The desert planet (film)

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Movie
German title The desert planet
Original title Dune
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1984
length 137 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (TV version), 16
Rod
Director David Lynch
script David Lynch
production Dino De Laurentiis
Raffaella De Laurentiis
music Toto
Brian Eno
camera Freddie Francis
cut Antony Gibbs
occupation

The desert planet (original title: Dune ) is an American science fiction film from 1984 by director David Lynch based on the novel by Frank Herbert . Kyle MacLachlan , Jürgen Prochnow , Sting and Patrick Stewart can be seen in the leading roles . The film opened in German cinemas on December 14, 1984.

Emergence

As early as the mid-1970s, the author and director Alejandro Jodorowsky was working in vain on a film adaptation of the novel. The Swiss artist H. R. Giger (who later, in 1979, provided the basic drafts for the film Alien ) created some design studies for him in February 1976, but these were not adopted. In the few completed drawings Giger dealt with the planet of the House of Harkonnen. These were published in his book Necronomicon ( ISBN 3-85591-019-7 ). The British artist Chris Foss also created some designs in 1975, which were published in the book 21st Century Foss ( ISBN 90-6332-571-1 ) with a foreword by Jodorowsky. Foss mostly drew spaceship designs for the project. Jodorowsky planned to have Salvador Dalí perform on his Dune project for a fee of $ 100,000 per minute. The documentary Jodorowsky's Dune was made in 2013 about the failure of its film adaptation .

action

The eleventh millennium has dawned: It is the year 10191, mankind has settled in space, rival noble houses are fighting for power.

Duke Leto Atreides will of Emperor Shaddam IV. With the desert planet Arrakis fief . Only on this barren planet does " spice " exist , which is extracted with the help of huge harvesting machines. The spice is a mind-expanding drug that enables the "navigators" of the guild to travel to space at faster speeds than light and has an anti-aging effect.

Duke Leto, together with his son Paul and his concubine Jessica, who belongs to the women's order of the Bene Gesserit, goes from his home planet Caladan to Arrakis to take possession of his fiefdom. The sadistic and disfigured Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, whose house has long been enemies with the Atreides and previously had Arrakis as a fief for 80 years, intends to destroy Leto and his family and regain control of Arrakis. For this he secures the support of the emperor, who fears the growing influence of Duke Leto in the council of planets as well as the immense fighting power of the Atreiden army, aided by their revolutionary sonic weapons. Harkonnen succeeds in hiring Letos, Dr. Yueh, to force betrayal. Yueh sabotages the protective shield of the ducal castle and destroys the sound modules, so that the castle of the Atreiden is defenselessly exposed to the attack of Harkonnen. The Harkonnen overrun the defense of the Atreides on Arrakis with a huge army and bring the planet back under their control. Like his son Paul and his concubine Jessica, Duke Leto is stunned by Yueh and thus incapacitated. However, he inserts an artificial poison gas tooth with which he is supposed to kill Baron Harkonnen if he approaches him. When Leto wants to implement this project, he, still half-stunned, confuses the baron with his adviser Piter De Vries, so that the poison gas only kills him. Baron Harkonnen survived the attack, Leto himself died.

Although the Baron's plan of invasion succeeds and the Duke is dead, Paul and Jessica, who had also been captured by the Harkonnen, escape into the Arrakis wilderness. Here they are favored by the arrangements made by Yueh, who has given them the equipment necessary for the desert. In their luggage they also discover the blueprint for the sound modules and the Duke's signet ring. After finding a new home with the enigmatic Fremen, the inhabitants of the desert , the young son of the duke grows up to be a powerful opponent for the Harkonnen and the Emperor. He rides the gigantic sandworm Shai-Hulud , drinks the "water of life", deadly for an ordinary person, thereby attaining absolute knowledge, power over the sandworms and the spice, he is then recognized by the Fremen as a leader. He chooses Paul Muad'Dib as the Fremen name .

Paul Atreides and his mother teach the Fremen in the arts of the Bene Gesserit, train them to use the sound modules and thus develop them into a powerful army. With surprise attacks and attacks on the harvesting machines for the spice production, they bring the spice production to a standstill and thus put the Harkonnen and the Imperator under pressure. In addition, Paul learns that Baron Harkonnen is his biological grandfather, Jessica's father (until now the Bene Gesserit had not told the Baron that he had a child).

