*WARNING: SPOILERS!*
I first read Dune by Frank Herbert in the early ‘80s. I don’t remember exactly when; I just remember picking up a copy (that I still possess) at a used bookstore in downtown Macon. I know I bought it well prior to the David Lynch film version and long enough prior that I didn’t even know that a film was being made.
I was immediately drawn inside its dense world, much as I had been when I read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This is precisely what Herbert had intended; he had set out to write a science-fiction novel with that same level of world-building, and the end result lived up to its copy. Looking back on it now with some fiction writing experience under my belt, I’m surprised to note that it is omniscient in perspective, but in an incredibly deft way that uses a technical no-no called “head-hopping” to its advantage. The perspective of every major character is touched upon at some point in the story—oftentimes within the same scene or chapter—and yet almost invisibly and without detracting from the focus on the main character of Paul Atreides.
I felt drawn into the minds of all the characters, like I knew exactly what was going on from every point-of-view. It was like a magic trick that allowed Herbert to describe all of his intense and unique world-building in an organic and immersive way. Some might find it overwhelming, but to me it’s fascinating, and in some ways, it still informs my own writing. Dune put a lot of distinctive imagery into my head, which I can recall to this day, and, of course, I dreamed of a film version one day. In the post Star Wars era, it seemed completely plausible, and, much to my surprise, the Lynch version was announced a brief time later, and I didn’t realize how spoiled I was that I only had to wait a couple of years before I could see it.
Come 1984 and imagine my horror when it turned out to be the hot mess that it is. I distinctly remember the experience. I was only sixteen and decidedly squeamish about anything involving blood or gore. It didn’t help that I was taking antibiotics for something. Resultingly, the heart plug scene made me so nauseated that I had to beat a hasty retreat to the restroom, not quite making it and quickly becoming dizzy. I still vividly recall the floor rising up to meet my face. I didn’t even have time to brace with my hands and my forehead smacked the carpet. No one in the audience even noticed. Fortunately, I was unharmed and somehow made it to the restroom and sat outside for forty minutes, trying to quell the nausea. That was my experience of the Lynch version. 37 years later, it still seems a legit reaction.
An early 2000s TV miniseries left me equally cold with phone-in performances and scarcely a single line preserved from the book. Say what you will about the Lynch film—and believe me, I’ve said it all myself—at least it was relatively faithful to the words on the page.
At that point, it seemed hopeless that a suitable film version would ever happen, and I resigned myself to my own imagination as the ultimate cinematic version.
To the rescue came Denis Villeneuve, a director I greatly admire for films like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Immediately, I recognized his potential for capturing the dreamlike, psychological qualities of the original story. This wasn’t a psychedelic hippy drug trip like Jodorowsky or Lynch envisioned it, it was an exploration of inner consciousness and spirituality, a story rife with telepathy, mind control, and foresight. Frank Herbert hadn’t been a hippy; he’d been born of the prior generation, a middle-aged journalist working for the Seattle Intelligencer, and when he wrote about a hallucinatory drug, it was far more Pythia than Owsley, about expanding consciousness to achieve premonitions, not psychedelic joyrides and hippy freakouts. Freed from the 1960s counter-culture obsession with freaky funguses, Villeneuve, a member of my own generation, was clearly the right director to perceive the true meaning of the story.
Or so I thought.
When the film dropped on HBO Max, I was ready in front of my 40-inch flat panel, at the tail end of a pandemic, preferring not to breathe the same air as other people in an air-conditioned theatre for 2 1/2 hours. My immediate reaction was that his version of Dune was entirely on point with his brand. It’s expansive, a screen-filling experience, deeply immersive like the book. The visual tone is rich. The costumes and sets are beautiful and yet minimal. He uses wide-open landscapes and CGI seamlessly to create a sense of scale. Every moment of Dune will have you convinced that this is a real world, and this is easily his greatest gift to the source material. Likewise, as in Arrival, Villeneuve plays with time, and Paul’s dreams and premonitions expand awareness and create a sense of timelessness, pushing the viewer into the head of the main character, much as the book did so deftly.
The major characters are all well-cast. Oscar Isaac is perhaps perfect as Duke Leto (I’m glad someone finally paid attention to the fact that he is described as “olive-skinned” at least twice in the novel), and he portrays the character with a kind of quiet, resigned dignity, almost as though he knows he’s doomed. It’s also hard to imagine anyone better suited to play Paul than Timothée Chalamet. The character starts off at age fifteen in the novel and yet is intended to carry wisdom and confidence far beyond his years. Chalamet, an actor who is 25 but looks 15, pulls it off with panache.
I also appreciate the fact that they took the time to produce conlangs for the various intergalactic tribes, including languages for both the Harkonnens and the Fremen, and also a sign language for Paul and Jessica to use.
