I'm one of the weird ones that actually really like this movie. I can't help it. It mesmerized me when I was a child, and it still does something profound to me when I watch it as an adult.
But is it a good movie? Not in the slightest!! I've now watched it in glorious 4k (the Arrow release, if anyone wondered), and its shortcomings are even more profound now. To me…that doesn't really matter. I still enjoy Toto's score, I still enjoy the visuals, and as usual, I'm a sucker for Lynches storytelling. Nostalgia is powerful when it comes to movies.
…but it's still not a very good movie, so if you are new to Dune, you are better off watching Denis Villeneuve's attempt on Herbert's masterpiece. That, at least, is a good movie…
SciFi-Movies often do not stand the test of time, nowadays e.g. the original Star Wars or Star Trek flicks as well as Alien look ridiculous at certain times. But this is nothing compared to Dune, because here weak acting (or at least very weak characters) are put into the mix and make this supposedly master piece really bad. Why Dune is (still) considered a must-see by certain fans is beyond me and I suspect that the hype about director David Lynch is the main reason for that.
Wow, that was not a great use of three hours on a friday evening for me. I did not read the book or had any recollection of the movie from when I saw it a few years ago. Since I heard there's a remake in the making I thought it might be clever to give the so called classic a second chance. I'm sorry but I can't really see why people like this movie. There's way too much political stuff going on (it gets kind of explained for about 10 minutes in the prologue), also way too much explanation through voice over and on the other hand very slow and kind of boring overall pacing. The second half gets a bit faster and the final fights even had a nice soundtrack. It's hard to believe that this was made after Star Wars and the first Alien and is still praised as a cult classic. I guess it might be more enjoyable if you know the book, but I think a movie's enjoyability shouldn't depend on knowing the source material, so there's that. Feel free to enlighten me on what I did not get. I'd love to love this movie, really.
Every component of this movie except the visuals are hot dogshit and if this movie didn't say David Lynch on it it wouldn't be as loved as it is.
Went to see this at the cinema at a special showing to mark the imminent release of the remake. Never seen it before, knew nothing about it. No preconceptions at all.
It was bad. Like really bad. Like a Bollywood version of Star Wars but without the songs. Some of the visuals were nice and the Lynchian vision is always fascinating, but there's no story, no plot, no characters. I was praying for it to end.
A classic? No chance.
Contrary to the overwhelming opinion, I believe this film to be a masterpiece. Stunning visuals invoking what many steampunk aficionado’s attempt to do add to a profound soundtrack, classically orchestrated score and very well paced plot.
Yes, Lynchs’ limitations on this is legend, however, he finished - unlike Vilanuevas boring, dull and visually unstimulated clone. 1984s Dune got us to the end of the Atreides and Muadib saga with heart, grace and Patrick Stewart. Twelve bags of popcorn.
I have been escaping from this film for decades, but it was about time. Lynch blames not having final cut, but I don’t think an extended cut would have made this much better. The producers wanted to make “Star Wars for grown-ups” but clearly didn’t have the money and resources. And seriously, just look at the villain. How can this even remotely be a mature take on space opera? I liked some of the sets and costumes, but the special effects are truly hideous (God, those shields!!), and the acting is atrocious. Exaggerated acting is recurrent in Lynch’s works, it creates that particular eccentric mood that makes his film peculiar, but combined with such a cartoony setting and sketchy plot, it just feels like a corny B-movie like many others. I appreciate Lynch’s touch in the script and cinematography here and there (especially in the first act), but overall it’s just too slow-paced and incoherent to be worth two hours of your life. Liked how they filled it with voice-overs to explain what the hell is going on, what the characters are thinking, and pretty much everything that they couldn’t shoot or include in the final cut. Must-watch if you are into worm surfing and floating fatties.
An absolute mess, even though I read the books a couple of years ago. The visuals, along with the acting are horribly weak and the story can only be somewhat understood if you read the book(s). Do not recommend.
I knew nothing about it other than it was poorly received. Now I see why.
An incomprehensible mess. Having said that, I actually enjoyed the last hour, when the hero became a leader (except for the incredibly rushed romance subplot)
They start the movie with a person talking to the camera to explain the plot. Then they don't do anything after that to make us care about the characters.
The next scene is a strange blob talking to an I imagine important person about having to kill someone. It was like listening to someone's phone conversation.
Far too much telling, instead of showing the lives of the characters for viewers to invest in. In other words, boring and I turned it off.
