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The 1980s was an incredible time for sci-fi movies. A true golden era, the decade gave moviegoers greats like Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Aliens, The Terminator, and many more as well as saw the rise of new and evolving creative effects that helped push the industry in ways we can still see today. Films like Flight of the Navigator helped redefine what was possible for sci-fi and fans simply couldn’t get enough.
But not every sci-fi movie of the 1980s quite hit with audiences at the time and that includes David Lynch’s Dune. Released in 1984, the film was an ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel of the same name and was met with mostly negative reviews as well as lackluster box office performance, even ending up being considered as one of the worst films of the year. However, in the decades since and even with Denis Villeneuve’s epic adaptations Dune: Part One, Dune: Part Two, and the upcoming Dune: Part Three, this 1980s classic deserves more appreciation—and with it leaving Netflix on May 1st, time is running out.
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David Lynch’s Dune Is a Misunderstood Classic (With a Surprising Change to Its Ending)
While Lynch’s Dune was poorly reviewed when it was released, in retrospect the film isn’t as bad as it was considered at the time. Not only was it a very ambitious film—Dune is a notoriously dense novel so trying to put it into just one feature film is already a massive task—but the result has a very surreal quality to it. That is, in part, due to the editing. Lynch infamously didn’t have final cut privilege for the film which made things a little messy, but even with that the film made some interesting artistic choices. When taken as a whole, it is unlike anything else and remarkably different from Villeneuve’s adaptation decades later.
One aspect of particular interest with Lynch’s Dune is its ending. The film made a very controversial change from the book, a change that gave Dune a more positive and more conclusive ending with Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan) to fulfill the Fremen prophecy and causing it to rain on Arrakis, thus being declared the Kwisatz Haderach. The ending gave the film a solid ending point because a sequel wasn’t guaranteed and that was a good choice—the film’s poor performance killed any chance for a sequel. Dune wouldn’t get a proper, more accurate adaptation for nearly 40 years, but before the third installment of Villeneuve’s epic arrives, you’ll want to go back and check out Lynch’s film—just do it before May 1st.
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