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For a review of the Extended Edition DVD Click Here
Dune -Universal (1984)
Summary Floating tumors with vagina mouths, fat men with boils on their faces, THE ONE, and the only time you’ll ever see Chicago and Dune mentioned in the same review! My Thoughts Dune, the epic sci-fi movie that’s most noted for its epic failure at the box office. For some reason I’ve liked Dune since I was a little kid. I guess that’s why I’ve turned out as warped as I have. There’s so much to like about the film if you’re a sci-fi nerd. Well, as long as your not one of those hyper critical sci-fi nerd Dune novel loving fans and there’s more than enough of them to go around. I liked the book and all, but nothing beats this film. When my girlfriend asked if we could watch the musical Chicago, Dune immediately sprang to mind as I mentally searched through my DVD library. I was overjoyed that I had a reason to watch this film again and breaking a Dune virgin’s cherry is the perfect reason.
Dune begins with the introduction of the state of the galaxy, read epically of course. If you have never seen the film beware, it’s a practical flood of back story as you learn as much about Dune as there is history of the Roman Empire. As Dune progresses it becomes evident that you can only fit so much from the book into the film. Director David Lynch goes the distance by squishing as much exposition into such a little amount of time causing the average film viewer’s head to explode. Dune is one film that requires multiple viewings for the casual film viewer, but I doubt a casual film viewer would be picking up this DVD anyway. After seeing it about eight times and reading the novel once I think I have it all down pat so I could explain everything to my girlfriend who of course, was drowning in the sea of exposition. I won’t bother trying to sum it up here; creepy fanboys have already done that sort of thing on Wikipedia already. It would mean writing a novel, so I’ll let you decipher the fun stuff for yourself. All you need to know is that the Emperor of the galaxy is planning on screwing over his Duke who is named Leto. Leto is gaining popularity in the royal families and the Emperor feels a little threatened. In the beginning of the film the Emperor meets with a giant tumor (awesome!) that wants Leto's son Paul dead for some reason or other. Back on his home planet, Paul is messing around with a computer program that I’m guessing is called Exposition 5000. Paul Atreides, played by a young Kyle MacLaclan, is a lad with a giant quaff of hair who’s both naïve about life and knows his family is headed into a trap where they’ll all be killed. You see, there is this planet called Dune that has something that everyone needs to get around space. This stuff is called spice. The Atreides' arch enemies, the Harkonnen controlled Dune and now the Emperor is giving that control over to Duke Leto. Now that the Atreides are taking over they expect something bad to happen, because its obviously a set up. You see? It’s happening already. I told you this shit is complex. Anyway, Paul’s learning stuff on his exposition iMac when Captain Picard and couple of other guys come in. It’s at this moment Picard utters the best movie quote ever. After Paul says he’s not in the mood to practice his mad fighting skills with Picard, the man bellows, “Mood? Moods are for cattle and love-play, not for fighting!” Ahhh, great stuff. After that Paul and Picard clash with their glowing boxes that look pretty cool considering computer graphics were practically non-existent at that time for this kind of neat-o effect. After Paul is taught his fighting lesson he’s forced to fight with a new secret weapon against some harpoon wielding dangling penis machine. Before the Atreides can set out for Dune there’s some setting up to make Paul an important character. Oh man… here I go again… you see Paul’s mother Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit, a society of women that have the goal of creating a super being by manipulating bloodlines for centuries. Jessica was ordered to have only daughters, but she disobeyed them because she loved Duke Leto so much that she bore him a son. Jessica’s boss woman comes in to test the young Paul to see if he’s worthy of living or something I guess. She makes young Paul… wait for it… stick his hand in her big scary box. You see, the box feels… really hot… and if he pulls out too quick… his hand that is… I mean, if he pulls his hand out her box she’ll kill him. After watching this film so many times I finally realized that Dune’s author Frank Herbert must have had some really strange issues with women. Paul, being the special boy that he is, passes the test and she shows him that her box isn’t really that dangerous at all. Sounds like Paul’s a man now!
