Why DUNE Was Delayed

Awesome fucking awesome! Thank you David Lynch!

I was eagerly awaiting this before but I can't wait for this now.

Well. The only thing I can say to that is mmmmmmmmmmmmmmZAH!

Muadib is a killing word.

Fucking awesome news! Now with Lynch involved, hopefully it will be as good as the special edition DVDs of BRAZIL and LEGEND, two other genre films that Sid Sheinberg dicked over at Universal in the '80s.

Uh oh. Now Universal is saying Lynch's involvement is still up in the air. Instead of a release date in May, it is indefinate. Hope to hell he does it. I love the book. Hate the mini-series. While this departed from the books in very significant places (raining at the end), it is the closest to the feel of the books we will get, and Lynch was forced to trim the movie (I think). Please get it done.

I love the book. Liked the movie. Liked the miniseries. There were things to like in both the film and the miniseries. In the movie, the Guild Navigator and guildsmen were great. In the miniseries, the Baron was much better -- effeminate, cool, and funny. He got fat on food and boys, not on scenery. The stillsuits and ornothopters were better in the miniseries as well, from a design standpoint. The movie had the better mentats. The two Gurneys tie. As do the worms. Combat was more "Dune-like" in the miniseries, but the movie Paul was fantastic.

I like both. But we've got DVDs of the miniseries. We need that Lynched-out Dune movie. And the "God Emporer" mini. And Brian needs to write "Dune, Where's My 'Thopter?"

That's the one thing that always bugged me about the film (besides the heavy editing, which obviously wasn't Lynch's fault). The miniseries did a much better job of defining "the weirding way". Still, I laughed pretty hard at your post.

I enjoy Lynch's film a whole lot, but he really sells the Bene Gesserit short. I suppose he figured they weren't strictly necessary to the story of brat-turned-Messiah, and he's probably right, but they're a fascinating aspect of the Dune universe. Lynch treats the Sisterhood like it's no more than a girl's school for debutantes, and he all but ignores the entire Missionaria Protectiva. And that makes the presence of a Reverend Mother among the Fremen sort of confusing. Oh well, Patrick Stewart's scenery chomping is still a blast and there's always the books.

to be honest, Lynch original version was something like 4 hours long, wasn't it? so he might have gone into much more detail in his original cut. I really do hope they manage to get Lynch in on this, and that they've kept all the deleted footage.

I've seen the longer version, and Lynch's take on the Sisterhood doesn't change much. Which is a shame, because the Bene Gesserit are a pretty nifty idea on Herbert's part.

The history of trying to get this movie made by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ridley Scott along with everything else could make for one hell of a great documentary of done right. I sure as hell hope the dvd has a good one on it.

It's been a long time since I saw the movie & have never seen the mini-series. I used to re-read the books every 2 years or so but I no longer have them, I need to replace them.

A 4 hour directors cut DVD would be very nice indeed. Dune NEEDS to be longer, I think it's one of the few sci-fi stories that genuinely deserves to called an epic.

you haven't seen the Lynch longer version, no one has outside of the crew of the flick. the longer version that is out there is a version put together for tv by a german company, and apparently includes voice overs and scenes not created under the supervision of Lynch. I think Lynch even took an Alan Smythee credit on that one.

Three words...

Lose the rain!!!

Yeah, that's the one.

I quite like the miniseries, although I’m a somewhat unreliable critic after spending almost two hours stuck on a train with the engaging Julie Cox, who plays Princess Irulan.

A more delightful, intelligent and funny actress you’ll struggle to meet. She’s also an astonishingly well read SF fan (which automatically raises her beyond many of her peers in my hopelessly biased mind).

So if Lynch is involved, does this mean they won't have that super nifty keen DVD special feature known as chapter stops?

That'd be a nada.


The problem is not so much what Lynch intended, but rather what the Italians would let him shoot...let's face it, dressing the Bene Gesserit as Dark Ages Catholic Nuns and having them schlump around like inept ugly harridans doesn't exactly pertain to the storyline. (The Bene Gesserit were dancers, martial artists, gymnasts, courtesans!)

Actually what they need to do is to go back to the beginning and pull out *all* the unused footage and start over. The hatchet job they did on the "re-edited" version stank to high heaven. The way they stuck bits in, stepping on dialogue was the worst thing I've ever seen. And if they were going to the trouble of adding the parts with the Shadout Mapes confronting Jessica, why the hell didn't they do the *whole* thing rather than cut out the most important lines from that scene?

The "Longer Version" was just every piece of extant footage they could scrape up from the lab and splice in without being totally ridiculous, and folksy voice-over lectures about storyboarded scenes that never got shot, while showing storyboard artwork. Most of it hadn't got proper post work, and you can spot the interspersed scenes of patches by looking at the Eyes Of Ibad... they're not blue in the un-posted film.

The theatrical release version is supposedly 140 minutes, and the TV version is supposed to be an even 190 minutes. (The versions I've clocked are the 2H 17M one cited above, and about 175-185 minutes on the tube, depending on how much chopping the station is doing to slip in more commercials.) The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) lists a COMPOSITE VERSION, made from both "official" versions, that aired on KTVU in Oakland (California, USA) in 1992. I've been hearing about this one for years, but never seen a copy.

Herbert is on record as having once said that there were over fourteen hours of film extant, but that probably refers to initial stock and multiple-angle stuff, since Herbert later said in print (c.f. IMDB.com) that only five hours of useable footage were produced.

The folksy voice over in the crappy TV extended edition was non-other than Stan "The Man" Lee of Marvel Comics fame.

Any updates on this disc? I heard it may be sometime in July.

Anything on this?

I am one of those who did not care for the Lynch film, but I will give it a chance if we can see it the way Lynch intended. If it is still confusing and fragmented Lynch can blame nobody but himself.

According to dvdanswers.com this will be released Jan 31, 2006

It doesn't mention if David Lynch worked on that cut of the film though.

It doesn't mean it couldn't be good, but it still might not be his cut.

According to them it's also another damn flipper.

If you have a region free player, the Korean 4 disc set is out.