I’d like to know what David Lynch thought of it. - Dune (2021) Discussion

[–] TheArgentinian (6526) 3 years ago

I saw his version last night for the first time. It's literally the same movie except for the ending. It just has better visual effects and less campy acting.

reply

[–] WhereIsRent (1026) 3 years ago

The visual effects in the Lynch version are quite bad, even for the time.

It came out a year after Return of the Jedi and had a bigger budget than that movie yet the visual effects look nowhere near as good.

Also don’t see how it’s literally the same movie when the last 45 minutes of Lynch’s movie is a very condensed version of the rest of the book after Paul and Jessica join the Freman.

reply

[–] TheArgentinian (6526) 3 years ago

I said "except for the ending"

reply

[–] AngularTurnip (3334) 3 years ago

The Rancor arguably looks worse than anything in Dune. The speeder bike scene hasn't aged all that well either.

reply

[–] TrentnQuarantino (8699) 3 years ago

> The visual effects in the Lynch version are quite bad, even for the time.

To me, that is the main thing that succeeds about that movie. It is the whole reason I even saw the movie, because the amazing effects took me right back to the feelings I had when I read the book years earlier. Even most of the writing and acting was good in the 1984 version.

Kyle McLaughlin really did seem like Paul, a noble bearing, youngish enough to look like a kid, and yet old enough and strong enough to appear like he could defend himself in a fight, and take a life if needed. Challumett to me ... he just doesn't ruin true to the character of Paul. Here is a guy supposed to be training his whole life, but he looks like a little girl could knock him over.

Both Dukes were well cast. Oscar Isaacs surprised me, but his role is very short.

You're right that they are not the same movie, and it's probably not fair to compare them at this point except in style, so that is where the 1984 movie wins for me, but not by much.

reply

[–] modica (4169) 3 years ago

Knowing Lynch, I doubt if he cares much.

reply

[–] Indiscipline (708) 3 years ago

Yep, I don't think he even cares about his own Dune film. I've read he isn't much of a sci-fi fan at all.

reply

[–] WhereIsRent (1026) 3 years ago

Lynch’s Dune crams the last two thirds of the book into about 45 minutes.

With Villeneuve’s Dune we’ll be getting a whole movie to cover the rest of the book.

Lynch actually did a decent job of choosing what to keep from the book and what to cut out but you can’t do justice to this book with just one 140 minute movie.

reply

[–] TrentnQuarantino (8699) 3 years ago

Well true, but for the first third of the book he made some weird choices about what to concentrate on. Nothing much on Caladan ... which I thought the 1984 film did better with, and as soon as they Atreides landed the war was on. The relationship between the Freman and the Atreides in Arakeen was not developed at all. I think I remember in the book Jessica putting an end to some of the humiliating practices that the Harkonnens had to the help in the castle. Giving then washing rags to squeeze the water out of.

I just get the feeling that the majority of those who made both of these movies didn't know the story or care about it.

reply

[–] WhereIsRent (1026) 3 years ago

I think Denis definitely does care but I also think Warner Bros. want to make a movie franchise for a wider audience beyond the book fans.

They’ve been very crafty with how they’ve cast and marketed this film. The theatrical trailer they released pretty much has a load of action shots and pretty much every shot of Zendaya in the movie is in the trailer to appeal to her fan base.

With the 1984 film being a box office bomb they’ve definitely put more thought into how to market this new adaptation.

This is also just personal preference but I think Denis is really in his comfort zone with the sci-fi genre whereas Lynch is much more comfortable with surrealistic cinema.

I am a huge fan of Lynch’s work though and whilst I don’t think his Dune film is very good it’s certainly not without it’s redeeming qualities such as the costume and set design, musical score and some of the performances.

reply

[–] TrentnQuarantino (8699) 3 years ago

Hmm, I have no idea who Zendaya is or how many fans she has. Do you think it is enough to carry a whole epic movie? I'm doubtful of that.

> With the 1984 film being a box office bomb they’ve definitely put more thought into how to market this new adaptation.

They should have put more thought into why the 1984 movie failed and how to do the movie. The reason they did Dune is because the title pretty much markets itself.

The 1984 is good except for some deliberately off-putting disgusting parts the put people off in a big way. It could have been a decent movie if someone had some sense to not try to put a James Bond super-villain at the center of the movie - even when the book did just exactly that.

reply

[–] WhereIsRent (1026) 3 years ago

She’s got quite a huge fan base I think. She’s been in The Greatest Showman and the new Spider-Man movies as well as having a music career. She seems to be box office gold right now.

