Near the end of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune, the emperor played by José Ferrer calls out, “Bring in that floating fat man!” He is referring to Kenneth McMillan’s Baron Harkonnen, but what immediately popped into my mind is the large “Donald Trump baby balloon” which had been used in various protests around the world.
There is another connection between the Baron and Trump (and not just the latter has a son named “Baron”), and that is the planet of the Harkonnen’s, Giedi Prime, is completely obscured by black clouds. It had been forever since the only time I read the source novel, so I wondered what in the planet’s history resulted in that. Go figure, it was heavy pollution resulting from the conversion of a planet once rich in resources to one that is a military-industrial superpower. I think anybody who was conscious in 2025 will be aware this is the same track upon which the world has been placed when the US was put under new management that year.
With this is mind, it gave the movie I had seen so many times before a new angle, as I watched McMillan float and gloat as he spreads misery to the people of his planet. He has heart plugs installed in everybody’s chests, providing easy, pull-tab access for when the baron chooses to dispatch of a person, something he enjoys waaay too much. He also has two nephews who are his henchman, and one is dim-witted bully (Paul Smith) while the other cunning and cruel (Sting—yes, that Sting). Once again, it is easy to see analogues to people in the president’s inner circle, some of whom are like amalgamations of both characters. As one point, Smith tears off a chunk of raw cow corpse and starts chewing on it, which seems to foretell this stupid Paleo diet trend.
For a change, I watched this as the extended cut originally created for television. As somebody who has probably seen the original version roughly ten times, this was a jarring experience. I even still have the terminology sheet handed when I first saw it in the theater as a kid. Imagine that, a movie so complex, you were given a glossary to try to read during the film. Given how visually dark Dune is, this was an added insult.
The original version may be a mess, but it can be an interesting one. The nearly three hour alternate version is insufferable. It is somehow a bigger mess, even when it had a preposterous amount of additional exposition. Given some scenes were removed because of gore and violence, that means even more scenes of tedium, like a board meeting to discuss how the new management overseeing operations on the titular planet is going.
Things definitely don’t start out promising in this edit. First, there are the opening credits, which have only technical personnel instead of actors. The legendary Alan Smithee is now credited for direction, and the curiously named Judas Booth has penned the screenplay. I didn’t notice a credit for whomever does the terrible paintings we will hear under the new narration, but they look like they were done by somebody who wouldn’t even receive much praise if they were still in high school. And we will see these a great deal, as there will be cutaways to them throughout the runtime.
In this new prologue, we learn some history from before the events in the film proper. I found some off this interesting, but would have found in more so if it had been presented in a manner more sophisticated than one of those old book and record read-a-long sets. We learn about humanity developing thinking computers which serve humankind. That sounds perfect to me, but the people become apathetic and enslaved to the technology they created to serve them. I look at the threat posed by AI today and that sounds about right.
The movie also exacerbates many of the problems with the original edit. One of my biggest complaints every time I watch it is us hearing the inner monologue of characters and how much of that repeats. Now we get even more of this, as if the edit was overseen by the Repetition Guild of Repetition. Consider Ferrer in voiceover saying, “Why would he want the duke’s son killed?”, only for us to hear him say it out loud after a minute later, and then think it again about a minute after that. And there’s all those annoying phrases that keeping coming up again and again. A drinking game could easily be staged when somebody has to take a shot when a character says, “The spice must flow”, “The sleeper must awaken”, or “Is he the one?”
One might think a deeply confusing picture such as this might benefit from the repeated information, but it just becomes deeply mockable. I mean, the original film spans four distinct planets, a ridiculously complicated scheme for control of mining of the most desirable material in the universe and the struggle of an indigenous people against their oppressors. The additions are also largely added artlessly, and there are some jaw-droppingly daft edits. I was stunned that Siân Phillips’s reverend mother says of Kyle MacLachlan, “He’s here”, as if he has come to her, only for the next cut to be her going to his bedroom, where he is still asleep.
