Dune DVD Review:

The Star Wars and Star Trek series get the most attention for classic science fiction films with a great mythology, but they only have half of the intricate background that Dune carries. Dune has such a intricate mythology that the home video versions of the film all come with a vocabulary cheat sheet to follow with the story. As complicated as the mythology is, the premise is rather simple, which is what makes the film work. It is no surprise that the extra footage has been re-edited back into the film to make a deluxe extended version of the film. The new version is slightly too long for me, but I have never been a huge fan of the original version, which is over two hours itself, but fans of the film should be very excited.

As soon as I was over being impressed by the fact that the extended version is forty minutes longer than the original theatrical version, I also noticed that the extended version gives direction credit to Alan Smithee and Screenplay credit to Judas Booth, while credit for both is given to David Lynch in the theatrical version. Alan Smithee is the director’s guild’s official name when the actual director refuses to have his name attached to the project, which leads me to believe that David Lynch was absolutely against the idea of his creation being expanded.

The world in which Dune takes place is a futuristic world, but it also seems to rely on the ideals of a world past. There are kingdoms and control is kept through battles and assassins. It seems as if there is no law, but just power. Dune mostly follows the fulfillment of a prophesy on a planet which is all desert, but produces a powerful mind altering drug. Having control over the drug means having control over the universe in many ways, and when the son of a king is left to die on the planet, he ends up becoming somewhat of a messiah to the people on the planet.

The DVD comes in a great metal case, with a double sided disc. The theatrical version is on one side with the special features, and the extended version is on side B. With such a hefty case it is a wonder that there is nothing more than just a simple insert inside. Dune has such a strong new mythology, that there is a terminology cheat sheet with over thirty terms which need to be known in order to understand the film fully.

The special features are as extensive as the extended version of the film, with a number of great bonus editions to go with the new package. Obviously not all of the extra footage was placed in the extended version, because the special features include deleted scenes with an introduction by the producer Raffaella De Laurentis. There are also four great featurettes about the visuals of Dune. “Designing Dune” deals with the visual design of the film as created by Lynch and his production designer. It shows how they had four different worlds that they wanted to convey through the sets. “Dune FX” shows all of the visual effects, including robotics and pyrotechnics, which were used to make a stunning film for its time. Even today the visuals remain impressive to some extent. “Dune Models” is all about the models used to film the ships and some of the other more intricate scenes in the film. “Dune Wardrobe” is all about the four thousand costumes used to create the perfect look for the film. There is also a photo gallery filled with behind the scenes shots and some production photography as well.

Ryan Izay