After the success of the novel, attempts to adapt Dune for a film began as early as 1971. A lengthy process of what is known in the film industry as development hell followed throughout the 1970s, during which directors such as David Lean, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Ridley Scott were considered. In 1981, David Lynch was hired as director by executive producer Dino De Laurentiis.
The film was not well received by critics and performed poorly at the American box office at the time. Upon its release, director David Lynch distanced himself from the project, stating that pressure from both producers and financiers restrained his artistic control and denied him final cut.
Fans of the Dune series are polarized by the movie, although in the years since its release, the film has become a cult favorite, and at least three different versions have been released worldwide. In some cuts of the film Lynch's name is replaced in the credits with the name of a fictional director Alan Smithee, a pseudonym used by directors who wish not to be associated with a film for which they would normally be credited.
In the far future, the known universe is ruled by Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV; the most precious substance in his sprawling feudal galactic empire is the spice melange, which extends life, expands consciousness and is vital to space travel. The powerful Spacing Guild and its Navigators use the spice to safely guide interstellar ships to any part of the universe instantaneously.
Four planets draw the attention of the Guild: Arrakis, a desert planet and only source of spice in the universe; Caladan, home of House Atreides; Giedi Prime, home of House Harkonnen; and Kaitain, home of the Emperor. The Guild, fearing a plot that might jeopardize spice production, sends a Navigator to demand an explanation from the Emperor, who confidentially shares his plans to destroy House Atreides. The popularity of Duke Leto Atreides has grown, and as Leto is suspected to be amassing a secret army using sound weapons called Weirding Modules, he is now a threat to the Emperor. Shaddam's plan is to give the Atreides control of Arrakis, replacing the Harkonnens, who at an appointed time would launch a sneak attack on the Atreides. Upon being informed of the plot, the Navigator commands the Emperor to kill the Duke's son, Paul Atreides, a young man who dreams prophetic visions of his purpose. The cryptic assassination order draws the attention of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, as Paul Atreides is tied to their centuries-long breeding program in search of the superhuman Kwisatz Haderach.
Paul is tested by the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam with a deadly gom jabbar at his throat. Paul is forced to place his hand in a box, which subjects him to excruciating and increasing pain; he passes to Mohiam's satisfaction, withstanding more pain than anyone has before him. Meanwhile, in the industrial world of Giedi Prime, the sadistic Baron Vladimir Harkonnen tells his nephews Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha about his plan to eliminate their centuries long enemies, the Atreides, by manipulating someone very close to the Duke into betraying him.
The Atreides leave Caladan for Arrakis, a barren world of vast deserts, filled with gigantic sandworms and populated by the Fremen, mysterious people who have long held a prophecy that a messiah would come to lead them to true freedom. Upon arrival on Arrakis, Leto is informed by one of his right-hand men, Duncan Idaho, that the Fremen have been largely underestimated, as they exist in vast numbers on Arrakis and could prove to be powerful allies. Leto gains the trust of the people of Arrakis, proving to be a charismatic and just leader. But before the Duke can establish an alliance with the Fremen, the Harkonnens launch their attack.
While the Atreides had anticipated a trap, they are unable to withstand the devastating Harkonnen sneak attack, supported by the Emperor's elite troops, the Sardaukar, and aided by a traitor within House Atreides itself, Dr. Wellington Yueh. Captured, Leto dies in a failed attempt to assassinate the Baron Harkonnen using a poison gas capsule planted in his tooth by Dr. Yueh. Leto's concubine Jessica and his son Paul escape into the deep desert, and with Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, they manage to join a band of native Fremen. Paul emerges as Muad'Dib, the religious and political leader the Fremen have been waiting for. Paul teaches the Fremen to use the Weirding Modules and begins targeting mining production of spice. In the span of two years, spice production is effectively halted. The Emperor is warned by the Spacing Guild of the situation on Arrakis, and the Guild fears that Paul will consume a substance known as the Water of Life. These fears are revealed to Paul in a prophetic dream; he drinks the Water of Life and enters a coma that disturbs all Bene Gesserits in the universe. Awaking, Paul is transformed and gains control of the sandworms of Arrakis. He has also discovered the secret to controlling spice production; water kept in huge caches by the Fremen can be used to destroy the spice. Paul tells his army of Fremen "he who can destroy a thing controls it." Paul has also seen into space and the future; the Emperor is amassing a huge invasionary fleet above Arrakis to regain control of the planet and the spice.
