DUNE: PAST AND PRESENT
(Spoiler alert/Geek alert)
“The book was so much better,” is something that smug literary snobs like me like to say. Of course, the book is better. It says everything the author wanted to tell, the complete story from “soup to nuts.” The movie, or in today’s internet fueled time of wide eyed binging for endless hours, the cornucopia of series exploding from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Max, and Disney are the interpretation of not only the director and script writer(s) but also of the actors, casting agents, set designers, costume designers, and sometimes a spoiled silver spoon producer who provided some cash to get the ball rolling and now wants to change over the entire story to fit his stunted world view. Notwithstanding, Frank Herbert’s masterpiece of 60s Sci-Fi “Dune” has suffered this treatment on multiple occasions. From Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed stab at the tome like book in 1974, a tip of the hat to George Lucas pilfering the novel to help create the Star Wars franchise in 1977, the grim psychoanalytical glimpse into the neurosis of David Lynch’s dreamscape in 1984, the peacock gallery of John Harrison’s 2000 three-part mini-series, and finally to Denis Villeneuve’s two-part exploration in 2021 and 2024, with a third movie of the second book “Dune Messiah” coming quick on its heels and a series on Max exploring the 10,000-year prehistory of the rise of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. This missive will focus on the pros and cons of Lynch’s 1984 cult classic and Villeneuve’s two-part movie with a few nods to Lucas.
What can be said of David Lynch’s intentional dive into his own weirdness and mental quirks put on display for the whole world to see? You just have to admire a filmmaker with those kinds of heavy balls. With its throat guns, heart plugs, cartoon level villains, and giant penis like slugs with laser shooting vaginas on both ends used to fold space, Dune 1984 was my introduction to the Dune saga. Surrounded in a plume from Mexican brick weed, my 16-year-old mind was completely blown away by the movie, which I first viewed on cable TV in the quietude of my marijuana reeking bedroom. Star Wars was indeed my first love, but Dune was something so wonderfully weirdly different, and that’s because it really was. Star Wars was more of a rip on Herbert’s novel than David Lynch’s film. Okay, both had desert planets, emperors, and young messianic characters, but that’s where the obvious parallels end. Lynch went so far afield in his own take on the story that it's hard to see elements Lucas had borrowed for his own movies. Lynch removed the common use of bladed weapons and kept them a tool of the very rich, and for Lucas, a laser version of a sword was the primary weapon of the Jedi Knight. In the novel, and much to Villeneuve’s credit, his two movies, blades are used because of the wide use of shield technology. An energy weapon directed at a person or vehicle with a shield will go off like a nuclear bomb, hence the use of bladed weapons. In the latest films, the Harkonnen troops use energy weapons against the Fremen because they don’t use shield tech. David Lynch of course paid no attention to this geekery because he wanted the good guys to use throat guns, so they could yell people to death. I figure he’s a demure man who has a hard time getting the attention of waitresses and bartenders, so exploding their heads with throat guns must have been a common fantasy for him.
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Besides the lack of blades and the use of yelling throat guns, the other bit of stellar weirdness was the Harkonnens all having heart plugs. Imagine having what looks like a pacemaker on your chest, but it’s really a plug that goes to your heart which can easily be removed to end one’s life. And by easily, it seems like these things came out at so light a touch that the biggest numbers of dead Harkonnens would be people accidently pulling them out in their sleep. There wasn’t even a twist lock on them. The Harkonnen home world of Giedi Prime is a cruel, violent industrial hellhole lorded over by a fascist tyranny that would have had Hitler telling them to tone it down and dial it back. Villeneuve captured this beautifully in his two movies. And on a planet this violent, having heart plugs is recipe for unintentional population control. Did Lynch have a pacemaker put in before doing the flick? He did however get a few things right.
First off, he kept the Mentat Master of Assassins (human computers) as more than just a side thought, especially the Harkonnen “twisted” Mentat, Piter de Vries. In a time where thinking machines have been outlawed for over 10,000 years, a person has to do that kind of heavy computation, while planning the downfall of a lord’s mortal enemies. Lynch kept the Mentat arc front and center throughout the movie. Piter de Vries, jacked up on sapho juice, is seen as driving the downfall of the Atreides and even driving a poisoned blade into the traitor Doctor Yui’s back. In Villeneuve’s films, they are seen as about the level of cost accountants in the first film and then not at all in the second. Paul Atreides’ genetics, Bene Gesserit training from his mother, and Mentat training from Thufir Hawat all comingle into making him the Kwisatz Haderach/Messiah. There is no sign of Thufir training Paul in Villeneuve’s films; Thufir is just a loveable fat-man who’s good with numbers and bad at finding spies and assassins. Also, instead of driving the Harkonnen plot against the Atreides, Piter de Vries seems more as a meager accomplice offering up sage advice and wrangling up a few soldiers that were already bought and paid for. Lynch’s treatment of the Mentat arc was much more on point with the novel.
Next up, when one hears the name Duncan Idaho, of course, the first thought immediately goes to a large, swarthy Polynesian with hippy hair and a jihad beard, right? Jason Momoa, really? I’ll give credit where credit is due, and Villeneuve cast all of the Fremen characters perfectly. In the Dune universe, the Fremen who first settled Arrakis were from the Middle East and North Africa. In David Lynch’s Dune, the Fremen were whiter than the cast from the musical “Oklahoma!” He may have just accidentally cast Duncan Idaho right by using Richard Jordan in the two brief scenes he’s in the movie. At least Villeneuve got both the deep friendship Duncan and Paul shared and Duncan’s last act of noble sacrifice to allow Paul and Jessica to escape, and Duncan did it with a wry smile and panache. He just needed wavy blond hair, making Chris Evens or Chris Hemsworth much better choices for the part. The slight miscast of Jason Momoa is a far lesser crime than how the Spacing Guild were treated by the script/film.
In the Dune universe, The Spacing Guild is the most powerful entity and has nearly complete control of all commerce and movement amongst the stars. Without them, everyone is stuck in their own solar systems. If anyone steps too far out of line, they’ll send in their bagmen to read the riot act and get everyone to straighten up and fly right, even the Emperor of the Known Universe. When it comes down to it, even he is their bitch. David Lynch understood this and made The Guild a prime part of the plot movement. Because their navigators have been huffing spice gas for thousands of years, they too can see into possible futures and see Paul Atreides as a threat to spice production. They want Paul dead as well. Lynch brought this aspect of the novel to the forefront of his film; Villeneuve, not so much. Like the Mentats, they’re brought in briefly and then disappear into the turbulent Messianic infused love story of Paul and Chani. We see their bagmen in their orange spice gas helmets, Pope clothes and pimp canes get off the big donut ship along with representatives from the noble families, also huffing spice gas in helmets, a bitter old crone of a Bene Gesserit giving Jessica the stink-eye for a having a male child and to accompany the Emperor’s herald bringing the announcement and contract for turning over Arrakis to the Atreides and setting their plot in motion. By the way, along with the Spacing Guild, CHOAM company workers, and Fremen, every rich person is addicted to spice at a take it or die level. In the novel, the Spacing Guild owns the CHOAM company and get their spice on the cheap, and the profits are made by which ever noble house has the contract from slinging the excess to the rest of the noble houses. Villeneuve lightly infers this in one scene and then the Guild aren’t even mentioned. It’s the film’s greatest weakness. That little holy war ramping up at the end of the second flick isn’t going anywhere without transpo. Hopefully, the third film will bring this element back on board. Still, Villeneuve has come the closest to bring a truthful adaptation to the book to the silver screen that Ridley Scott famously turned down and said the book was impossible to film.