Finding bits of sand weeks later
Kitsch or Kringe? David Lynch was simply the wrong choice for this movie. His penchant for 50s-style melodrama makes Dune look like a space opera, and I bet some of his practical special effects were so bad that someone decided to invent CGI after seeing this.
So, why do I like this film? It's crap, but it's endearing crap. Dune is easy to watch, and it's reassuring to see even greats like Lynch make mistakes, too.
I gave up at 2 hrs.
What a clusterfuck of a movie
Whilst writing this review for Dune, which is one of my childhood (Sci-fi Fantasy) movies.
i cant help but think that viewing the movie in our current time. the movie definatly begins to look outdated and was produced in a certain era, this shines in the movie dune. and should be seen as such.
The movie utilises a star cast with nowdays old skool actors like (Jurgen prochnov, Patrick Steward, Kyle Macalahan, Sean Young, Leonard Ciminow, Brad Dourif, and of course mucisian Sting). The music for this movie was also scored by Toto, and they did an epic job on it for that time, I think the music is also party what reflects the Sci-fi Setting in this movie.)
The story takes it time to be set up by the writers an producers, and introduces us to all the players in the Dune universe, This movie came in the wake of the first "Star wars", trilogy. and in comparison i did a poor job. This is also where the largest mistake for the average movie viewer lies. Dune isn't a simple Sci-Fi Aktion movie, It has layers of story telling, and tackles issues as faith, Perceverence, loyalty.
Whilst the movie has a decent cast there where some moments i definatly think there was quit a bit of overacting, however on thing should be noted that this movie could be viewed in some way as fantasy movie, and in this genre there is quit a bit of bolstering and overacting to reach dramatich heigts. For Dune the same counts in that regard.
For me as viewer this will definatly remain a childhood favorite.
Great flick in it's day. Cult classic.
Dune (1984) has a special place in American cinema, but it really suffers from squishing 800 pages into what is basically a Table of Contents when some bland protagonists and 2-D characters in general. I can’t put much blame on any particular actor, director, special effects, etc. for this. It was a poor choice to cram all into a single movie script and then not give the proper budget to what is an epic Sci-Fi Adventure novel.
It ought to be riffed by Mystery Science Theater 3000, if MSTies can fund another season. Of course, the owners to the movie franchise would never allow MST3K riff it.
After watching both parts of Denis Villeneuve's new adaptation effectively back to back, I had a morbid curiosity as to how David Lynch's 40-year old version holds up. The answer, generally speaking, is not well (though I understand that it wasn't exactly a big hit on release either). I suspect there is no modern audience that will enjoy this movie on its face. That said, it still was interesting to compare and contrast. Perhaps most interesting of all is the relative run times, as this movie tells the same story (at least superficially) in 137 minutes that Villeneuve needed over 321 minutes to tell. While some of that differential can be explained by Villeneuve's flair for spectacle, it's clear from this version that the extra time was needed to give the story room to breath and avoid a rushed/superficial feel. In terms of the spectacle offered in this movie, the non-practical special effects are super rough, but some of the practical work has some nostalgic appeal (e.g., miniature work on the worms). Production design decisions are much more hit and miss. I'm sure the fashion sensibilities are a product of their time, but going from Villeneuve's bald/brutal/black and white Harkonnen aesthetic to a bunch of redheads was quite the whiplash.
We have seen a Fan edit that lasts almost 3 hours, after many years without seeing it, we liked it, remembering it worse, but it pales a lot next to the new one.
A close up of a gorgeous Virginia Madison’s face on the screen in the very beginning. Is probably the best thing about this movie. Since it beats all the close ups of the repulsive Baron.
This is a more twisted and goofier version of Dune that at least has a good musical score.
Wow, what an absolute stinker. I mean, yeah, I watched this...what? 40+ years?... after its heyday but seriously... I graduated high school in 1981 and I can't imagine this being enjoyable even back THEN. The story made absolutely no sense, the language - and I don't mean profanity; I just mean the goofy weird "Lord Thog of Gonorrhea Anathema" stupid made-up stuff - the utter bizarre whole thing... It made absolutely no sense to me. I remember having a Dune computer game back in those days and the packaging was the desert with a gigantic worm rising out of the sand; the picture fascinated me but I never could play the game because I didn't know anything about the movie. Now, I still can't play the game because I still don't know anything about what I just sat and watched for two hours and fifteen minutes. All I can tell you is it's about spice, the desert, giant worms, and some weird gibberish. I've seen some shop talk around the ol' interweb about a reboot or something (I think?) so I says to myself, "Self" , I says .... "You never saw the original, so you should oughta watch that one first; the original is always better than the reboot." In this case, I'm thinking ol' Self was wrong but reboot or not, I'm not wasting anymore time on this rancid stinkbomb. Wow, this was so bad it was ... REALLY bad. (You thought I was gonna say, "So bad it was good" but trust me, it wasn't; it was just really really bad.) In a weird way (Wait! Maybe the movie weirded me!) I'm kind of glad I watched it just so I can say I watched it, but lord'a mercy, this was just one atrocious smelly two-hour long silent-but-violent fart in a crowded elevator. Wow, this stunk....
