Dune - The Movie

[kg redhead]

brilliantly under-rated movie that losely adapts the novel into a dream-like movie of messianic majesty and really big worms...

[kg redhead]

Set in a distant future where life in the universe and space travel is dependent upon a spice found only on the planet Dune, this film tracks the rise of young Paul Atreides, son of good Duke Lito, from the time of his father's betrayal and murder by a rival lord, Baron Harkonnen, to his discovery of the great secret behind the planet Dune and his own destiny, which is to free the planet and its denizens of the cruel rule of the Emperor.

[kg redhead]

David Lynch turned down the chance to direct Star Wars: Episode VI - "Return of the Jedi" (1983) to direct Dune.

Ridley Scott worked on bringing the film to the screen, but was unsuccessful. H.R. Giger (who worked with Scott on Alien (1979)) was hired as a production designer.

The inspiration for the design of the stillsuits was the medical textbook "Gray's Anatomy".

Two hundred workers spent two months hand-clearing three square miles of Mexican desert for location shooting.

One scene called for Duke Leto (Jürgen Prochnow) to be strapped to a black stretcher and drugged. During one take, a high-powered bulb positioned above Prochnow exploded due to heat, raining down molten glass. Remarkably, Prochnow was able to free himself from the stretcher, moments before glass fused itself to the place he had been strapped. During the filming of the dream sequence, the Baron (Kenneth McMillan) approached Leto, who had special apparatus attached to his face so that green smoke would emerge from his cheek when the Baron scratched it. Although thoroughly tested, the smoke gave Prochnow first and second degree burns on his cheek. This sequence appears on film in the released version.

he tendons visible when Paul hooks the worm were made from condoms.

Some special effects scenes were filmed with over a million watts of lighting, drawing 11,000 amps.

Some scenes were filmed in the same location and at the same time as scenes from Conan the Destroyer (1984).

Number of production crew came to a total of 1,700. Dune required 80 sets built upon 16 sound stages. More than 6 years in the making, it required David Lynch's work for three and a half years.

Lynch disowned the television cut.

Director David Lynch and producer Raffaella De Laurentiis arranged a screen test in New York with Sean Young for the role of Chani. Young's agent never told Young about the meeting, and she was in fact booked on a flight that evening to Los Angeles. Lynch and De Laurentiis missed their flight back to Los Angeles, and ended up catching the same plane as Young. During the flight, De Laurentiis noticed Young and told Lynch, "I bet that girl's an actress." A stewardess told the pair that her name was "Sean Young", and De Laurentiis confronted Young about standing her and Lynch up. The misunderstanding sorted out, the three ended up drinking champagne and reading the script together upon returning to Los Angeles.

Alejandro Jodorowsky had originally planned on filming Dune in the early-'70s, and had enlisted the help of Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger to create the movie's visual style. Salvador Dalí was enlisted to play the part of the Emperor, and Jodorowsky also intended to cast his own son Brontis Jodorowsky as Paul, David Carradine as Duke Leto, Orson Welles as the Baron, and Gloria Swanson as the Benne Geserit Reverend Mother. The soundtrack was to be done by Pink Floyd. According to Jodorowsky, "The project was sabotaged in Hollywood. It was French and not American. Their message was 'not Hollywood enough'. There was intrigue, plunder. The storyboard was circulated among all the big studios. Later, the visual aspect of Star Wars (1977) strangely resembled our style. To make Alien (1979), they called Moebius [Giraud], Foss, Giger, O'Bannon, etc. The project signaled to Americans the possibility of making a big show of science-fiction films, outside of the scientific rigor of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The project of Dune changed our lives." Jodorowsky also planned on making numerous changes to the source material, including making Duke Leto a eunuch and the spice a blue sponge. Author Frank Herbert openly despised these concepts.

Cameo: David Lynch is a radio operator on the mining ship that Paul and Duke Leto Atreides rescue from a sandworm.

John Hurt was offered the part of Dr Yueh.

The name "Judas Booth" that appears as the screenwriter in the extended TV cut, is a combination of Judas, the apostle that betrayed Jesus Christ, and 'John Wilkes Booth' , Abraham Lincoln's killer. With this in-joke, David Lynch meant that the studio betrayed him and killed the film. The director's credit is the usual in these cases Alan Smithee.

Patrick Stewart replaced Aldo Ray

It took two weeks to film Max von Sydow's role

The musical instrument played by Patrick Stewart, the "baliset", is actually a Chapman Stick, an electric guitar and bass created in the '70s by Emmett Chapman, who plays the music we hear.

