The film was not well-received by critics and performed poorly at
the American box office. It was devisive among fans of the book, but
retains a devoted cult following. Upon its release, Lynch distanced
himself from the project, stating that pressure from both producers and
financiers restrained his artistic control and denied him final cut. At least three different versions of Dune have been released worldwide. In some cuts Lynch's name is replaced in the credits with the name of a fictional director Alan Smithee, a pseudonym used by directors who wish not to be associated with a film for which they would normally be credited.
In the far future, the known universe is ruled by Padishah EmperorShaddam Corrino IV; the most precious substance in his sprawling feudal galactic empire is the spice melange, which extends life, expands consciousness, and is vital to space travel. The powerful Spacing Guild and its prescientNavigators use the spice to "fold space" and safely guide interstellar ships to any part of the universe instantaneously.
Sensing a potential threat to spice production, the Guild sends an
emissary to demand an explanation from the Emperor, who confidentially
shares his plans to destroy House Atreides. The popularity of Duke Leto Atreides
has grown, and he is suspected to be amassing a secret army using sonic
weapons called Weirding Modules, making him a threat to the Emperor.
Shaddam's plan is to give the Atreides control of the planet Arrakis, the only source of spice in the universe, and to have them ambushed there by their longtime enemies, the Harkonnens. Informed of this plot, the Navigator commands the Emperor to kill the Duke's son, Paul Atreides, a young man who dreams prophetic visions of his purpose. The cryptic assassination order draws the attention of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, as Paul is tied to their centuries-long breeding program which seeks to produce the superhuman Kwisatz Haderach. Paul is tested by the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. With a deadly gom jabbar
at his throat, Paul is forced to place his hand in a box which subjects
him to excruciating and increasing pain; he passes to Mohiam's
satisfaction, withstanding more pain than any man has before him.
Meanwhile, on the industrial world of Giedi Prime, the sadistic Baron Vladimir Harkonnen tells his nephews Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha
about his plan to eliminate the Atreides by manipulating someone very
close to the Duke into betraying him. The Atreides leave their watery
world of Caladan for Arrakis, a barren desert planet plagued by gigantic sandworms and populated by the Fremen, mysterious people who have long held a prophecy that a messiah would come to lead them to true freedom. Upon arrival on Arrakis, Leto is informed by one of his right-hand men, Duncan Idaho,
that the Fremen have been underestimated, as they exist in vast numbers
on Arrakis and could prove to be powerful allies. Leto gains the trust
of the people of Arrakis, proving to be a charismatic and just leader,
but before the Duke can establish an alliance with them, the Harkonnens
launch their attack.
While the Atreides had anticipated a trap, they are unable to
withstand the devastating Harkonnen sneak attack, supported by the
Emperor's elite troops, the Sardaukar, and aided by a traitor within House Atreides itself, Dr. Wellington Yueh.
Captured, Leto dies in a failed attempt to assassinate the Baron
Harkonnen using a poison gas capsule planted in his tooth by Dr. Yueh.
Leto's concubineJessica
and his son Paul escape into the deep desert, and with Jessica's Bene
Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, they manage to join a
band of native Fremen. Paul emerges as Muad'Dib,
the religious and political leader the Fremen have been waiting for.
Paul teaches the Fremen to use the Weirding Modules and begins
targeting mining production of spice. In the span of two years, spice
production is effectively halted. The Emperor is warned by the Spacing
Guild of the situation on Arrakis, and the Guild fears that Paul will
consume a substance known as the Water of Life.
These fears are revealed to Paul in a prophetic dream; he drinks the
Water of Life and enters a coma that disturbs all Bene Gesserits.
Awaking, Paul is transformed and gains control of the sandworms of
Arrakis. He has also discovered the secret to controlling spice
production; water kept in huge caches by the Fremen can be used to
destroy the spice. Paul tells his army of Fremen "he who can destroy a
thing controls a thing." Paul has also seen into space and the future;
the Emperor is amassing a huge invasion fleet above Arrakis to regain
control of the planet and the spice.
