I really did want to love that movie. I just couldn’t. It was just so listless. The only time things came to life was when the Baron & Co. were on screen hamming it up. The weirding modules were just so dumb…most of the combat was boring…no, it wasn’t a good movie.
I liked the film, but it took me three attempts to get through the book.
I remember watching that bizarre nonsense late late at night, semi-stunned at the equal parts grotesque and foolishness. I kind of had an idea of what was going on but didn’t really care. It was such a spectacle! and the names and the comic operetta soldier costumes, hilarious! The narration coming in floods, about who was who and what was what and what was happening! (It had some terrible reviews, and my husband who was a huge ‘Dune’ fan, spluttered “it’s obvious they never READ the BOOK”. Duh, they had lives and a job to do, no time to sit and read that ponderous doorstop.) I have to say I kind of liked DL’s ‘Dune’, but not eager to watch it again.
Too much of the book was describing inner conflicts, political intrigues, and religious thoughts that went back centuries to ever make it in to a 2 1/2 hour or so movie.
Overall, tho, I found it enjoyable to watch. I simply looked at it as a different version of Dune. I had read all of the Dune books in print up to the time of the film’s release. My GF at the time found the movie plodding, jumbled, both confusing and dull. (she liked M.E. and S.T. but not much other sci-fi/fant)
Later, SyFy (or whatever they were named at the time) channel made a pretty good miniseries out of parts of the Dune Saga. Again, not truly faithful to the book, but enjoyable to see.
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Watch all the worm riding scenes with music from Twin Peaks playing instead of the film’s audio.
That’s why it took me three tries. It was like reading the Bible or Shakespeare at a time when I was reading Harlan Ellison and H.P. Lovecraft. It was easier to get through later, and I enjoyed the book then.
The movie was an honorable failure. It didn’t quite quite manage to translate the book to screen, but the difficulties of turning it into a single movie were just too much. But it’s well done, even if it doesn’t quite work.
I hated the book. I liked the movie. For me, the movie managed to preserve the parts of the book that were good and/or interesting, without dwelling too much on the stuff I found insulting/demeaning.
This. The rain beginning when Paul wins misses the entire point of Arrakis. Not to mention that it would impoverish his Imperium, since rain on Arrakis=no spice.
People have already mentioned that cult favorite does not intrisically mean “good.” Many cult film favorites are not good, which in some cases is explicitly part of why they are cult favorites.
This is exactly how I would put it myself.
I’ve never read the books, but based off of the David Lynch film, the SyFy miniseries, and the documentary on Jodorowsky’s Dune I kind of feel like anything less than a ten episode HBO Game of Thrones style season for each book would be an incomprehensible unfilmable mess.
Maybe JJ Abrams should do a remake? 4 hours of lens flair!
TV edit version was directed by Alan Smithee.
Really? That’s funny.
I suspect that Tremors is a cult film, too. It’s also one of those films that are so bad, they are good.
Yes , Lynch did not like the TV edit so it’s listed as Smithee. They no longer allow that fake name but I guess it is still OK for old movies.
It is a visually interesting and somewhat “trippy” movie that illustrates some scenes from the novel. It is not good.
What are you talking about? Tremors is awesome.
I saw it when it first came out, and I remember liking it. But then, unlike all my friends, I had never read Dune, so saw it with an open mind and no expectations (Dune was absolutely required reading here in Oregon amongst the hip, nerds, stoners, and sci-fiers – I refused to read it on grounds of perversity and not liking interminable sci-fi epics). I remember leaving the theater thinking “that was a pretty good story” then hearing everyone leaving the theater with me saying things like “total.piece.of.shit” “worst adaptation I’ve ever seen” “that sucked in every way” “crap movie of the year.” I tried to get my friends to imagine they had never read Dune, and re-evaluate the movie on its own merits, but they already thought I was a lame-ass for refusing to read Dune, so it was a losing battle.
For the combat scenes, I wonder whether it just came out 15 years too early? Looking back at the descriptions of knife fighting and other some such in the book, (like where Paul kills a Harkonnen or Imperial Sardaukar soldier with the point of his big toe during a kick), wouldn’t the wireline and other fight choreography work of films like The Matrix be tailormade for conveying just how badass guys like the Fremen and Imperial princes like Paul and Feyd-Rautha were?
The movie’s still horrible, of course. Lush, but horrible.
Maybe Peter Jackson should make a new Dune.