In the 1996 sci-fi summer blockbuster Independence Day a fleet of spaceships from a non-specific hostile planet destroy the majority of civilized earth, thus ruining a shit ton of people’s plans to get drunk in their backyards and shoot off fireworks. The remains of the US Government, led by man who I wish was the actual president right now Bill Pullman, launch an all-out assault on the enemy craft, only to find that it comes equipped with an invisible, bomb-resistant shield. No matter what kind of artillery they hammer the space ships with, it either bounces off or explodes. I mention this because my own brain has a similarly impenetrable shield when it comes to the plot lines of science fiction movies. It is something that I was born with and it appears to be inoperable. The gene that allows one to watch an entire episode of Star Trek without peppering the person next to them with hundreds of annoying questions never arrived at the Tebo household (I also have a profound phobia of tying knots and wore velcro shoes for way longer than socially acceptable...but that’s a conversation for another time). This is why I skipped Star Wars and gravitated toward more real life-type movies as a kid. The Griswolds encounter hella problems on their way to Wally World. Del Griffith and Neil Page try to get home for Thanksgiving utilizing planes, trains, and automobiles. Easy Peasy! That I can understand! Once you introduce less earthen concerns my brain literally shuts off (and yes...I know what ‘literally’ means). A few months back I watched The Dark Crystal for VHS of the Week and my poor girlfriend had to hold my hand the entire time...like I was burning through a stack of Tolkien novels and not watching a children’s Muppet movie. “Who are these guys!? Where are they going again!? Why do the Skeksis hate the Gelflings!?” I’m like John Heard in the movie Big: “I don’t get it!....I don’t get it!!”
Given what I just told you, you might not unreasonably assume that I would be the WRONG person to try to explain the plot of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. And oh my sweet christ on a cross would you be correct! While I have never read Herbert’s novel (and really, how could I?) I also didn’t just show up to Dune completely unawares. I checked out the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky Dune, which details controversial Chilean surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt to bring Dune to the big screen in the 1970’s. His version of Dune was set to star Salvador Dali and Orson Wells (who was just gonna to pound Paul Masson chardonnay and sit on a throne whistling like a walrus) and feature a soundtrack from Pink Floyd. It was also going to be 14 hours long. Shoulda just called Netflix, bro. The movie obviously never happened but the screenplay, as well as a book of illustrations and storyboards, became a sought after bootleg item in Hollywood. And, according to Jodorowsky, his aborted vision influenced every subsequent science fiction movie. Like....every single one of them: Star Wars, Alien, The Terminator, ET...I don’t know...friggin’ Tron. I felt kind of bad for the dude...until the end of the documentary...where he says the following: “When you make a picture, you must not respect the novel. It’s like getting married ... if you respect the woman, you will never have child. You need to open the costume and to rape the bride – and then you will have your picture. I was raping Frank Herbert ... but with love!” OK THEN! I mentioned this quote to my friend who recommended the documentary. His response: “Classic Jodo, man! I love that guy...he’s a NUT!” (Takes out pen...crosses El Topo off of “movies to watch” list).
David Lynch, with his blissed out vibes and his “okey dokey” speech pattern, does not come across as the type of person who would willingly watch a David Lynch film, let alone make one. In interviews there’s nary a whiff of evidence that this is the same cat responsible for some of the most disturbing cinematic images of the last 40 years. He’s more polite, non-threatening uncle than inscrutable provocateur. He won’t explain the ending of Mulholland Drive to you but he also won’t take offense to your question. Dude meditates like a bastard so there’s not much one can do to raise his ire. Unless, of course, you ask him about Dune (or tell him he can’t smoke cigarettes in a hotel elevator). David Lynch does not and will not talk about Dune. David Lynch passed up the chance to direct Return of the Jedi to make Dune...which is a goddamn shame because the former film definitely needed more scenes where Ewoks stare at their own paws in silence for 20 minutes before screaming directly into the camera. Dune came out in 1984 and people thought it sucked and Lynch, who didn’t have final cut, continues to disavow it to this day. Anyone who thinks 36 years should be a sufficient amount of time to heal this Dune-shaped bruise need look not further than this exchange from a Hollywood Reporter interview from April of 2020:
HR: This week they released a few photos from the new big-screen adaptation of Dune by Denis Villeneuve. Have you seen them?
David Lynch: I have zero interest in Dune.
HR: Why’s that?
