Pi in the Sky

Dune

Posted on September 18th, 2007 at 7:51am by Pi.
Categories: Cinema.

Dune
Science-Fiction. USA, 1984
Director: David Lynch
Writers: Frank Herbert (original novel), David Lynch
Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Francesca Annis, Kenneth McMillan

Dune is based in the inmense novel by Frank Herbert, although it should be considered a free version due to the amount of changes from the original storyline. Nevertheless, Dune is a cult film, with impressive visuals and compelling drama.

In Dune, Paul is the young heir of House Atreides, which is moving to the planet Arrakis to take control of it. Arrakis is the only place where the spice melange exists. This spice extends life and allows for space travel, and the empire relies on it. However, Baron Harkonnen, enemy of the Atreides, betrays them and regains control of the planet, leaving Paul and his mother alone among the mysterious Fremen, the natives of Arrakis, and in the stream of an old prophecy which will give Paul unknown powers.

More or less, the story is the same as in the novel, looking from a great distance. However, the novel passed through a very strong simplification process, and then through a series of changes which made the essence of the movie different from the novel. The amount of essential changes is too big to list here. The storyline is so simplified that it’s easy to follow, although the book is complex and convoluted. One of the most simplified things was the nature of the conspiracy of the Harkonnen and any political and diplomatic subject which were part of the backbone of the novel.

But this doesn’t mean that Dune is a bad, weak movie. IMHO, compared to the book, the movie doesn’t hold up very well, because Dune is one of the best science-fiction books ever written. But, as a stand-alone movie inspired in the vast universe created by Frank Herbert, Dune is quite good.

Plans to convert the book into a movie go back to the 70’s, when Jodorowsky reunited comic drawers, artists and writers for this project (such Giger and Moebius). However, the project wasn’t well received by the big producers of Hollywood, and it stalled. Later, rolling on the success of Star Wars and the advent of popular, spectacular science-fiction movies without the scientific rigor of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the project was reactivated, with Ridley Scott going to direct.

However, Scott lost his brother and retreated from the project. Later, when he wanted to come back, he saw that the production of Dune would take too long, so he went onto directing Blade Runner, who was ready for filming. Dune took more than six years to make, taking three years and a half of David Lynch work. Lynch still defines Dune as the only failure in his film making career, due to the difficulty of working in a superproduction, the lack of artistic freedom, the complexity of sets and shooting, etc. A complete story of the production problems can be read at Wikipedia’s article on Dune (film).

The movie did poorly on the box office, preventing the two planned sequels to begin production. Specially, fans of the book were divided into classifying the movie as a very bad movie, or as a different but great piece of film. But as time passed, Dune has earned the status of cult movie.

And this is possible because, despite the initial impression, Dune is a movie with good quality in many aspects. One of the strongest points is the cast, which is full of great actors, such as Francesca Annis, Jurgen Prochnow, Brad Dourif, Freddie Jones, Richard Jordan, Max Von Sydow, and many others. Actually, from all the main characters, the only unknown actor was Kyle MacLachlan (who later collaborated in many movies with Lynch), the rest were already respected actors. I should make a special mention towards Brad Dourif, who makes an incredibly great Piter De Vries, the psychopathic Mentat. Although everyone makes a great role in the movie actually.

Another strong point is the visuals. From the design of the Fremem stillsuits, to the looks of the giant sandworms, the movie has great visuals. The scenes in the desert are not as huge as Lawrence Of Arabia, but are good enough. All these visuals contribute to give a realistic look of an arid, dusty planet which only has sand, some rocks and huge sandworms. While some of the images and designs haven’t aged well since the 80’s, they still look good enough.

Finally, another mention should go to Toto, the soundtrack creators. It’s a mixture of symphonic rock and electronic music. Brian Eno also appears with his Prophecy Theme, which is one of my favorite themes for any movie soundtrack. The whole soundtrack gives the right tone to the scenes, and helps in the epic moments.

Now the problem comes because I understand that Dune is not a movie for all tastes. Its misticism and sometimes slow pace might not be the best for certain viewers. On the other hand, Dune is one of my favorite science-fiction movies, and I watch it regularly. So while in iMDB the voting is 6.5, and although I usually vote less than iMDB, I give this movie 9 out of 10. Very good, although not perfect. It might not be a masterpiece by the orthodox measurements, nor very popular, but in my humble opinion, it is a must in any science-fiction film collection.

My score: 9/10.

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