Upon the Emperor's arrival at Arrakis, Paul launches a final attack against both the Harkonnens and the Emperor at the capital city of Arakeen. His Fremen warriors, armed with Weirding Modules and riding sandworms, defeat the Emperor's legions of Sardaukar while Paul's sister Alia kills the Baron Harkonnen. Paul faces the defeated Emperor, and avenges his family in a duel to the death with Feyd-Rautha. After defeating Feyd, Paul commands rain to fall on Arrakis. Alia reveals to everyone that Paul is indeed the Kwisatz Haderach.
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Shot almost entirely in Mexico, the movie is an adaptation of the first part of a series of novels (see Dune, by Frank Herbert) and containing elements from the later parts.
The pre-production process was slow and problematic, and the project was handed from director to director. In 1971 the production company Apjac International (APJ) (headed by Arthur P. Jacobs) optioned the rights to film Dune. As Jacobs was busy with other projects (such as the sequel of Planet of the Apes) the project was delayed for another year. Originally, it was to be directed by David Lean (with Robert Bolt writing the screenplay) and scheduled to begin shooting in 1974. In 1973, Arthur P. Jacobs died.
In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the rights to the movie from APJ. The director this time would be Alejandro Jodorowsky.
In 1975, Jodorowsky tried to film the story as a ten hour feature, in collaboration with Orson Welles, Dan O'Bannon, Salvador Dalí, Gloria Swanson, Hervé Villechaize and others (nicknamed by him as "his seven samurais"). The music would have been done by Pink Floyd. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris that consisted of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger. Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while Foss was brought in to design the film's space ships and hardware. Giger started designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius' storyboards and Dali was to play the role of the Emperor for a reported $100,000 an hour. Jodorowsky also hired Dan O'Bannon to head the special effects department. Dali and Jodorowsky began quarreling over money and just as the storyboards, designs, and the script were finished, the financial backing dried up. Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that two million dollars of the 9.5 million budget were already spent in pre-production and that the Jodorowsky's script would result in a 14-hour movie ("It was the size of a phonebook" Herbert recalled). Although Jodorowsky took several creative liberties with his novel, Herbert stated that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship.
The rights for filming were yet again sold, this time to Dino de Laurentiis. Although embittered, Jodorowsky states that the Dune project changed his life. Dan O'Bannon entered a psychiatric hospital after the failure of the production and worked on 13 scripts afterwards; his 13th script was Alien.
De Laurentiis commissioned Herbert to write the screenplay in 1978. However, considering that an average script is 110 pages long, Herbert's 175-page script was rejected.
With De Laurentiis holding the rights for filming, he hired director Ridley Scott in 1979 (with Rudolph Wurlitzer writing the screenplay and H.R. Giger back from the Jodorowsky production). Scott worked on three scripts using The Battle of Algiers as a point of reference and intended to split the book into two movies before moving on to direct another science fiction film, 1982's Blade Runner. As he recalls, the pre-production process was slow and to get the project done would have taken more time:
But after seven months I dropped out of Dune, by then Rudy Wurlitzer had come up with a first-draft script which I felt was a decent distillation of Frank Herbert's. But I also realised Dune was going to take a lot more work — at least two and a half years' worth. And I didn't have the heart to attack that because my older brother Frank unexpectedly died of cancer while I was prepping the De Laurentiis picture. Frankly, that freaked me out. So I went to Dino and told him the Dune script was his. — From Ridley Scott: The Making of his Movies by Paul M. Sammon
By 1981, the nine-year deal was expiring. De Laurentiis re-negotiated the rights again and settled the rights for Dune sequels (written and unwritten). Raffaella De Laurentiis, after seeing The Elephant Man, decided that David Lynch should direct the movie. Around that time Lynch was receiving several other offers, including Return of the Jedi. He agreed to direct and write Dune even though at the time he had never read the book nor known the story, and had little interest in science fiction.
David Lynch worked on the script for six months with Eric Bergen and Christopher De Vore, eventually adapting the movie into two scripts. The team split up after this first attempt because of creative differences. Lynch would continue to work on five more different scripts. Shooting of Dune finally started with the 135-page 6th draft of the script on March 30, 1983. With a budget of over 40 million dollars, Dune required 80 sets built upon 16 sound stages and a total crew of 1700, with many of the exterior shots filmed in the Samalayuca Dunes in Chihuahua. The rough cut of Dune under completion was over four hours in duration without post production effects, but Lynch's intended cut of the movie as reflected in the seventh and last draft of the script was three hours long.
However, Universal Pictures and the film financiers expected a standard two-hour cut of the film. To shorten the film, producers Dino De Laurentiis, Raffaella De Laurentiis and director David Lynch removed numerous scenes, filmed new scenes that comprised simplified or concentrated elements of the plot, and added voice over narrations, including a new introduction by Virginia Madsen, into the final cut. Contrary to popular rumors, Lynch made no other version of the movie outside the Theatrical Cut; no longer, three to six hour version ever existed in its complete form. Although several longer versions have been spliced together.