Phillips will be giving him a test where he must keep his hand in a box as he feels intense heat and burning, with the skin actually crisping and falling off. He keeps his hand in there despite that, though he does scream a great deal. Alas, the things he yells do not include, “My wanking hand!” In the end, it is revealed the box is empty, his had is OK and he has passed the test. She says of the pain he endured, “No woman with child ever withstood so much”, and I can imagine what any woman who has given birth thinks about that line. It brought to my mind Trump’s claim on in press conference on September 22, 2025, when he claimed autism is caused by pregnant women taking acetaminophen. He put blame on women being weak, and that they should only take some “if you can’t tough it out”. I wonder how many women heard this statement and wished he could be subjected to test like that in Dune and maybe have something else put in that box. Then again, there have been a lot of allegations over the years of that particular appendage going into a great many boxes, and apparently not being overly concerned with whose box it is.
The additional material in this version just makes the book as overflowing with detail as the original text, making it a more detailed world without making it any richer. It is like reading an encyclopedia on Dune instead of following an interesting story and having an interest in its characters. More exposition just increases the distance between myself and the picture. I may now better understand the nature of the Cuisinart Hatchback—I mean, the Kwisatz Haderach—but that didn’t make me appreciate that element of the plot any better.
A couple of additions are welcome, though none are necessary. Richard Jordan’s character, Duncan Idaho, was in the theatrical version so briefly as to make his appearance baffling. He does have a moment here that might have served the shorter version, with him saying he has been observing the natives, the “Fremen”, and that these might be the people truly controlling the planet. Alas, even with seeing him more, the importance of his character still eludes me. I was amused by the guy mopping up the residue left by the mobile container for the guild navigator, and I was surprised he had the time to do so when I’m sure they were in a hurry to get their next steampunk convention.
In either edit, the picture is still overflowing with things that are visually stunning. I still like how all four planets have their own distinct look, and it is immediately obvious from even the most fleeting glimpse which one we’re seeing. Even the ship where the navigators fold space to facilitate intergalactic travel has a curious baroque frame to the opening, like a Louis XIV door frame on a spaceship, making me think Trump’s influence will go far into the future.
Other elements are things I will forever find stupefying. For example, why does the cityscape behind Ferrer’s palace look like the New York City skyline? This edit confuses things further by using that same shot when ships are supposedly arriving on the Harkonens’ planet. Also, I will always be unnerved by how close in age MacLachlan appears to that of mother Francesca Annis, and Sean Young looks a bit like her in some shots. Speaking of which, the single worst line in either edit is when a narrator says of she and MacLachlan, “Paul and Chani’s love grew…” instead of any scenes which convince us this has happened. The fight between MacLachlan and trainer Patrick Stewart has those ridiculous, boxy shields which I always thought was very crude CGI, until I recently discovered those were rotoscoped by hand. Learning that actually increased my appreciation for that scene.
And now for nothing more than a series of cheap pot shots at the film. When MacLachlan first manages to ride one of the giant sandworms, I was disappointed he doesn’t yell, “Top of the worm, ma!” There’s those rubber suits everybody is wearing in the desert, and I wonder if Young wore hers when she allegedly broke into Tim Burton’s house to convince him to cast her as Catwoman. Is there any chance Jordan might be a B-52’s fan and if so, I like he went around thinking, “I’m living. I’m my own Duncan Idaho”. Speaking of music, the thumpers used to draw the worms has me wondering if they like European techno. Lastly, and still as regards music, the extended cut gives us the opportunity to hear that weird instrument we see Stewart carrying in the original edit, and the sounds it makes is just some guy from Toto noodling on an electric guitar.
One way you call tell which version of Dune you’re watching is if there is a scene where a Fremen character does not have glowing blue eyes, as the producers of the extended cut apparently did not splurge for that post effect for previously deleted scenes. That is representative of this entire endeavor, an opportunistic attempt to turn a sow’s ear into a bigger sow’s ear. In the end, this is an odd mix of some things so blatantly awful even new viewers would realize those couldn’t have been in the original film, things which look amazing that are equally likely to be original or previously unseen, and some incredibly daft things that were always in the runtime. That it is sometimes hard to tell the difference says quite a bit about both versions.
Dir: Alan Smithee
Starring all the same people of the real version of the movie, plus some others who didn’t make the cut before
Watched on blu-ray