Movie Poster

Father! The sleeper has awakened!

# Review

After reading the novel Dune by Frank Herbert and hearing about the upcoming remake, I wanted to watch the original Dune film.

This story follows the plot of the book: a galactic noble family, the Atreides, has been forced to relocate and rule the inhospitable desert planet Arrakis. "Spice" an extremely valuable drug used to extend consciousness and one of the most sought-after ingredients in the galactic empire is mined only on Arrakis. The story follows Paul Atreides, the young heir to the family, as he has to navigate the vast conspiracies and webs of intrigue.

The original story from the book is highly complex, as the plot is intertwined with the expansive world-building. To attempt to retell the story within a two hour movie is ambitious to say the least. Much of the nuance is sacrificed as the film rushed to fill in plot points and world-building through awkward dialogues between the characters. At the same time, the film also made generous use of characters having inner thought monologues, which worked well in the books but not so well on-screen. Furthermore, in order to fit in all the major plot points the second half of the film felt rushed compared to the first half.

While the CGI was primitive and the lighting sometimes poor, Lynch pretty much nailed the imagery portrayed in the book. I especially liked the costume design of the Harkonnens with their heart plugs and hideous haircut. I also thought that the background sets were amazing and added much to the storytelling. In particular, the worms were majestic and awe-inspiring.

The casting was also decent with Kyle MacLachlan playing the protagonist Paul and Francesca Annis playing Lady Jessica. My favourite performances were, however, Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, Jürgen Prochnow as Leto Altreides, and Brad Dourif as Piter De Vries. Kenneth McMillan played an excellent Baron Harkonnen, grossing out the audience with both his exaggerated actions and his costume.

# Conclusion

An ambitious but flawed film.

# Overall rating: 7.1

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