis) was one of their number before marrying Duke Leto, but she disobeyed orders by having a son instead of a daughter because she loved her husband so very much. The bottom line is Paul may be a universal-level superbeing, the result of a very long breeding program, but that’s a lot of exposition in the first fifteen or so minutes.
The rest of the movie is, thanks to that premise, about how Duke Leto was betrayed by one of his trusted associates, and while Leto died, Paul and Jessica managed to escape to the deserts of Dune, found by the Fremen tribesmen, and then it’s only a matter of Paul’s needing to hone his powers, train the Fremen as his personal army, and get himself some revenge on the ones responsible for the death of his father. Oh and maybe to take over as the new emperor.
I went into this not expecting much. Yes, I knew Lynch himself wasn’t happy with this movie–and he turned down the chance to direct Return of the Jedi to make this one–and I am not fan of the book. Why would I enjoy a movie like this? But then an odd thing happened: I did end up mostly liking this movie. Part of that was due to understanding just how difficult it was for Lynch, as scriptwriter, to adapt Herbert’s novel in the first place. Much of what happens in Herbert’s book is internal thoughts by different characters. It then follows that much of the dialogue in this movie is done in the form of voice-over. Likewise, even if Lynch was almost certainly contained by studio interference, there is still a Lynchian look to the thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the navigator things were related to the weird baby from Eraserhead, True, the acting was a bit flat, but that seems to be true of many of the Lynch movie I have seen, and many of the odder aspects of the movie, such as how Virginia Madsen’s Princess Irulan opens the movie as narrator but then turns out to be a very minor character in the narrative, are actually taken from Herbert’s novel.
But as much as I largely enjoyed this one, it was still something of a mess. Sting’s character is presented as a great evil, but he’s a secondary character at best. The sound-based weapons Paul takes to the Fremen are kinda silly in execution. The special effects are certainly better than, say, Flash Gordon‘s but are nowhere near as good as what was going on in Star Wars. Plus, it’s easy to see why a movie like this would get made in the first place. Much like many studios today want their own version of the MCU, studios back then probably wanted a Star Wars franchise. Still, this is a movie from a director with a particular style and with a cast of familiar character actors. Will it be better than the new one out at the end of the week? I doubt it, but this was hardly terrible. I got a kick out of it, and sometimes, that is all I am out for.
Grade: B
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