DL: Because it was a heartache for me. It was a failure and I didn’t have final cut. I’ve told this story a billion times. It’s not the film I wanted to make. I like certain parts of it very much — but it was a total failure for me.
HR: You would never see someone else’s adaptation of Dune?
DL: I said I’ve got zero interest!
DANG! Someone woke up on the wrong side of that yoga mat that morning! Knowing everything that I know I still decided to try to watch Dune anyway. Being locked inside of your house for months on end makes you attempt things you are destined to not succeed at...like learning how to play Van Halen’s “Eruption” on the guitar or deciphering the plot of Dune.
What happens is this. I mean...I really have NO IDEA what happens but I’ll do my best. The film opens with a shot of outer space that is scored by David Lynch’s trademark whirring white noise. I immediately recognized the familiar territory and was flooded with all of the good/stomach curdling feels. The good feels lasted for about, oh, ten seconds. That’s when the disembodied head of Candyman victim Virginia Madsen appeared and started to explain the plot of the movie to us. Like...if they wrote this shit out and put it on a Star Wars-like opening crawl it would go on for longer than the actual 2.5 hour movie. As best as I can tell: it’s the year 10191 and the most important thing in the universe is a spice melange called, umm, The Spice. He who controls the Spice can travel to any part of the universe without moving. Most of the Spice is on a planet called Arrakis but they have a serious worm problem up in there, kind of like Guam but wicked cold and with worms instead of snakes. There’s lots of talk of warring factions and families and, honestly, ain’t nobody got time to learn all of that shit. There’s the House Atredies and the Fremen and the Harkonnens and I couldn’t tell you who is who if you held me at gunpoint. I kept trying to keep myself calm by telling myself that there was a simple hero’s journey underneath all of this gobbledegook. A kid’s gonna come along and try to get control of the Spice Say, . do any of y’all Central Mass readers remember when the Pay-Per-View Playboy Channel changed its name to Spice in the late 80’s? That was a big deal. I’d go to school and kids would yell “you’re a creep...I bet you stay up all night watching SPICE!” And I would say “We don’t even HAVE Spice...so there’s no way I’d stay up unto 4 AM watching scrambled Spice and waiting for that glorious moment when it would unscramble for about 3 seconds and I’d see half a boob! What do you think I am, a pervert!?”
Right...anyway...the first 30 minutes of Dune consist almost entirely of actors standing around trying to explain the plot of the movie...not just with their dialogue but also with these bizarre voice over thought bubble narrations that usually happen right after a character has finished speaking. Why not just have them look directly into the camera like in The Office or whatever? Early on, this alien who looks like the alien from Meatballs 2 but with vaginas for mouths shows up to warn...someone or other...that Duke Jared Leto Atreides has a son named Paul who can see the future and will most likely piss off to Arrakis to try to control the Spice. The alien then says “but you didn’t hear this from me!” and beats a hasty retreat, which made me laugh for the one and only time I would laugh for the next two hours. Paul is played by Kyle MacLachlan, who would go on to play Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, which is awesome, and who would also go on to play an unsmiling Ray Manzarek in Oliver Stone’s The Doors and have the world’s most unrealistic swimming pool ninja sex with Jessie Spano in Showgirls, which is less awesome. If you are wondering if I will ever write a review of a movie starring Kyle MacLachlan and not mention that Showgirls sex scene the answer in NO.
Patrick Stewart (‘sup Captain Pic!?) shows up to help Paul train for his...what have you...which involves the two of them learning how to speak in scary monster voices and transforming themselves into Tetris blocks and fighting. The special effects here make Superman IV look like Avatar. They also stick Paul’s hand into a flesh burning box and tell him he’ll die if he pulls it out. He manages to withstand the pain ‘cuz he’s a tough motherfucker, this Paul. When he pulls his hand out it isn’t burned off after all. It was just a gnarly mind trick! Speaking of gnarly--the action moves to the plant of Giedi Prime, where we meet the bad guys; Baron Harkonnen and his nephew Feyd, who looks an awful lot like former Police frontman Sting because he is former Police frontman Sting. Dude, this is what you did after Synchronicity instead of making another Police album?? The guy who provided the voice of Chucky in those Chucky movies (Brad Dourif) is also here but I have no idea what he’s all about. Only in these Makonnen scenes does Dune feel vaguely David Lynch-y. The hideously acne scarred Baron looks like a severely jaundiced Pillsbury Doughboy. One of the Baron’s henchmen slices a oozing boil from the Baron’s face, squeezes it into a jar, and then drinks it. Later, the Baron levitates above the room, spraying RC Cola onto everyone below (his toenails are also painted pink...because why not). Later he rapes a kid who looks like a young David Bowie to death while Sting looks on and smiles. Here I’d like to mention that Dune had merchandise tie-ins. Someone somewhere watched this movie and thought that children would want to purchase Dune toys! Man, I wish all David Lynch movies came with toys. I’ll trade you a Frank Booth (with nitrous mask) and a Eraserhead eraser head for a One-Eyed Jack’s play set with Renault Brothers action figures.
