Film review: Dune (1984)

Hello readers! This week I watched the original adaptation of Dune from 1984, directed by David Lynch. The film is divisive, to say the least. Reviews at the time were overwhelmingly negative, and it was a commercial catastrophe, recouping only $30 million of its eye-watering $42 million budget. David Lynch refused to discuss the film in interviews for many years afterwards, and he even removed his name from the credits of later releases. However, the film soon became a cult classic – and having seen it for myself, I can see why. It’s far from perfect (vanishingly far), but it isn’t entirely irredeemable.

Warning: the rest of this post will contain spoilers for the novel Dune and all its adaptations.

A brief synopsis

Dune (1984) is an adaptation of the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert, which contains several hundred pages of intricate plot and expansive lore. Condensing this into two hours of entertainment was always going to be difficult, but the first two thirds of the film follow the novel relatively closely, similar to the recent Denis Villeneuve version. It’s the final third where everything goes wrong, when the narrative breaks away from Frank Herbert’s work with all the grace of a runaway train.

The film begins with an information dump. A princess materialises in the vacuum of space to give us a PowerPoint presentation (complete with fading slide transitions and sound effects) that introduces us to the four worlds on which the story takes place. She tells us about “spice” – a substance that allows the Spacing Guild to fold space for interstellar travel. This is basic lore, and if you can’t keep up now, just wait until the film gets going.

Cut to the Emperor’s palace, where a steamy black shipping container slides into the throne room with an entourage of men dressed in bin bags. We meet a peculiar floating creature with a flappy mouth and pale eyes – the leader of the Spacing Guild. He requests another information dump from the Emperor, who happily obliges. He is sending the Atreides family to Arrakis, the spice planet, in order to give another family, the Harkonnens, the opportunity to destroy them. You still following? Great.

We then meet the Atreides family. There’s Duke Leto, his concubine Jessica, their son Paul, and their pet pug. Paul then spends ten minutes in a training montage with Patrick Stewart, using some of the worst CGI you will ever see (imagine trying to animate 3D cubes on a 2D image using MS Paint). The Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood drops in to put Paul’s hand in the black magic box of pain, and then the family move to their new home on Arrakis, where they soon have a run-in with their noise-sensitive neighbours, the giant sandworms. We meet the Fremen people, who are waiting for a messiah to lead them to paradise, and we meet the Harkonnens, who seem to take great delight in covering themselves and their surroundings in gunge. Sting is here for some reason. And Baron Harkonnen floats around on the ceiling like he stole the fizzing lifting drink. Are we up to speed? Splendid.

The Atreides family have barely unpacked when the Harkonnens attack, killing Duke Leto and forcing Lady Jessica and Paul to flee into the dessert. At this point, we are two thirds of the way through the film, and this is when the plot derails. Paul convinces the Fremen that he is their messiah, and he makes them endure another training montage to prepare for an attack on the Harkonnens. He hooks up with a Fremen woman named Chani (who gets less screen time than the pug), and then over the next two years/five minutes, he leads a successful insurgency to disrupt spice mining. During this time, Lady Jessica decides to drink some spicy blue juice and gives birth to a creepy child with psychic powers. Paul also decides to drink the spicy blue juice, and it gives him the ability to control the sandworms. Are we all on the same page? Fantastic.

During the climax/death throes of this film, Paul and his little sister take on the Harkonnens and the Emperor. There is an extended battle with lots of explosions and not enough worms, and although the special effects are miserably underwhelming, they are apparently sufficient to win the war. Paul ends up in a knife fight with Sting, kills him, and then makes it rain – at which point it becomes clear why Toto were enlisted to write the film score. Having blessed the rains down in Arrakis, Paul is declared emperor, and the film is declared dead at two hours seventeen minutes.

Production

There is a lot to enjoy about the production of this film. The sets and the costumes are, generally speaking, a joy to look at. Lady Jessica’s outfits and hairstyles are fantastic, and it was genuinely upsetting when the spicy blue juice made her go bald. At the other end of the costume spectrum is Baron Harkonnen, who is eternally covered in slime and stuck in Minecraft creative mode, just hovering around. I suppose it’s charming in its own way…

One of the standout achievements of this film are the sandworms, which are portrayed in a very effective manner considering that they are little more than sock puppets in a sandpit. These creatures have many segments, shiny metallic skin, and mouths with multiple parts that belch sand in a very pleasing manner. We all know that they’re rubber tubes in a sandpit, but I find that this adds charm rather than detracting from our immersion. It’s amazing what they achieved with practical effects.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the special effects. They really are special – and not in a good way. The aforementioned MS Paint cubes are meant to be defensive shields, but they turn the characters into malformed, Roblox-esque blobs that are entirely detached from any of the lighting in the scene behind them. Similarly bad effects are used during interstellar travel, where flat, 2D drawings of ships fade into existence, or track across the screen as if they are being dragged around in an image editor. A tragic example involves a tiny 2D image of the Spacing Guild leader swimming its way across the screen like a cartoon shrimp. It’s bad. Inexcusably bad.

