Jodoworsky's such an amazing director. He'd have done something amazing, but it wouldn't have been Dune. The Lynch version isn't Dune either. Nor is this new one. Nor that other mini-series they tried to do. My wife raves all the time about how she'd do Dune like she's been obsessed with it since middle school - she has.
Part of me wishes I hadn't read Dune. Part of me wishes I'd just taken my wife's description of it and written my own version based on the amazing adventure she'd put in my head. I'd write it just for myself. Don't get me wrong - Dune, the book, is amazing - a favorite - but the Dune that preoccupied my imagination based on my wife's passionate rants? To me, that will always be the REAL Dune.
I have to claim a rare disagreement here. As a novel and act of storytelling, Dune is a fundamental failure, one that could never translate successfully to film. Two reasons why:
TL,DR: You can’t empathize with Paul Atreides because the storytelling is broken.
1. From a character standpoint, Dune is structurally incomprehensible. It ignores the lessons of storytelling best explained by Joseph Campbell and indelibly present in every great epic. For a hero’s journey to make a credible emotional impact on the audience, the hero must be a normal person drawn out of his world to struggle and fail repeatedly, before he can conquer the darkness and change the world. Without that development, the audience can’t experience empathy—the sole function and purpose of fiction. In Dune, however, the protagonist starts out as an intergalactic prince with superpowers (not exactly relatable). When he’s drawn out of his world to face his first challenge (stranded in the desert), he inexplicably and immediately acquires even MORE superpowers that make him, instantly, the most powerful being in the universe. He struggles for nothing, except in hand-wavey hindsight exposition. When he has to fight, no big deal—he’s been a magical ninja prince since, literally, the book’s opening scene. Compare this to beloved fantasy characters like Luke Skywalker, Avatar Aang, Frodo Baggins, or Miles Morales from Spider-verse, with all of whom the audience CAN’T HELP but empathize. This is the powerful, instinctual sub-language of storytelling, and why Paul Atreides never feels compelling. Which brings us to…
2. Paul’s only real struggle is to act human—hence why the romance plotline falls flat and exists only as hand-wavey exposition. A good writer can make this work: Homer, for example. Achilles in The Iliad, though a demigod, has to experience the death of Patroclus (his fault, his failure), before he can pass through truly human pain and give the audience a moment of transcendant empathy. Thus, we have history’s first “anti-hero”—a flawed demigod with whom we can still relate because we feel the same pain. Compare to Darth Vader or Prince Zuko in Avatar Airbender: the villain must become a hero himself.
Dune could have done this if the final climactic battle called for Paul to do something very human, to make some personal sacrifice or deny his magical ninja genius powers, allowing us to see our own humanity in him. But in what I believe is among most egregious insults to the audience in 20th century storytelling…Herbert doesn’t even write that scene! He skips over the climax battle entirely! It doesn’t exist! It’s just infuriating hand-wavey aftermath exposition!
Thus, despite the magnificence, beauty, and even genius of Herbert’s world-building, the story is a failure because it contains no humanity. Paul Atreides isn’t a hero, nor an anti-hero, but the villain. And nobody wants to see the villain win.
I saw Dune 2 this last Thursday. A fun flick sorta just a war movie that greatly simplifies Herbert’s vision, and also one where Zendaya is far far far more charismatic than Timothy Chalamet. Austin Butler as Feyd is also more charismatic than Chalamet. I just don’t think Chalamet has enough presence to play a messianic figure.
I loved the first one. It was maybe the best sci-fi book-to-movie ever made. They just nailed it.
But Dune 2 felt pointless. Nothing much happens. It falls prey to sci-fi’s giant religious blind spot. The genre just can’t come up with an angle that doesn’t either make prophecy concrete and thus eliminate “faith” as a thing, or it turns religious texts into a video game walkthrough. Battlestar Gallactica was the worst offender on both. Dune 2’s biggest offense is it’s dull repetition of the same conversation over and over:
Person A: prophecy is real
Person B: no it’s not
A: yes it is
B: no!
As Scott points out there’s a conflict between Fremen who believe in prophecy and those that don’t, but it’s the lowest stakes conflict imaginable. It isn’t even in the book- it feels like it was added here to pad the run time. But if there was anything else going on in the movie you wouldn’t even notice this “conflict”. It takes place solely in Chani’s head; she’s the only Fremen who ever rejects the idea of prophetic mumbo jumbo (she knows the Bene Gesserit planted religion on Dune; HOW she came by that knowledge is never addressed). She keeps claiming that this is part of a wider dispute between her more nationalist people and “southern” fundamentalist Fremen, but you never see it. You never even hear anyone else talk about it, and it never impacts the Fremen during the war in any way. The factions aren’t remotely opposed.