Upon the Emperor's arrival at Arrakis, Paul launches a final attack
against both the Harkonnens and the Emperor at the capital city of Arrakeen.
His Fremen warriors, armed with Weirding Modules and riding sandworms,
defeat the Emperor's legions of Sardaukar, while Paul's sister Alia
kills the Baron Harkonnen. Paul faces the defeated Emperor, and avenges
his family in a duel to the death with Feyd-Rautha. After Paul defeats
Feyd, rain falls on Arrakis. Alia declares, "And how can this be? For
he is the Kwisatz Haderach!"
The film is an adaptation of the first of a series of novels (see Dune,
by Frank Herbert) and incorporating some elements from the later
novels. The pre-production process was slow and problematic, and the
project was handed from director to director.[1]
In 1971, the production company Apjac International (APJ) (headed by Arthur P. Jacobs) optioned the rights to film Dune. As Jacobs was busy with other projects, such as the sequel to Planet of the Apes, Dune was delayed for another year. Jacobs' first choice for director was David Lean, but he turned down the offer. Charles Jarrott
was also considered to direct. Work was also under way on a script
while the hunt for a director continued. Initially, the first treatment
had been handled by Robert Greenhut, the producer who had lobbied Jacob to make the movie in the first place, but subsequently Rospo Pallenberg was approached to write the script, with shooting scheduled to begin in 1974. However, Jacobs died in 1973.
In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the film rights
from APJ. Alejandro Jodorowsky was set to direct. In 1975, Jodorowsky
planned to film the story as a ten-hour feature, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize and Mick Jagger. The music would be composed by Pink Floyd. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger.
Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while
Foss was brought in to design the film's space ships and hardware.
Giger began designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius'
storyboards. Jodorowsky's son Brontis Jodorowsky was to play Paul
Atreides. Dan O'Bannon was to head the special effects department.
Salvador Dali was cast as the Emperor. Dali later demanded to be
paid $100,000 per hour; Jodorowsky agreed, but tailored Dali's part to
be filmed in one hour, drafting plans for other scenes of the emperor
to use a mechanical mannequin as substitute for Dali. Just as the
storyboards, designs, and script were finished, the financial backing
dried up. Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that
$2 million of the $9.5 million budget had already been spent in
pre-production, and that Jodorowsky's script would result in a 14-hour
movie ("It was the size of a phonebook", Herbert later recalled).
Jodorowsky took creative liberties with the source material, but
Herbert said that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship.
The rights for filming were sold once more, this time to Dino de
Laurentiis. Although Jodorowsky was embittered by the experience, he
stated that the Dune project changed his life. Dan O'Bannon entered a psychiatric hospital after the production failed, and worked on 13 scripts; his 13th became Alien.[2]
In 1978, De Laurentiis commissioned Herbert to write a new screenplay,
but Herbert's 175-page script was rejected – an average script is 90 to
140 pages long.
De Laurentiis then hired director Ridley Scott
in 1979, with Rudolph Wurlitzer writing the screenplay and H.R. Giger
retained from the Jodorowsky production. Scott intended to split the
book into two movies. He worked on three drafts of the script, using The Battle of Algiers as a point of reference, before moving on to direct another science fiction film, Blade Runner (1982). As he recalls, the pre-production process was slow, and finishing the project would have been even more time-intensive:
But after seven months I dropped out of Dune, by then Rudy
Wurlitzer had come up with a first-draft script which I felt was a
decent distillation of Frank Herbert's. But I also realised Dune
was going to take a lot more work — at least two and a half years'
worth. And I didn't have the heart to attack that because my older
brother Frank unexpectedly died of cancer while I was prepping the De
Laurentiis picture. Frankly, that freaked me out. So I went to Dino and
told him the Dune script was his. — From Ridley Scott: The Making of his Movies by Paul M. Sammon
In 1981, the nine-year film rights were set to expire. De Laurentiis
re-negotiated the rights from the author, adding to them the rights to
the Dune sequels (written and unwritten). After seeing The Elephant Man, Raffaella De Laurentiis decided that David Lynch should direct the movie. Around that time Lynch received several other directing offers, including Return of the Jedi. He agreed to direct Dune and write the screenplay even though he had not read the book, known the story, or even been interested in science fiction.[3]
David Lynch worked on the script for six months with Eric Bergen and
Christopher De Vore. The team yielded two drafts of the script before
it split over creative differences. Lynch would subsequently work on
five more drafts.
