DVD: Dune

It was time for a Brandy DVD. The one that would have been next on her Netflix list was a later season of a TV show that neither I or Amy had been watching. Since that wouldn’t work for movie night, she pulled forward on her list this lovely gem of a movie. I very vaguely remember seeing it when it came out, or soon thereafter. The only thing I remembered was one scene involving the villian and his pus. I remember being disturbed by it.

Watching this for the first time in years, I did remember other bits as they came up, but it was mostly fresh. And, well… this isn’t a great movie. It tries to be all epic and such, but it also tries to cover the material from the long and complex book in just a single movie… a long movie, but still just a single movie. It might be possible to do this well, but this movie doesn’t do so. Things move from scene to scene with you never getting to care about any of the characters, and in a very disjointed way that always makes you feel like there are major things missing, that if only they were explained would make the whole thing make a bit more sense. But they are not there, so you just constantly feel like you are missing something.

Sure, you get to see people riding worms. You get to see Sting scowl and jump around some. And you get to see the creepy little girl at the end. But in exchange you have to see the disgusting Baron Harkonnen. And really bad special effects on the shields. And just generally be going “Huh?”

It seems what we watched was the Theatrical Version, but there is an “Extended Edition” that was produced later, that included a bunch of deleted scenes… but also removed some things and made a bunch of other edits. You would think that some more time and exposition might make this film a bit better, but from the reviews I’ve read, it actually makes things even worse… longer without adding much of value.

There was a TV Mini-Series also made out of this in 2000. It is longer. And it is better if I remember it properly. OK, admittedly, I probably watched it once when it was on TV, and don’t actually remember much about it… but it had to have been better, right?

Of course the best choice here is to forget the movie versions, and go read the book.

The book is a classic and worth reading. The movies… not so much.