A blog by Cameron and Shannon

So I’m back from watching Dune! Wow!

Previously my only experience with Dune was on a summer day when it was too hot to go outside and I was too young to drive. Which meant I was trapped inside to watch TV. And Dune was on. It was the only thing on. And OMG it was on for HOURS - every 30 minutes or so I’d give up trying to find anything else to watch and finally turn to it to Dune only to turn the channel away after about 5 minutes. I couldn’t handle it.

As you may or may not have read I have a slight obsession with Kyle MacLachlan in his golden years.

Stone Cold Fox.

And doesn’t this preview get you excited?

Clearly I had to give Dune another chance.

I watched the “theatrical version” which is apparently the only version David Lynch will put his name on. As far as I know, the other versions are the Director’s Cut and the Extended Version, both of which David Lynch hates even more than the theatrical version. So I figured if I was going to watch this, I might as well watch it as close as possible to the way Lynch intended (apparently he never really liked any cut of the film).

The day after I watched the movie, I found a copy of Dune the novel in a used bookstore, and the back of the book claimed that this was “the most exciting and imaginative science fiction novel ever written.” With all that hype, you would expect the movie to be really, really, reallyreallyreallyreally awesome.

And, you know, it actually is awesome. Except not that kind of awesome. It’s also not “awesomely bad” awesome. It’s kind of “Really? This was a real movie? Are you sure?” awesome.

I think the best way to describe the film Dune is “What is even going on?” or, more simply put, “Whut?”

You’re kind of dropped into the year 10,191 with some sort of knowledge about a very important Spice and the following cast of characters:

• Kyle MacLachlan
• Sting
• Patrick Stewart
• Reverend Lowe
• Al from Quantum Leap
• Wormtail from Harry Potter
• Lots of bald women
• Eyebrows. Oh! The eyebrows!
• A pug

I’m going to admit here that in order to actually understand what in the world was going on I had to cheat and read the Wikipedia entries for both the book and the movie. And I’m still not really sure what was going on.

I do know:

• Paul Atreides has the most magnificent hair I have ever seen.
• Some people in this movie have enough eyebrows for two people. Oh wait! That is because half the people in the movie have no eyebrows! So they really are making up for those other eyebrows. There must be some kind of eyebrow union regulating this kind of thing.
• Pugs survive far, far into the future (and are carried into battle gently embraced in the arms of Patrick Stewart).
• STING IN A SPEEDO. A METAL SPEEDO.
• Every time they called Duncan by name I thought they were calling him “Pumpkin.”
• With Paul thinking/saying about every 10 minutes, “Could I be the one?” I’m thinking the foreshadowing was piled on a leeetle too thick.

Things that confuse me:

• Why is the “Weirding Way” is a voice thingie? Wwwwwwwwwwwwhat?
• Being able to hear everyone’s thoughts during the whole movie. Every time, I was like, “Is this narration? Conversation? Oh, oh! He’s thinking…right!”
• Milking a cat? Really?
• “The worm is the spice. The spice is the worm!” I have no idea what that means.
• Paul and Reverend Lowe riding a worm. And giving each other what could be called a look of love while riding said worm. This is so weird that as I am typing it I’m wondering if I fell asleep during the movie and had a severely bizarre dream and am making this part up. OK I’m not making it up! Here’s a clip!

If you get bored with that, just cut in to about 3:30 - you can see Paul Atreides’ awkward exaggerated worm taming as well as when Rev. Lowe joins him. Man, this is bizarre.

Favorite moments:

• When Patrick Stewart says, “Not in the mood? Mood’s a thing for cattle and loveplay, not fighting!”
• When Paul’s mother tells him the Reverend mother is going to “observe” him and by observe, she means “put your hand in a fiery pain box.”
• “Do we have wormsign?” “We have wormsign the likes of which even God has never seen.”

I don’t even know what to say to wrap this up. It was good. It was bad. It was ugly. It was everything I imagined and hoped in every sort of way. Wow, I am glad I watched Dune.