Paul heads out to look for the Spice with Patrick Stewart and a baby PUG...who is shown in one scene and then never spoken of again (the pug...not Patrick Stewart). And then...and then...I really have no fucking idea, folks. Legendary character actors float in and out; Dean Stockwell from Quantum Leap! The Exorcist from The Exorcist, Little Linda Hunt from Richard Grieco’s If Looks Could Kill! I have no idea who any of them are or what purpose their characters serve (although I think Stockwell is a double crosser or something). I decide to leave the movie running and spend ten minutes folding laundry in another room, hoping that I’ll be able to follow along better when I return. This, unsurprisingly, is not successful. Lord Jared Leto is given a poison tooth and he uses it to try to assassinate Harkonnen but he fucks it up and ends up killing only himself. Paul escapes to the desert planet where he takes on a name that sounds like Mobb Deep. The desert planet is, of course, full of nasty worms and HOLY SHIT do they look exactly like the creatures from Tremors! I mean...both movies were made by Universal. Maybe they had some of these things laying around in a warehouse and thought “well, we sure as shit aren’t making a Dune sequel...maybe Kevin Bacon can throw some snakes in this big bastard’s mouth and make some magic out of it.” And that’s what he did. He made magic. Speaking of thoughts: you know what would be awesome? Tremors...IN SPACE!!! Oh but wait...wouldn’t people just hop in their spaceship to get away from the Tremors monsters? Maybe the snakes are on the spaceship! Is that too close to Snakes on a Plane? Let me spitball this and get back to y’all.
So what else? Mobb Deep hangs around the dry planet and fights some battles with his mom. He falls in love with the actress Sean Young, who is also a brunette like his mom and I could not tell them apart at all. I wasn’t even aware there was a new non-mother character until she and Mobb Deep started sucking face. People’s eyes turn blue and they grow mustaches that extend out of their noses and into their right ears. Actually that might be a breathing tube the more that I think about it. Harkonnen continues to fly around the set on barely concealed ropes. He poisons a guy and tells him that he will have to milk a cat for the antidote (“You never told me about your cat milking days in Motown”--Meet the Parents). Sting appears in a space thong looking like he’s ready to have 12 hours worth of Tantric sex any time you’d like, luv. Mobb Deep spends a nice two-year montage training the troops for...something or other. The Reverend Mother Ramallo warns that Mobb Deep must be stopped or people will live the rest of their lives in a Pain Amplifier. I feel like I’m already living in said Pain Amplifier, having spent the last two hours watching Dune.
Eventually there’s a big battle sequence but it’s unclear who is fighting whom...and why. The Baron is cut from his levitation ropes and he floats off into the mouth of a worm (he dies). Mobb Deep is hailed as the hand of god and the freer of the people. Before we can all go the hell home though, Mobb Deep has to do a little one-on-one battle with Sting because, even though he only has like four lines, he is the most famous person in the movie. It shouldn’t be much of a contest at all since Sting is cut to SHREDS and Kyle MacLachlan looks like he wandered in from the set of a Whit Stillman movie. They tussle it up for a sec but Mobb Deep throws Sting onto the ground and stabs the dude in the THROAT! Mobb Deep looks down at Sting’s body and quips “told you not to stand so close to me.” I mean...not really...but I wish! It starts to rain and everyone is super stoked, living in a desert and whatnot. The movie ends with picture credits...and if there’s one thing I love in this world it’s picture credits! Did I mention that the score of this movie was performed by Toto? Pink Floyd was pretty well broken up by this point so they went out and got Toto. Rosanna Toto. I bless the rains down in Africa Toto (I bless the rains down in Arrakis!? It could totally work!). ANYWAY....better luck with Dune 2020 Timmy Chalamet. The end.