On March 30, 1983, with the 135-page 6th draft of the script, Dune finally began shooting. It was shot entirely in Mexico. With a budget of over 40 million dollars, Dune required 80 sets built on 16 sound stages and a total crew of 1700. Many of the exterior shots were filmed in the Samalayuca Dunes in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Upon completion, the rough cut of Dune without post-production
effects ran over four hours long, but Lynch's intended cut of the film
(as reflected in the 7th and final draft of the script) was three hours
long.
However, Universal Pictures and the film's financiers expected a
standard, two-hour cut of the film. To reduce the run time, producers Dino De Laurentiis, Raffaella De Laurentiis, and director David Lynch excised numerous scenes, filmed new scenes that simplified or concentrated plot elements, and added voice-over
narrations, plus a new introduction by Virginia Madsen. Contrary to
popular rumors, Lynch made no other version of the movie besides the
theatrical cut; no three to six hour version ever reached the
post-production stage. However, several longer versions have been
spliced together.[4]
In the introduction for his 1985 short story collection Eye,
Frank Herbert discussed the film's reception and his participation in
the production, and listed scenes that were shot but left out of the
released version.[5]
Herbert stated he was satisfied with the final release, but expressed
disappointment that some of the scenes he saw on the rough cuts of Dune failed to make the theatrical cut.[6]
Dune premiered in Washington, D.C., on December 3, 1984, at The Kennedy Center
and was released worldwide on December 14. Pre-release publicity was
extensive, not only because it was based on a best-selling novel, but
because it was directed by David Lynch, who had success with Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. Several magazines followed the production and published articles praising the film before its release,[7] all part of the advertising and merchandising of Dune, which also included a documentary for television as well as items placed in toy stores.[8]
In his review, critic Roger Ebert gave Dune
1 star out of 4 and wrote "This movie is a real mess, an
incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the
murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time."[9]
Ebert added that "The movie's plot will no doubt mean more to people
who've read Herbert than to those who are walking in cold,"[9] and later named it "the worst movie of the year."[10] On At The Movies with Gene Siskel
and Ebert, Siskel began his review by saying "it's physically ugly, it
contains at least a dozen gory gross-out scenes, some of its special
effects are cheap — surprisingly cheap because this film cost a
reported $40-45 million — and its story is confusing beyond belief. In
case I haven't made myself clear, I hated watching this film."[11] The film was later listed as the worst film of 1984 in their "Stinkers of 1984" episode.[12] Other negative reviews focused on the same issues as well as on the length of the film.[13]
Janet Maslin of The New York Times also gave Dune a negative review of 1 star out of 5. She said that, "Several of the characters in Dune
are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to
understand what goes on in the movie" and explained that the plot was
"perilously overloaded, as is virtually everything else about it."[14]
Variety gave Dune a less negative review stating "Dune
is a huge, hollow, imaginative and cold sci-fi epic. Visually unique
and teeming with incident, David Lynch's film holds the interest due to
its abundant surface attractions but won't, of its own accord, create
the sort of fanaticism which has made Frank Herbert's 1965 novel one of
the all-time favorites in its genre." They also commented on how
"Lynch's adaptation covers the entire span of the novel, but simply
setting up the various worlds, characters, intrigues and forces at work
requires more than a half-hour of expository screen time." They did
enjoy the cast and said that "Francesca Annis and Jurgen Prochnow make
an outstandingly attractive royal couple, Siân Phillips has some
mesmerizing moments as a powerful witch, Brad Dourif is effectively
loony, and best of all is Kenneth McMillan, whose face is covered with
grotesque growths and who floats around like the Blue Meanie come to life."[15]
Richard Corliss, of Time, magazine gave Dune a negative review, stating that "Most sci-fi movies offer escape, a holiday from homework, but Dune
