Dune

[J Wilson]

I just saw a post on Arrow's Facebook page about the German release of Dune. It does add the documentary, as well as the first official release of the 179-minute "Spicediver" fan edit

Fan edits are now getting official releases? Is this precedented? Legally, does Lynch or Herbert's estate have to sign off on that?

I would imagine Lynch's only recourse would be to have his name removed, like he did with the TV edit, but that's assuming the same rules apply in Germany as they did in the US when it was released. I'd think otherwise the studio could do whatever they wanted with it. My guess is Koch put it on there and hoped no one would raise any fuss. The guy who did the edit was asking people on some fan edit forum I found to not talk about it so much prior to release, like he was afraid someone would put the hammer down if it got out the edit was on there.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Apparently it will be in 720p on the Koch release

It's upscaled, unfortunately. Spicediver only did the edit in SD and evidently nobody involved wanted to go through the hassle of redoing it in HD or 4K (though there is at least one HD fanedit in the works). The audio will be lossless, though.

[John Cope]

That's pretty cool- I imagine that's just splicing the deleted scenes into the finished film?

It's far more than just that. It's actually a thorough reconceptualization of the film's structure and flow. As far as I'm concerned it's the single best version of the movie and I say that as a huge fan (it's probably my favorite Lynch). Significantly it also "fixes" the ending as well as a few other technical inconsistencies. I think I ultimately prefer the Spicediver ending though I really don't mind either way (he makes it less jarring at least). Lynch's own many declarations of this as a deeply compromised project seem to make this film in particular fair game for such revisions/improvements.

[therewillbeblus]

Can we expect the Koch set to get broken up and not cost hundreds of dollars at some point? I'd like to hold out for it, but I don't like the film nearly enough to splurge like that- the Spicediver upscale is definitely the big draw for me

[therewillbeblus]

It's pretty amazing how conditions for watching a film can completely change your perception- I never liked Lynch's film, but watched the Arrow UHD tonight and the pristine clarity of HRD etc. provided the correct conditions for me to fall in love with it as a piece of half-knowing camp taken seriously in all the right places, and indulging in its sci-fi eccentricities appropriately. This approach strikes a near-perfect balance of conscious absurdity and sincere engagement within that internal logic. The Baron's initial scene, and how its escalating textures arrive at his gruesome kill, combines these tones in the most fluid and commanding cocktail. I was floored by how something so cartoonish could also be exhibited as so respectfully tense.

Especially when compared to Villeneuve's overly-dour and vacuous effort, it's surprising how economical this film is at telling its story and inviting us into its world. Villeneuve felt like he had to overstuff his film and continually race through plotting at an exhaustive pace, which is only theoretically economical. Lynch's film never feels forced, and manages to effortlessly grace us with doses of slight characterization -via a wonderful array of lively character actors and performances that contain genuine spark- on its road ahead with a strong thrust of forward momentum. It's strange to see how, in hindsight, the remake barely changes its approach to the material in terms of its mindful progression moving through it (something I had thought was the core intention of its existence), with the main difference being that Villeneuve focused on special effects and bombastic setpieces while cooling all colorful 'fun' elements with an unearned austerity -including failing to breathe and meditate on significant scenes that emphasize character development and narrative stakes.

Okay, so Lynch's version also has some choppy sections that speed up the propulsion of plot (Paul and Chani's relationship, for example, or Paul's ascension within the Fremen collective), but even without the excuse of studio interference, this seems to be the only suitable method to adapting such a dense but ultimately thinly-veiled piece of shlock; one where the dullest subsection of the book is fast-forwarded, and the mythology is oversimplified and sidelined as secondary to the aesthetic and tonal pleasures. MacLachlan is wonderfully-balanced as the engaging protagonist, anchoring the film so much better than Chalamet's insipid Paul, and this is only one of the many key distinctions that contribute to Lynch's film pulsating with flavor, both comparatively and independently. I doubt Jodorowsky's vision would have transpired much differently than this, had it been actualized. Lynch's film is plenty ambitious and entertaining, a gonzo-blockbuster that manages to be abnormal and mainstream at once. I imagine that was the goal for all parties here, so mission accomplished.

[Beloved Aunt]

I just started watching this and I'm about 30 minutes in. So far, I completely fail to see how this is a disaster, and it easily eclipses at the very least the first Star Wars film (A New Hope--which is still not a bad film) (and it goes without saying, is a million times better than dreadful junk like A Phantom Menace) and the wretched, in my book, Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films. Peter Jackson is really a pretty crummy filmmaker, in my partial experience. The LOTR books could make fun, relatively high-quality epic gingerbreading if they were filmed with any real imagination or a genuinely visionary, individualistic style, like what Lynch and Co. come up with here, but what may be relatively superficial aspects of the acting styles and visual sheen used in Jackson's trilogy made them genuinely sickening for me from beginning to end. Sue me, they look cheap and tacky and glinty and aggressively ugly and are indistinguishable from countless other similarly-oriented films. I don't think PJ has a particularily good eye. And the same goes for Howard Shore's much-vaunted scores--in this case, they're really not too bad as music, and yet something fundamental about their basic aesthetic and feel kind of makes me sick.

The static, people-standing-around-talking aspect of the plot of Dune isn't really particularily challenging, is enjoyable, even, and Lynch even half an hour in already finds goodly opportunities to liven things up with dexterous and elegant filmmaking. So far, I love it.