The movie also has amazing sword fighting. That’s about 90 seconds of run time. The rest is 2 hours 15 minutes of “Prophecy is real/no it’s not” discussions, wailing on the soundtrack, and Christopher Walken’s jarring appearance as the Emperor.
I was worried this was going to happen. I love the book, I’ve read it many times since I was in my teens, but once it starts talking about religion I start skipping chapters. The movie would have don better to skip it and spend more time with the emperor and his court; Lady and Count Fenrig are interesting characters in the book. But they get shortchanged in the movie, as does the emperor. All you really know about the triumvirate of Harkonens is that they murder one of their servants/slaves/soldiers every time they’re on screen in case you need to be reminded again that they’re the bad guys.
Alia and Thirfir Hawat don’t make an appearance even though both were critical in the final showdown with the Emperor in the book. The smugglers barely get a mention. Stilgar doesn’t do much other than be A to Chani’s B, though again, without any actual conflict between the two that might threaten to be interesting.
I’d give it a pass, particularly if you liked the first one.
I read the book as a teenager and revisited it before the first of the recent films came out and eventually went on to read the whole series (including the final ultimately disappointing book written by his son). It's as complete a universe as any I could imagine and the ultimate message of the series is to refute the one given in the first couple of books - to avoid deifying leaders! Unfortunately very few people seem to get past the first book and even fewer complete the initial trilogy. (It was initially planned as a pair of trilogies with a connecting book in the middle.) Unfortunately Herbert died after writing the penultimate book which ends as a cliffhanger! Still a remarkable series of books but doubtful that anything past the first one will be deemed worthy of the cinematic treatment ... Nou
Christmas day 1984 we watched David Lynch's "Dune." I was in my thirties. The movie raised so many questions, my husband and I bought and eagerly read the first book. My husband continued to read other books in the series and some commentaries as well. Thirty-nine years and numerous moves later the tattered/underlined/annotated paperback "Dune" was still on our shelves. I re-read it in anticipation of Villeneuve's "Dune." We watched "Jodorowsky's Dune" on TV and bought the DVD to watch again. Wish someone would get the rights to reproduce Jodorowsky's script book!
I decided to read the remaining five Dune books. Books 2 and 3 were good, but I advise others to satisfy themselves with synopses of the remaining three. Those are hours I would like to have back. Looking forward to watching the second half of Villeneuve's "Dune." Grateful for all the other work (Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Miyazaki's Nausicca, etc., influenced by Herbert's "Dune").
“Dalí had other conditions. He refused to use a script, because his own lines would be much better. As Emperor of the galaxy, he would sit on a throne that was a toilet seat made from two intersected dolphins” I wish this film had been made only to see this 😂 A soundtrack by Pink Floyd, though, could have been interesting. Having said that, I’ve arrived to Dune only recently and after having watched both movies by Denis Villeneuve it could only be him making sense of the novel and creating a world that can attract new readers. That was certainly my case.
Little known fact. Herbert's book was originally planned to be filmed as a musical, written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The project fell through due to lack of funding and the doubt that anyone would actually sit through a six hour musical about boy meets worm. The composers did however save one of the songs, using it in Carousel - "Dune is bustin' out all over." :)
I want Dune to be made into a great film. I really do. But it can't be. Too big, too profound, too epic - even more so than The Lord Of The Rings. Like trying to make "Ulysses" into a film. (Well, that's a stretch, but you know what I mean.)
I love Lynch's quirky attempt, but the entire film was so "small" compared to the novel. Small sets, small closeups, small battles. Sting looked cool, but made a terrible Feyd Rautha. The Mentats just didn't work. The dialogue (especially the unspoken inner bits) is among the cringiest in film history. And Paul - I just wanted to punch him in the face. What a dick. I still remember a theater full of people laughing when the Shadout Mapes said "I am the Shadout Mapes... The housekeeper!!".
The latest reboot got closer. The atmosphere, the sheer scale of the cinematography, the decision to capture only half of the novel, and (most of) the casting were all good. And CGI (mostly) in service of the story, not as the main character in a piece of shit Michael Bey "film".
Yet it still didn't get there. And there were things Lynch's version did better. His intimate, visceral, and repulsive portrayals of the Baron's debauchery and the horrifically spice-transformed Pilot (complete with pissing on the floor before departing the Emperor's company) were more impactful than anything in Dune V2.
Jodoworsky's such an amazing director. He'd have done something amazing, but it wouldn't have been Dune. The Lynch version isn't Dune either. Nor is this new one. Nor that other mini-series they tried to do. My wife raves all the time about how she'd do Dune like she's been obsessed with it since middle school - she has.
Part of me wishes I hadn't read Dune. Part of me wishes I'd just taken my wife's description of it and written my own version based on the amazing adventure she'd put in my head. I'd write it just for myself. Don't get me wrong - Dune, the book, is amazing - a favorite - but the Dune that preoccupied my imagination based on my wife's passionate rants? To me, that will always be the REAL Dune.
