All 3 screen adaptations of Dune made so far, ranked
By Dan Selcke
Author Frank Herbert first published Dune in 1965. A moody tale about politics, warfare and leadership in the distant future, it went on to sell millions of copies, standing today as one of the most successful and well-known sci-fi books of all time.
Many people have tried to bring Dune to the screen over the years, but many met with failure, including Ridley Scott and Alejandro Jodorowsky. It's a tricky book to adapt, for reasons that are both obvious — it's set in space and features all kinds of sci-fi mining equipment, flying machines, and other expensive knick-knacks — and subtle: far from being a rip-roaring adventure like Star Wars, Dune is grim and dense, concerned with themes of ecology and demagoguery. It's not a natural crowd-pleaser, so movie studios were hesitant for many years to spend the money necessary to bring it to life.
But eventually they did try, to varying degrees of success. Let's look at all three times Dune has been brought to the screen (big or small), ranked by how successful they were:
3. David Lynch's Dune (1984)
The first Dune adaptation came in 1984 courtesy of David Lynch, the director best known today for shows like Twin Peaks and movies like Mulholland Drive, but best known then as the director of Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. Dune represented a chance for Lynch to direct a big Hollywood blockbuster, the day's equiavelent of a Marvel movie. It went badly, which may be why he never made anything like this again.
It's not just me saying this, either. Lynch himself has disowned the film, calling it "a horrible sadness and failure." It remains interesting to watch, but it's not a great adaptation of Frank Herbert's work and it's not a great David Lynch movie, so I understand why he's not eager to embrace it.
Dune 1984 has a lot going for it on paper. The cast is good. Frequent Lynch collaborator Kyle McLaughlin plays Paul Atredies, perhaps looking a bit too old to play this budding messiah, but still solid. Patrick Stewart is Atreides house retainer Gurney Halleck, Max von Sydow is the Fremen ecologist Liet-Kynes, Sean Young is Paul's love interest Chani, Virginia Madsen is the Princess Irulan and Sting is the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. You don't do a lot worse.
Dune 1984 is the only adaptation that tells the entire story in one sitting, which hurts more than it helps. Dune is a jam-packed story that benefits from being able to spread out a bit, and too much is lost trying to cram everything into two hours and change. The most memorable thing about the movie is Lynch's distinct surrealist touch, like his inclusion of the shrimp-esque Guild navigators. But that's not enough to carry a movie that never quite comes together.
All that said, this is still a good movie to watch if you just want to look at the screen for a while and go, "What the f..." Let's move forward a decade and a half and take a look at our next Dune adaptation:
