Death By Adaptation: Dune (1984)
Universal PicturesGeorge Lucas saved the science fiction genre. Frank Herbert may have inspired the work of Lucas with his seminal science-fiction epic, Dune, but it is how the impact of a mass-scale space opera affected Lucas and, by extension, David Lynch – the director who first successfully adapted Dune to the screen – that lingers still to this day. Herbert crafted a tale of sand worms, interplanetary diplomacy and monarchist reigns that influenced one another and incited violence, and a passive note of paranoia flowed through the text. Quite a big ask for the era, especially as most authors around this time were still getting to grips with time travel and all those tropes audiences now take for granted. Dune comes together spectacularly well on the many pages of lore and jargon, the benefit being most editions would, when thrown at someone, knock them clean out. Taking a book so bulky, stripping it to its core and throwing what remains at the screen is never ideal, but often accomplished. Lynch couldn’t hack it, though, in his 1984 adaptation of Dune.
His adaptation of this high-strung space feature is not a lost cause, thankfully. At the very least, the key similarity between book and film – scope – is intact. Herbert was ambitious, and even without the benefit of writing that flows so well, a purpose for his many characters is observed. The worlds around them are crafted tremendously and to visualise the written word with Herbert is not just easy, but a genuine pleasure. Lynch is capable of this. What benefits his style so well is the longevity of Herbert’s work and the varied interpretations it can offer. Smaller details like colour and costume can be changed to fit the vision of the director, but that would imply there is a clearer vision behind this adaptation.
Vibrant stylings and a scope for how large a project Dune is are identified well, and it is an important identification to make. It singles out the unprepared merits of the feature. Lynch struggled horribly when trying to adapt those smaller characters. There is a pride buried deep beneath that ambition, that desire to present every small possibility within this massive, overpopulated universe. Lynch cracks through at times with some inspired bits and pieces, but most of it is too confusing and edited far too choppily to come anywhere close to correctly adapting Herbert’s own ambition. That is not the fault of Lynch, it is the jittery antagonism of producers that have fielded those errors. A shame, too, for those costumes and visualisations of what Dune is are impressive.
They are, at the very least, similar to what the book would implement. Rich descriptors and a sense of importance to these characters means Herbert has no struggle with catching the eye of the reader. His detailed worldbuilding is bolstered by a story that is, at its core, extremely simple. For all the crossed paths and character arcs exhibited by Dune, the integral aspects of the piece are easily understood, and thankfully so. Paul Atreides (played by the great Kyle MacLachlan) is identifiable through the costumes and characteristics Herbert fans should expect of any adaptation. But his final act gut-punch is missing from the film. It is the soppy end that Hollywood loves to see and audiences love to loathe that plants this feature as a disappointing misstep.
What it does is detract from the perfect end Herbert features in his piece. That realisation of gluttony, the failure deeply rooted in success. That is the comeuppance from Dune. One that shows the close relation between success and failure. Truth and doubt are entwined extremely well, and Herbert uses it to show that the right cause of action and a belief in oneself is not always enough to trump inevitable disasters. With that removed from the film, Lynch fails to get to the emotive core of the novel. What are the reasons heroes take out their actions? “I am showing you the superhero syndrome and your participation in it,” Herbert once said. That is the point of his end. Heroic actions are not the world-shifting brilliance that modern filmmakers would have audiences believe. What Herbert shows is realism in the unreal, and it is no surprise Lynch was either pressured to remove it or did not want to include it at all.
Cinema is the magic palace, and adapting Dune to that big screen entertainment is a hard task. Harder still, to make it good. Where the book and film do differ is in quality, rather than in scope. Lynch has big ideas and grand desires for his adaptation of Dune, but there are moments that feel like a guilty look back at his decision to turn down Return of the Jedi. Pockets of Star Wars-like effects are either intentional so as to capitalise on the look and style of the Lucas classic, or happenstance and a mere understanding of the times and the special effects on offer. What it does highlight, though, is how infrequent change comes for bulky genres like this. Even now, the modern rhetoric around what would and would not consist of terribly predictable science-fiction tropes lingers on as the usual Star Wars or Dune notifiers. Grand casts of characters, a fleshed-out world that nobody could ever pick apart with their sanity intact.
It is a shame that Dune has not had the success Star Wars had. If there is one positive to take from Lynch’s adaptation, it is that there is plenty to dish out to potential fans. So much has gone to waste. What lingers toward the end of Dune is not the sudden shift of tone and heroic end, but the dejection audiences, especially Herbert fans, will feel. This adaptation of Dune goes against the very theme Herbert set out to crucify and criticise. A superhero tone is taken. Atreides is the hero of the hour, besting the villain as the credits roll over the crashing waves.
Dune’s adaptation is a reserved and ambitious beast. Its reservations come from how best to adapt the story, and its ambitions show up in the recent revelations of cast members signing on to do a series of three features. The heart was there, but the consistency and integrity of story was not. Perhaps the sequels would have figured that out, although audiences may never know. Denis Villeneuve is the next best hope for Dune-heads, but even then, his adaptation may meet with the same, puttering slump that Lynch dealt with at the time. The champion of Dune is not Atreides, but the director brave enough to participate in the superhero syndrome of adapting such a massive text.