The movie is far from perfect, however. Most of the acting appears to be from the less-is-more school, with only Josh Brolin putting any fire into his performance. Most everyone else is portrayed as laconic and reserved, and notably Chang Chen as Dr. Yueh gets so little screen time and so few lines that his death doesn’t have nearly the impact it does in the book. Stellan Skarsgard’s Baron Harkonnen is menacing and creepy but has only a few scenes that don’t give him nearly enough time to establish his threat. Piter de Vries is so deemphasized that I forgot he was in the movie until I wrote this review. (I’m not even certain if he’s ever called by name before he dies.) It pains me to say that Brad Dourif, ridiculous makeup aside, gave a far more engaging performance in the Lynch version.
There are also odd script decisions which confuse me. The movie starts off with fifteen minutes that almost feel like a prequel. There’s a moment when Paul asks Duncan Idaho if he can accompany him on an advance scout mission to Arrakis and is refused. There is no such scene in the book, and it provides absolutely no tension or character depth at all. He’s a boy who wants to go with his friend on a mission he knows he’s not capable of, for a reason that he can’t articulate (something vague about dreams). He’s not ready and he knows it. He’s merely being irrational. Yes, this could be intended to underscore that he’s still maturing, that his dreams are having an impact on him, but, ultimately, nothing comes of it, and a few minutes later he’s going to Arrakis anyway because the whole family is. The scene feels like fluff taking away from time that could have been spent on material from the novel.
The story converges with the book’s narrative more seriously after about thirty minutes, but the odd and unnecessary divergences continue. In the Duke’s visit to the open desert to observe the spice mining operation, the carryall actually shows up (which it didn’t do in the book because it was bribed by Harkonnens not to show up), but it’s damaged and can’t perform its duty to carry off the spice miner, setting up a comparatively innocuous subplot about House Atreides being left equipment in poor condition but removing any tension that would be created by underscoring the oncoming Harkonnen threat. In the novel, the bribing of the carryall is one of the first clues that darkness is on the horizon, and it makes little sense to deemphasize this plot thread since it’s the main one driving the first half of the story. If anything can be considered a crescendo, it’s the Harkonnen assault in the middle of the film. Why not build more tension leading up to it?
In another iconic scene, the Harkonnens take Paul and Jessica as hostages in an ornithopter, just as in the novel, but they don’t flee the ornithopter after killing the pilot because they spot another such Harkonnen craft winging towards them, thus losing a means of powered flight that way; instead, the ornithopter is disabled without explanation, so the result is the same. Afterwards, Liet Kynes helps Paul and Jessica escape to a hidden ecological research station, which does happen in the book, but, here, it feels like a diversion that eats up ten minutes of run time for little purpose (other than seeing a Lasgun in action), because the confrontations between Paul and Kynes in which Paul asserts his Ducal authority are largely excised. There’s a lot of great dialogue there in the book which sets up how Paul is thinking, and it’s not explored in the film.
There was very little of actual dialogue from the book, which I regard as a confusing decision since the novel’s dialogue is so good. Why dispense with dialogue that is iconic and unforgettable? Some scenes got close but shied away whenever the opportunity presented itself, preferring instead that the actors remain silent rather than say anything. This only seemed to deflate tension. Indeed, the film is oddly lacking in tension throughout. Even the final fight scene between Paul and Jamis is lacking since we see Paul’s premonitions of the future so frequently and can’t imagine the major character dying so early. Villeneuve tacks on a premonitory vision of his dying, but it seems like an unconvincing feint that isn’t given enough time to sink in before it’s dispelled by the real-life outcome. It could also be lost in the jumble of visions tossed in regularly.
All this lack of tension leaves the film to function almost entirely on mood generated by the stunning visuals and the atmospheric music score by Hans Zimmer. Fortunately, that can carry viewers a long way. There’s no doubt in my mind that the film will be compelling to audiences. Even when I was pulled out of the story by the changes to the narrative, I still wanted to keep watching. But it feels incomplete on multiple levels, as if it’s only half a film, both literally and figuratively.
My suspicion is that Villeneuve intended this to be the art-house version of Dune—one scene convinced me that he’s definitely seen my favorite Antonioni film—but, in the end, I’m worried that there is too much style and too little substance. It’s a beautiful and utterly convincing world, but one without much consequence, and I’m left uncertain whether the film will do well enough to garner a second part. It’s likely that its artful approach will appeal to Villeneuve’s fans enough that they’ll watch it regardless of whether they’ve read the book. It’s possible the ardent book fans like myself will overlook all the lack of the book’s dialogue and appreciate the stunning visuals that provide the movie’s strongest selling point. But I couldn’t possibly predict.
Dune absolutely requires a second film to provide some intensity and tension that is missing in all this artistic beating around the bush. I must say, it’s rather odd that they didn’t decide to film everything they needed from the start. After all, that seems to be the standard ever since The Lord of the Rings did it so successfully. And I can only assume that this is an indication of the same uncertainty from the studio that I feel when I watch this half-hearted love letter to Herbert’s masterwork.