Though there are plenty of memorable moments from the 1984 Dune (that cat being milked, the nightmarish Navigator aliens), it’s really hard to make the case that it’s a clearer vision or a more successful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. Nearly a minute later, the two are embracing and passionately smooching. Some time is meant to have passed, but it sure doesn't seem that way.If you were hoping to read a defense of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune in comparison to the version that was just released, sorry to disappoint you. Lynch's movie keeps going – but moves at an incredibly rushed pace, hurrying to wrap things up. One minute, Paul, as played by Lynch regular Kyle MacLachlan, is meeting Fremen member Chani (Sean Young). Here, Villeneuve's movie ends – setting the stage for a sequel that has yet to be announced. The two diverge at a point where Paul, the main character, heads off into the desert of Arrakis with the Fremen. Sure, both Lynch and Villeneuve were working from the same exact source material. But the first half of Villeneuve's movie is almost beat for beat the same as Lynch's. The first thing I was struck by was how similar Lynch's movie is to Villeneuve, at least in terms of how the story unfolds. "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."īut is Lynch's "Dune" really all that bad? I'd seen bits and pieces of Lynch's film over the years but never sat down and watched the whole thing until recently, not long after I had seen Denis Villeneuve's big new take on the material. And, obviously, 'Star Wars' was totally George's thing."
I like elements of it, but it needs to be combined with other genres. I went to meet George Lucas who had offered me the third 'Star Wars' to direct, but I've never even really liked science fiction. And then a weird thing started happening. "I was in this space where I was trying to catch ideas to make it work. "I was working on 'Blue Velvet' at the time, which kind of got derailed," Lynch told interviewer Chris Rodley. As it turned out, the offer arrived at a time when Lynch was juggling several different things. Producer Raffaella De Laurentiis decided on Lynch after seeing the filmmaker's "The Elephant Man." There seems to be no real correlation between "Dune" and "The Elephant Man" other than they can both be considered "weird," and that was apparently enough to make Lynch an offer. Other filmmakers floated for "Dune" before Lynch included Ridley Scott, who would go on to make "Alien" instead, with many of the people who were working on Jodorowsky's failed film, and David Lean, someone who knew a thing or two about shooting in deserts, having helmed "Lawrence of Arabia." But it was ultimately Lynch who won the gig – an unconventional choice since the filmmaker hadn't even read the book when he was first offered the job. Lynch came to the project after cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky spent years trying to adapt the book into what would've been a strange, massive movie clocking in at 10 hours. When extended cuts with extra scenes started making the rounds, Lynch went so far as to take his name of the movie entirely, his credit replaced by that famous Hollywood pseudonym Alan Smithee. The adaptation bombed at the box office, and in the years since its release, Lynch has all but disowned it. Universal Pictures, executive producer Dino De Laurentiis and his production company Dino De Laurentiis Corporation were all hoping that Lynch's take on Herbert's epic would be the next "Star Wars." It wasn't.
Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" exists in the shadow of not just Frank Herbert's massive sci-fi tome, but also David Lynch's infamous adaptation that arrived in 1984.