This morning is going to be a bit of an odd post, because yesterday was a bit of an odd day. For the last few days I have felt myself getting sick. I think it is just a combination of ragweed pollen and the smoke blowing in from the fires that have combined to make my lungs feel like hell. When I start to get sick however I start to become significantly more susceptible to nostalgia, and then yesterday the Dune trailer dropped tipping the balance towards reliving segments of my childhood. First off if you have not seen the trailer then you should probably stop whatever you are doing now and watch it. Here for your benefit I will embed it right here.
First off one thing you need to understand is that Dune plays a very pivotal role in my psyche. There are a handful of pieces of fiction that have served to shape my tastes as an adult, and high on that list is the world crafted by Frank Herbert. I live in this weird place of liking pretty much all of the adaptations of Dune to date, but the David Lynch film and its iconography will always have a special place in my heart. I think that is because I saw the movie before I went down the deep rabbit hole that is reading the novels. I was captivated by the visuals I saw on the screen and completely engaged with its amazing soundtrack by Toto. Again if you have never experienced the soundtrack I will embed it here for you to listen to.
I’ve talked about this before, that I grew up without cable television. So as a result my prime motivation when I was anyplace with that magical service was to soak up as much culture as I could in as short of a period of time as possible. In 1986, my aunt was pregnant with my cousin Christopher and this involved us travelling the two hours down to their house a lot during the pregnancy and especially in the months following it as my mom helped out with various things. They had HBO and were perfectly cool with giving me total control of the television, and during one of these binges of culture I stumbled across the movie Dune.
Towards the end of the movie my Uncle Ron ended up on the sofa with me, and at the end he could see that my little ten year old mind was blown. He gave me a little wise nod and said something to the effect of if I liked that, I should really read the book because it is much better. He wandered off into the bedroom for a moment and returned with an extremely tattered copy of the novel Dune. This began a bit of an obsession of mine that honestly still continues to this day. I was completely enthralled by any book that was so arcane that it required a very thick glossary in the back in order to decode it’s magic. I poured over it until I understood every last bit of it and could effectively live within this world.
This lead me down a path of tracking down copies of all of the other novels in the series. These are not my copies, but are each as I remember them… minus the copy of Dune. My original tattered copy was a significantly older printing. The thing is Dune not only became a thing that I was obsessed by, but also a point of reference between me and my father. He had always been a fan of science fiction, and he is the one that first introduced me to Doctor Who. I however was the gateway to him experiencing the worlds of Dune, and he voraciously tore through all of the novels. He and I both sorta have this proclivity for digging in when we find something we like and consuming every bit of content that is available on the subject.
So now we arrive at the trailer reveal yesterday. As I have said before I have enjoyed all of the Dune releases to date. My ultimately blend would be the story telling of the SyFy miniseries blended with the visuals from the David Lynch film. I think my ultimate struggle with the miniseries is that it felt at times that they tried entirely too hard to look nothing like the movie. As we approach this new rendition, it is very much feeling like it is a movie that is aware of everything that has come before it, and that it is cherry picking the best elements of all of the above. I realize I could be setting myself up for supreme disappointment, but I am choosing to be hopeful.
The casting choices so far are just brilliant. I am so on board with David Bautista as Glossu Rabban. I am also completely on board with the overall style they are going for the Harkonnen aesthetic. I would not have thought of Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho but it absolutely works, as does Josh Brolin as Gurney Hallek. However that said my heart will always belong to Patrick Stewart and his nine stringed Baliset. I am I think most into Zendaya as Chani and the gender flipped Liet-Kynes. Though again I will always have a deep love and appreciation for Max von Sydow, but I am fully on board with a reinterpretation of the character. Piter De Vries was always one of my favorite characters, and I am hoping that the new rendition can hold a candle to how amazing Brad Dourif was in the Lynch film.
One interesting note that my friend Jason pointed out, is that in many of the scenes it seems like inspiration was taken for vehicle designs from the DOS games. Once again like I said this movie seems to be picking and choosing the best bits to craft together into an homage to everything. I am hoping it works, and I am hoping that the whole is better than the sum of the parts. Based on everything I have read it seems like Denis Villeneuve understands the gravity and difficulty of what he is trying to do. This arrives in the theaters in December and I already have plans with my friend Vernie to go see it at the best theater we have in the posh screening room. I feel like this is going to be a movie that deserves that sort of treatment.
I adore the Dune novels for much the same reason, the scope, majesty and depth of the fiction took my breath away. I’ve seen the trailer but will wait on the series release, I don’t hype myself about TV series’ generally though this is one I’ll await with eager anticipation.
Dune’s a weird one. I read the original novel in my early teens, when I was reading a huge amount of science fiction. About all I can say is that I definitely finished it. I can’t even remember what I thought about it at the time. I must not have been all that impressed because I’m pretty sure I’ve never read any of the sequels. Back then, as an S.F. crazed teenager, I would definitely have carried on with any series where I really liked the first one I read.
Then we come to the movie. I haven’t seen it, which is odd. I was a big David Lynch fan (still am) but I didn’t get into him until Blue Velvet, which was the film he made next. You’d think I’d have made the effort to watch his back catalogue but I never have. All the Lynch movies I’ve seen are from Blue Velvet onwards.
The tv series I never even knew existed.
Watching the trailer, it looks interesting. Denis Villeneuve is another director whose work I’d always be interested in following. Then again, I still haven’t gotten around to watching Blade Runner 2049 and I’ve had the DVD for almost a year…
I have to admit that I have somewhat similar feelings. I read Dune…and don’t remember really being super impressed. This could be because (as the Jason in the post) I was really into the video games and the first movie… coated with nostalgia by the time I actually read the book (during my Austin captivity of a couple years). I remember really liking either the second or third one, however….I am sure it was children of dune..but I don’t remember reading three (maybe I skipped the second one).
As an older guy now, however, I see the problems with the original movie and don’t remember the games much at all anymore (except for the vehicle designs, especially the dragonfly things). I think it may be time to reread Dune and do it more justice.
Super excited for this movie, though… just all over tingly about it
I’m looking forward to the movie. I saw the original theater release way back when, the short version which seemed like it was missing a lot, the extended version I saw later filled in the blanks. To me the original release was like the Warcraft movie. A lot of big name actors with the story, but missing something. I kind of hope 10 or 20 years from now they try to do to it what they’re doing for Dune. I just hope Legendary doesn’t try to cut it down to fit a run time, because there is so much that needs to be shown.
I think I had heard that they were going to split the first novel into multiple films because it is just too much content to cover in a single movie.