Movies: Dune

Way back in my teens, an interesting movie was released called Dune. It was good scifi because it was interesting, convoluted, backstabbing Italian Ducal politics with space battles using knives because personal shields stop bullets and lasers. It was a visual feast and at times very campy, but it was certainly attention getting and despite considerable amounts of bad acting and distracting narration (and music score), it was one of the better scifi movies of the 80's. Also: Virginia Madsen, before the bad boob job. Yum. There are a number of hot women in that film (Sean Young, Francesca Annis), and some rather famous actors who went onto careers doing other scifi, like a little known Shakespearean called Patrick Stewart. He looked old then, I've seen recent interviews with him on Top Gear. It's like he doesn't age at all.

Almost 30 years after Dune, it was remade in Bulgaria, far closer to the book version and essentially superior. They also did the book's sequel, properly, which was a nice addition. I have to say I'm really pleased about that.

Frank Herbert's Dune: 168 minutes, part 1 of 2. Enjoy.

I met Frank Herbert when I was 11, at a breakfast joint in Healdsburg one Sunday Morning, right there on the Square. He saw me reading someone else's scifi novel and asked me if I'd read Dune. I answered no so he suggested I read it sometime. He died a year later. I did get around to reading his book, and it was really good. For political scifi, with a strong theme of arabic influence and apostrophe-names, I get a laugh every time I see Helen Hunt on NCIS LA. I keep expecting her to call herself the Shadout Mapes.

Dune was a good standalone movie, perfectly suited to the weirdness of the 1980's. Its really hard to describe the 80's to people who weren't even born yet, much less able to process it as a teenager like I was. I was growing up, becoming a person with the incipient threat of nuclear war. We were all trained by Red Dawn to rebel commie invaders. And now commies are selling us fish and telling us what our health care plans cover. Meh.

If you find yourself with a couple afternoons of stormy weather, read Dune by Frank Herbert. Arrakis is a desert planet, and the Spice Must Flow. Lol.