Was watching the Extended Edition of the movie.
I’m not sure why I never saw this back in the day. I watched the 2021 version the day before and someone suggested that seeing this version would explain a lot that the 2021 version leaves out. I wonder if Denis Villeneuve assumes that everyone would have watched the Lynch version and so had more freedom to be vague on the details or if this harder, louder, abrupter version was just more the Lynch style of the 80s? I wonder what Lynch would do with it now. I’m not entirely sure why it was such a cult favourite back in the 80s … maybe Lynch just couldn’t do wrong. Maybe I’m just 40 years older lol.
The casting is meh. The cinematography, even considering the times is meh.
Science fiction with the particular vision of David Lynch
This is the only film I have ever seen with Patrick Stewart in it that I didn't like. I eventually watched this because all the info I'd heard/read in the media about it was positive - a true sci-fi classic, a masterpiece of filmmaking, etc. And it had Patrick Stewart in it. What a total disappointment it turned out to be. Firstly, it looked and sounded horrifically dated for an 18-year-old film (when I watched it in 2002) - more like a film from the early 70's than the early 80's. I guessed it had been made on a low budget, so was prepared to accept that and concentrate on the plot, acting, and other production qualities. Unfortunately, the latter two were sadly lacking. The plot sounded pretty promising, but the acting was terrible for a live action film; more like what you'd see from a stage production - forced rather than naturally flowing, and very flat, for the most part. Patrick Stewart performed his part with his usual outstanding flair as much as possible, but he was let down by the poor production quality of the film as a whole. Definitely not a film worthy of all of the hype.
A few years after watching this travesty of a film, I picked up the book, second-hand at a low price from a charity stall. The book helped to explain the vast and very intricate Dune universe and its socio-political complexities, but was very difficult book to read and stick with as a result. I did though, to the bitter end, and it was generally a decent novel, that was not done justice by this awful film.
I haven't seen the 2021 remake of this film yet, but it has received very positive reviews. When opportunity presents itself, I will watch it, in the hope that Denis Villeneuve has done the novel more justice than David Lynch did. Nearly 20 years of film production evolution and an almost certainly proportionally-much-higher budget will hopefully have helped in that regard.
oh my... does including every single thought of the main character was necessary?
The pacing is horrible. It is watchable for the first half. But then the time jumps and all around confusion just ruins such an incredible story. The mini series has better acting and pacing.
Watching now, this movie remains fairly up to date although the futuristic ‘clans’ seem to have advanced technology coupled with outdated [1980’s] approaches which clash a little.
I have to feel sorry for the worms being used as battle machines and what kind of brother sends a little sister. Into the lions den like that !
Entertaining if confusing at times. Lock-in forward to seeing the new spin on this due shortly
This movie is really good I however can only give this version a 9 as this is the 2 hours and 17 minutes version there is a longer version that has a run time 2 hours and 57 minutes that one i'd give a 10 to.
@seanmsu yep, it's a hot mess, but I throughly enjoy it. The visuals amaze me on every viewing.
I like Dune more each time I watch it. Perhaps not so much the film itself but how it reminds me of the 80s, a great time to be in your 20s.
dont understand the film at all, didnt read the original novel, but the scenes are really well built as to 1980s
A classic, but the one that got to cut up the script and toss out the scenes that just did not cut it, tossed out the wrong ones.
Shout by SeanMSUBlockedParent2014-10-20T00:41:22Z
This is a very polarizing film and for good reason. The book is one of the greatest of all time and there are enormous expectations for any Dune adaptation, yet it's worth noting that Dune is 800 pages long so turning the book into a single, 2.5 hour movie is incredibly difficult. It's apparent that there is a drop in quality about half way through the movie, this is because Lynch's budget and time frame weren't matching up with what the studio allowed for him. This unfortunately led to a rushed and fairly low quality ending to Dune. However, the Intro to this movie with Princess Irulan explaining the universe in space is my favorite of all time and the first half in general is excellent. All in all Lynch did all he could to save this movie and it is still enjoyable but the task was too big even for an excellent director like David Lynch