Directed by:
David LynchScreenplay:
David LynchCinematography:
Freddie FrancisComposer:
TOTOCast:
Kyle MacLachlan, Francesca Annis, Jürgen Prochnow, Brad Dourif, Sting, José Ferrer, Linda Hunt, Freddie Jones, Richard Jordan, Virginia Madsen, Silvana Mangano (more)VOD (4)
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It's 10191, and the desert planet Dune has been taken over by the Harkonnens, oppressive conquerors who desire the precious spice that lies beneath Dune's arid sands. The story concerns the attempts of a young warrior messiah, Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan), to lead the native inhabitants in an uprising against the evil empire--and battle the giant man-eating worms that guard the coveted spice. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (7)
David Lynch is one of my favourite directors and I love science fiction, but this is awful. I haven’t read the book and in the first hour I was unable to grasp who is who, who does what and what is going on… and then I didn’t even bother. One of the very few films where I needed fast-forward to get to the end. A star for the amazing sandworms. Lost Highway, Eraserhead and other Lynch’s films are hard to understand and it’s their strength, but in this case the story should have been more clearly told. Fail AF.
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It wasn't so bad until the attack on the base... after that it was. Although I liked the seriousness with which David Lynch and Co. tried to shoot Dune, the often unintentionally ridiculous result of their efforts unfortunately does not quite match. However, I want to add a little gleefully that it is a faithful adaptation of the book after all - the book bored me quite similarly. I prefer not to talk about the confused story and annoying all-explanatory inner voices, nor will I criticize Sting, for example, and I will try to forget about his role.
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If you're familiar with Lynch's more recent films, you might be surprised that he even attempted something like Dune. Firstly, it's highly intriguing material that hasn't been successfully translated to the screen yet. And it probably never will be. It's too expansive, too complicated, too demanding, and the outcome uncertain. In the case of Lynch, this is true. There are beautiful scenes that are clearly his work, but as a whole, the film doesn't work and can't work. I don't know how it would have turned out if his version had been released, but today it's clear how dated the film has become. If you're not familiar with the source material, it's quite easy to get lost in the story and equally easy to misunderstand it. Lynch tried, but eventually, he had to realize that this wasn't something he wanted to do, and if he did, how he wanted to do it. It's not a huge disaster, but Lynch's style doesn't quite fit with it. Moreover, despite the enormous budget, it often feels surprisingly intimate and cheap. This doesn't quite fit into the realm of sci-fi.
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Dino de Laurentis would probably be rolling in his grave if he saw what his daughter put all those millions into. Lynch's version is hard to digest, it's a non-conceptual drivel that doesn't capture the spirit of the brilliant source material at all, it gets bogged down in irrelevant nonsense and takes shortcuts on important things. But there are some great moments. The scene when the Muad´Dib swallows the living water is excellent, here Lynch showed his visual imagination to the fullest. Brian Eno also deserves an accolade for the impressive central musical motif Prophecy Theme. Otherwise, ignore it, because this is not worthy of Frank Herbert's legacy. The little known TV miniseries from 2000 is several orders of magnitude better.
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This vast universe turns in David Lynch's hands into a depressing and simplified pseudo-saga. After just a few minutes, fateful decisions about the future of many people are thrown at me, allowing previously completely unknown main characters to utter heroic wisdom and emphasizing the atmosphere with exaggerated bizarre elements. In other words, Lynch precisely "lynches" his viewer according in their most obvious assumptions, but this is noticeably less functional in the sci-fi genre than in mystery thrillers or dramas. And the detached and questionable sublimity is saved by the perfectly fitting ideal hero played by Kyle MacLachlan and, above all, by Dune itself. The visually hypnotic Arrakis, with its huge monsters, can completely absorb everyone and, at least for a moment, make them feel that what is happening on the screen actually makes sense.
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