Dune

July 4, 2001

I have finally seen Dune in its entirety now, I can no longer use it as an excuse to opt-out on those long and sticky discussions on my forum – you know the ones, arguing about the merits of the film versus the miniseries versus the book, arguing over director’s cut versus extended cut…

Blade Runner. Dune reminded me a lot of Blade Runner, not only because of Sean Young’s replicant-like performance, but because of the strangeness of the planets and how everyone in the film looked dirty and sweaty.

I am sure this has been said before, in SciFi discussions I would care not to be a part of…Dune seems to be a retelling of the Moses story. A bastard child is foreseen to be a savior…the bastard is thrown into the desert to die…the bastard leads his people out of the desert and overcomes an evil empire. Of course, harnessing the powers of worms is different than parting the Red Sea, but both are probably at a difficulty level of 10.

For other films with wormsign, see Beetlejuice, Tremors or Friday (Big Worm, get it?).

Why is it that every SciFi/Fantasy film that came out in the 80s had to be scored by some crappy rock band? Toto did the soundtrack for Dune – too bad David Lynch didn’t team up with Angelo Badalamenti until his next film, Blue Velvet. To be honest though, the music was powerful and majestic – and totally fit the film, though I feel Toto‘s big hit, Rosanna, could have found a place in there somewhere.

I wish that I had seen Dune before my other exposures to David Lynch. If I had seen Dune before Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and the rest, I would be able to view it with less expectations. I wasn’t disappointed by Dune, by any means, but I anticipated the strangeness of David Lynch’s universe and there was no way I could have been taken off-guard, as people who originally viewed the film 15 or more years ago would have been.