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| You can't blame the posters for David Lynch's Dune for not promising a grand space adventure |
QUICK REVIEW:
It is notoriously difficult to account for the plot of David Lynch's (Blue Velvet (1986)) huge science fiction debacle Dune, but here's a taste of it:
Dune takes place thousands of years out in the future and revolves around the interplanetary struggle for control over the spice 'melange' and huge sand-worms monsters, - SPOILER that turn out to be said spice!
Dune is a very strange film, just as one might expect a major SF adaptation (of Frank Herber's (Soul Catcher (1972)) 1965 novel), shot by Lynch in Mexico to be.
The film's very solemn form and the space travels in the film seem very inspired by the spectacularly successful Star Wars movies (1977; '80; '83), but Dune doesn't technically reach those films by a long-shot, and the warmth and humor from George Lucas' space universe is also nowhere to be found.
Dune brings a huge, curious star cast together: Brad Dourif (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)), José Ferrer (Lawrence of Arabia (1962)), Kyle McLachlan (Twin Peaks (1990-91)), Virginia Madsen (Sideways (2004)), Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boot (1981)), Patrick Stewart (X-Men 2 (2003)), Sting (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)), Max Von Sydow (The Exorcist (1973)), Sean Young (Blade Runner (1982)) and many more.
It is at times dreamy and fascinating, and at other times boring and elongated. - Although the 137 minute theatrical cut that I have seen is, obviously, quite a bit shorter than the 3-hour cut that Lynch had hoped to release. He did not have final cut, - producers Dino de Laurentiis (Conan the Destroyer (1984)) and daughter Raffaella de Laurentiis (Conan the Barbarian (1982)) did, and they were aiming for a 2-hour film, which they had agreed upon with distributor Universal Pictures and achieved, almost, with huge difficulties.
Dune had a long development story, spanning more than a decade: Chilean auteur director Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain (1973)) was one of the directors who was highly involved with it, before the job finally went to Lynch. Jodorowsky's work on his unmade version of the film is chronicled in the recent, praised documentary Jodorowsky's Dune (2013).
Related reviews:
David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001) or, A Woman Searching For Her Identity (guest review)
Blue Velvet (1986) or, The Strange World
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| Sting ... this is what he looks like ... in David Lynch's Dune |
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| Kyle McLachlan in David Lynch's Dune |
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost: 40 mil. $
Box office: 30.9 mil. $ (US only)
= Uncertainty
[But certainly a flop. How dismal the flop size was is not possible to ascertain without a world gross figure. I do see that 2.3 mil. people paid admission to it in France, which isn't bad, plus 675k Spaniards, and it made 2.3 AU$ in Australia. It was most likely a huge flop. It did get Oscar-nominated for Best Sound. In the US, it premiered #2 behind Beverly Hills Cop (1984).]
What do you think of Dune?
Anyone seen the 2000 mini-series with the same name?
And/or read the novels?
If so, how is/are it/they?
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