I was 7, and have been obsessed since. I only got to see it in the theatre once, and not again until many years later.
Oh man I would’ve loved to see this in theaters. I have no idea why people throw so much shade at this one, it is a weird masterpiece
Flawed? Sure. A lot was cut for time and the visual effects were, uh, good for the time.
But the sets and costumes influenced most of the adaptations that came later. And Lynch didn’t shy away from showing the Navigators. (Like he could resist?)
Almost no one talks about the miniseries from the early 2000s, but I liked it too. I saw it first and it made me curious enough to watch Lynch’s version before reading the books. My main question was with how much of the visual style was hard-coded into the source materials.
That sent me into what I call my “Dune spiral months.” Each subsequent book made me question details from the earlier ones. So I’d re-read them all on infinite repeat. Yeah, it was like the meme guy with the corkboard and the red strings. Lynch (and Herbert) will do that to a person.
Eventually I realized I had a problem and left my entire collection of Dune books in my building’s laundry room. I’m never not going back to that point in my life, but it gave me the skills to explain parts of the new movies to my husband.
“What’s happening? I thought the emperor was on the side of that guy?” “OK - how much of this plot point do you want to know about and will it help to know the names and climate of everyone’s feudal planets? That will be important later. We can also talk about the Butlerian Jihad if you want, but that might be too much because it really hasn’t come up much.”
It’s a slippery slope to becoming a human Dune Database.
Edit: large freudian slip there
“On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you want to be dune-splained about this?”
lynch’s dune was the best. i don’t care what anyone says
I know you don’t care, but I’ll share my thoughts anyway, mostly for others.
I watched it as a kid… in French with no subtitles - and I didn’t speak French at the time. Even with all the confusion I thought it was great. Then I watched the English version and thought it was awesome. Then I read the novel as a teen and thought “hmm, the film kinda sucks in comparison”.
I still have a soft spot for it. The music is amazing, the cinematography is great. The way they handled all the internal monologues was pretty good. The acting was good considering how wooden some of the dialogue is.
But compared to the novels or even the Villeneuve films… I don’t think it stands up very well on an objective level. The ending alone is just so rushed and disappointing.
compared to the novels
of all the many dozens of movie versions of books i’ve seen, there’s been exactly one, imo, where the movie outdid the book (jurassic park). “the book is always better” isn’t just a hollow saying. also, yea we all love villeneuve–his dune is great, but everything about lynch’s dune just resonates with me more.
I read a history of Dune called A Masterpiece in Disarray and, yeah, it feels rushed because the studio ruthlessly edited it to get it under two hours. Around an hour and a half was cut.
Apparently, De Laurentiis wanted the next Star Wars, and as much as I love this version of Dune, pairing Lynch with Dune was kinda always guaranteed to be to opposite.
I fell asleep to this movie so many times as a kid. I liked it, but I’m not sure I ever made it through.
The sleeper must awaken
Anyone ever watch the fan edit? Dune (1984) - [Alternative Edition Redux]
It’s interesting. Lot of low quality/resolution/bitrate parts added in (4k edition anyway) and i feel like the opening was much longer but honestly i haven’t watched the original in a long time. Def worth it just to have.
Huh, I only have the 1080p version. I didn’t notice anything low quality on my side but maybe the version you saw was switching from 2160p to 1080p which I’m sure would be noticeable.