I have to claim a rare disagreement here. As a novel and act of storytelling, Dune is a fundamental failure, one that could never translate successfully to film. Two reasons why:
TL,DR: You can’t empathize with Paul Atreides because the storytelling is broken.
1. From a character standpoint, Dune is structurally incomprehensible. It ignores the lessons of storytelling best explained by Joseph Campbell and indelibly present in every great epic. For a hero’s journey to make a credible emotional impact on the audience, the hero must be a normal person drawn out of his world to struggle and fail repeatedly, before he can conquer the darkness and change the world. Without that development, the audience can’t experience empathy—the sole function and purpose of fiction. In Dune, however, the protagonist starts out as an intergalactic prince with superpowers (not exactly relatable). When he’s drawn out of his world to face his first challenge (stranded in the desert), he inexplicably and immediately acquires even MORE superpowers that make him, instantly, the most powerful being in the universe. He struggles for nothing, except in hand-wavey hindsight exposition. When he has to fight, no big deal—he’s been a magical ninja prince since, literally, the book’s opening scene. Compare this to beloved fantasy characters like Luke Skywalker, Avatar Aang, Frodo Baggins, or Miles Morales from Spider-verse, with all of whom the audience CAN’T HELP but empathize. This is the powerful, instinctual sub-language of storytelling, and why Paul Atreides never feels compelling. Which brings us to…
2. Paul’s only real struggle is to act human—hence why the romance plotline falls flat and exists only as hand-wavey exposition. A good writer can make this work: Homer, for example. Achilles in The Iliad, though a demigod, has to experience the death of Patroclus (his fault, his failure), before he can pass through truly human pain and give the audience a moment of transcendant empathy. Thus, we have history’s first “anti-hero”—a flawed demigod with whom we can still relate because we feel the same pain. Compare to Darth Vader or Prince Zuko in Avatar Airbender: the villain must become a hero himself.
Dune could have done this if the final climactic battle called for Paul to do something very human, to make some personal sacrifice or deny his magical ninja genius powers, allowing us to see our own humanity in him. But in what I believe is among most egregious insults to the audience in 20th century storytelling…Herbert doesn’t even write that scene! He skips over the climax battle entirely! It doesn’t exist! It’s just infuriating hand-wavey aftermath exposition!
Thus, despite the magnificence, beauty, and even genius of Herbert’s world-building, the story is a failure because it contains no humanity. Paul Atreides isn’t a hero, nor an anti-hero, but the villain. And nobody wants to see the villain win.
(I’m still a fan though.)
My favorite is the Beatles wanted to adapt the lord of the rings with Kubrick directing https://variety.com/2021/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-beatles-stanley-kubrick-1235123614/amp/
I see a different issue here. Not every book is suited to film. Dune is one of those.
I saw Dune 2 this last Thursday. A fun flick sorta just a war movie that greatly simplifies Herbert’s vision, and also one where Zendaya is far far far more charismatic than Timothy Chalamet. Austin Butler as Feyd is also more charismatic than Chalamet. I just don’t think Chalamet has enough presence to play a messianic figure.
Jodorowsky also approached Christian Vander’s Magma to write Dune’s music, which would have been perfect.
I saw Dune 2 last night. Really, really bad.
I loved the first one. It was maybe the best sci-fi book-to-movie ever made. They just nailed it.
But Dune 2 felt pointless. Nothing much happens. It falls prey to sci-fi’s giant religious blind spot. The genre just can’t come up with an angle that doesn’t either make prophecy concrete and thus eliminate “faith” as a thing, or it turns religious texts into a video game walkthrough. Battlestar Gallactica was the worst offender on both. Dune 2’s biggest offense is it’s dull repetition of the same conversation over and over:
Person A: prophecy is real
Person B: no it’s not
A: yes it is
B: no!
As Scott points out there’s a conflict between Fremen who believe in prophecy and those that don’t, but it’s the lowest stakes conflict imaginable. It isn’t even in the book- it feels like it was added here to pad the run time. But if there was anything else going on in the movie you wouldn’t even notice this “conflict”. It takes place solely in Chani’s head; she’s the only Fremen who ever rejects the idea of prophetic mumbo jumbo (she knows the Bene Gesserit planted religion on Dune; HOW she came by that knowledge is never addressed). She keeps claiming that this is part of a wider dispute between her more nationalist people and “southern” fundamentalist Fremen, but you never see it. You never even hear anyone else talk about it, and it never impacts the Fremen during the war in any way. The factions aren’t remotely opposed.
The movie also has amazing sword fighting. That’s about 90 seconds of run time. The rest is 2 hours 15 minutes of “Prophecy is real/no it’s not” discussions, wailing on the soundtrack, and Christopher Walken’s jarring appearance as the Emperor.