is as difficult as a final exam. You have to cram for it." He noted
that "MacLachlan, 25, grows impressively in the role; his features,
soft and spoiled at the beginning, take on a he-manly glamour once he
assumes his mission." He ended by saying "The actors seem hypnotized by
the spell Lynch has woven around them — especially the lustrous
Francesca Annis, as Paul's mother, who whispers her lines with the
urgency of erotic revelation. In those moments when Annis is onscreen, Dune
finds the emotional center that has eluded it in its parade of rococo
decor and austere special effects. She reminds us of what movies can
achieve when they have a heart as well as a mind."[16]
While most critics were negative towards Dune, critic and science fiction writer Harlan Ellison was of a different opinion at the time. In his 1989 book of film criticism, Harlan Ellison's Watching,
he says that the $42 million production failed because critics were
denied screenings at the last minute after several re-schedules, a
decision by Universal that, according to Ellison, made the film
community feel nervous and negative towards Dune before its release.[17] Ellison eventually became one of the film's few positive reviewers.
The few more favorable reviews praised Lynch's noir-baroque approach to the film. Others compare it to other Lynch films that are equally hard to access, such as Eraserhead, and assert that in order to watch it, the viewer must first be aware of the Dune universe. In the years since its initial release Dune has gained more positive reviews from on-line critics.[18] and viewers.[19]
As a result of its poor commercial and critical reception, all initial plans for Dune sequels were canceled. It was reported that David Lynch was working on the screenplay for Dune Messiah[20] and was hired to direct a second and a third Dune film. In retrospect, Lynch acknowledged he should never have directed Dune:[21]
I started selling out on Dune. Looking back, it's no one's
fault but my own. I probably shouldn't have done that picture, but I
saw tons and tons of possibilities for things I loved, and this was the
structure to do them in. There was so much room to create a world. But
I got strong indications from Raffaella and Dino De Laurentiis of what
kind of film they expected, and I knew I didn't have final cut.[22]
Although Universal has approached Lynch for a possible director's cut of the film, Lynch has declined every offer and prefers not to discuss Dune in interviews.[23]
The film makes some departures from the novel, most notably in the case of the weirding way.
In the novel, it is a form of training that allows Paul to move with
lightning speed and have near-perfect dexterity; in the film it is
replaced with "Weirding Modules", sonic weapons that resemble small
video cameras and amplify the user's voice into a destructive force, a
controversial choice among Dune fans.[24][25] The film grants the Bene Gesserit telepathy,
while the novel notes their keen, nearly superhuman awareness. The film
also suggests that the spice allows Guild Navigators themselves to fold
space as opposed to assuring the Heighliner reaches its destination
safely. Some of the novel's central themes were simplified for the
adaptation, including the intricate political interplays at work in
Herbert's universe,[26]
the use of religion to control the populace, and ecology. The film's
ending with rain falling on Arrakis contradicts the science of the
novel, which makes it clear that water is poisonous to the sandworms,
and that a wet environment on Arrakis would eradicate them and end the
spice cycle.[27]
There are several distinctive visual and aesthetic
choices made in the film that are not directly inspired by Herbert's
novel. In the film, Bene Gesserit are bald after they become Reverend
Mothers, the Mentats have enormous eyebrows, Stillsuits are brown, and
Baron Harkonnen is afflicted with bubo-like blisters. Gay writer Dennis Altman suggested that this aspect of the film showed how "AIDS references began penetrating popular culture" in the 1980s, asking, "Was it just an accident that in the film Dune the homosexual villain had suppurating sores on his face?"[28]Ornithopters
are depicted as jet- or rocket-propelled aircraft, rather than the
flapping-winged aircraft described in the novel, and the Harkonnens and
their followers (including the Baron himself) are given "heart plugs"
that can be pulled out to kill them.
