Mary Kyle

Inferior to the 1984 Dune in most ways, specifically and most obviously in it’s heavy reliance on C.G.I - absolutely nothing looks real; Compare this to the older film in which almost everything is real, from the fantastic sets, beautiful production design (true artistic genius) and the astonishing costumes and make-up. Casting is a disaster, truly laughable. Four characters really stand out as an exception to this: The Baron (weirdly under-used), Beast Rabban (ditto), Idaho and Stilgar. No one else. Not a one - you can throw the whole lot back. The sheer vileness of the Harkonnens is ignored. We don’t see Feyd or the emperor. The Bene Gesserit are hardly present or spoken-of. The script is tin-eared and frequently jarring. The Sardaukar look like Power-rangers. And the Desert never looks awe-inspiring or beautiful. Another boring, thumpy, brash, recycled soundtrack from the over-rated Zimmer (how is this man hailed as a genius?) - listen to the 1984 Dune soundtrack - it absolutely murders it.. Production design is generic, instantly forgettable and lazy. Really, one wonders if the makers of this film have even read the book, or had any genuine understanding or enthusiasm for it. And any argument that they wished to present an alternative to the 1984 film utterly fails because, and this is critical, other than the Ornithopters, absolutely nothing in this film is done better, or even as well, as the older film. Disappointing, because now it will be decades before anyone is minded to try to do this properly. Finally, a suggestion: There is quite a lot of additional footage of the 1984 film, but Lynch has always refused to produce a Director’s Cut, primarily because he was outraged at the deeply hostile (and ignorant) critical reception to the film. I cannot believe he hasn’t seen this 2021 version. David, please reconsider - you put in a phenomenal amount of work, why not see it through? A 3-4hr version of your film could really be a hit and kick dust in the face of this carelessly dashed-off, lazy waste of everyones time. The main flaw in your film was running time - it needed FAR more time, more room, more space to breathe and it is well understood that commercial constraints were to blame for that.