'Dune' is kind of film that it is easy to understand people who doesn't like it, or people who adore it. I belong into the group of people who have learned to love it. It might be little wrong to say - you learn to love it. The film kind of grows into you when you are kind enough to give it another look. And 'Dune' definitely deserves another chance. The film is visually striking, some of the special effects look outdated, but that doesn't reduce the visual poetry for one bit. There are many layers and nuances hidden that it is easy to oversee after first or even second time, and when you discover them, then the film starts to makes much more sense. And I here don't want to say that I understand everything what this film is about.Be more kinder towards this (pseudo)philosophical Star Wars and you will be pleasantly surprised. Plus there are enough cool characters played by cool cast.

I had only seen David Lynch's 1984 production of Dune once before when I was much younger, so when I got the chance to see a midnight screening of it at my local theater, I jumped on it. Going into this screening I recalled the movie being somewhat goofy, probably because I had just read all six of the original Dune novels the first time I saw it and OF COURSE it didn't come close to holding up to that lengthy, legendary storyline.Frank Herbert's universe had seemingly endless plots, subplots, characters and themes. Dune has all the sex, violence and political machinations of Game of Thrones while also concentrating on much more weighty issues like technology, ecology, drug use, spirituality, the destiny of mankind, etc. The depth of Dune is too much for any movie to come close to capturing and that's the brick wall that David Lynch runs into. He can't possibly do the source material justice; not on a thematic level anyway. He can only capture the forms and some of the spectacle from the first book.That said, I did enjoy it slightly more this second time, probably because I was focusing on its artistic merit and what David Lynch does well rather than mercilessly comparing it to the scope of the books. The first half of the film is steady, well presented and follows the book fairly well but somewhere around the middle of the movie the pace dramatically speeds up and they start cramming way too much story into too little screen time as events hurtle toward a hasty, contrived conclusion.I wish that Lynch hadn't shoved so many of the characters thoughts into recorded voice overs. Apparently this was done because the studio demanded he cut his original 3 hour version of the film by 40 minutes. I get that anyone who hasn't read Dune would have a hard time comprehending what was going on without all that exposition, but I think the film would've benefited greatly by saying less. Let the mysterious remain mysterious and focus on those inspired visuals! If people want to unravel it all, they can go back and read the novel. What a torture, to have to read one of the most important works of science fiction ever!For all its flaws, the film nails quite a few elements of "Dune." It's very well cast and most of the costumes / sets are spot on. Even the pronunciations of Herbert's fictional terminology are mostly correct and Paul's dream sequences are splendid to behold, evoking the symbolism and artistry you expect to flow from the prose of the book.The film ends on a bit of an eye roll. Muad Dib and the Fremen win a crazy one-sided battle, he kills Feyd in the duel (Sting was surprisingly good in this role for someone who's not, primarily, an actor), Paul proclaims a new dawn of humanity and it suddenly rains for the first time on Dune. Really David? That rain wasn't in the book and you couldn't think of a better way to end it? How about after the proclamation we have a nice long zoom in on Paul transitioning into visions of the future from the subsequent five books? Muad Dib's fall, the trials of his children, the God Emperor and the rise of the Honored Matres! Paul is soaked in spice at this point so he's already getting glimpses of the future. Even just a brief montage eluding to those events with the dramatic score in the background would've made a great ending to your acid trip of a movie! But no, we get a sadly typical put-a-bow-on-it Hollywood ending and fade to credits.Despite its shortcomings, I'm not overly disappointed. Adapting Dune is too great a task for anyone and it was fun to see Lynch try. Although much of the substance is missing, he succeeded in capturing the dramatic weight of Dune and painting a dazzling silver screen portrait of my favorite novel. It will be interesting to see if Denis Villeneuve can do better.