In the Introduction for his 1985 short story collection Eye, Frank Herbert discussed the film's reception and his participation in the production, and listed scenes that were shot but cut from the released version. Herbert stated he was satisfied with the end result of the movie, but expressed disappointment that some of the scenes he saw on the rough cuts of Dune were not included in the Theatrical Cut.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times also gave Dune a negative review of one star out of five. She said that, "Several of the characters in Dune are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to understand what goes on in the movie" and explained that the plot was "perilously overloaded, as is virtually everything else about it."
The staff of Variety gave Dune a more favorable, but still negative review stating "Dune is a huge, hollow, imaginative and cold sci-fi epic. Visually unique and teeming with incident, David Lynch's film holds the interest due to its abundant surface attractions but won't, of its own accord, create the sort of fanaticism which has made Frank Herbert's 1965 novel one of the all-time favorites in its genre." They also commented on how "Lynch's adaptation covers the entire span of the novel, but simply setting up the various worlds, characters, intrigues and forces at work requires more than a half-hour of expository screen time." They did enjoy the cast and said that "Francesca Annis and Jurgen Prochnow make an outstandingly attractive royal couple, Siân Phillips has some mesmerizing moments as a powerful witch, Brad Dourif is effectively loony, and best of all is Kenneth McMillan, whose face is covered with grotesque growths and who floats around like the Blue Meanie come to life."
Richard Corliss of Time magazine gave Dune a negative review, stating that "Most sci-fi movies offer escape, a holiday from homework, but Dune is as difficult as a final exam. You have to cram for it." He noted that "MacLachlan, 25, grows impressively in the role; his features, soft and spoiled at the beginning, take on a he-manly glamour once he assumes his mission." He ended by saying "The actors seem hypnotized by the spell Lynch has woven around them — especially the lustrous Francesca Annis, as Paul's mother, who whispers her lines with the urgency of erotic revelation. In those moments when Annis is onscreen, Dune finds the emotional center that has eluded it in its parade of rococo decor and austere special effects. She reminds us of what movies can achieve when they have a heart as well as a mind."
While most critics were negative towards Dune, critic and science fiction writer Harlan Ellison was of a different opinion at the time. In his 1989 book of film criticism Harlan Ellison's Watching, he says that the $42 million production failed because critics were denied screenings at the last minute after several re-schedules, a decision by Universal that, according to Ellison, made the film community feel nervous and negative towards Dune before its release. Ellison eventually became one of the film's few positive reviewers.
More even-handed criticism praised Lynch's noir-baroque approach to the film. Others compare it to other Lynch films that are equally hard to access, such as Eraserhead, and assert that in order to watch it, the viewer must first be aware of the Dune universe. In the years since its initial release Dune has become a cult favorite, and has gained more positive reviews from online critics and viewers.
As a result of its poor commercial and critical reception, all initial plans of Dune's sequels were cancelled. It was reported that David Lynch was working on the screenplay for Dune Messiah and was hired to direct a second and a third Dune film.
In retrospect, "Lynch admitted he should never have directed Dune," and prefers not to discuss it in interviews. Universal has approached him for a possible Director's cut of the film, but Lynch has rejected every offer.
I started selling out on Dune. Looking back, it's no one's fault but my own. I probably shouldn't have done that picture, but I saw tons and tons of possibilities for things I loved, and this was the structure to do them in. There was so much room to create a world. But I got strong indications from Raffaella and Dino De Laurentiis of what kind of film they expected, and I knew I didn't have final cut. — David Lynch, on Dune
The film grants the Bene Gesserit telepathy, while the novel notes their keen, nearly superhuman awareness. In a scene in which Spacing Guild members are responsible for covering up the Guild Navigator's activities, they cannot speak normally, but instead use a translating device, which has the appearance of a vintage radio microphone. Hawat is forced to milk a gruesome captive cat daily for the antidote to the residual poison in his body. The Harkonnens drink the juices of crushed insects; they also have heart-plugs, sadistic devices that terminate slaves by "unplugging" their hearts.
There are several distinctive visual and aesthetic choices made in the film that do not seem directly inspired by Herbert's novel. In the film, the Bene Gesserit women adopt shaven heads when they become Reverend Mothers and the Mentats have enormous eyebrows. The 'thopters (ornithopters) are depicted as wingless, jet- or rocket-propelled aircraft, while the color of the Arrakeen sky is changed from silver to orange.
Perhaps most conspicuously, both Paul and Feyd-Rautha are older in the film than in the novel. There is no mention in the film of the reasons for their mutual hatred, which are explained in detail in the novel. Furthermore, their climactic duel is reduced in both significance and length in the film.
