STARRING:
Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif, Kyle MacLachlan, Sian Philips, Sting, Max
Von Sydow
1984,
140 Minutes, Directed by: David Lynch
Description:In the far future, a duke and his family are sent by the Emperor to a sand
world from which comes a spice that is essential for interstellar travel. The
move is designed to destroy the duke and his family, but his son escapes and
seeks revenge as he uses the world's ecology as one of his weapons. —
Amazon.com
Frank Herbert's epic sci-fi novel (about a desert planet and the
epic battle for the spice found on it that makes space travel possible) as film palimpsest.
Readers of
the series will be disappointed (the book is always better . . .) and
so will fans of director David Lynch's oddball style (the film is way
too straightforward, at least compared to previous efforts like Eraserhead).
While
the truly original sets and costumes are worthy of the novel, the
producers seem to have made a decision halfway through that the
movie is going to become too long to keep the attention of movie
audiences and decided to cut away at the storyline.
The result is
that the latter half of the film is too episodic to build any
real tension as the two warring factions on the planet Arrakis
battle it out for supremacy.
Disappointing
- if only the producers decided to stick to their material and let the
story progress more naturally. Instead it's like watching a Reader's
Digest synopsis of the novel.
Description:
In the far future, a duke and his family are sent by the Emperor to a sand
world from which comes a spice that is essential for interstellar travel. The
move is designed to destroy the duke and his family, but his son escapes and
seeks revenge as he uses the world's ecology as one of his weapons. —