4 ms·

I actually like Lynch's Dune. There are dozens of us, dozens!

Retric 11y ago
I actually really liked that movie. It's not action packed, but IMO it captures what it feels like to read a book better than most movies.
glup 11y ago
Me too... I think it is the narration that kills it for most people. I get the distinct feeling that someone decided at the last minute that the audience needed to be spoon-fed explanations for everything. Star Wars did just fine with equally cryptic dialogue ("Many Bothan spies died to bring us this information"; "bulls-eyed womp rats in my T-16" etc.). It's like life: people sometimes say things you don't understand.
Illniyar 11y ago
Its on my top 10 movies of all time. I love that movie. Why would anyone think it's bad?
dasil003 11y ago
I also liked it. Perhaps it had something to do with being 10 years old and never having read the book, but I think it stands on its own as an artistic achievement. There are many ways to adapt a screenplay, but I don't think any of them could really satisfy true Dune fans.
david-given 11y ago
Oh, I love it. Not because it's good, it's not, it's an incoherent mess; but it's a great incoherent mess. By which I mean that it tries so hard and fails so badly I end up somehow seeing through it to the vision of the film Lynch was trying to make, which is a masterpiece. It's fascinating. And there are moments of brilliance to it. The Guild Navigators! The Emperor's Court! The spacecraft design! I even love the poorly matted and ludicrously scaled sandworms, which convey a sense of grandeur that modern films somehow have trouble with. Oh, and Toto's soundtrack is great. Ah, here we go. David Lynch's sandworm ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld2DMsyy0go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld2DMsyy0go Scifi channel's sandworm ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVqXE9ZY5wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVqXE9ZY5wk Which of those is more fun? I'd rather have a glorious failure like Dune over the polished insult that was Avatar any day. Next I will explain why Van Helsing is one of my favourite films...
- eveningcoffee 11y ago
  Next I will explain why _Van Helsing_ is one of my favourite films... That would be interesting.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    Kate Beckinsale at her most beautiful and full auto Gatling crossbow.
    - david-given 11y ago
      Also vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's Monster, the Brides of Dracula, Mr. Jeckyll and Doctor Hyde, a secret religious order with steampunk antivampire Bond gadgets, an excellent soundtrack, decent production quality, and some surprisingly good performances with just the right amount of scenery chewing (which in the case of the actor who plays Dracula is AS MUCH AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE). To my mind it neatly hits the sweet spot where there's just the right amount of ludicrousness to be fun but which is then played completely straight, so it doesn't quite cross the border into camp. The result is something which I find enormously entertaining. I suspect that leads had a lot of fun making this. Bear in mind it did get 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, so YMMV. (Obviously everybody except me must be wrong.)
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  > Next I will explain why Van Helsing is one of my favourite films... I hope it wasn't sarcasm because you made me look for it on Netflix :).
- secabeen 11y ago
  For me, the Lynch one is better because it was clearly filmed in a desert. The SciFi one is just too obviously a soundstage.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    It was the CGI equivalent of matting for nearly the whole movie. Sill a very nice looking but unnatural film. Which seems appropriate. I think Lynch's characterizations were superior. But the SciFi one was long enough to do a better turn to the book.
a_thro_away 11y ago
I saw it in 1984; fell asleep (seriously). Watched it again over the years and it is in my top ten. The author of the article insists Paul became a superman? Or (and I am way out on a limb here) did it rain because of the massive sandworm activity, creating so much atmospheric dust and electrostatic lightning, creating larger nucleating particles, causing it to finally rain? Admittedly never paid that much attention to that part, just the ambiance.
bicknergseng 11y ago
I'm with you. I definitely don't hate it like many seem to. No, it's not a to-the-letter portrayal of the book, nor does it do a great job of portraying the "subtleties," but it's probably much better off not doing that. Look at the evolution in the Harry Potter movies. The first few tried to jam pack several hundred pages of detail into 2 and change hours, and miserably fail to make "good" movies on their own or good enough adaptations for the rabid fans of the books. The last few stopped trying to cover every chapter of the book in favor of better scenes and movie storytelling and were (IMO) much better for it. No, there isn't a navigator portrayed as a slug in the first book (though they show up that way in later books), and the Weirding Way is just some overthought martial arts, but I'd rather watch a movie with space slugs folding space and mmmbop sound cannons to visualize the things that don't translate well into visual/auditory space from text. If I were to pick an issue with the movie, it's that Lynch used a bunch of narration instead of coming up with creative ways of representing that stuff. There is an uncanny valley for book to screen adaptations. Lynch's Dune is just far enough out of the bottom of that valley that I can enjoy it as an incredibly expensive, overproduced sci-fi movie based on the Herbert universe by the same name.