Several characters are entirely excluded from the film adaptation, presumably as a result of time limitations, such as Count Fenring, his Bene Gesserit wife Margot, and several other minor characters. The deaths of characters such as Thufir Hawat, Baron Harkonnen, and Rabban were altered or omitted altogether.
The final line in the novel, spoken by Jessica to Chani, is "We who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives" (in reference to Paul's marriage to and refusal of Irulan). In the film, the final lines (spoken by Alia) are "And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!", and are delivered after Paul apparently magically (or miraculously) makes it rain on Arrakis.
Some of the novel's central themes were minimized for the adaptation; political topics such as the "unstable tripod of power" in the novel's universe (Emperor, Landsraad, and Guild) were not depicted faithfully. The Guild treat the Emperor like a lackey rather than an equal power, while the Landsraad is almost non-existent. The book has the Guild operating behind the scenes, and their dependence on spice is only revealed at the end. It is not said that they were involved in the original plot against Duke Leto Atreides.
The Emperor's main concern in the book is that the Fremen are potentially as dangerous as his Sardaukar, the toughness of each group being reckoned to come from the harshness of their environment. He is less concerned with spice, reckoning he will get his share whoever controls it.
The themes of religion, of how the Bene Gesserit use it as a tool and how politicians and the state can manipulate religious beliefs for their own advantage, and how Paul took advantage of the Bene Gesserit's manipulation of Fremen religion whilst simultaneously fearing and reviling having to do so, while being significant elements of the novel, were either ignored or taken literally and out of context in the film. In the novel, Paul takes on the aspects of the Fremen messiah (religious imagery which was planted there ages ago by the Bene Gesserit) out of necessity for his survival and acceptance among the Fremen, but is extremely reluctant until the very end to accept the role of messiah because he is aware of the consequences (a genocidal religious war that the Fremen will carry out against all who do not accept Paul's divinity, killing billions.) It is unusual circumstances, coincidences, and converging political conspiracies, combined with his abilities as the Kwisatz Haderach, that ironically grant Paul the appearance of the divinity and holy powers the Fremen believe him to have, much to Paul's unease. The novel simultaneously demonstrates how the Bene Gesserit have become caught up in the religions they have manipulated, and how they ultimately fall victim to a false messiah they themselves helped to create. However, in the film, this complexity is completely left out, and Paul truly is the holy man the Fremen believe him to be; he is not reluctant to take on the mantle of the Fremen messiah, and the tragic irony of his situation is completely absent, as is his prescient awareness of the cataclysmic consequences of the Fremen belief in his divinity.
The ecological themes were not addressed as they were through the series: the film ends with rain falling on Arrakis, apparently at Paul's command. In the novel, this was accomplished decades later, through great efforts by the Fremen and years of terraforming. Additionally, a plot complication is created because rain falling on Arrakis would effectively stop spice production, as in the novel, water is poisonous to the sandworms, and a wet environment on Arrakis would eradicate them.
An Extended Edition DVD version was released in Europe in November 2005. It includes, among its many extra features, an extended version of the film, credited to Alan Smithee, which is 177 minutes long. The booklet explains that this version was created for an American television channel, and is most likely the aforementioned Channel 2 Version. Neither the video nor the audio was remastered, exhibiting a poor television-like quality. Although the cover states that the soundtrack is in mono sound, it is, in fact, in stereo.
The film inspired the Cryo Interactive video game Dune, which used elements (such as the Weirding Modules) unique to the film. The character of Paul Atreides was designed to look like Kyle MacLachlan, and the CD version of the game included footage of the film. The Westwood Studios Dune games (Dune II, Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune) were also visually influenced by the film. For example, the Emperor in Dune 2000 and the Reverend Mother in Emperor: Battle for Dune resemble the equivalent characters in Lynch's film.
Dialogue and music from the film have been sampled in various songs. On their album Machine Language, the techno-music DJ group Dynamix II's song "Get Out of My Mind" samples the Mohiam/Alia scene which features the titular line. Virginia Madsen's opening monologue is also featured in several songs by artists including Aphrodite, Astral Projection, and MFG. The Christian industrial/dance band Mortal samples from the film in their 1993 album Fathom, including featuring Baron Harkonnen's line "I'm alive!" in the song "Alive and Awake." The 1990 production of "Spice" by Eon (musician) also contains dialogue from the Baron and Guild Navigators.
Dune is the likely inspiration for the lyrics "Walk without rhythm, it won't attract the worm" in the song "Star 69 / Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim. In the novel, Paul notes "We must walk without rhythm" to avoid notice by a sandworm as he and Jessica cross the desert; Lynch's Dune (1984) features Paul's line "If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract the worm" 82 minutes into the film.