DUNE - HD DVD review

Star Wars. Star Trek. Battlestar Galactica. These titles all can bring about images of highly passionate fans that horde to conventions and will easily come to arms against anybody that talk poorly of their beloved franchises. Frank Herbert's "Dune" stands among these science fiction behemoths for many people. Although there aren't quite as many "Dune" conventions, the film has been remade into a mini-series, has spawned a few games and is a long running book series. Fans of the "Dune" storyline can quickly tell you about House Atreides, House Harkonnen and the rest of the Universe where Spice is as powerful as the Force or the Starship Enterprise. Frank Herbert's book is a modern classic and the film is both loved and hated by fans of the author's work.

Kyle MacLachlan has not been the biggest of names in Hollywood, but he is well known to more than a few rabid fanbases. He is the primary star of this theatrical version of "Dune" and was a primary character in the cult favorite "Twin Peaks." He is joined by Jose Ferrer, Virginia Madsen, Jurgen Prochnow, Patrick Stewart, Max Von Sydow, Sean Young and Sting in director David Lynch's maligned version of the book. For all of the star-power, "Dune" is heavily flawed and at times quite dull. At 137 minutes, the theatrical version is Lynch's chosen version of the film, but a three hour television release also exists and has been long disowned by Lynch and is credited to Alan Smithee. There have been rumors of five and six hour cuts in existence, but they have never surfaced and though the director states that five hours of material was shot, he had intended it to be roughly three hours long. This is a science fiction film where the fans want more.

They want more because the book and its series are science fiction classics that deeply paints their own history and creates a remarkable universe of characters and situations that easily top the stories of George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry. David Lynch attempted to tackle "Dune," but glossed over much of what made the story great and rushed the stories pace and left out key moments from the book that would have added much needed depth, character development and warmth that is missing from the theatrical release. The 2000 mini series did a slightly better job at tackling the material, but "Dune" faithful still want more. Perhaps a Peter Jacksonesque trilogy is what fans really deserve.

I have watched "Dune" a few times on home video and can see their point of view. I have played a "Dune" game or two and read a few chapters of the primary novel. There is a lot of story that is absently missing from a film that spends about as much time looking at Spice Worms as it does trying to understand the story's main characters. There are times when "Dune" starts to feel like a grander version of "Flash Gordon" – complete with rock soundtrack and cheesy villains. "Flash Gordon" had Queen. "Dune" has Toto. "Dune" also spends considerable amount of time trying to make Sting look like a god of men. For a film that spends a lot of its time in the desert, David Lynch worked very hard to make "Dune" look spectacular. In the end, I always felt that "Dune" tried to look and sound spectacular, but was missing the heart and soul of the book.

This is a film that I don't dislike. As I have said, I've watched it a couple times. However, knowing some of the back story and knowing how much more exists for the "Dune" universe, it is a disappointing effort. There are aspects of the mini-series that I find far superior to this cinematic telling of Paul Atreides and there are things in David Lynch's version that I wish would have been used in the mini series. Somewhere and sometime, "Dune" will be touched again. The story has too much of a history to be left where it is now. "Dune" could be the science fiction equivalent of "Lord of the Rings" if it ever finds a loving and talented crew to do justice to the film. David Lynch didn't have the digital technology to give the film the justice it deserved and studios were not nearly as open to long running times as they are now. The film is a science fiction classic, but serves as only decent entertainment.

Video:
"Dune" comes to life on HD-DVD in a very nice 2.35:1 VC-1/1080p transfer that continues Universal's excellent track record of supporting the format. Previous incarnations of "Dune" have been grainy and muddy messes that do not do justice to the visual feats accomplished by David Lynch back in 1984. "Dune" is about sand. It is not the most colorful film and a few visual ‘treats' discovered in the film are pretty downright disturbing visually. The Baron (Leonardo Cimino) is absolutely repulsive. You do get to see some rocks, sandstorms and very large worms. Did I mention sand? There are some blue skies and unusually colored blue eyes that are part of the film's convoluted and glossed over storyline. When "Dune" does have colors to show, they come across very nicely. Detail ranges from slightly better than muddy to quite detailed. This is a superb upgrade over previous releases, but the film is still hindered by moments of film grain and low detail. I will say that I was quite pleased with the transfer, but the source materials really are a handicap for this transfer.

Sound:
The English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack of "Dune" is not the most compelling or aggressive transfer. It is clean and it sounds just find, but the film shows its age, which is nearing a quarter of a century. Much of the soundtrack takes place in the front channels as the rear surrounds and the .1 LFE channel are used sparsely. The sandstorms are pleasing to the ears and the laser blasts are powerful, but the overall intensity of the soundtrack is quite tame. The reasoning for this is simply the film's age and quality of the source materials. "Dune" has not received the George Lucas treatment in restoration and could probably use a trip to Skywalker Sound for some touch up work. Still, the soundtrack is clean and more than adequate. It is just not anything that screams HD-DVD.

Extras:
Whereas the "Dune" release I have on DVD is the original, sans supplemental materials release, this HD-DVD delivers the materials that were present on the recent re-release of "Dune." The number of supplements are fairly good, though I would imagine some would have liked branching of the television version to be included. As far as deleted material goes, Deleted Dune contains a number of scenes that were included in neither this version or the televised version of "Dune." Producer Raffaella De Laurentiis provides an introduction to the material. Designing Dune is a look at Frank Herbert's "Dune" universe and the work involved in bringing his designs to the big screen. Dune FX is a look at the film's visual effects that helped bring large worms and intergalactic battles to life. Dune Models is another special effects featurettes looking at the models used to make the picture. Dune Wardrobe looks at the desert suits and other costumes used in the film and a Photo Gallery is a collection of pictures from the film. Overall, the supplements run for about an hour and though there is a lot of material out there that could have been included, this is a nice little collection of supplements.

Closing Comments:
I don't hate "Dune." I don't love "Dune." Then again, I'm not one of the legions of fans of Frank Herbert's epic books. Fans certainly fall in one category or the other. One argument is that so much was left out of the books and the film's sometimes silly nature destroys Herbert's vision. Other fans think Lynch should be commended for bringing "Dune" to the big screen. Either way, "Dune" fans have always been left wanting more. A mini-series did make its way to the Sci-Fi Channel. Since then, the world of "Dune" has been mostly silent except for the "Children of Dune" mini-series. The new HD-DVD release looks decent enough and sounds well enough, but is far from being reference material. It is good to see all types of films make its way to the format, but the overall product, while being a vast improvement over older releases, is still lacking.