The guild demands that the Emperor regain control of the spice production, otherwise he will face serious consequences. The Emperor summons the great houses on Arrakis to organize regaining control of Spice production. At this moment, Paul Muad'Dib, who is now considered the long-awaited Fremen messiah Kwisatz Haderach , attacks: with dozens of sandworms, he storms the capital Arrakeen. His supernaturally gifted little sister Alia penetrates her grandfather, the Baron Harkonnen, and rips the control cables from his chest, which he uses to operate his anti-gravity belt. The baron flies out of the room uncontrollably, straight into the throat of one of the sandworms.

Paul establishes the emperor and, with the support of the Fremen, claims the throne . After a victorious duel with Feyd Harkonnen, the vile nephew of the baron, the Fremen put the cloak of rule on him. Paul, who - as his sister Alia correctly recognized - is really the godlike Kwisatz Haderach , lets a miracle happen under the astonished eyes of all those present: Thunderclouds are gathering in the sky over the desert planet, and pouring rain sets in.

criticism

“In a visually rich, original and bizarre world of images, multi-layered science fiction fairy tale. His social, ecological and religious message loses depth and meaning through a confused dramaturgy and the not always consistent dissolution of the literary material in film language. For fantasy and science fiction friends despite some lengths of interest. "

- Lexicon of international film

“ Dune is a huge, imaginative, cold sci-fi epic that lacks depth. Visually unique and rich in happenings, David Lynch's film holds attention with an excess of superficial attractions, but does not itself arouse the fascination and enthusiasm that made Frank Herbert's 1965 novel a classic of its genre. "

- Variety

“Director Ridley Scott (' Gladiator ') gave up shortly after filming began, while colleague David Lynch ('Straight Story') took over the job. With surrealistic images he created a mystical fairy tale of the future that has little to do with Frank Herbert's cult novel. Conclusion: wacky visions from the future "

- Cinema

cut

David Lynch's original version, shot almost entirely in Mexico, lasted around 3.5 hours, but was cut to just over two hours by the producer.

Differences from the book

  • The complicated history of Leto's popularity and the lack of a male heir to the emperor is omitted or only hinted at.
  • The sound modules are a pure invention of the film, in the book Paul masters a special fighting style that he also passes on to the Fremen.
  • The legion strength of the Sardaukar has been greatly increased compared to the book and would have to be in the millions according to the counting method specified there.
  • “Worm marks” are described in the book as noisy waves in the sand, while the film shows strong electrical discharges ( lightning ).
  • The "heart plugs" of the subjects of Baron Harkonnen or Thufir Hawat's "cat milking machine" are pure inventions of the film.
  • The home planet of the Harkonnen, Giedi Prime, appears contaminated and dirty in the film. In the book it is considered very gloomy, but there is no mention of contaminated or polluted buildings (factory complexes and industrial levels are mentioned, but these make up a tiny part of the otherwise inanimate environment).
  • The Holtzmann shield shown in the film differs significantly from the version described in the book. In the film, for example, the shield appears to surround the user's body with a cube-shaped energy field, whereas in the book the effect and appearance of the shield is described as a “transparent energy field”, which is only reflected in the occasional clouding of the light in the shield (a “flicker”). can be recognized.
  • The portrayal of Gurney Halleck in the film also shows some differences to the book. If he is described in the book as very ugly and covered with scars, Patrick Stewart gave him the appearance of an always correct officer and gentleman. The shimmering purple scar on Halleck's face was reduced to an inconspicuous scratch on the chin.
  • Duncan Idaho dies in the film during the attack on Leto's estate. In the book, he only dies when he sacrifices himself in front of the apartment of the imperial ecologist Kynes to enable Paul and his mother to escape.
  • The "poison sniffers", apparatus for detecting poison, play a major role in the book, but in the film a kind of sensor stick appears only once, with which Paul scans his spice before he starts to eat.
  • Paul trains hand-to-hand combat with Gurney, and after the win he takes on a strange fighting machine in the film. In the book, the idea of ​​a fighting machine does not exist, it is just a mechanical doll. (The machine does not appear until Volume 2 , Chapter 8.)
  • Lady Jessica ranks less in the film than in the book.
  • Princess Irulan's relationship with her father is much more tense in the book than in the film. While he keeps showing her love and special attention in the film, he hardly pays her any attention in the book out of resentment, as her mother, a Bene Gesserit, did not give birth to a male heir.
  • The navigators in the film repeatedly show strong feelings, threaten the emperor or scream loudly because of their anger. In the book, on the other hand, the navigators are presented as absolutely cool and calculating and, due to their transformation, seem to have no more human feelings at all.
  • The end of the book hopefully points to the planned change in the planetary climate in 300 years at the earliest. The end of the film radically prefers this climate change in that Paul Atreides miraculously lets it rain. However, there is an alternative film ending that is more like the end of the book.
  • The appearance of the navigators also differs massively from the representation in the book: while the "third degree navigator" (who visits the emperor at the beginning of the film) is like a mixture of a deformed fetus and a marine mammal without a neck with a smooth transition from the torso to the head appears, the navigators in the book are fragile, humanoid beings who have a very large head with large eyes and a long, thin neck as a clear separation between head and body. They are somewhat similar to the familiar Gray Aliens.