I actually really liked that movie. It's not action packed, but IMO it captures what it feels like to read a book better than most movies.

glup 11y ago

Me too... I think it is the narration that kills it for most people. I get the distinct feeling that someone decided at the last minute that the audience needed to be spoon-fed explanations for everything. Star Wars did just fine with equally cryptic dialogue ("Many Bothan spies died to bring us this information"; "bulls-eyed womp rats in my T-16" etc.). It's like life: people sometimes say things you don't understand.

Illniyar 11y ago

Its on my top 10 movies of all time. I love that movie. Why would anyone think it's bad?

dasil003 11y ago

I also liked it. Perhaps it had something to do with being 10 years old and never having read the book, but I think it stands on its own as an artistic achievement. There are many ways to adapt a screenplay, but I don't think any of them could really satisfy true Dune fans.

david-given 11y ago

Oh, I love it. Not because it's good, it's not, it's an incoherent mess; but it's a great incoherent mess. By which I mean that it tries so hard and fails so badly I end up somehow seeing through it to the vision of the film Lynch was trying to make, which is a masterpiece. It's fascinating. And there are moments of brilliance to it. The Guild Navigators! The Emperor's Court! The spacecraft design! I even love the poorly matted and ludicrously scaled sandworms, which convey a sense of grandeur that modern films somehow have trouble with. Oh, and Toto's soundtrack is great. Ah, here we go. David Lynch's sandworm ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld2DMsyy0go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld2DMsyy0go Scifi channel's sandworm ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVqXE9ZY5wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVqXE9ZY5wk Which of those is more fun? I'd rather have a glorious failure like Dune over the polished insult that was Avatar any day. Next I will explain why Van Helsing is one of my favourite films...

eveningcoffee 11y ago
Next I will explain why _Van Helsing_ is one of my favourite films... That would be interesting.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Kate Beckinsale at her most beautiful and full auto Gatling crossbow.
  - david-given 11y ago
    Also vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's Monster, the Brides of Dracula, Mr. Jeckyll and Doctor Hyde, a secret religious order with steampunk antivampire Bond gadgets, an excellent soundtrack, decent production quality, and some surprisingly good performances with just the right amount of scenery chewing (which in the case of the actor who plays Dracula is AS MUCH AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE). To my mind it neatly hits the sweet spot where there's just the right amount of ludicrousness to be fun but which is then played completely straight, so it doesn't quite cross the border into camp. The result is something which I find enormously entertaining. I suspect that leads had a lot of fun making this. Bear in mind it did get 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, so YMMV. (Obviously everybody except me must be wrong.)
johnchristopher 11y ago
> Next I will explain why Van Helsing is one of my favourite films... I hope it wasn't sarcasm because you made me look for it on Netflix :).
secabeen 11y ago
For me, the Lynch one is better because it was clearly filmed in a desert. The SciFi one is just too obviously a soundstage.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  It was the CGI equivalent of matting for nearly the whole movie. Sill a very nice looking but unnatural film. Which seems appropriate. I think Lynch's characterizations were superior. But the SciFi one was long enough to do a better turn to the book.

a_thro_away 11y ago

I saw it in 1984; fell asleep (seriously). Watched it again over the years and it is in my top ten. The author of the article insists Paul became a superman? Or (and I am way out on a limb here) did it rain because of the massive sandworm activity, creating so much atmospheric dust and electrostatic lightning, creating larger nucleating particles, causing it to finally rain? Admittedly never paid that much attention to that part, just the ambiance.

bicknergseng 11y ago

I'm with you. I definitely don't hate it like many seem to. No, it's not a to-the-letter portrayal of the book, nor does it do a great job of portraying the "subtleties," but it's probably much better off not doing that. Look at the evolution in the Harry Potter movies. The first few tried to jam pack several hundred pages of detail into 2 and change hours, and miserably fail to make "good" movies on their own or good enough adaptations for the rabid fans of the books. The last few stopped trying to cover every chapter of the book in favor of better scenes and movie storytelling and were (IMO) much better for it. No, there isn't a navigator portrayed as a slug in the first book (though they show up that way in later books), and the Weirding Way is just some overthought martial arts, but I'd rather watch a movie with space slugs folding space and mmmbop sound cannons to visualize the things that don't translate well into visual/auditory space from text. If I were to pick an issue with the movie, it's that Lynch used a bunch of narration instead of coming up with creative ways of representing that stuff. There is an uncanny valley for book to screen adaptations. Lynch's Dune is just far enough out of the bottom of that valley that I can enjoy it as an incredibly expensive, overproduced sci-fi movie based on the Herbert universe by the same name.