They finally take off for Dune and make sure to take their cute little dog along with for the trip. Okay, I realized I have to stop relating the story scene by scene, because this review is going to be about a million words long. Instead, I’m going to praise Patrick Stewart’s performance like when Captain Picard and Paul meet again. Picard says, “Paul! I thought you were dead!” I dunno, but that one always brings a tear to my eyes. Hell, any Picard moment in this film is awesome, especially when he goes into battle with the family pug dog strapped to his chest. Don’t ask. Not to be outdone, Sting plays the gloriously creepy nephew of the Baron Harkonnen named Feyd. Sting has one of the most bizarre roles in film history and it feels like it was skimped on. He plays the evil Feyd with a fair amount of overacting that it's disappointing that he has such little screen time. Just the sheer creepiness of his character makes up for it though. One time I stepped out of the shower pretending to be Feyd. It was glorious. Feyd's uncle, the Baron Harkonnen, is one of the most evil and disgusting villains of all time. Much like Michael Moore, he’s a fat puss leaking monster except less evil. Fans of Quantum Leap will be happy to see Dean Stockwell, also known as Al, filling in the role of Dr. Yueh. Fans will also be disappointed to find out that Al is (almost) a complete jackass in this film. It’s no small feat that throughout Dune you’ll hear some of the most memorable film quotes of all of sci-fidom. Lines like, “The sleeper has awakened!” “Remember… the tooth… the tooth!!!” and many more populate it. Go to any party, say one of these lines and you’ll find yourself a nerd to talk to about many nerdly things for sure. By the time Dune has progressed to the point Paul where adopts the new moniker of Muad’Dib and he has gone to the place where women can’t go (again what’s Herbert’s deal with women?) he becomes rather cold and distant, yet a highly important Messiah figure for the galaxy. The journey to that point is fun sci-fi, if steeped in insane amounts of back story. It’s all the same joy ride I’ve experienced time and time again with one notable exception. Since I was watching the film with my girlfriend who had never seen it before, I was sort of seeing it with “new eyes”. After about ten minutes I realized that there is a lot of annoying voice over narration. A lot of the inner monologue is great stuff and provides many of the fun quotes and catchphrases for this film, but a lot of it is completely pointless. In fact, there is so much inner monologue that it becomes aggravating after a time. Oh well, no one ever said this film was Casablanca. The score is notable for mostly being composed by 80s pop band Toto. Instead of being completely ridiculous like one would expect, it is actually pretty good. You can’t deny the epic greatness of a power chord during the middle of a rousing choir. Damn, the final battle sequence music is stuck in my head as I right this.
Dune is one of those films like Blade Runner that is known to exist in at least two cuts, yet only this cut of the film appears on DVD in the U.S. The television version that contains some extended scenes of a worm being killed for the water of life (again: please don’t ask) is missed for mostly posterity’s sake. I’m sure you can pick it up on bootleg and I actually saw a Chinese version that contained all the cut scenes in the universe, but edited out the famous heart plug scene and the spittle on Jessica’s face, much to my disappointment. I do love a good spit in someone’s face moment. As for this DVD edition, it’s a case of this is the best presentation you’re going to get outside of a new version that was supposed to come out a long time ago. The video quality is sub par and the surround sound is amazingly disappointing. Interestingly enough, the best moment in sound is on the French language track when the Guild navigator first talks with the Emperor. The creepy alien voice sounds doubly scary and is worth a listen. Extras For a nearly first generation DVD release I didn’t expect much in the way of extras and that’s exactly what I got. Can someone tell me why Europe gets a cool special edition and Germany gets a limited edition four disc set when we region one folks are still stuck with this half baked release? We’re living in the U.S. for God sakes, not communist Russia! The goodies located in the “bonus materials” section and consist of production notes, a badly disguised filmographies section (shivers in disgust), and the theatrical trailer. The production notes are ho-hum and the trailer is pretty decent despite its limitations. Score Film: 9.0 Extras: 5.0 Edition: 5.0 -Paul *Note: This was written before the re-announcement that a better DVD edition is on its way. Still, I’ll believe it when its in my hot little hands.
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