Essentially, the changes are based on the compulsion to present the events in a concise manner, which, in contrast to the book, could not be presented in detail without extending the already considerable length of the film.

Alan Smithees TV version

The 3-hour television version of the film also consists of the film material by David Lynch, who distanced himself from this version and allowed himself to be written from the credits. In its place, the made-up name Alan Smithee appeared . Lynch particularly disagreed with the alternative 10-minute opening credits. Compared to the cinema version, however, more essential aspects of the desert planet world are explained.

The version only appeared briefly on television in the United States and Japan. For a time, the film was mainly imported by fans and distributed in mediocre quality. However, since August 2000 there has been a DVD (region code 2, PAL) from England, which contains the full Alan Smithee version. In the meantime, this version has also been released in Germany using the German cinema dubbing (publisher: Best Entertainment No. 22125). However, the added scenes were left in the original version.

The long version of marketing-film is now available in completely German (with new speakers).

In the long version, some violent scenes that can be seen in the movie were also cut out. Compared to the Cinemascope theatrical version, the TV version only has an aspect ratio of 4: 3 ( full screen , cropped).

A so-called Extended Edition has existed on the American market (regional code 1) since the beginning of 2006 , which contains the original and the long version in full Cinemascope format (2.35: 1) and Dolby 5.1 sound.

Remakes

Awards

  • 1985 : Nomination for an Oscar for the category Best Sound .
  • 1985: Saturn Award in the category of best costumes for Bob Ringwood, as well as a nomination each for the best mask by Giannetto De Rossi, the best special effects by Barry Nolan and in the category best science fiction film .
  • 1985: Nomination for the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation .

literature

Dune is the first book of the desert planet hexalogy by Frank Herbert . After his untimely death (1986), Kevin J. Anderson and Herbert's son Brian Herbert wrote more books on the desert planet saga. Below that there are two continuations, so that an octalogy wasinitiallycreated. However, six prequels and novelswere alsowritten that can be classified within the original hexalogy.

Web links

Commons : Dune Universe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Dune, the desert planet - TV version . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2003 (PDF; test number: 55 054 V).
  2. ↑ Dali initially charged $ 100,000 an hour to be the highest paid actor in Hollywood. Since he was only supposed to appear in the film for 3–5 minutes, the producer Michel Seydoux then offered him the same per minute - as told by Jodorowsky and Seydoux themselves in the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune by Frank Pavich, 2013, ARTE F (approx Minute 49).
  3. ↑ The desert planet. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Review: 'Dune' . In: Variety . January 1, 1984 ( variety.com ). , Variety of December 31, 1983: “Dune is a huge, hollow, imaginative and cold sci-fi epic. Visually unique and teeming with incident, David Lynch's film holds the interest due to its abundant surface attractions but won't, of its own accord, create the sort of fanaticism which has made Frank Herbert's 1965 novel one of the all-time favorites in its genre."
  5. ↑ Cinema.de: [ The desert planet . In: CINEMA Online . ( cinema.de ).