the thing with this movie is that it is for the lack of the better word is misshapen. It was supposed to be a two part adaptation, then it wasnt, then it was supposed to be a three hour long movie, then it wasnt, then the studio decided to pull a Snyder Cut except there was never a director’s cut to begin with so they scrambled something out of unused footage even though it required more work.

Have you seen the fan edit?

the speedrun to the end happened because originally it was supposed to be a two part movie - the first draft is the proof - more or less like the Villeneuve movies ending with the Harkonnen takeover and then switching to Atreides comeback in the sequel. Dino was on board with that and then Universal who paid for it said “NOPE” so the story was remodeled into one movie long movie and thats how it went into production. And then the test screenings went badly and the movie got reedited into a two hour running time making it even less coherent.

it’s a lobby card from one of the regional releases.

it was De Laurentiis production so the monumental shitshow was more or less baked in. Dino been trying to get the Dune project off the ground since the mid 1970s and there was a lot of sunk cost tacked onto it by the time Lynch got onboard. Lynch famously passed on directing The Return of the Jedi because in the end of the day it was going to be George calling the shots. So Dino did his Svengali trick and talked David into directing Dune with the promise of reasonable creative control.

The thing is - they started on the wrong foot from the get go. Originally, the plan was to split the book in two movies. That’s how the initial drafts were written (the very first one even had some Herbert’s input) - story wise it was closer to the Villeneuve - it ended on the Harkonnen takeover with the rest set aside for the sequel. By the time they started crunching numbers - it came to their attention that this whole two film plan is actually a giant financial risk so they had to roll it back to one movie covering the entire story. That’s why the movie chugs along for the first two thirds and then races towards the end. While the production was underway - Dino pushed for preliminary works on the sequel - that’s how the unfinished Dune Messiah draft ended up happening.

In the meantime - Universal and De Laurentiis started butting heads over running time and screening slots opportunities (less runtime more screenings = MOAR MONY) - so the compromises had to be made.

Because of that, after Lynch delivered his rough cut of the movie he had to shape what was initially a 4 hour assembly into a movie while it was never really planned to be a 2 hour long. The initial plan was to make it 3 hours long or at the very least 2,5 hours long. So Lynch went for vibes storytelling going hard on the visuals. Predictably, it didn’t go well with the audiences. Universal got upper hand got their way. That’s how infodumps ended up peppered throughout the movie. And since a lot of the stuff in the movie was conveyed purely visually - chopping it and explaining away was so challenging and frustrating at some point the process was reduced to “that’ll do” approach of just sticking to basic plot point without much elaboration. So the balance was even more off. The movie tanked and took De Laurentiis company with it. But hey - we got Blue Velvet out of it.

Then a couple of years later someone at Universal found out about how Heaven’s Gate got reappraised after Z Channel showed the director’s cut so they decided to repeat the gambit. Except unlike Heaven’s Gate - there was no director’s cut to reappraise. And that’s how we got the extended cut. Instead of bringing back Antony Gibbs (who edited the theatrical cut) the extended cut was thrown together by outsiders who had no intricate knowledge of the material. To make matters worse - the footage required more work to be done and it was far from just reediting and inserting back some deleted scenes and that wasn’t the plan. Neither was actually restructuring the movie to meaningfully integrate the new footage. That’s why the quality jumps all over the place and the movie with this start stop pacing. That’s why Lynch was pissed and rightfully demanded his name to be removed.

Have you seen the SpiceDiver cut?

i kinda have the soft spot for the miniseries because it was so theatrical - just actors doing acting most of the time. It also had the best Baron Harkonnen

it just makes all of the sense

it was during the times when he was blackout drunk

yeah, my timeline’s messed up. still a fun movie. Coburn is the best

it would’ve been great series of standalone movies with Constantine being this supernatural Marlowe. or even some demonic pulp thing - imagine a Fistful of Dollars but about demons and Constantine scheming their conflicts.

Viggo Mortensen in Prophecy enters chat

homie had a mean streak

Lundgren had a bit of a streak during that period

fact

to the point it would’ve made sense to make him the lead in his own revisionist western

he went all in

it just makes sense and you can literally edit a whole movie out of Bronson Kills Bad Guys and it would totally vibe as The Terminator

damnnnn

something is wrong with this but i can’t pinpoint what exactly. Why a woman?

wasn’t it during the Nixon in China era?

my primary memory of this movie is connected to a prank from a friend of mine going back to the 20th century. He told me that this movie was directed by George Miller. It mattered a lot because Road Warrior was my favorite movie and Fallout was my favorite game and it was annoying to everyone else. I was so excited about that i went all the way and bought a used VHS only to find out that this movie was in fact directed by George Miller but not the George Miller who did Mad Max and a friend of mine been rubbing it in for months afterwards.