Dune (Extended Edition)

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. This movie is the classic Frank Herbert Sci-Fi novel brought to the big screen. The movie is dark, grandiose, true-to-the-novel movie making (in as much as it can be in a couple of hours), and a massively difficult undertaking, that actually succeeds. Some will not like it -- Some will say the acting is overboard, and that the dialog is hoaky, but that is the nature of the novel, and thankfully for real Herbert sci-fi fans the feel of this great novel is not lost herein. The soundtrack is by the Rock Band TOTO and it does its job, although again, some might not like it. Our hero Paul is played by a young Kyle McLachlin who does a decent job in a difficult role as both the regimented son of the ruler of a planet, and later as the universe's super-being, again with grandiose, hoaky dialog included... Francesca Annis is capable and beautiful as the Duke's bound royal concubine, and Paul's mother, Jessica. The bad guys, the Harkonnen, are the most disgusting perverted brutes in the known universe and some of that is displayed in this movie: At one point Baron Harkonnen has a boy (or young man) sent into his quarters, and in the company of his nephews, he attacks this young man, and quickly the camera switches and you see blood spatter on the wall, and even the Barron's nephew grimaces at the sight. However, it is done in a way that is not so bad that my 13 year old couldn't watch the movie, plus it really drives home how evil and disgusting the Harkonnen are. My 13-yo had read the novel, and I did have a word with him before watching the movie concerning the Barron Harkonnen. Actually, I think passages in the book are worse than the movie, but when it is portrayed on-screen it has a more profound effect, than reading it and digesting the induced word imagery, before moving on to the next passage. However, we both loved the book and watching the movie together was a bonding thing, and the good of the entire story greatly outweighs the abhorrent occurrences. You, however, should decide for yourself.... Personally, I would not let my 10-yo watch it unless I skipped past some of the Barron's appearances.

Awesome movie

While everyone else has been waiting for AVATAR or LOTR (and yes I bought both of those and LOVE them), I've been holding my breath to watch DUNE in all its highdef glory. After watching this bluray disc, I feel like I've seen half of the film in HD and the other half in fair quality SD. I THINK I know what I'm talking about here . . . I saw this film 3 times in the original theatrical run, then bought the video tape in the Beta format, shortly thereafter replacing it with my first VHS copy of the film. Next came the LaserDisc (sadly a pan and scan version) then another vhs (from TV) of the "extended version". Shortly before the death of VHS, Universal released a Widescreen VHS version and then came the first, non-anamorphic DVD. Most recent is the steelbook anamorphic DVD release that also included the extended version as well as deleted scenes and short documentary materials. I still own them all and I'm happy to say that this new bluray release is the best DUNE has ever looked in a home video format . . . but I expected way more. The GOOD STUFF: Many scenes have a great deal of the HD pop, and as soon as Princess Irulan begins her opening monolog the difference in PQ from previous releases is apparent. Things stay looking pretty good until we get to Geidi Prime (Home of House Harkonnen) and then things look SPECTACULAR. After hundred of viewings of this film, I noticed details I had not seen before! There are MANY impressive looking scenes in this new edition and the all important "water of life" sequence and the final battle and the end scene in the Hall of Rites all look stunning and nearly three dimensional. They are gorgeous. THE BAD STUFF: Dirt, specks, lines, threads, all sorts of debris on the print show up FREQUENTLY and they ARE distracting. There is also significant fade damage on the right side of the print in several of the "Paul meets the fremen" sequences and the "Paul trains the fremen and blows up a big pyramid" sequences. This damage has been apparent on EVERY widescreen edition of the film Universal has put out and while it does look a little better on this edition (as if they tried to do something about it) it is still there. Certainly all of the specks and dirt (some small, others the size of footballs) could have been removed through digital means but Universal didn't bother with it. Black levels are not the best either and skin tones are all over the place, with the Baraon appearing very pink in every scene while Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam is consistently yellow. There is some noticeable grain at times but I can put up with that. It is the frequent dirt and debris I object to. The DTS-HD sound is pretty good for the most part and there was a lot of great wind blowing from my rear speakers during the majestic opening title music. The roar of the worms gave my subwoofer a good pounding as did the scene where Paul plants the thumper but often the sound was a bit harsh and unconvincing. I suspect this is the fault of the original source and I suspect Universal has done the best they could with this soundtrack. THE EXTRAS: LESS than what was included in the 2005 DVD release! Most importantly the extended version (flawed though it is) is not included here. I guess they know DUNE fans will double dip when they re-release this disc with that version. Also not included is the beautiful photo gallery. The theatrical trailer is nowhere to be found here either and none of the printed material from either the DVD original release or the booklet from the 2005 release is included. There is however plenty of advertisement from the UNIVERSAL BD LIVE TICKER trying to sell you stuff (it has to be manually turned off every time). If you turn this feature off, which plays OVER THE (ugly and generic) MAIN MENU, you will be treated to the message that you can no longer access their wonderful BD LIVE features (which consist of absolutely NOTHING but advertisements) because you are not connected to the internet! The rest of the extra material from the 2005 release is presented here in "fullscreen" format in SD, so all of the cool deleted scenes will be window boxed. The disc was also rather slow and clunky to load taking a full three minutes to get to the feature film. The entire presentation of this release seems very half-hearted to me. I DO like the cover art (the same from the 2005 release) and at least the keepcase isn't one of those garbage eco cases. The disc itself looks entirely generic with no artwork whatsoever. Maybe I am expecting too much for an older catalog title but I've seen so many even older titles look so much better on blu ray than this thing does. Universal seems to have spent far more time finding ways to advertise itself and the bluray format than bothering with the release of a top notch catalog title. Come on, if they are going to tell me on the front cover and the back cover that I am buying a PERFECT picture, then at least don't sell me something that has this many imperfections all over it. I have actually seen a few bluray discs that I thought lived up to their "perfect" hype but this disc isn't one of them. Not by a long shot.