Some context/excuses

People had been trying to make a film of Dune for years before David Lynch was assigned to the project. Many considered the novel to be impossible to adapt – and this film almost proved them right. Dune is a big book, with lots going on. It doesn’t lend itself to a single film, and so David Lynch wanted to make two; in fact, many of the actors were contracted to make multiple films. However, the studio put an end to this grand plan. Forced to cram the entire book into one film, David Lynch’s initial cut was over three hours long. When the studio demanded a shorter version, dozens of scenes ended up being cut, and much of the story was lost.

This dramatic cutting-down goes some way to explaining the unpredictable pacing of this film. The nature of the project changed multiple times during its lifetime, and based on the few interviews in which David Lynch discusses this film, it was never a passion project. He hadn’t even read the book when he agreed to direct it, and he considered himself to be “selling out” to progress his career. There might have been something special here, but the big studio crushed it. It’s no wonder that fans have made their own cuts of the film, looking past the trainwreck to see the potential that was squandered by corporate forces.

Internal monologuing and audience stupidity

By far one of the strangest aspects of this film is the internal monologuing. The initial cut was deemed to be too long, but the studio worried that the slimmed-down version would be too complicated for audiences to follow. As such, a number of whispered voice-overs were added, allowing the characters to express their intentions directly to the audience. These interventions are interesting for their quirkiness, but they quickly demonstrate why internal monologuing is a tool of the past. Soliloquies don’t work in modern films. Back in the day, Lady Macbeth needed to shout her intentions to the back row because they could barely see the stage – but the big screen allows directors to focus on expressions and body language in minute detail. We don’t need a character to announce that they are disappointed, because we should see that they are disappointed.

The internal monologuing is an insult to the intelligence of the audience. We can accept an introductory information dump. We can accept exposition if it is dressed up in an appealing manner. What this film fails to realise is that we can also put together our own conclusions from context, rather than being spoon-fed. It’s infuriating.

It seems to me that Dune was held back by a fear of being complicated. The studio was worried that audiences would be deterred by new words and deep histories, rather than being drawn to them. On the opening weekend, viewers were handed a glossary of terms to help them understand the film, and so everyone (including critics) entered cinemas anticipating an incomprehensible plot. It’s no surprise that reviews were so harsh, including this zinger from the New York Times: “Several of the characters in Dune are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to understand what goes on in the movie.” I wonder if the critics went overboard on this one, because the plot isn’t that complicated. Badly done, certainly. But we get the gist.

Harkonnen representation

The portrayal of the Harkonnens as the “bad guys” was particularly interesting to me, especially in comparison to Denis Villeneuve’s version. In the recent films, Harkonnens are still pale-skinned and aggressive, and the Baron still floats around like a blimp, but they are shown as being cold and calculating. David Lynch took an entirely different approach, presenting the Harkonnens as melodramatic and psychotic – and they feel a bit out of place compared to the rest of the film.

However, the most problematic aspect of Harkonnen representation is the homophobia. The baron is presented as homosexual, but this is closely tied to his predatory nature, his physical repulsiveness, his blatant moral depravity and his crippling disease. This side of his character has been lifted more-or-less directly from the book, but the decision to emphasize this in the film makes for uncomfortable watching a few decades later. It’s a sobering reminder of how times have changed.

The pug

For some reason, the pet pug of the Atreides family features prominently throughout the film, and I love it. The pug is never acknowledged once. It’s just along for the ride. Patrick Stewart even carries it into battle, and apparently the little fellow doesn’t need a special four-legged stillsuit to survive the desert. The pug wasn’t in the book. It doesn’t make any sense that it would be on Arrakis, where water is so scarce. But it’s there anyway, standing in as the one thread of consistency through this diabolical film.

In summary…

Dune (1984) is an experience. I’d say that it’s worth watching if you’re interested in the history of science fiction or film production, because you can find shreds of inspiration within this mess. The pacing is entirely unpredictable, almost as if David Lynch was frightened of attracting sandworms into cinemas, but there is still plenty to enjoy. Kyle MacLachlan is excellent as Paul, and most of the costumes, set designs and practical effects are impressive – all the more so when you compare them to the dreadful computer effects. It’s a glorious trainwreck of a film, and it has nudged me closer towards reading the original book (I’ll get around to it eventually). Happy reading, and have a lovely week!