DUNE
A film review by Magus
Copyright 1996 Magus
Starring: Patrick Stewart and Sting
Dune was first a book written in the early 1960's. It did so well that its author, Frank Herbert, continued to write two more books and another trilogy after that. A total of 6 Dune books. A movie based on the first book, called Dune, was released in 1984. I saw the movie after reading the book. So let's get down to the point here- How is the movie?
First of all, Dune makes a lot more sense if you had read the book. If you had not read the book, the movie is much more confusing and boring. But anyway...
The plot of the movie Dune is fairly faithful to the original book. It leaves out a few characters, but the basic point is made: Dune is a desert planet that has Spice. Spice is used to fold space- travel without moving. Therefore Spice is valuable. Spice is only on Dune.
Emperor Shaddam the IV is sending the Atreides to Dune and is moving out the Harkonnens at the same time. The reason for this is that both "clans" are feuding. The Atreides are supposed to go and live on Dune for a short bit, while the Emperor gives the Harkonnens extra troops to destroy the Atreides so there is no more feuding and fighting between the two. The Atreides do not know this however...
That is basically the beginning of the plot of Dune. I don't want to spoil any of the surprises, but other parts of the plot involve a traitor and the local people of Dune called the Fremen.
The actors they picked for this movie are ho-hum. They have Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: Generations) as Gurney Halleck, the man who trained Duke Leto Atreides' son. They have Sting as the son of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. They have a lot of no-name actors as well. Some do a good job, but the majority of the script focuses on Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica. They do an OK job.
The special effects for this movie are definitely dated. The sets are very good. The music score mainly by Toto is also excellent.
But the movie itself drags on at 2 hours and 20 something minutes. Even at that length, Dune fails to describe the characters and flesh them out as well as the book does.
So what is my reccomendation? Watch this movie if you wanna see a slightly technical sci-fi movie or if you have read the book.
**1/2 out of **** /\/\agus "Evil is a point of view" "Fear is the mind-killer"
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