DUNE SE!!!!!

[MarkB]

Mark my review is on the front page.

Oops. I'm so accustomed to reading your reviews on the FSM website that I sometimes forget you have a front page, Andy. Sorry -- I'll try to get over there more often.

Your review did answer my most of my questions, though. Even though the new DVD has less than I would have liked, I think there's enough there to warrant a repurchase.

Mark

[AndyDursin]

Mark my review is on the front page.

Oops. I'm so accustomed to reading your reviews on the FSM website that I sometimes forget you have a front page, Andy. Sorry -- I'll try to get over there more often.

Your review did answer my most of my questions, though. Even though the new DVD has less than I would have liked, I think there's enough there to warrant a repurchase.

Mark

Hey Mark not only is there a front page but it's in color, has pics, and is updated a few days ahead of time, too

Glad I could be of service. Again, I can't blame Universal if David Lynch doesn't want to revisit this film, and they gave you everything on this DVD they had promised (sans the DTS track, which isn't a big deal since the Dolby tracks are solid)...since there's no magical, completed long cut out there, I'm not sure expecting more than what they gave us was possible.

[Bill Williams]

Andy, thanks for the PM! I can understand your thoughts about the DVD, and at the least we can agree to disagree, which I'm fine with.

I checked on www.dugpa.com (the David Lynch web site), and it had been erroneously reported from Universal that the extended cut was in 1.85:1; thankfully, that was corrected on its online press release, so I'm okay with the correction.

I still have a problem with the cropping of the prologue into 2.35:1 format, though. At the least it should have been given a proper formatting and not been cropped, as opposed to the TV version.

One of the comments David Lynch made a few years back in a Cinescape DVD magazine was to the effect of, "If I could go back and fix one film, it would be DUNE, but I don't know if I could or not." Apparently he didn't. I hope one day a fan of both DUNE and David Lynch's work will revisit the film down the road and complete the film to his original specs.

[Carlson2005]

Meanwhile, in the UK the 2.35:1 cinema version was given away free on DVD with every copy of The Observer newspaper - other papers gave away widescreen copies of [i]Highlander, Conan the Destroyer[/i] and [i]Carry On up the Khyber[/i] over the weekend. Newsagents are getting more and more like DVD stores these days over here.

[AndyDursin]

Meanwhile, in the UK the 2.35:1 cinema version was given away free on DVD with every copy of The Observer newspaper - other papers gave away widescreen copies of Highlander, Conan the Destroyer and Carry On up the Khyber over the weekend. Newsagents are getting more and more like DVD stores these days over here.

What's the deal with that fad, Trevor? Even Paul MacLean bought a newspaper with a DVD in it when he was over there last fall.

Are they the actual discs or are they stripped-down, movie-only renditions? I have to say that's one neat way of driving up readership!

[Carlson2005]

It depends on the distributor - Arrow DVDs will usually be exactly the same edition as in the stores, though they aren't an extras-heavy company - usually a trailer/still gallery if that, with the film in a cardboard sleeve. With most others it's the film, not always wioth chapter stops.

Here's a list of just some of the titles released over the past year or so:

Bagdad Cafe
The Bounty
The Boys From Brazil
Brief Encounter + The Ipcress File
Cabaret
The Cannonball Run
Carry On Up the Khyber
The Cassandra Crossing
Charade
Closely Observed Trains
Conan the Destroyer
Defence of the Realm
Dune
The Eagle Has Landed
The Fabulous Baker Boys
The Fourth Protocol
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Fried Green Tomatoes
Gregory's Girl
A Handful of Dust
Heat and Dust
Highlander
Indochine
The Jigsaw Man
Last Orders
Let Him Have It
The Little Shop of Horrors - (original)
Les Miserables - (Gerard Depardieu miniseries)
The Long Good Friday
The Madness of King George
The Millionairess
Mona Lisa
My Life as a Dog
The Official Story
Orlando
Paris, Texas
Pelle the Conqueror
Prizzi's Honor
Raise the Titanic
Rebecca
Red Rose
The Return of Martin Guerre
Ring of Bright Water
A River Runs Through It
Rogue Trader
The Scarlet Pimpernell - 1983
Scrooge - Alastair Sim
Silkwood
Sophie's Choice (this one notoriously ommitted the English subtitles for the many German sequences)
Spellbound - Hitchcock
Strictly Ballroom
Sweet Sixteen
Swimming With Sharks
The 39 Steps
This Sporting Life
Treasure Island - Orson Welles
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Whistle Down the Wind
Who Dares Wins
Wings of Desire

