Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 24: Dune

Dune, a novel by Frank Herbert. Said by some to be the greatest Science Fiction Novel ever. A deep serious work dealing with many themes involving religion, politics, humanity’s future and ecology.

David Lynch – serious if quirky director of Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man, a man unique vision and a sense of visual style.

Dino De Laurentiis – the man – also known as Dino De Horrendous for the many awful films he had a hand in such as King Kong Lives.

Dune: A complete mess of a film.

While it has had something of a comeback in reputation since it’s release in 1984 the film is still as best dull and takes bizarre liberties with the source material that undercut the story itself. And well deserves to be remembered as a wretched disaster.

Yes truing a 500 page science fiction work into a movie was going to be difficult, and you were going to have to make choices, however it seems that all the choices that were made were wrong.

There is the turning the film’s main heavy Baron Harkonen into a  laughing grotesque with pus filled boils on his face who kills young men for sexual pleasure – rubbing the blood all over himself in an early scene. One presumes to this is to  make visual the corruption and evil within but really I think we could have gotten the point without that. This simply seems to be Lynch indulging his taste for the grotesque.  Just to note in the book the Baron has a taste for young boys but the one he does kill was booby trapped by one of his nephews. The house Harkonen is not a nice place to be.

The Costuming of  the Atreides like they were some players in an Italian opera set in the 19^th and early 20^th century.  

The still suits. One they were black – in the desert the last color you want to be is wearing is black – as witnessed by several extras fainting and requiring hospitalization during shooting. Also  without any sort of covering for the head you’re going to lose a lot of water that way. And the nose plugs made everybody look like they were wearing a fake mustache. I’m sure the actors loved them. Again yes you need to see faces but they managed to make Lawrence of Arabia without making everybody take off their hats.

The special effects. Simply put they are not very special. The Spice miners and related equipment is especially poor – the worms are eh upon second viewing – prior to CGI they were going to be hard to do anyway but the vehicles are of Godzilla Vs. Megalon level. Which is not Toho at their finest. The personal shields are okay but as they don’t play an important part in the story as the movie tells it, it really doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure who’s idea it was to use Toto to do the sound track but well that didn’t work well either. To be fair it was their first (and only ) attempt to do a film sound track but the question is why them? Instead of the of timeless feel that one gets from John Williams or the 2001 soundtrack,  you get ‘oh yes, 80’s rock” in your head. With a film set in something like 10023 and a third it’s a problem.

The story is complex and yet probably didn’t require the first 20 minutes consisting of folks saying ‘as you know the Duke Atreides blah blah blah…” I remember when I went to see the film I re-read the book first which in retrospect may have been a mistake since all during the film I kept going wait what?  That the film has 20 minutes of as you know etc exposition, can be laid directly at Lynch’s feet as he did the screenplay.

The heart plugs. Jesus David just give it a rest.

Making the guild navigators look like  pink sperm whales who are carried around in tanks the size of large rail way cars who then say “I was not here and I did not say these this” to the emperor in an early scenes where the while damn court knew they were there and the rail road car left a sizeable puddle of liquid on the floor of the throne room. I mean the hell?

The folding space traveling – another special effect that doesn’t work. I’m still not clear on what was supposed to be happening. In the books the spice gives the navigators the ability to navigate folded space – which is another way of saying hyperspace  not actually folding space. 

Sting in an jock strap with an eagle on it. Huh? Actually to be honest Sting’s the only person in the entire film who seems to have understood how big his part needed to be played.  That his “I will kill you” is the only line most folks remember from the film speaks volumes.

The book has a lot of interior dialogue which the film recreates by having the actor stand or sit while he or she whispers their lines on  audio track. It’s annoying and the do it all throughout the film. No I don’t know what would work better but maybe not have everybody whisper .  there is also acting which can make you see what the character is thinking by their physical actions

Not to be nasty but David Lynch at that time had no idea how a battle scene should be filmed. None. It’s all running to and fro with explosions. And the emperors’ generals all seated about a central cylinder with what looked like video game controls is a ludicrous as it sounds.

Making it rain at the end.  Hey this is going to kill the sand worms was my thought at the end of the film and when did Paul get control over the weather? The hell?

Finally the stupid sound guns – one of the central ideas in the book is that the fremen even before Paul shows up are tough warriors, Dune has made them more than equal to the best soldiers in the Galaxy, what they are lacking is some training and organization and  uniting under a leader before they are a power to be reckoned with in the universe. This along with the weirdling way - a martial arts form of some sort is what - Paul brings to the table. The sound guns in the film undercut that whole idea. Frankly with the sound guns Paul could have conquered the universe with the Ewoks. He doesn’t need the Fremen. I’m not sure whose idea it was to insert this hackney super weapon idea into the film but it pissed me off when I was watching it in 1984 and again when I watched today. And the other thing that occurred to me today was having to say sah-chink or whatever it is they say before the gun fires means a guy with a blaster weapon would be able to fire a hell of a lot faster than they could.

It’s just a mess of a film, I’m not sure what David Lynch was trying to do with the film (he has shown a rather admirable reluctance to talk about it and I’m sure that dealing with the De Laurnetiis family are not joyful memories for him.)

Enjoy with gummy worms.