Dune. It’s epic. It’s bad. In 1984, this film was unveiled with enormous hype and celebration, surely to top the box office that year.

It bombed.

Dune is based on a book. An epic book. The daunting task of converting a very long and complicated story into a two-hour film will always result in two things:

1) Fans of the book will complain that stuff is missing.
2) People who have never read the book won’t understand what is going on, because a lot of exposition is left on the cutting room floor.

In fact, it took many years and many directors to finally get this film made. The prize of directing the Dune story, based on the book of the same name by Frank Herbert, went to David Lynch, who previously had critical success with The Elephant Man. Lynch took two years to write a draft that was finally approved, and the result is a beautiful, weird, confusing mess. The movie would have quickly vanished into obscurity…except, it didn’t.

After its initial release, Universal opted to please fans by producing an extended televised version, increasing the running time by an hour. Lynch demanded his name be removed from this version, thus it is credited to “Alan Smithee.” Is this extended version any better? Does it help answer any questions about the events and characters from the theatrical version? I’ll get back to that.

What’s Dune about? Well, the plot is awfully complex, so I’ll just explain the first five minutes of the film:

It’s the year 10,191 (although it’s not specified as A.D., so it’s just really, really far into the future), and all space travel (and government) is dependent on spice, a substance that can only be found on one planet, Arrakis – also known as Dune. The spice mining is controlled by the Emperor, who in turn answers to the Space Guild (the freaks responsible for allowing really fast travel between planets). Two other planets (orrather, the ruling factions of those planets – House Atreides, and House Harkonen) are at the heart of the story, and the emperor is trying to manipulate them to keep his seat of power. The Space Guild alerts the emperor that the shit might hit the fan if he keeps up his backstabbing. They command that nothing stop the spice mining, and oh, to make sure the son of Duke Leeto (of House Atredies) is killed. Why the son? Well, on Arrakis, the native people have been looking for a messiah – who just so happens to look an awful lot like the son of Duke Leeto. Can House Atredies survive? Is the son of Duke Leeto really a messiah?

There really is a lot more plot to this film, but at only five minutes in, you’ll get an idea of how the rest of the film will flow. There’s no time to breathe. Miss five seconds and you’ve missed a vital plot element. Characters are very rich, but we don’t spend enough time with any but the absolute major characters. Locations are exquisite, but we are rushed from place to place, and there isn’t any time to take it all in. The last act of the film accelerates this pace, for the worse. You just want to stand up and yell “SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!”

I watched this film in 1984 and liked it. It was okay. I was 10 years old, and didn’t give a shit about story – more action and boobs, please. I rented the movie a few years later, and still liked it. A lot. The sets, the characters and the unbelievable attention to detail were quite unlike anything I had ever seen in other science fiction films. Unfortunately, I had no idea what was going on. Who are these people? Why are they fighting? Why is an oversized aborted fetus chastising an emperor? Space folding looks like that? It really is hard to follow. The film provides a short prologue, and continual narrative (provided by a very pretty Virginia Madsen) to help the audience. It works a bit, but to be perfectly honest, you’ll need to watch the film at least four or five times (or read the book) to understand most of the events that unfold.

Kyle MacLachlan plays Paul Atredies, the son of Duke Leeto (Jurgen Prachnow). His portrayal is fantastic, and helps pull this film out of the messy storyline. He’s confused, but aware of all the events unfolding around him. He knows what will happen, but doesn’t understand why or how. There are many other major characters, all portrayed perfectly by superb actors, but they are secondary to Paul. With such enormous time constraints, Lynch is wise to focus solely on Paul, and his journey from student to eventual … well, you’ll find out. The downside is that you’re never allowed to follow the actions of other interesting characters. You’ll constantly be asking “where’s he going?” and “what happened to whatshisname during that two-year montage?”

Technically, the film is a marvel. The set design and costume design should have won every major award in '84-'85. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another movie with this much visual detail. The sets are enormous, and there are many tiny details you will miss the first 15 times you watch it. The cinematography is excellent, and the DVD really does justice to this aspect. I have seen Dune countless times, and I’m still in awe over the shots of this film. The special effects, however, have always been an issue with critics. In 1984, the miniature work wasn’t fantastic. In 2006, it looks very dated. However, there are some excellent forced-perspective shots that would be hard to replicate using digital methods today. The matte paintings are equally amazing. It’s painful to imagine what a better script might have produced, because all this visual eye candy is overshadowed by the problematic story.