Released worldwide in 1984, it was edited by 37 seconds in the UK to
pass PG rating, at a total running time of 137 minutes. Though this
137-minute version was not David Lynch's intended cut, it is the only
director-approved version and the only official version he ever made of
the film for release. It is widely available on both VHS and DVD.
In 2006 it was remastered for a special DVD release, and as of late
2006 has been released on HD-DVD with many of the special features seen
on other discs.
The 189-minute "Alan Smithee" version was released in 1989. Prepared
originally for syndicated television by Universal's MCA division (and
later seen on basic cable television networks) for a two-night
broadcast, it was prepared without either participation or
authorization by David Lynch. It includes a new narrator and a new
prologue with a montage of painted pictures. It also reinserts
approximately 40 minutes of cut footage, extending some existing scenes
and adding others that were, until this version, entirely unseen. This
television version also includes some repeated shots throughout the
film.
Lynch objected to this version and petitioned the Directors Guild of America to have his name removed from the credits (which were replaced by the pseudonyms Alan Smithee and JudasBooth).
This version was initially only released on laserdisc in Japan, but was
also found as a poorly recorded VHS on the bootleg market.[29]
It is now available worldwide on DVD as the "Extended Edition", but 13
minutes shorter because it was originally presented on television in
two parts, with the opening and closing credits repeated on the second
night with a Part 1 recap. Only Universal's Region 1 release from 2006
presents the Smithee version of Dune in the film's original widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
In 1992, KTVU, a San Francisco, CA Fox
affiliate, pieced together a hybrid edit of the two previous versions
for broadcast in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is essentially the
television version with all the violence of the theatrical version
reincorporated into the film. It remains unreleased on DVD.
An Extended Edition DVD version (Region 2) was released in Europe in
November 2005. It includes, among its many extra features, an extended
version of the film, credited to Alan Smithee, which is 177 minutes
long. This is a cropped 4:3 transfer but is ultimately from same source
that produced the Universal's widescreen Region 1 Extended Edition
release in 2006.
An Extended Edition was released by Universal Home Entertainment in
the US on DVD on January 31, 2006. The DVD contains both Lynch's
137-minute theatrical cut and a 177-minute edit of the Alan Smithee
television version (the latter being presented for the first time in
its original anamorphic
aspect ratio). It also features a documentary on the production design
and special effects, as well as a supplementary section of outtakes and
scenes not included in any previous version of the film.
After the completion of principal photography an assembly
edit of the best takes was shown to the crew in Mexico, as well as to
Frank Herbert. It ran approximately 4 hours and 20 minutes. Contrary to
popular fan rumors, it was by no means the Director's Cut of the film
and contained no effects shots or sequences. This workprint version is
the basis of such rumors, but there was never a four-hour cut of the
movie in its complete form. In the fan edit
online communities, attempts have been made to re-assemble different
versions of the film closer to David Lynch's intent or to the original
novel by using the deleted scenes and fixing any technical errors from
the Smithee version.[30][unreliable source?]
Dune's original theatrical version was released on the high-definition format HD DVD in 2006, before that format was discontinued. On April 27, 2010, it was released on Blu-ray Disc.
Most of the soundtrack was composed by the popular rock band Toto — their first and only film score — but one track was contributed by Brian Eno.
The soundtrack album was first released in December 1984. An extended
version with an altered track listing was released in 1997. Both
versions are currently out of print.
This article's referencesmay not meet Wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources. Please help by checking whether the references meet the criteria for reliable sources. (February 2011)