No one is ever going to do cinematic justice to the writing of Frank Herbert. The first four Dune books are absolutely legendary science fiction imho. They are written in a very heady thought provoking style, the castle intrigue between the various forces that be, the Emperor and feudal royal families, CHOAM, the Benne Gesserit and the Spacing Guild involves so many layers of political complexity and feigns within feigns that it can be truly dizzying. Yet it's all written so fluidly and moves along by the formidable skill of a deft hand. Herbert was himself at least something of a scientist having worked as an ecological consultant and a marine biologist for a short while and as outrageously out there as some of the science "fiction" in Dune is concerned the geology and ecology at least is pretty solid stuff based very much in scientific fact. I could go on endlessly on Frank Herbert and the Dune Books. The Sci-Fi channels version was really pretty good, actually much better than David Lynch's version. Lynch did nail much of the look of Dune, I'll give him that, certain things he nailed, he had a good sense of what Frank Herbert and Dune was about. I'm a fan of his and I have a certain nostalgia for his version warts and all which is why I still give it 4 stars. There is also no doubt that he was hampered by film company stooges and just the sheer magnitude of trying to re-create something as epic as Dune is daunting. Still his particular style is way too idiosyncratically weird for lack of a better term. For example how they decided to handle visually interpreting the Weirding Way, is just plain, well weird. Again he was probably very handicapped by the capabilities of visual effects at the time but still there had to have been a better way than what they came up with. Unfortunately we never got Jodorowsky's version though I have a feeling that one would have made Lynch's quirkiness seem rather vanilla by comparison. Herbert's original writing is way too lofty and dense, too heady and epic in scope and you would do well to go straight to the source material if you haven't already. If you call yourself a fan of science fiction and haven't read at least the first three or four Dune Books - they start to get a little long in the tooth and off the rails after God Emperor - you are doing yourself a disservice. There is a reason they are critically acclaimed among sci-fi literary circles and there is a reason why George Lucas among many other's have lifted so much from Dune.

Great story, riveting scenes!