It’s definitely something I think Warner Bros. are conscious of seeing as they’re already saying that Zendaya’s Chani will basically be the secondary protagonist of part 2.

https://youtu.be/8g18jFHCLXk

This is the trailer I was speaking of. So much focus on Chani and barely any shots of Jessica which is odd considering Rebecca Ferguson is second billed on the poster.

reply

[–] TrentnQuarantino (8699) 3 years ago

In the book Jessica fades to the back after Paul grows up so to speak.

reply

[–] LanceDance (1089) 3 years ago

I’m more curious as to what Alejandro Jodorowsky thinks if it. I’m sure he won’t like it, but still, I wanna hear it from him.

reply

[–] Nanook (1466) 2 years ago

Still can't believe I had to drive over an hour outside of freaking Tinseltown to see Jodorowsky's Dune in its very limited run. I'd be much more likely to make that kind of effort to see Lynch's Jodorowsky's Opinion of Villeneuve's Dune than the next one.

reply

[–] Ranb (7452) 3 years ago

I thought this version was more true to the book than the 1984 film. I'm disappointed that Feyd is not in it though. Looks like this version will not have the interesting duel between Feyd and the un-named Atreides soldier in the arena while the Baron talks to Count Fenring about possibly making Dune a prison planet.

reply

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Are you sure Feyd is not going to show up in future segments? I think he made his appearance in the book pretty much after the Harkonnens had taken back Dune and the Baron had the plan to squeeze Arrakis for everything he could get with Beast Rabban and the bring Feyd in as the savior ... which never made sense to me in the book anyway because they were are cartoonish Harkonnen villains.

I think you can't make a good Dune movie because the great thing about reading Dune was getting lost in the literary world, and once you got to the end - the magic was pretty much over, and people tried to recapture it with reading the sequels, but they sucked.

It is almost impossible to recreate that in a movie - but that is where the sumptuous scenery and effects in the 1984 did in fact succeed ... but it was not consistent throughout the movie.

reply

[–] Ranb (7452) 3 years ago

I hope I'm wrong. But why would Beast Rabban be in part 1 and not Feyd?

reply

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Only because the Baron brought him in to rule Arrakis first, if I recall correctly from the book. He wanted Feyd out of the way and not to be associated with the brutality.

And in this movie ... I never recall the Baron calling for the deaths of all Freman??? The new Dune's Baron says kill them all. Maybe my memory is hazy.

reply

[–] Ranb (7452) 3 years ago

In the book where the Baron was talking about how much he had to pay the Space Guild for transportation, he told Rabban to work the local population as hard as possible for spice production. Rabban told the Baron that he just assume he would exterminate the local population and bring in more labor. The Baron said that would be a waste of people and money.

In the 2021 film, the Baron tells Rabban to exterminate all of the Fremen

reply

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

It's funny that Dune is held up as this masterpiece, and I understand the reasons for that ... but many years later I realize that despite how thick it was with description and mystery how much room there is for improvement. The Harkonnens were comic book villains, and the sandworms were absurd every since I graduated from physics class. I think it would be cool to see Dune re-imagined in a more realistic science fiction way instead of so much science fantasy ... but i am sure I will never see it. I did quite like the visions of the 1984 movie.

One thing that wears thin in this science fiction movies is the spaceships and the cities keep getting bigger and bigger, and the show these massive parades of soldiers in formation. It's so ridiculous and such a waste of resources to these tens of thousands of soldiers ... I think this started with Star Wars and the Emperor and Darth Vader and just gets bigger and bigger in every movie. And the bigger they get, the less detail they have, the huge royal halls with giant colossal concrete complexes.

reply

[–] gp12345us (29) 3 years ago

According to this article Lynch will not see the new version of Dune, since anything Dune related brings up unpleasant memories for him.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/04/david-lynch-zero-interest-villeneuve-dune-1202225984/

reply

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

“I always say, ‘Dune’ is a huge gigantic sadness in my life,” Lynch said last summer during the opening night of his art exhibition in the United Kingdom, “I did not have final cut on that film. Total creative control, I didn’t have it. The film is not the film I would’ve made had I had that final control. It’s a bit of a sadness.”

What film would he have made .... specifically. I'd love to know, because the 1984 Dune was beautifully imagined and had real potential, but it really turned people off. It sucked.

As cast member Brad Dourif once said, Lynch had to cut some of the “most gorgeous” sequences from his script because producers refused to give Lynch the money to film them. The tightening of the budget also forced Lynch to be complacent with shoddy visual effects and a more cheap-looking production.

That sounds like he just wanted to do more of the same.

As I see it, that movie was two movies, one was the science fiction story as told in the book - which has its own issues, but then it also went for this horror genre movie by making the Harkonnens cartoon villains ... and really disgusting. While it is true that most of that was in the book, I think a director with a real sense of moviemaking and also the book would have found a way to downplay those repulsive visions to be more in line with the general feeling of the movie.

I feel like that is one thing the new Dune got closer to. I mean, even in the 32nd century, or whenever this was supposed to be ... I don't think a huge royal house could survive and prosper with a leading family that did nothing but torture and murder people for fun in disgusting ways. That's pure Flash Gordon Buck Rogers cartoony.

reply

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

LOL - good question. I bet he doesn't think much of it, but on the other hand I doubt they put as much money into this as his 1984 version.

reply