I was worried this was going to happen. I love the book, I’ve read it many times since I was in my teens, but once it starts talking about religion I start skipping chapters. The movie would have don better to skip it and spend more time with the emperor and his court; Lady and Count Fenrig are interesting characters in the book. But they get shortchanged in the movie, as does the emperor. All you really know about the triumvirate of Harkonens is that they murder one of their servants/slaves/soldiers every time they’re on screen in case you need to be reminded again that they’re the bad guys.
Alia and Thirfir Hawat don’t make an appearance even though both were critical in the final showdown with the Emperor in the book. The smugglers barely get a mention. Stilgar doesn’t do much other than be A to Chani’s B, though again, without any actual conflict between the two that might threaten to be interesting.
I’d give it a pass, particularly if you liked the first one.
Some books really ought to stay inside the movie theater in your skull.
What was Welles’s favorite Parisian restaurant?
I read the book as a teenager and revisited it before the first of the recent films came out and eventually went on to read the whole series (including the final ultimately disappointing book written by his son). It's as complete a universe as any I could imagine and the ultimate message of the series is to refute the one given in the first couple of books - to avoid deifying leaders! Unfortunately very few people seem to get past the first book and even fewer complete the initial trilogy. (It was initially planned as a pair of trilogies with a connecting book in the middle.) Unfortunately Herbert died after writing the penultimate book which ends as a cliffhanger! Still a remarkable series of books but doubtful that anything past the first one will be deemed worthy of the cinematic treatment ... Nou
Great column!
Christmas day 1984 we watched David Lynch's "Dune." I was in my thirties. The movie raised so many questions, my husband and I bought and eagerly read the first book. My husband continued to read other books in the series and some commentaries as well. Thirty-nine years and numerous moves later the tattered/underlined/annotated paperback "Dune" was still on our shelves. I re-read it in anticipation of Villeneuve's "Dune." We watched "Jodorowsky's Dune" on TV and bought the DVD to watch again. Wish someone would get the rights to reproduce Jodorowsky's script book!
I decided to read the remaining five Dune books. Books 2 and 3 were good, but I advise others to satisfy themselves with synopses of the remaining three. Those are hours I would like to have back. Looking forward to watching the second half of Villeneuve's "Dune." Grateful for all the other work (Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Miyazaki's Nausicca, etc., influenced by Herbert's "Dune").
“Dalí had other conditions. He refused to use a script, because his own lines would be much better. As Emperor of the galaxy, he would sit on a throne that was a toilet seat made from two intersected dolphins” I wish this film had been made only to see this 😂 A soundtrack by Pink Floyd, though, could have been interesting. Having said that, I’ve arrived to Dune only recently and after having watched both movies by Denis Villeneuve it could only be him making sense of the novel and creating a world that can attract new readers. That was certainly my case.
I saw El Topo and was looking forward to his Dune interpretation. I had read the first 3 Dune books and believed I enjoyed them but that was long ago:
Dune (1965)
Dune Messiah (1969)
Children of Dune (1976)
According to Wikipedia, there are now 14 separate Dune books! Talk about a franchise. Whew.
I've seen one of the Dune movies but haven't' seen the current version yet. Have been waiting until Part 2 was released.
Jodorowsky also hired Magma to do another soundtrack, Floyd would to the "Atreides" soundtrack, and Magma would do the "Harkonnen" soundtrack bits
Little known fact. Herbert's book was originally planned to be filmed as a musical, written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The project fell through due to lack of funding and the doubt that anyone would actually sit through a six hour musical about boy meets worm. The composers did however save one of the songs, using it in Carousel - "Dune is bustin' out all over." :)
I want Dune to be made into a great film. I really do. But it can't be. Too big, too profound, too epic - even more so than The Lord Of The Rings. Like trying to make "Ulysses" into a film. (Well, that's a stretch, but you know what I mean.)
I love Lynch's quirky attempt, but the entire film was so "small" compared to the novel. Small sets, small closeups, small battles. Sting looked cool, but made a terrible Feyd Rautha. The Mentats just didn't work. The dialogue (especially the unspoken inner bits) is among the cringiest in film history. And Paul - I just wanted to punch him in the face. What a dick. I still remember a theater full of people laughing when the Shadout Mapes said "I am the Shadout Mapes... The housekeeper!!".
The latest reboot got closer. The atmosphere, the sheer scale of the cinematography, the decision to capture only half of the novel, and (most of) the casting were all good. And CGI (mostly) in service of the story, not as the main character in a piece of shit Michael Bey "film".
Yet it still didn't get there. And there were things Lynch's version did better. His intimate, visceral, and repulsive portrayals of the Baron's debauchery and the horrifically spice-transformed Pilot (complete with pissing on the floor before departing the Emperor's company) were more impactful than anything in Dune V2.
Some things are better left unfilmed.