[therewillbeblus]

Most of the disastrous cutting came in the second half, I believe. I still love the first half. It’s very digestible, and captures all the right bits of excitement from the first part of the book. Though after another revisit I have to relent that it kinda turns into a mess at the end

[Beloved Aunt]

I'm watching a 177-minute version--is that what you saw? It does sort of seem a little bit like a fan edit/cobbled together with deleted scenes added, although there is maybe so far no incontrovertible evidence of that, and the opening credits of the version I'm watching say "An Alan Smithee Film" and that its written by a person with the incredibly-fake-sounding name of "Judas Booth". (Seriously, who the fuck is that?)

[therewillbeblus]

Oh no I think that’s the fan made supercut, so the back half should probably be more satisfying

[Beloved Aunt]

It sounds like Lynch was perhaps excessively upset about the whole thing.

[John Cope]

It remains my favorite of his films.

[beamish14]

It remains my favorite of his films.

There is just so much depth to it. I will watch it over Mulholland Dr, that is for certain. Like Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai, I think the studio-mandated edits enhance its oblique, almost mystical qualities. It towers above Villeneuve’s two films

[colinr0380]

I love the Lynch Dune as well (though not over Mulholland Dr. ), and I always associate watching it with this particular dark, cold night time of year for some reason! I may be incorrect about this but wasn’t the ‘extended cut’ of Lynch’s Dune (which I still have not yet seen) partially released to coincide with those early 2000s Sci-Fi Channel mini-series adaptations?

It is interesting that The Lord of the Rings was brought up, because perhaps the closest comparison to Lynch’s Dune may be Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated/rotoscoped version of The Lord of the Rings, in the sense that just trying to reframe the material in order to fit into the running time of a standard length film led to compressions and compromises in order to achieve that. Although in the case of the Bakshi instead of rushing through the material in the second half of the work being adapted; rather than stopping at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, they progressed about a third of the way into The Two Towers as well, on the implicit understanding that they would finish the series in a second film. Which never came to be.

That’s what makes Peter Jackson getting the Lord of the Rings trilogy made as a trilogy such an important achievement, if only logistically. Because in the commentary for The Fellowship of the Ring there is talk of all of the other studios wanting to make the trilogy either as one highly compressed film, or at most as two films rather than three. Which is why a relatively small studio as New Line came to make it instead of one of the majors, because they were the only ones who were prepared to commit to making the trilogy as three films, respecting the natural narrative breaks of the original Tolkein work. In some ways that explains Jackson’s relatively conservative filmmaking in The Lord of the Rings, because just getting it made was no certain thing, and there was already a lot to prove in just getting the world of Middle Earth onto the screen, let alone by taking even more edgy artistic risks with the material.

(But the choice a decade later to do The Hobbit as three separate three hour long films is something we could perhaps take umbridge with! )

You can even see some of that conservatism towards grandly already mapped out serial filmmaking is still there even now in how the Villeneuve films have been released, with the reticence to market the first Dune film as anything but “Dune” initially to either avoid alienating audiences not wanting to have to come back for another film to complete an unfinished story or (perhaps just as likely) because the studio would only have greenlit “Dune: Chapter Two” based on the reception of the first film (which if it had occurred that way and remained a single film would have left the Lynch film as having adapted more of Dune to the cinema). So the “Dune: Chapter One” title was applied retrospectively instead rather than hubristically assuming that it was automatically going to get a “Chapter Two” completing the material.

All of which was a relative luxury that Lynch did not have in a single feature film, so as much of the book as possible all had to be stuffed in there, leading to the endless fade in-fade out prologue info dump and the rush through the second half of the material involving the rebellion. Which I remember bewildering me on first viewing as a kid, but I kind of love now. Lynch’s Dune may have compromises as an adaptation, but it compensates a lot for that with its unique vision and approach to the world. Maybe that is the essential compromise between art and practicality that ties in with what Beloved Aunt was saying earlier, and in this case we got the ‘weird avant-garde’ interpretation of the material (by necessity as well, with its practical and optical effects, and matte painting backdrops) long before we got the ‘official strait-laced’ one that took its own sweet time to eventually get pushed through the filmmaking system!

[JamesF]

Not to make it sound like I’m trying to put a positive spin on Lynch’s death in any way, but I must confess I’m relieved that there’ll be no more earnest pleading for Lynch to do a director’s cut, as if a) he would ever do it in a million years and b) if he did, it would be an expansion of the existing film rather than the more likely outcome which is three hours of Space Guild Navigator outtakes.

[JamesF]

You can even see some of that conservatism towards grandly already mapped out serial filmmaking is still there even now in how the Villeneuve films have been released, with the reticence to market the first Dune film as anything but “Dune” initially to either avoid alienating audiences not wanting to have to come back for another film to complete an unfinished story or (perhaps just as likely) because the studio would only have greenlit “Dune: Chapter Two” based on the reception of the first film (which if it had occurred that way and remained a single film would have left the Lynch film as having adapted more of Dune to the cinema). So the “Dune: Chapter One” title was applied retrospectively instead rather than hubristically assuming that it was automatically going to get a “Chapter Two” completing the material.

This exact strategy had already worked gang busters for Warner on IT: Chapter One, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that series’ success contributed indirectly to making the idea of greenlighting Dune a bit more palatable.