| People are fond of saying that Dune (1984) is the kind of movie you’ll either love or hate. That’s a nice way of saying "people are going to hate this movie." I know I do. As a matter of fact, when I saw this during its initial run, Dune earned the distinction of being the very first movie I hated. So congratulations Dune, you runny pile of space diarrhea.
My hatred for Dune has abated a bit over the years, just as I imagine the enthusiasm of many fans has. After all, we’ve had many similar space epics since the release of this film – some better and some worse. I could even see myself enjoying this malarkey given a room full of noisy friends and an opportunity to mock the film’s solemnity and pretension out loud. This is definitely a film to jeer at.
Things take a turn for the ridiculous at the very start, as Princess Irulan – a completely trivial character played by Virginia Madsen – appears as a floating face in a field of stars, and attempts to explain the film’s setting by bombarding us with bizarre names of people and places, without elaboration. Then the film gives up on explanation altogether, and just starts throwing stuff at us. We figure out that Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) is the hero, because he’s handsome, has friends and is the target of arbitrary assassination attempts and endless tests of his strength and character. Similarly, we immediately suss Baron Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan) is the story’s villain, because he’s the single most repulsive individual we’ve ever seen. The whole argument is over control of a magic drug called "Melange" or "The Spice," and we get lots of close-ups of people disfigured from its use. Meanwhile, absolutely everybody in the film puts on their serious face and speaks page after page of tedious observations and musings, mostly in the form of unconnected nouns – "Dune," "Arrakis," and "Desert Planet" (characters say those three so often, you’ll be tempted to chime in with the rest of the Hoyle’s Concise Dictionary definition they’re so clearly building up to). Then they start in with "The Water of Life!" "Long live the fighters!" and "The sleeper has awakened!" (not if they’re referring to me, he hasn’t).
Nevertheless, the film has a very vocal cabal of admirers. For them, the new release of the Dune Extended Edition DVD is welcome and long-awaited news. What this disc contains is the original two-hour, 17 minute theatrical version of the film, along with the two-hour, 57-minute television version on the flipside. The latter was a desperate attempt to extend and "fix" this mess of a movie by throwing in lots of cutting-room-floor footage without any input from writer-director David Lynch. In fact, Lynch was so outraged by this version that he had his name removed from the credits. The director is listed as "Alan Smithee," which was the standard Director’s Guild’s fake name at the time, while the screenplay is credited to the imaginatively bitter pseudonym, "Judas Booth,"
The TV or "extended" version at least tries to fill in various gaps in the plodding epic by identifying and introducing various characters, planets, groups and ideas as we go along, which helps a bit, I suppose. Still, most viewers agree that it’s an even bigger mess than the original. Fans of the original novel have made a hobby out of analyzing the differences between the two film versions and speculating on the "good" (?!) movie that might have been made from the material available. That’s probably the primary point of this DVD release. If you’ve been waiting for the mythical "four-hour version" of this film, you’ll have the disappointment of seeing producer Raffaella de Laurentiis herself explain that it never existed, and then go into convincing detail about how this particular urban legend came about. There’s no director’s commentary either, since Lynch is probably eager to put this turkey behind him. Remember, the only reason he agreed to direct Dune in the first place was as part of a deal to get backing for Blue Velvet (1986).
Fans will be pleased by the collection of deleted scenes, though, since they explain a few plot holes and give a glimpse into the possibility of a more complete adaptation of Frank Herbert’s book. So if you’re a Dune fan who just can’t get enough of dull characters staring into the camera and reciting endless incomprehensible and redundant exposition while observing that "the prophecy is being fulfilled," then – aw hell. Do what you want. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.