Despite the criticism it has received, I feel that Dune is one of the greatest movies of all time. I saw the original theatrical release in the movie theaters when I was just six years old, and I was in awe of the grandeur and scope of the world that Frank Herbert had envisioned and David Lynch had brought to the screen. There are numerous sites about Dune floating all over the Internet, so I choose to concentrate on the topics that interest me the most.
There are three versions of Dune that are currently available: (1) the original theatrical release, (2) the Allan Smithee extended TV release that David Lynch disowned, and (3) the Japanese subtitled version that contains footage from both 1 and 2. I suggest viewing Lynch's approved version first, then the Smithee project if you can find a copy. Then read the book, if you haven't already. The book will help you to understand the meta-narratives that are lost in the movie versions.
Dune is one of the last movies filmed in Cinemascope. That is a format which requires a screen more than twice as long as it is wide. When Dune is shown on TV or on a larger screen, it loses its panoramic feel; therefore, I suggest viewing Dune in the manner it was meant to be viewed in: the letterbox format. That way, the viewer will see everything that was meant to be seen. Facial expressions will not be lost, nor shall the magnificent views that can only be communicated via the widescreen be reduced in any way.
Director David Lynch shot over 5 hours of footage for Dune, but the asinine powers that be wanted a 2 and 1/2 hour movie. For a novel that is 500+ pages and contains tightly packed information within those pages, it would be impossible to convey the aura of the book through a 140 minute movie. There are crucial scenes from the book that are missing from both the theatrical release and the TV release such as:
- There is an unpacking scene which features the head of a bull that gored a past Atreides duke to death. The duke's blood had been preserved on the animal's horns with a shellacking substance.
- Lady Jessica enters the greenhouse on Arrakis and finds a message from another member of the Bene Gesserit written in a barely discernible dot code on the back of a leaf, warning her of the Harkonnen threat that still existed.
- Irulan has a flashback during which her father shows her a portrait of Duke Leto Atreides and expresses that he wished that Leto was his son. The emperor had married a Bene Gesserit and she had obeyed the order and given birth to only daughters. Irulan had two younger sisters and Shaddam IV deeply regretted that he'd been deprived of a son to carry on his dynasty.
- Alia sifted through the fallen soldiers in the battlefield after the massacre of the Emperor's troops was finished. She marked each soldier for water retrieval and used her knife to finish off any that remained alive. She became a creature of legend, St. Alia of the Knife.
