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Notes -
Lynch's Dune was totally whack most of the time and some of the effects haven't aged well (riding the worm??) but there are some really great moments that i feel are missing from the new movies. For me Piter's introduction really sticks in my mind, sampled to great effect in some classic dnb. The bizarreness of it all (the eyebrows, the giant mouth) is really unmatched.
And the aesthetics. Maybe Lynch is responsible for my instinct on this issue (I saw his film before I read the books) but I have always thought of the Dune universe as vivid. Giedi Prime is black and putrid green. The women are beautiful. The Baron is disgusting. The worms are huge and alien. Paul is expressive and vibrant (ok, that really doesn't match the books, but film is a different medium). The spice-coloured eyes are glowing blue.
Also, though Lynch's film misses the moral ambiguity, it works really well as a portrayal of the Dune story as the Fremen themselves might tell it thousands of years later. Paul is a supernatural hero who saves the universe and then instantly brings rain. He understood the power of words, which were literal sound guns! Jamis? Who is Jamis?
It's the same sort of selection and compression that means that our idea of what Moses or Buddha was like could be hilariously different from what a god's eye narrator would tell us.
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