Even before the film gets rolling Amazon has decided to torture you, the viewer who has already shelled out $100 plus for the "privileges" of Prime membership, with COMMERCIALS about Alexa (or was that Alexa's Crohns disease..... no, no, something about Alexa's vagina.... or Alexa's trip to Whole Foods....it's all a blur) All I know is that it interrupts the flow of the movie needlessly and helps mega monster Amazon make even MORE money from you. So the real fantasy here is the belief that Amazon is actually providing a "free" benefit with Prime membership. Now to the movie. I won't bother trying to summarize the story----it would require pages and other reviewers have done a decent job sharing the highlights. To help the uninitiated better understand the terminology I would recommend checking out one of the less complicated "Dune Dictionaries" available online otherwise you might get lost in Frank Herbert's quirky universe. The movie is immensely creative and the artistic director has chosen a sort of steampunk-meets-Islamic realization for the story's setting and props. While everything in the movie looks old, we are treated to funky gold spaceships, a "space guild" that folds time so your ship can travel without moving and an interplanetary empire aptly ruled by a swaggering Emperor. Appropriate to the storyline the "goods guys" in this universe look like they're from West Point; the "bad guys" look, well, just plain gross and cruel (you'll see what I mean). And anyone who's been taught by the legendarily strict nuns some 60 years back will recognize that same nun incarnate in the Mother Superior at the Emperor's court who appears in this movie set some 10,000 years in the future---comforting to know that parents many generations distant will still have an ally in controlling their bratty kids. The film is full of quirky gems which made it both a flop at the box office and an enduring cult favorite. A surprising list of well known actors show up on screen and they help give the movie a momentum it probably would lack with a lesser cast. Appreciated also is the device where we listen in on the thoughts of the characters and not only hear their spoken words. The ritual "ceremonial" scenes that appear are unfortunately clumsy and stilted. But on the light side just for fun, be sure to catch the brief appearance of the imperial bulldogs at the beginning of the movie, and then the scenes later on of the ducal gray pug that eventually ends up in Patrick Stewart's military jacket during a dusty battlescene. Like I said lots of quirky fun.

This review is based on the Extended Edition of the film Dune, originally directed by David Lynch. Most professional reviewers panned this film unmercifully, and I shared that thought when I saw the original back in 1984. In many ways, it seemed like a colossal waste of talent, not least of which was the director / screenwriter Lynch, who, according to Wikipedia, refuses to even talk about this film. The Extended Edition does not even credit Lynch as director, and almost all the added material is background done by voiceover for second rate "Heavy Metal" style illustrations, which seems a shame because apparently Lynch's original raw footage had about 6 hours of film. So why am I doing a review of a bad new edition of what was considered a bad movie. First, because the story of the movie and novel on which it's based, succeed where I think that altogether better film Avatar fails. Dune is the victory of a fresh, uncorrupt, messianic point of view over a society driven purely by Machiavellian principles of power politics. Like Avatar, at the center of the conflict is a seemingly magical substance, the spice of Arrakis. This premise is even more engaging than the blockbuster Good versus Evil stories behind LOTR and Star Wars. But George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron had complete artistic control of their works, and they really knew how to direct special effects and action. Compared to the ground-breaking special effects of the first Star Wars in 1977, Dune's 1984 effects in space are an embarrassment. The only "effects" which worked in Dune were those in the open desert, and that was because it was filmed in a real desert, in Mexico. There is another aspect of Lynch's Dune which deserves praise. That is the rather imaginative set decoration which is an imaginative mix of Art Deco, H. R. Geiger influences from Alien (1979), Steam Punk, and "Heavy Metal" tech. This praise only extends to the interiors and to the design of some of the buildings. A third modestly praiseworthy element is the huge cast of familiar faces. With such a large cast of characters, each with a highly unusual function, totally outside our normal experience, it was imperative that we would be able to instantly recognize the characters from familiar faces. Consider, for example, Star Wars IV, where the only really new character was the Jedi knight, who could be easily "mapped" onto our notion of the medieval Knight Templar. In LOTR, the only real stretch was the ents and Sauron himself. Dune has at least four unique new character types, plus the notion of the sand worms. Unfortunately, this also meant there was a colossal waste of talent. Virginia Madson has NO lines and Sean Young has very few. Richard Jordan, Brad Dourif, Linda Hunt, Freddie Jones, and Patrick Stewart have few scenes and lines. It seems especially sad to see so little of Max Von Sydow. Even Sting's role seems wasted by the fact that his main appearance is in a knife fight with Kyle MacLachlan, the second of two knife fights in the film. But unlike Wolfgang Peterson in Troy (or whoever is doing his combat choreography) Lynch does not know how to film one on one combat with edged weapons. Well, those are the good things which brought me back to this film. As creative as David Lynch was in other films, it is clear he had no feel for science fiction of large scale action or special effects. The one area where his talent might have shown up was in dialogue. And the dialogue seems wooden, and almost completely overshadowed by voice-over narration. In a lot of effects, it seems Lynch tries too hard. There is "the voice" talent with the Bene Gesserit have, and instead of using the subtle technique perfected by George Lucas and Alec Guinness in Star Wars, he overplays it with mechanically changed voices. The large scale combat scenes are similarly botched. Even the droids in George Lucas' combat scenes come off better than the human soldiers in Dune. The last "good" things I have to say about this film is that it works better than later adaptations, and it is not so different from the novel that you can't blame some of the difficulties on the exceedingly complicated plot of the original novel.