Producer Raffaella De Laurentiis collaborates with Director David Lynch in season 1983/1984 to produce "magnus opus", the to this date in-adaptable concerned live-action screen version of Frank Herbert's Science-Fiction Novel "Dune" published in 1965. The producer gained experience with the Fantasy-Action movie "Conan, the Barbarian" (1982) to get her budget doubled to an at that time astronomical production budget of 40 Million U.S. Dollars, which would be at today's standards the common 100 to 150 Million U.S. Dollar budget with major Hollywood studios, yet without the worldwide distribution arm.Risk management of the highest order for producer Raffealla De Laurentiis with her father Dino De Laurentiis only acting as executive producer for this picture. Contracting director David Lynch due to his second feature success with "The Elephant Man " (1980), which him his first Academy Award Nomination as Best Director as well as additional seven nominations for the Black & White production itself in January 1981. Giving completely free hand in adapting the novel to a screenplay. David Lynch put all his knowledge and skills as an all-round artist into the adaptation, spending approximately four years of his life to bring his directorial vision for "Dune" to the screen.The result, presented on December 3rd 1984 in Washington DC to critics and private guests, had been nearly a disaster. Breaking under its own weight of an for its high-imagination-factor admired novel by Frank Herbert finding mixed reviews and bad word-of-mouth under already "Star Wars" -spoiled audiences. The next nine months of distribution, mainly to countries in Europe and South America, did not bring the blockbuster success as the producers had envisioned for the source material.Director David Lynch disillusioned by high-budgeted motion picture productions, retreating to a more modest budgeted film productions up to 10 Million U.S. Dollars and creating his most accomplished motion picture works from Blue Velvet (1986) over the TV-Series Twin Peaks (1990/1991) to Mulholland Drive (2001). Nevertheless the years passing could not harm "Dune" in the slightest, the film even became better to watch as one of the in an art directorial sense outstanding Science-Fiction movie of the 1980s.Helming the adaptation all by himself, Director David Lynch narrowed the story line down to the rivalry between two intergalactic clans. The one living by the sea in symbiosis with the element of water, called the Artreides, the others, called the Harkonnen, utilizing Industrializations of metal in order to create their home planet. Both parties strive for the planet "Arrakis" (also called Dune), defining the galactic region the essence of the universe. On the desert planet, an earthly mineral, called "Spice", grows in the dried-out undergrounds, which allows the processing owners to fold time itself in order to travel intergalactic distances without moving.The casting ensemble, led by first-time introduced actor Kyle MacLachlan at the age of 24, who is accompanying experienced actors as Max van Sydow, Jürgen Prochnow or Patrick Stewart, which seem overwhelmed by the shear vastness of the source material. Nevertheless Director David Lynch kept his attention mainly on art direction and sound design, trusting his as before collaborating cinematographer Freddie Francis with the camera movements, which had been kept to a minimum.The second half of "Dune" (Theatrical version) starting at approximately running time mark 1h16mins00sec explores the spiritual aspects of the source material. The character of Paul Atreidis becomes stylized to a saviour of cave-hiding race on the planet Arrakis. He must confront gigantic sandworms in order to gain control over the occupied opposition of the Harkonnen. Paul Atreidis receives a new name by the native tribe of Arrakis, called the Fremen. He will be known as Muad'Dib, entrusted to train and lead the natives into battle against the occupying forces on the desert planet.Drained in all-familiar religious symbolism of the Messiah, who shares his advanced knowledge with primitive Fremen. The film gets reduced to a montage of almost randomly threaded visualizations of the novel. It seems the 1984 theatrical version had been rushed to be finished on a deadline. The producer with an editor Antony Gibbs disregard David Lynch's directorial vision from the first hour of "Dune" and punch together as much visual information as possible in less then sixty minutes of the movie's second half. By the end the spectator had been overrun with a sandworm-charging attack on the besieged palace of Arrakis.New characters as Paul Atreidis' sister get introduced too quickly. Other character developments as the one of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, played by actor Kenneth McMillan, were pushed aside for the sake of being faithful to Frank Herbert's novel. A fact which has become Producer Raffaella De Laurentiis' decent of completing the picture in restricted parameters concerning length and story-telling schemes. Hard to recover, how Director David Lynch must have felt, when suddenly carefully built character developments get thrown overboard for the sake of spectacle and widely expected resolution techniques in concluding the screen-story."Dune" may have been the masterpiece of its time period, if the producer had been granting the director and editor further creative freedom to create an esoterically justified picture by taking the chance of stepping away from the source material and pave its own path to a satisfying conclusion in which the spectre finds a higher intellectual value.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (for Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC) edited version

When Dune first came out in theaters during the Christmas holiday season in 1984, it went with a thud due to competition from other holiday fare like Beverly Hills Cop. It also suffered from its running time which David Lynch cut from more than three hours to just around 2 hours and 20 minutes and sped up the pace of the best selling sci-fi novel by the late Frank Herbert to please young audiences who got weary of Star Wars after the last Star Wars movie the year before. Today it's now a cult classic due to its score by Toto, the casting, and the special effects which were ahead of its time for a $45 million movie that became David Lynch's highest grossing movie despite negative reviews from critics. The enduring popularity of this movie, and the franchise, has resulted in a TV miniseries as well as its sequel, and a reboot from Legendary that is being directed by the man behind Arrival.