Dune

James: James here! Denis Villenueve, the man who did a spectacular job in directing “Blade Runner 2049”, is now making a reboot of “Dune”. I'd like to celebrate the 1984 version of the same name, based on the series of books by Frank Herbert. This series follows the exploits of the Atreides family.

Plot(Spoiler Alert)

Melange or Spice as it was called on Arrakis (the fremen name for Dune). The story begins as a struggle for power ensues with all the great houses of the Dune universe vying for control of the small desert planet but with an important export that gave all those who partook of the spice an extremely long life, almost immortal. All this is explained in the beginning by the lovely Virginia Madsen.



James: Frank Herbert wrote “Dune” in the early ‘60s and it was published in ’65. The height of the countercultural revolution of the sixties. Drugs and a societal awareness were being openly experimented with as a reversal of the previous decades homogenized world view. A journalist named Herbert had been with the newspaper for several years, was intimately aware of these factors and interwove the dynamics of the events occurring around him into the story of “Dune”. There are some who say that movies based on popular material should just be left off as books instead turning them into something shitty. There was a lot of excitement for “Dune” becoming a movie because a lot of people were fans of the novel. I don’t think it would be possible to adapt “Dune” into a movie in the ‘60s after it was published because it required things that were impossible at the time. Then special effects movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Star Wars” came out and took the sci-fi genre to a whole other level. Raffaelle De Laurentiis, the producer of “Dune”, her father bought the rights to the novel and he was trying to get it developed into a movie and after he passed away, Raffaelle took over. David Lynch had just made “The Elephant Man” and that helped him become a successful director. What Raffaelle loved about David as they were making “Dune” was his artistic approach. Everything they shot mattered to David and he and the cinematographer thought alike and understood camera work. David wanted “Dune” to be a three hour movie, but the executive producer disagreed and the executive won the battle in the end and “Dune” became a two hour movie.

The main character of “Dune” is Paul Atreides and they wanted to find someone both young and who looked like a prince, but also be an unknown actor. Kyle MacLachlan had graduated from acting school early and he wasn’t that much of a science fiction fan, but he was a fan of the “Dune” novel since he was fifteen. Kyle responded to the Paul character when he first read the novel. A casting agent put in a good word for Kyle and he was called in to audition. Kyle had done stage work, he had never been in a movie before, which felt weird to him. Kyle wouldn’t know what to do during the audition if the casting director hadn’t given him the details of what he needed to do. A few days after Kyle’s audition, he was called in to do a screen test and he got the part of Paul Atreides. Kyle’s over the top performance as Paul set the tone for the rest of the movie. A lot of the actors struggled to keep up with Kyle’s energy. One of them was Patrick Stewart, who played his loyal weapons master, Gurney Halleck. A couple of the other standouts were Sting, fresh off his The Police stint. Again trying to top McLaughlin’s performance, Sting developed a rivalry with Kyle as he tried to out do him. He took the role of Feyd Rautha. The Nephew of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnon the main villain in the book, played by veteran actor Kennett Mcmillan in the movie. Rounding out the trio of baddies was Paul L Smith as the Beast Rabban. The Baron is a power hungry amoral character with two incompetent offspring that do his bidding. Frank Herbert’s writing of these three parts was very prescient. With today's political climate, they remind me of some not so well heeled political characters that reside in our universe. Frank Herbert himself had no problems with how they were making “Dune” into a movie, he was happy that what he created was being brought to life.



Frank Herbert wrote a religious aspect into his book that proclaimed Paul Atreides as a messiah figure. So much so that a few religious institutions took umbridge and boycotted the release of the book as an a front to their religion. To me it seemed that Herbert was trying not to undo the old religions, but to point out that they tend to stifle society as a whole. I will leave that to the philosophers to sort out that quandary but I tend to agree with Frank.

One note George Lucas himself made the claim that “Dune” was a big inspiration for “Star Wars”. Such as the secret religious order of women called the Bene Gesserit. They are reminiscent of the Jedi order that Lucas used as the the centerpiece of his movies. The similar battle between the empire and a small band of rebels are another example. And many of the scenes on Tatooine contain ideas from the books.

“Dune” required more sets than effects because these sets were going to be massive. They found places with these wide and empty spaces which was what they needed in order to build these sets. It took a lot of time to build these sets. The scenes that take place in a desert were shot at Juarez and the weather was very hot, but that didn’t bother the crew because they decided to shoot early in the morning before it got too hot. They had to shoot before it got humid because the actors were wearing rubber suits and the actors already felt uncomfortable wearing those suits through the making of “Dune” that David and the crew couldn’t make things worse for them. A lot of the characters have blue eyes in “Dune” and that was a challenge. They couldn’t use contact lenses because that made it look cheap. They had to rotoscope (trace over) every frame of the film.



In the final analysis, Frank Herbert created a work of art that has further reaching implications than the movie David Lynch helmed. Lynch tried to impart some of the Shakespearean poetry into the movie that Frank Herbert wrote into his books. “Dune” wasn’t a huge success when it was released because some people were expecting it to be a big blockbuster and it was also thought of as strange. Only one critic, David Ansen, gave “Dune” a positive review. Other critics didn’t think “Dune” would make a great film right from the beginning as it was being developed. My friend, Blaine, says critics don’t understand film, they are always thinking negative instead of positive. The people who made “Dune” never read the reviews, although they were hurt that a lot of people didn’t think much of it. But it’s not a complete disaster. There’s people out there, like me, who actually like it. David Lynch didn’t want to make another blockbuster after “Dune” and he hasn’t ever since then. David decided to go back to small budget movies and he created the hit series, “Twin Peaks”. I really enjoyed this movie but it does have its flaws. I believe the movie could have been edited better. There are some parts where it seems that there is not enough of an explanation. I've seen some of the cut scenes that could have made the movie a bit better. Overall this is still one of my favorite science fiction movies of all time.

Hopefully Denis Villenueve's version of “Dune” matches up to the book that inspired it all and at least surpass David Lynch's effort. All in all this 1984 version of “Dune” has its flaws, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt that it was a great interpretation of Frank Herbert's original work.

I give “Dune” 4 out of 5 stars.