That brings us to the extended edition, available for the first time ever (well, legally) on DVD. This is also the first time the extended edition is presented in the same aspect ratio as the theatrical cut (2.35:1). What do you get with an extra hour of footage?

There’s a much longer prologue, which attempts to explain the entire prehistory of the events leading up to the film. Unfortunately, it’s ridiculous. Obviously an afterthought, this prologue is driven by illustrations and a new narrator (not Virginia Madsen, who is now reduced to an almost-non-existent background character). It’s clumsy, repetitive, and really doesn’t do much except confuse the audience even more. Why should I care about events that took place thousands of years before this film? This should never have been added.

Additionally, a lot of “in-between” scenes have been added, in order to connect one sequence to another. This helps explain a few things, but the execution is absolutely ridiculous. We are treated to special effects shots that are constantly repeated (as no new ones would have been produced for a longer cut). Cutaway shots of charactersare “borrowed” from other scenes that take place in different scenes. There are even a few freeze-frame edits, as footage of certain cutaways obviously didn’t exist.

There are some good additions. Many scenes have been extended, adding a few poignant lines of dialogue here and there. There are also several scenes that should never have been excised from the theatrical cut, the kinds of scenes that make you wonder why they were cut in the first place. But “extended” doesn't necessarily mean you see all of the theatrical cut and more. In fact, a few scenes have been trimmed heavily from the theatrical cut - and they suffer for it. These are of the weird Lynch variety, and are sorely missing.

Overall, this extended edition feels like a work-in-progress. Many of the effects shots are reused, and I would have honestly preferred a “MISSING SCENE” card, in place of what ends up in this version. It’s certainly worth watching, but ultimately fails completely. The theatrical cut, with all its problems, is far superior.

How Does The Disc Look? 
Universal decided to mess with fans once again. We have a DVD-18, or, in plain English, a double-sided, dual-layered DVD. This means that it will stop working in about two years (just in time for an HD upgrade, I would suspect). The DVD-18 format was never popular, and I can’t imagine why Universal chose this option in place of a two-disc set.

On side A, we have the Theatrical Cut, presented in anamorphic widescreen. Compared to the previous non-anamorphic US DVD release, this transfer is excellent. It’s not perfect – but I’m very happy. There’s a bit of grain and artifacting here and there, but I never expected Universal to put this much work into a movie that didn’t make much money. The sound is fine, nothing to write home about. A previously announced DTS track was dropped for space reasons. We’ll just have to wait for the HD release for that one.

Side B of the DVD contains the Extended Edition of the film. The transfer is hit-and-miss, with some scenes looking as good as the theatrical cut, but most looking as bad as the original DVD release. There’s obviously more compression applied to this version, and the jarring edits between original scenes, and “extended” ones is very obvious.

A minor note, the DVD menus are cute, but why did they choose some newly created music to accompany it? This new music doesn’t match any theme or style used in the film, so it’s a bit jarring for existing fans.

The DVD is packaged very nicely in a metal casing, with very cool artwork and a unique design.

Extras  
Accompanying the theatrical cut on the first side of the disc are all the extras. Along with several deleted scenes, there are a few short featurettes on the making of this film (specifically the set design, costuming and special effects). A photo gallery (with unmentioned concept art/matte paintings) tops it off.

This is a bit of a let-down. I would have liked a retrospective documentary, even a featurette on the very cool music (which I know exists, as it was shown on movie channels back in the 1980s). David Lynch did not participate in any extras, so he is noticeably absent. The R2 (UK) DVD release also features a few other bells and whistles which are missing here. You can’t have it all, however, and as I mentioned earlier, I’m surprised Universal put even this much work into it.

Overall
If you’re a fan of this film, you’ve already bought this DVD. If you’ve never seen Dune, I would highly recommend it over the Sci-Fi Channel mini TV series. Yes, that version has more time to tell the story, but the manner in which it is done is, well, it’s just not epic enough. Lynch’s Dune, despite all its problems, is truly fantastic and worthy of anyone interested in a rich sci-fi world filled with fine detail and sheer spectacle.

I’m happy Universal released the extended cut (due to enormous fan demand). It is rightfully relegated to side B, as it is a companion piece to, not of a replacement of, the theatrical cut.