...not to mention slews of TV sitcoms and dramas on one or two episode discs. A lot of the unsold copies end up being given away free at Woolworths.

As a general rule, The Observer has the best freebies whle the Daily Express always goes for crap PD masters. It's all part of a big newspaper circulation war going on over here at the moment.

[hiphats]

You probably don't recall that there was a VHS letterboxed release of DUNE in 1997 in which many reels were visually flopped (for instance, ships that came from right-to-left would now go from left-to-right). It also has a video trailer for other Universal releases (namely two episodes of "Battlestar: Galactica") and the theatrical trailer for DUNE that won't be on the new "extended edition" DVD.

I have this cassette up for auction on eBay. E-mail me at hiphats@comcast.net and I'll give you the link to where.

[Bill Williams]

I managed to hold onto that widescreen VHS tape for the very reasons you mentioned - no "D'oh!" this time around!

[hiphats]

Well, gang,

It appears that The Aisle Seat got the exclusive review on DUNE: Extended Edition, as it was the only site on the Internet that even bothered to put up a pre-release review of this title. I guess all the other DVD sites thought bad enough about the film not to put up a review of their own.

Well done, Andy!!!

[AndyDursin]

Well, gang,

It appears that The Aisle Seat got the exclusive review on DUNE: Extended Edition, as it was the only site on the Internet that even bothered to put up a pre-release review of this title. I guess all the other DVD sites thought bad enough about the film not to put up a review of their own.

Well done, Andy!!!

Hiphats, thank you, thank you LOL. Universal didn't do any kind of mass mailing so that would explain the lack of reviews online...i.e. if you didn't request it you would never have seen it.

[hiphats]

Yo!

Another review has just popped up on the 'net. Bill Williams has a review of the DVD up on TrekWeb. While not a DVD site, it is a great review.

By the way, when I mentioned in my previous post "I guess the DVD sites didn't care enough" or something like that, I did not refer to TrekWeb.

Hmm...I'd like to read it again...

[AndyDursin]

Yes, an excellent review by Bill, as is everything he does over at Trekweb.

I didn't really get into DUNE itself in my review -- I think by this point everyone familiar with it has their own opinion -- but I'm still struck, after all these years, by how incredibly BAD it is in places. There are scenes and characters that are so awkward and poorly handled -- Kenneth Macmillan and Everett McGill's performances, anyone? -- and sequences so inexplicably laughable ("he's using THE VOICE!") that it's almost a bad movie lover's delight. On the other hand, there's some impressive cinematography by Freddie Francis and visual flair from Lynch that one can understand the good elements that its cult followers have enjoyed in it.

Regardless, it's no shock why the movie flopped so bad. It's hard to believe the movie would have even been released today in the state that it's in.

PS -- Alicia Witt is SO creepy...and her last line ("...because he is the faddarhadderackwhatever!") sums up my entire attitude of this film.

[MarkB]

For me, it works best if approached as David Lynch's DUNE and not Frank Herbert's DUNE. If you are in that Lynchian frame of mind and willing to immerse yourself in the weirdness (like a more typical Lynch film), it's a very entertaining ride. If you are looking for a more literal adaptation of Herbert's book (not necessarily an unreasonable expectation), you are undoubtably going to be disappointed.

The first time I saw it, I expected the book and HATED it. The second time, I went in with no expectations and everything clicked for me.

Mark