During the film's original release, "cheatsheets" explaining much of the movie's setting and its more obscure vocabulary were handed out to moviegoers at some theatres.

One of the first movies to receive a PG-13 rating (the first was Red Dawn (1984)).

The first movie to feature a computer-generated human form, for the bodyshields.

The theatrical version of this film is the only version of Dune, including the novel and the miniseries, where Thufir Hawat survives. A scene of Thufir's death was filmed, but was cut.

Original director Ridley Scott left the production after his older brother suddenly passed away. Scott wanted to start working as soon as possible, but Dune would take far to long to reach production. Scott decided to leave the project in favor of Blade Runner (1982), which was ready to start production immediately.

"Feyd-Rautha" and "The Beast Rabban" are men of very few words: as the latter, Paul L. Smith speaks only 14 words throughout the entire movie; as the former, Sting says a mere 62.

Glenn Close turned down the role of Lady Jessica, not wanting to play "the girl who is always running and falling down behind the men".

David Lynch was originally signed to do two sequels to this film. The box office failure insured that the plans never came to fruition.

[kg redhead]

A third version of "Dune", seen on KTVU in San Francisco in 1992, is the only one that edits together footage from both the theatrical and TV versions, putting back the violent scenes (such as the "heart sucking sequence") and theatrical versions of some scenes (such as Paul and Jessica running from a thumper). Also, Lynch's name is restored at the end (watch for the "Assistant to Mr. Lynch" credit).

Contrary to popular rumors, no 6-hours long director's cut, ever existed. The only "director's cut" of the film was the one shown theatrically; Lynch never had a hand in any other version of Dune. Lynch's original intention was for Dune to have been about 3+ hours long. To that end, about 5 hours was shot. This is also confirmed by author Frank Herbert wrote in the introduction to the book "Eye". It would be impossible for a 6-hour version to exist and even a 5-hour Dune would mean the inclusion of many scenes never intended for the final version (for reasons of redundancy, etc.). It is only necessary to read any of the final scripts for the film to realize that there was never any intention of making Dune more than 4 hours in length at the very most: the script for anything more just was never there.

There are two theatrical versions available in Europe, the only two differences between being the short scene in which the Navigator can be seen "at work" folding space; and a very short clip showing the cheek of Duke Leto torn open.

Region 2 DVD version, billed as 'TV extended version' is 180 minutes long and contains the extended intro and scenes. Lynch's name has again been removed and re-credited to Allen Smithee due to his objection to the extended intro.

The region 2 DVD released by Castle, includes some footage not included in the original Alan Smithe version. One of these scenes, is when the Atreides family arrives on Arrakis. The freemen are watching them from a distance using a device that looks somewhat like binoculars.

The Region 2 Castle DVD lists the sound as being MONO, and yet the soundtrack is quite clearly in full stereo. Sadly, the source material for this release is clearly from a videotape master with tiny sound dropouts and a slight picture degradation. It is also in 4:3 and cuts out many of the gorier scenes.

When Dune was first released theatrically in the UK in 1984, it was cut by 37 seconds in order to obtain a "PG" rating. However, the first video release and all releases of the film after the first video were uncut and have a "15" rating.

Some video and DVD prints (for example, the Spanish release by Manga Films) have about 15 minutes of reversed footage, from the moment where Paul drinks the Water of Life, to his appearance in the court of the Emperor along with Gurney and Stilgar. Look how Gurney and Stilgar exchange positions in the opening shots of that final scene (on the top of the staircase).

Theatrical version is 137 minutes long; TV version seen both in syndication and on most cable networks, prepared under protest from (and eventually disowned by) director David Lynch, is approx. 176 minutes long (minus commercials) and features outtakes, additional footage, test close-up shots of certain actors, and even fabricated (i.e. "cheated") footage (made up of repeated stock footage from certain points in the film to make it appear that footage had been added--one reason why Lynch took his name off the credits of the TV version). The TV print credits Alan Smithee as director. Whereas the theatrical release features a brief introductory narration spoken by Princess Irulan, the TV version has a longer spoken introduction by an uncredited male narrator, with still paintings and drawings used to bring the viewer up to speed on the story. The TV version (which has been released on Japanese LaserDisc and overseas DVDs) has additional footage of the Fremen that lacks the blue color in their eyes, indicating that the scenes were cut before special f/x were added.