Dune (Special TV Edition) > Reviews > Add some spice to your collection...ha. ha.

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	Stunning landscapes and buildings, and the worms are great
Disadvantages:	Confusing .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Frank Herbert's long-winded original novel, recreated lovingly in film by David Lynch, and featuring the acting talents of none other than Sting, the man currently topping the classical album charts with a compilation of Elizabethan lute remixes.
How could such a film fail?
In the event, it doesn't. The landscape of the arid planet Dune, on which Paul Atreides fights to restore his family's honour, is rendered in glorious technicolour, and the sandworms in particular make later monsters from such classics as Star Wars almost pale in comparison. Weird characters look weird, noble characters noble and so on. Whilst the CGI (or lack of it) may look slightly dated today, the film is still highly enjoyable.
The plot is complex, and as someone who has read the book I still found it slightly hard to follow. Compressing such a large work of fiction into the space of a couple of hours inevitably has lead to the plot suffering, however, in general, the film flows smoothly and the scenes progress logically.
However, one of the major pleasures of the film was the soundtrack and the various sound effects used. The sound alone makes this film worth a second viewing.

In terms of it being an extended addition, the new prologue added by the editors does go a long way towards making the film comprehensible to people arriving at the series for the first time. The new footage is mainly for those who must have a definitive Dune collection, but in my opinion, it doesn't add that much to the film.

In general, I would recommend this film to anyone feeling nostalgic for old sci-fi epics, and to anyone who thinks that films such as the Chronicles of Riddick are better in comparison to the greats.

Oh, and watch out for the insane flying baron.