Dune (Special Edition) > Reviews > Old Spice

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Epic Sci - Fi spectacular
Disadvantages:	Poorly received, some naff special effects

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Before David Lynch was honoured with the creative ability to do pretty much whatever he wanted with his movies he embarked on one of the movie industries biggest projects (not forgetting the awful Heaven's Gate of course), the task he set himself was to transform Frank Herbert's epic novel Dune into a movie. This grandiose movie looks as epic as Star Wars, but has something dirtier, menacing and almost sadomasochistic about it.

Set in the year 10991 Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Jose Ferrer) feels threatened; one of his servant races (Atreides) is developing a power that can cripple simply by vocal ability. Choosing not to trust House Atreides he sends them to the planet Arrakis to mine for a rare mineral known as The Spice Melange, once he is convinced that they have relaxed their guard his plan is to send in another servant race led by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan) to destroy House Atreides before it finishes developing its voice weapon.

On Arrakis a terrible battle begins between its legitimate race, the Harkonnen's and the Atreides, to a backdrop of sand and giant killer sandworms. On a desert planet that has not seen water for many years something that nobody expected to see again is about to rise from an unexpected quarter that planet is Arrakis also known as Dune.

The first thing you notice about Dune is the way it looks, there is something very Russian about its design, not just in its uniform but in its impressive structures and settings. The House Atreides are the most traditionally dressed of all the races you encounter during the movie their uniforms all black, with coloured lapels and sashes to register their importance amongst their legion of soldiers; varying levels of the Atreides also have some very distinctive eyebrows. Harkonen's forces are more bondage like, outfits filled with leather with straps and buckles, with an almost Michelin Man feel about them; easily also indentified by slight disfigurations and red hair. The Fremmen (the rightful owners of Arrakis) too bare a kind of leather kink about them but this time it's more of a scuba look, the Fremmen's distinctive quality is their bluer than blue eyes.

The next thing that certainly stands out to me is the mix of the clean and the dirty, while the sets look very clean and clear for all forces the Harkonnen's have something incredibly dirty and horrific about them. The first time you see Baron Harkonnen its a scene that will stay with you; while his doctor (Leonardo Cimino) probes his disgustingly disfigured and poison filled face, The Beat Rabban (Paul Smith) devours a small bug to make a refreshing drink. The Baron then levitates from his chair his black toes nails ever obvious, before leering in on a young flower boy and pulling a cord from his chest that keeps him alive, Baron enjoys and at the same time is repulsed by the blood bath he allows himself to participate in. It's all incredibly disturbing stuff more from the realms of horror than the Sci-Fi fantasy this movie is set in, even the bystanders are nasty to look at the doctors assistants are the obvious victims of some sort of experimentation one has had their ears removed and rather hastily stitched up while the others eyes have been sown up and metal tubes inserted to provide vision, if it sounds horrific believe me its far more pleasant than the reality.

Like Star Wars we have our principle hero and his is Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan) the son of Duke Leto Atreides (Jurgen Prochnow). Rather like Luke Skywalker he poses a power (ability if you will) that is only discovered once in an eternity. His rise to power is anticipated by all that surround him, as if they know but don't want to indicate as much. MacLachlen makes an impressive first big movie performance as the unknowing recipient of this special power, a touch woody at times but that seems a common MacLachlen trait that is obviously one that keeps his enduring popularity.

The story of Dune while set in a different galaxy and far away from the world we know has a certain historic feel about it from an our world perspective; traitors are exposed and whole races are bought crashing to their knees, innocent bystanders in a war played by those at the very top of the table. It's a war that echoes the events to some degree of the Second World War, and I guess all these issues help to make Dune somewhat agreeable to the wider audience. And from all the wreckage something new emerges.

I never read any of the Dune novels, but to some degree one of the weaknesses of the story in my mind is that it mirrors Star Wars in many degrees, when one person dies his death is felt by others rather like the death of Obi Wan in Star Wars. The power that Paul develops is all too similar to the power of the force in the Star Wars movies. And the relativity of certain aspects too leans in the same direction, The Fremmen too to a certain degree come across as being similar to Jedi warriors.

Where Dune separates itself from Star Wars in the ferocity of its acts, the easy disposability of what appear to be clear pawns in the master game. Many of the cast who you suspect will survive to the final moments are illuminated at the first furlong, and hour and twenty minutes in and a good 50% of the principle cast are lost, and by this point you know that with the exception of Paul anyone is dispensable. Dune is also a much more adult tale, while fantasy leads the way its a very sexual piece in respect of the use of phallic suggestion, the worm is clearly derived from a penis and the Guild Navigator that greets the movies beginning has a mouth that is not dissimilar to a vagina though not necessarily one you might want to encounter. The Baron is very clearly an evil and vindictive predatory homosexual, who has one true love Feyd-Rautha (Sting) but even with this level of love there is certain viciousness. Add to this the harsh overtones, no death is pleasant and some are positively horrific. But from all this adultness rises something not unlike a religious experience, having had sex brandished in our face things become more innocent and hope is delivered.

The subject of Spice is a very interesting, this commodity is rather like the pound or the dollar; and the views of it are contrasting between the very races. However on Arrakis where spice is available easily the commodity they seek is water, something equally more valuable. So while the galaxy seems to fight for spice, all the Fremmen want is water a good point of discussion I guess and not unusually similar to the repeated claims that all the Westerners are interested in at present in Iraq is the oil rather than its people.