Dune has -- in my opinion -- become a sort of cultural totem in the same way as Ishtar and Heaven's Gate -- a legendarily "awful" movie - irredeemably excessive, technically terrible, utterly unsalvageable Hollywood dreck etc, etc. The problem is that I suspect most of the people propagating that idea haven't actually seen it, or don't remember it, or worse, didn't get it. This happens all the time with Internet Elitism - pop into an audiophile forum and ask if you should buy Bose anything - headphones, speakers, soundbar etc. Watch the dogpile of prebaked opinions. Maybe some of those are even correct. But the vast majority will be from people who haven't tried them. It's a rite of entry into that fandom that you get in lockstep with the lore and mantra. David Lynch's movie is flawed. It's too short. There was interference from the studio. Some of the additive ideas don't work. Some of the (apparent) deletions should have been retained. The Weirding Way, for example, is switched from a Matrix-style super combat art, to a sci-fi sound cannon. But as a spectacle, and as a broad envisioning of Herbert's universe, it's astonishing and brave and in many ways successful. The costumes (with the exception of the "welding way" Sardaukar) are peerless. Set designs are intricately styled, instantly authentic to each world and create a powerful sense of place. VFX are limited by available tech, but often grand and spectacular. Casting is hard to beat - and all but a few players are absolutely blasting charisma - Duke Leto, Rev. Mother Mohiam, Lady Jessica, and yes, Baron Harkonnen by a brilliantly hammy Kenneth MacMillan, are viscerally memorable. Music is suitably epic, with clever little deviations from biblical scale strings and brass, to sneakily devious court intrigues via electronics and harpsichord, to machiavellian pipe organ sinister should but somehow don't rank among the classics of Williams, Horner and Zimmer's factory. That Prophecy Theme by Brian Eno was worth the pricetag and bickering. The story, famously "hard to parse" is remarkably straightforward and introduced by a useful and stylishly still modern looking prologue. The studio likely created this myth by panicking and sending out printed explanations - that basically underestimated the intelligence of the audience and put off a lot of folks who'd otherwise have sailed through it narratively. It's not confusing. If anything, a lot of it is dumbed down too far with inner monologues and painfully long exposition. And that affects the pace of the film negatively too. Anyway, it's a flawed masterpiece, and the unmade Jodorowski film would have been catastrophically unrelated to the source material, so at least book fans dodged a bullet there, even though I too would have loved to see its lurid insanity. Villeneuve to his credit isn't trying to avoid ideas from the Lynch film that are essential to the story, but the delayed release and box office uncertainty may already have sealed the fate for a potential sequel. His film will finish about halfway through the story of Lynch's version.

Película: Esta edición viene con audio en francés e inglés. Los subtítulos incluyen castellano "curioso". No es que se note excesivamente sin embargo ("robarse el anillo", "ponte el módulo mágico"...) y los nombrecillos están bien escritos. Si uno quiere leer los subtítulos en inglés, deberá conformarse con inglés+close captions dado que inglés sólo no está disponible. La calidad de video es formidable. Ver las pústulas del Barón con esta definición es realmente desagradable, y el azul de los "ojos especiosos" es sobrecogedor. Desde luego se nota que es una película del siglo pasado, pero por el tipo de fotograma que se usaba y no por la captura en alta definición. Lo que de alguna manera me ha impactado con más profundidad es la nitidez del audio. Tanto efectos de sonido como música estremecen enormemente. Embalaje: Se manda en un sobre con alcolchado de burbujas. Lamentablemente en mi caso el embalaje, no excesivamente sólido, se ha desgarrado y parte del plástico de la carátula está roto. Sin embargo se nota que en su viaje desde Alemania le han pegado un buen golpe en algún lugar e imagino que no todos los ejemplares sufrirán el mismo destino.

Pelicula dirigida por David Lynch y criticada a su vez por su ritmo caotico, excesivo y trama incomprensible para quienes no leyeron el libro. Y nominada en los Premios de la Academia en 1985 en la categoria de Sonido. Por otra parte, la pelicula cuenta con subtitulos en español .

edizione magnifica per questo grande film! la qualità audio video è pazzesca, una nitidezza incredibile per un film di quasi quarant'anni (raramente ho visto riconversioni in hd così perfette). non ci sono sgranature o rumori di alcun tipo, solo l'immagine estremamente pulita. anche la versione in 3D del film non perde di qualità; si tratta di un 3D anaglifico quindi necessita di essere visionato con gli appositi occhialini dalle lenti verdi e rosse. nonostante ciò la visione in 3D dona una profondità in più all'opera ed aumenta la spettacolarità delle scene (il che è strano, dato che il film non fu mai concepito per una visione tridimensionale) uniche note negative: la totale mancanza di extra (e mi stupisce dato che nelle altre edizioni è presente almeno il trailer), l'assenza degli occhialini per la visione 3D nella confezione (se non le possedete già in casa rimanete fregati) ed infine l'assenza dei sottotitoli di qualsivoglia lingua. il disco non contiene la traccia audio italiana ma daltronde nessuna edizione in blu ray la contiene quindi tra le tante opzioni in commercio sul sito, io consiglio questa (nella speranza che prima o poi arrivi anche un edizione italiana). nota sul film: se non avete letto il libro o non siete particolari amanti del genere ve lo sconsiglio, purtroppo si tratta di un film che solo i fan della saga di herbert o fan di lynch sanno apprezzare.

Esta es una valoración del blu ray de Dune con ASIN: B07YTF5W9T Gran calidad de imagen, fenomenal. El sonido en castellano esta alto y como consecuencia se oyen demasiado las “eses” al saturar, pero no es importante. El sonido está también en inglés y en catalán (que no lo dice en la ficha). Los subtítulos en castellano y catalán, pero no en inglés (lástima). Una gran pelicula que tenía ganas de tener en bluray y a pesar de las peguitas, estoy muy satisfecho de haber comprado este. El envío rápido y en sobre abrefácil

星５つの理由。DUNEの仕様。本編136分33秒。 【音声】 ・英語 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, フランス語 DTS-HD 2.0。 【字幕】 ・英語 SDH, フランス語, スペイン語。 【スペシャルフューチャー】 ・削除シーン ・デザイニング デューン ・デューン FX ・デューンモデル&ミニチュア等 ・デューン ウォーローブ デザイン ・モーション エネイブル となっておりました。 【画面】は、本編は1080p ハイデフィニション ワイドスクリーン 2.35:1。 スペシャルフューチャーは、480i/p スタンダード デフィニションでした。 また、スペシャルフューチャーの音声は、英語のみとなっております。 内容については、余りにも有名な映画ですので省きます、御了承下さい。 個人的には、映像、音響効果も素晴らしいと思いました。 日本語字幕はありませんが、砂の惑星の、コレクターのお方にお薦めだと 思います。読んでいただき、ありがとうございます。