DUNE

[Vermithrax 4]

The best things about the Sci-Fi "Dune" series, imo, were the Baron Harkonnen himself (excellent portrayal) and the fight between Paul & Feyd at the end, it was superbly choreographed and looked incredibly dangerous. Their Alia was really good, too.

I never had a major problem with the weirding modules, I thought they were neat, but they were just newer versions of the Klingon disruptor. I understand Lynch's reasoning for using them at that time and I don't discredit him for doing it. But if a new version were ever made they're going to have to figure out precisely what the "weirding way" actually is. I know it's some form of advanced martial art using knives and swords but it just needs to be clearly defined in the context of a film and how that way would be used to combat a fighting force that uses projectile weapons and lazguns. Could really be epic if done right, though.

Oh, and I second everyone's admiration of the Lynch stillsuit designs, I've always been impressed with them.

 

[Goodwolf]

My two gripes with the Lynch version are the voiceovers and the stillsuits.

The voiceovers just sound annoying. OK, I get that it's an internal monologue, but it just came out sounding harsh on the ear. A softly spoken inner voice would have gone a lot better, in my opinion.

The stillsuits looked nice, I'll give them that, and really that's all they had to do for the movie's purposes, but given that they were supposed to recapture the body's water, leaving the whole head exposed would have impaired their intended function. Not much, maybe, but enough that water would have been lost, the Fremen equivalent of squandering money. Yeah, yeah, I know, we need to see who's who, so that never really bothered me too much.

Also, given that water was so precious, I'd expect that bathing was nonexistent unless you were fabulously wealthy. I can only imagine the... interesting smells.

But having said all that, I've only ever seen the Lynch version and enjoyed it, even though it did stray far from the book in places.

 

[Jayn]

In my opinion this is the closest thing I have found to a good interpretation of the aesthetics of Dune:

"is that water in your pouch? Or are ya happy to see me?" :lol

I liked all the versions so far.
Here's a story for you: I even made Lynch versions of a few of the costumes for myself & others to wear to the movie when it came out, so we could wear them to the local premiere! And then several years later, had the misfortune to be working for a film that had bought some of the Dune stock, and my job was to tear it up for new costumes.. How ironic (not the hero stock, mostly warrior/fremen stuff) , but I did get to look through most of the costumes in storage. The only thing missing that I saw was Sting's leather outfit, which I heard that he had accquired.
Years after that, I made 2 more replica stillsuits and still have one with me.
I agree about the other designers & directors though. Lynch is so much of a surrealist that his stuff is enjoyable on a comedic level if you like that sort of thing, but was a strange choice to direct Dune. I used to have the "Making of" book and vaguely remember reading that he shot twelve hours worth of film and that making the movie in Mexico was very hard. Still I think it's a marvel of Art Direction!