Dune (1984) Review!

 Alright! Today, in preparation for the Dune adaptation coming out this week, I thought it would be fun to go back in time and review David Lynch's 1984 Dune, a cult classic with a rushed production that the director himself disowned. And that's because it's pretty terrible. 

Well, that's unfair. It has several terrible production decisions, but the movie, for the most part, is pretty faithful to the book and a pretty solid movie. Some of those production choices though... being limited by the technology of their time probably didn't help. 

As a giant fan of the novel, this adaptation is very faithful. Some scenes are taken verbatim from the book, and the movie paces itself pretty well to keep things moving. It dropped the ball when it remembered the book is 600 something pages and they had 40 minutes to wrap up the last 300 of those pages. It's a pretty slow burn. 

One of the best ways Dune adapts such a dense story is by having frequent narration. Now, I really did like the quick sentences to show what the characters were thinking. That was fine. What wasn't particularly cool was straight-up starting the movie with two and a half minutes of exposition full of words that the audience doesn't know. That's never a good sign for a movie.

My biggest problem with Dune, however, are some of the production decisions made. Like, Baron Harkonnen is legitimately revolting to watch, and not in a good way. The makeup department was apparently told to go crazy with it and followed that direction to a T. Or the Mentat's superfluous eyebrows that knew no bounds. Or "The Voice" being a gravelly Batman voice. Very strange choices that nearly made the movie unwatchable. 

Or, perhaps, the special effects. Some of them, like the guild navigators, are legit. I have no clue how they made those things, they look like they're from outer space and have aged well. Others, such as the shields, looked absolutely terrible - like someone made Tron in space. 

Honestly? Should've kept this design for 2021, it's still dope.

Some of the stuff I really loved about the movie was hardly present but sprinkled throughout thoroughly enough as to where you could get excited about it. The first is the main Dune theme. It's an awesome piece of music, I was vibing every time it played. I loved Alia's depiction in this, she was just the right amount of innocent and unnerving (And the only instance where "The Voice" worked).

Something else I loved was Paul's premonitions of Arrakis - they were quick, blink and you'll miss it teases. Literal glimpses of the future. I loved that they would show up that quick, which is, unfortunately, something the new adaptation seems to be failing at (According to early reviews). I also loved Sting as Feyd-Rautha, surprisingly. He had just the right amount of crazy.

Why does this sandworm feel small? 

There was just something about this Dune, you know? Something felt "off" the entire time that made it never feel truly like Dune, just an imitation of. The look of a bad adaptation. I'm pretty sure it was the sense of scale. Most shots are of the humans from the chest up, it's hard to feel the entire universe when a human face is all you're ever seeing. It didn't do wide shots well. 

I recommend you read the book before you see Dune (1984) - it'll make the movie make more sense, but you'll also probably dislike it even more because you know that just "good" is not good enough for Dune. 

Overall, I give Dune (1984) a 5/10. "A movie quite obviously made in 1984 trying to convince us it's 10191." 

Why did he have a pug? In space? Bringing him to Arrakis? In the year 10191? And why did it return for the finale? Maud'dog is not bound by logic.