Made in 1984 the impressiveness of the cast is legendary Francesca Annis, Freddie Jones, Brad Dourif, Linda Hunt, Virginia Madsen, Alicia Witt, Patrick Stewart, Sian Phillips, Max Von Sydow, Dean Stockwell, Sean Young and even David Lynch make an appearance. It's also sad to see how many of the cast whom have passed Lynch favourite Jack Nance, Jose Ferrer, Richard Jordan, Silvana Mangano, and Kenneth MacMillan all died a great considerable time ago now.

Dune is let down on a further level other than the Star Wars similarity, the special effects at times are less than special. Shield battles (where fighters have a shield that surrounds their body to protect them during battle) look incredibly cheap. Also laser gun battles often feature absolutely no laser, almost like those gun fights you might have played as a child. And while some space vessel travel looks fantastic, other scenes look like drawings in their cheapness (I'm assuming in a rush to cut corners when Lynch went horrifically overbudget). The failure of Dune was in its anticipation its arrival was much talked about and prophesised, news of the budget expanses always in the media created viewers to have greater expectations than the delivery. This being said to some degree Dune still looks magnificent in the current climb. One final point of interest is that the final hand to hand combat scene is somewhat underwhelming, but I guess if you look at the bigger picture the final battle may have already been won.

The movies soundtrack is also an oddity having remaining practically non existent for over one hundred minutes it suddenly becomes incredibly prominent, and epic in its scale. As the races move in for the final battle the soundtrack reaches up and grabs you by the throat so that by the time that you have reached the movies final moments it's as if it has been there all along. The music comes from a most unusual source forget John Williams, Ennio Morricone, here pop band Toto give an incredibly epic score, and more interestingly still after such a successful score they never choose to continue down the path of movie soundtracks.

Dune remains a firm favourite with me as one of Lynch's more legible storytellings. It's an enjoyable and seemingly long movie that while not necessarily one you might watch repeatedly in close succession a few years between watching makes this an enjoyable sidetrack in life.

Sound And Vision

This recent special edition release has the best quality print I have yet seen. And looks equally impressive on both traditional and hi definition television sets either with or without hi definition transmission equipment. The flaws usually exposed by hi definition are minimal here, a slight grain is seen when looking at dark scenes but that could be as much the fault of the film stock as the representation. At times there are touches of slight digital break up in scenes that are heavily populated. On the big plus side its one of the first DVD releases to feature full widescreen for the movies entirety, previous releases has a staggered border that adjusted when panning and scanning simply were not possible and created at times annoying magnification issues.

While the soundtrack does feature 5.1 encoding it does not have the great surround feel of more recent movies. The sound is more universally carried as apposed to having individual speakers carrying out individual sound tasks. Although the final credits score really stands out and all speakers appear to be doing what you hoped they might during the movies entirety, the music at this point feeling so real you could almost be hearing the music performed live.

Special Features

Impressions Of Dune - This brand new documentary made especially for this DVD release includes cleaned up images that are not actually available in the film itself. Fafella De Laurentis talks about the movie and how her father Dino De Laurentis got the rights to make it. Critics talk about how they received the news that David Lynch had been assigned the role of directing the movie, and what the expectations of the audiences were. Harlan Ellis the screenwriter for the movie talks about how he felt that the book should never have been made into a film, but how as time went on he felt more and more as if it should have. Kyle MacLaughlan talks about his casting in the movie, while Rafella reflects on the fact that after many rehearsals she felt that he was the only one that had the charisma to pull the role off. Kyle also discusses the harsh transition he made from learning to appear on camera than appearing on stage.
As the different heads of department etc. Pass through its amazing exactly how much British influence the movie had on it, it seems that about 80% of the crew were plucked from the UK, an aspect you could possibly never believe when watching the film.
Also focused on is costing and how Lynch used to focus on sometimes the wrong thing while money was literally dripping through their fingers; Rafella pinpoints a time where she had 2000 extras waiting to shoot a scene while Lynch focused on a shot with Kyle's eyes keeping the extras waiting until he got the shot he required. A clear indication of how the movie went beyond its budget.
The cut of the movie is also addressed especially how Lynch and Dino DeLaurentis fought to move the movies length from 3 hours to just over 2 hours.
Critics discuss points I mentioned earlier in respect of expectation and delivery. Combine this with the lack of humour featured in the film. The two top reviewers that gave the movie the thumbs up tell why they gave it the thumbs up, and what they felt was wrong with it.
Finally the things you never hear or think about, the elaborate parties that took place during filming.
The documentary lasts for about 40 minutes and gives plenty of insight as to not just this movie, but how movies were made at the time

Destination Dune - David Lynch welcomes us to a behind the scenes look at the creation of the movie Dune. This documentary has obviously been stored away for some time as both the image quality is quite poor and the sound often blurs.
The documentary introduces the cast and crew including Freddy Francis, to give you a feel of the enormous scale of the movie. There is a brief mention of the cast interestingly pointing Sting almost as the head cast member despite his limited onscreen time.
There are brief glimpses of stunts and the fight sequences and the special effects sequences, nice to see more actual effects rather than green/blue screen ones. This documentary only last for 6 minutes.

Interview with Frank Herbert - Frank Herbert talks quite politically about similarities of the movie Dune and real world politics. In fairness this interview is at times quite heavy going and a bit too intellectual for the average viewer. It's also very short and gives little to aid this DVD release.

Cast & Crew Profiles - The usual pretty boring text profiles that sit on DVD more or less entirely filled with information plucked from the internet movie database.

Original Theatrical Trailer - It was great to see the trailer, I had never seen it before as it had not featured on a previous DVD release I had purchased. The trailer appears well preserved and includes a brief excerpt not actually seen in the movie version but in the re-edited TV version also available on DVD.

This DVD is currently available in double disc format from play.om priced just £4.99.