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MoveeTime Review / May 15, 2005: This is my review of the movie Dune, made in 1984. First I would like to mention some of the people who starred in this movie, and I am sure many of these names you have heard before. First and foremost is Kyle MacLachlan, who played Paul Atreides. As I mentioned before, I believe this was one of his best performances, Also starring were Jürgen Prochnow as Paul's Father, Duke Leto Atreides. Jürgen Prochnow has starred in a long list of movies including the German made blockbuster, Das Boot aka The Boat. Francesca Annis as Paul's Mother, Lady Jessica. To some moviegoers, Francesca Annis is a familiar face in numerous television performances, including her excellent Claire Gibson role in Wives And Daughters. To wrap up the family is Alicia Witt, as Paul's sister aka "the little abomination" :-) For a full list of the actors, and crew click HERE

Oddly enough, I did not even know of this movie at first. I found a pc game years ago named Dune II by Westwood Studios, being played by a co-worker of mine. It seemed to be a pretty good game, and from what I have seen even now the scenerio is still a good base to create new games from. I played this game a lot of hours, and was not even aware it was based on a novel, let alone a motion picture. To be quite honest, I think the game actually made me appreciate the movie even more.

Now to the movie: When Dune was first released it really did not get the sort of fanfare it should have. I think this was the results of other futuristic motion pictures already released, which leaned towards special effects more than a story line. This had already conditioned movie goers to the "Who needs a plot? Let's just blow up stuff" approach. So the first thing I should tell you is do not expect to see x-wing fighters, or other cool space stuff in this movie. I would say that as far as visuals, Dune has more of a classic Jules Verne look, than that of maybe the Star Wars series. Although Star Wars had that original cool shrinking into the distance story effect in it's opening, I feel that Dune had an equally impressive opening as well. Dune opens also with a sort of lead in story done by Virginia Madsen, as Princess Irulan, the daughter of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (José Ferrer / R.I.P.). This woman was so hauntingly beautiful. I think I would have listened to her for the whole 137 minutes, 190 minutes for the special edition, or just let her read me the whole book :-)

However, still for it's sake I have to say that Dune also had some good special effects of it's own. You have to appreciate the fact that David Lynch, in my opinion, attempted to focus more on Frank Herbert's novel than just blowing up stuff. In some ways I see in Frank Herbert's writing of this story a bit of the past being thrusted into the future. In his concept of the future, religeon still hold's a powerful influence upon the "known" universe, much as it did on planet earth in the past during the Medieval era. However, it appears what Frank Herbert did was combine many different of religeous sects into one centralized belief. See the movie, or read the book, and you will see what I mean on this.

The story line is also a bit Medieval in it's content. The Realms, or in 10191 called Houses are in feudal conflict to gain power, and behind it all is the Emperor. His plot is to send one of the houses to a desert planet named Arrakis aka "Dune" to control the mining of the spice substance called Melange. Then he will send the other house to attack them. However, there are creatures there who basically eat anything in their path who many believe have some sort of link to the spice. The spice is vital to the universe because it is used for space travel. Unlike Captain Kirk on the Enterprise saying "all ahead warp 3" space travel in 10191 is done without even moving. What they do is fold space, so wherever you plan to go is just folded over to where you are and alas you are there. Also on Arrakis is a people known as the Freman, they have blue within blue eyes, and use wind traps to collect what little water exists on Arrakis. Here Paul meets Chani, played by Sean Young (Aftermath) who becomes his main squeeze :-)

Last I will mention the bad guys. I mean what is a movie without bad guys? The bad guys reside in House Harkonnen. The house is headed up by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, played by Kenneth McMillan (R.I.P.) who did an excellent performance in this movie. Also amongst his evil house was Feyd-Rautha, played by Sting, now where have we heard that name before?

Honorable mentions also go out to Patrick Stewart (Star Trek) as Gurney Halleck, and Max von Sydow (The Exorcist) as two excellent actors in their own rights. Also a thumbs up for Toto, who composed the music for this fine film. So I suggest you go rent or buy this movie. It is available on both VHS, and DVD. Let's face it a 20 + year old movie that makes it to DVD, must not be all that bad to get there :-) .... Dune: Behind The Scenes

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