01 February 2010

David Lynch's Dune

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About eight or so years ago, I got a book for Christmas. It was Frank Herbert's Dune, one of the most celebrated science fiction literary works ever written, but I hadn't heard of it before. I don't remember how long it took before I started reading it, but it was definitely not soon enough. I've since read it probably five or six times. I also read most of the books that followed in the series, but none of them ever grabbed me as much as the first one. It has become my favorite book alongside Ender's Game.

Soon after I read it, I found out there had been a couple film adaptations. I was advised to steer clear of the one from the '80s, and go for the SciFi channel special, which I did. I was great. It's about six hours long and manages to get almost everything from the book into the screenplay. The acting is quite good and the visuals are okay for 2000. I've seen it a few times since then.

Eventually though, I felt the need to try the other one. It turned out to be made by a director who I have grown to respect from other works such as Twin Peaks, The Elephant Man, and Mulholland Drive. It can't be that bad right? WRONG. David Lynch's 1984 attempt at bringing Dune to life is horrible. I suppose some of the awfulness can be attributed to the time it was made, but this is after Star Wars! Apparently Lynch had never heard of the book before he was offered the job (or however that worked), but read it and loved it. I listened to a bit of an interview where he said he didn't remember all of the book afterwards. It shows.

For some idiotic reason, one of the coolest bits, something called "the weirding way," which is described as some sort of superhuman dexterity, was replaced with "weirding modules" that attached to the user's neck and amplified their voices to deadly levels. Not only does it look and sound stupid, it goes against one of the main themes of the book, that of the extinction of technology in favor of human strengths. This is definitely the worst offense, but there are others, like making the Reverend Mothers lose all the hair on the front half of their heads, and making the Harkonnens install "heart plugs" on all of their subordinates. I guess the heart plugs are kind of a neat idea, but it's not in the book and it's not needed at all.

Most of the film is pretty cool visually, if very dated. There are some great painted backdrops here and there. The great worms are almost sort of believable. The fremen's stillsuits are okay. Just so much of it is terrible enough to make me hate it more.

Lynch has said that he wasn't given enough creative freedom, and that's why it sucks. Personally I think he was just a really bad choice for a director; his movies are surreal and disturbing. Dune is a majestic, complex sci-fi epic that requires much more subtle explanation than Lynch is accustomed to giving. If you want to see it done right, get ahold of the SciFi miniseries. It's wonderful. There is supposedly going to be another movie adaptation done by some Pierre guy who claims to have read the book 10 times, so hopefully that will be less of a trainwreck.

2 comments:

The Horns and the Hawk said...

i had a link, but have since lost, a website that had tons of information (storyboards, scripts, artwork) of a version being planned in the 70s that was gonna be absolutely huge. it was supposed to be super surreal and lavish, with a soundtrack by folks like pink floyd. i wish i could find the website again (it had some really cool stuff), and despite having many important and talented people attached to the project, it could never get the backing of a studio because the property was either too untested, or too little known.

Scott said...

Yeah, I read a little about that. I don't think Pink Floyd would have fit very well. Why did everyone think the movie should be trippy? The book is only surreal for a small part of it.