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39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The Sleeper Has Awakened!", May 26, 2005
At last I can watch the extended Alan Smithee version of Dune on DVD! No bootleg, no poorly transferred vhs tape recorded off the television, but an authentic, authorized all region DVD. I almost passed on this import from Brazil since the American region 1 release was scheduled to come out last month. However when it was delayed due to possible legal intervention from David Lynch I decided to just go ahead and get it. I can honestly say that I'm glad I did.
For those of you who are leery of buying imports, don't be. This one is definitely a quality item. I just wish it was widescreen instead of full screen, but I doubt that the region 1 version will be any different if, or when it's ever released.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dear god what will it take??, December 5, 2005
I got this version and it's nice to see extra footage, but I agree that it is not as good as the theatrical release. What will it take to see the WHOLE thing as David Lynch intended it when he filmed so much and was forced to cut it down. Obviously the film is still in existence, so what's the problem?? Many other directors have gone back like Cameron with The Abyss and put the entire piece back together so now it makes sense. C'mon people - it's all about money and there's lots of us who would pay to see the entire thing as Lynch envisioned it from start to finish. Am I wrong?? I'm old enough to remember the pre-showing that DID have the entire 3+ hour movie limited to one weekend in NY and I missed it but my friends DID see it and thought it was amazing. Then it was pulled and it took a year before it finally came out in the theaters.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Longer it is more palatable but less good., January 9, 2007
Dune has always been a fascinating novel. The first film by David Lynch was a great moment in science fiction and the beginning of a brilliant career for Sting as an actor. David Lynch looked for extreme situations and extreme scenes to more than shock people, to horrify them with the Harkonnens, to stupefy them with Duke Leto or his concubine, to villify the Emperor, and to satisfy and terrify the public with Paul Muabdib. The beauty and the force of the film came from these different approaches and profiles put together and coming to a final and terminating fight announcing a complete regeneration of the world like rain in a desert. Then there was the TV series by John Harrison, slow and long but very right about the Fremens and their life, with plenty of visual details. We had jumped from more than two hours to more than four hours. The Ultimate Edition of the Film proposes in three DVDs the first version of the film and a second version in two parts coming to three hours or so. This longer version of the film could be expected to keep the main characteristics of the shorter version. You are mistaken. First some shots are repeated several times as if similar shots in similar situations and places would have been too expensive to shoot separately or simply again under s different angle, knowing that two places and two situations that are identical get some semiotic meaning from this very repetition which is far from being the case here. Second some cuts are introduced here and there to liberate time for the additions there and here. The life of the Harkonnens on their planet is thus amputated of some segments that were very important to characterize them as horrifyingly inhuman and cruel, and what's more the homosexual nature of the Baron is nicely reduced particularly in that shocking scene where he unplugs the heart of a young man in order to wash his skin disease in this dying young man's blood shooting out of his chest. This gave the real nature of the Baron some kind of gay vampiristic cannibalistic monster. Apparently that had become politically incorrect within a few years. Or did the first version of the film have such a great, or small, success that they tried to make a longer version targeting a wider public, hence that had to be slightly curbed in its most explicit scenes concerning man's cruelty, and eventually his sexuality ? This is surprising that David Lynch in this edition covers this longer version that is not directed by him, with his interview in the third DVD, an interview given by David Lynch at the time of the first shorter version. The DVD is yet extremely interesting because of the bringing together of the two film-versions and quite a few resources. Yet there remains one question as for why no one has ever tried to shoot the next volumes of the Dune saga which is still going on with the volumes anterior to Dune itself written by Frank Herbert's son. In fact this world is more political science fiction about the 21st century than about the sixth or seventh millenia. Or is it universal ?
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
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