Dune: the worst sci-fi movie ever made?

In my previous post about the failure of John Carter, I suggested that sci-fi movies that take place on desert planets don’t do very well at the box office.

It’s possible I was trying to hard too find a correlation that doesn’t exist, but unfortunately the sample size is small so we will probably not be able to know for sure. But independent of the ugly desert landscape, it’s my opinion that Dune was the worst sci-fi movie ever made.

I remember going to see it in 1984 with my high school sci-fi friends. And I thought it was absolutely horrible. However, after I wrote my blog post comparing Avatar to Dune, I got suckered into re-watching Dune. There are a bunch of reviews at Netflix suggesting that Dune is a lost classic, misunderstood, etc. So I gave it another try, and that made me pretty certain that Dune is indeed the worst sci-fi movie ever. The movie has no redeeming qualities.

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that the 2014 Dune remake is going to be another flop. It still has the desert thing going against it, and maybe Dune is a story that just doesn’t work well as a movie.

The Lord of the Rings was successfully made into three movies, but LOTR doesn’t take place in a desert.

Comments

[IHTG]

Watch the Sci-Fi Channel Dune and Children of Dune miniseries instead.
(Yes, the Dune movie was so bad that it's outclassed by a "Syfy" offering)

[Mack]

Tremors was a pretty cool film.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tremors/

[Camlost]

Sean Young and Fransesca Annis were both really hot in the original Dune. That's two redeeming qualities.

[Conquistador]

"I remember going to see it in 1984." - Half Sigma

I wasn't even born yet! I bet you wish I was a hot female reader.

[HS: HBD blogs don't attract groupies.]

[Jason Steiner]

Stargate was good. Grossed $196 million against a budget of $55 million. And although not exactly science fiction, The Mummy is a pretty decent fantasy/adventure (which is really what John Carter falls under) that also did well and spawned a couple of sequels.

[DaveinHackensack]

"So I gave it another try, and that made me pretty certain that Dune is indeed the worst sci-fi movie ever. The movie has no redeeming qualities."

Dune has some major redeeming qualities:

1) A great score.

2) A spectacular cast (Max Von Sydow, Patrick Stewart, Jurgen Prochnow, Sting, etc.)

3) Good use of Steampunk sets.

The first half of Dune is quite good, but as it gets closer to the end, it gets more mailed-in. I assume that (and the generally shoddy special effects) was due to the production running out of money.

The movie was also pretty influential. Natalie Portman's character in Star Wars speaks just like Virginia Madsen's character in Dune, for example.

Dune was more of an ambitious, glorious failure than an unremittingly bad movie. I'll still watch the first third or half of it when it comes on TV.

[outlaw josey wales]

Dune had good music and an interesting take on the style of the times. So it did have redeeming qualities, but then again I have a soft spot for it.

[Peter]

The 2000 remake of Dune was not without its quality moments (Nhttp://www.celebritymoviearchive.com/tour/movie.php/31176

[KevinM]

You forgot about "Pitch Black" . Way worse than Dune. Vin Diesel worse.

[kawokmali]

The REAL Dune movie never happened!
http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/

[Jody]

I second the recommendation for the SyFy version of Dune.

[It is by will alone I set my mind in motion]

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2011/04/10_things_david_lynch_needlessly_added_to_dune.php

Topless Robot

"10 Things David Lynch Needlessly Added to Dune"

By James Daniels

Monday, April 25, 2011 at 8:06 am

​Nearly every nerd has his or her primary field of expertise/obsession. Of all the numerous nerdified interests and fandoms one may be involved in, most of us can name one subject, genre, or property that we claim as particularly dear. For the past 26 years, mine has been Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune books. But as dearly as I adore these novels, it was David Lynch's somewhat...less than magnificent film adaptation that first introduced me to this phenomenon. Sure, at 8 years old I understood the film even less than the critics that it utterly perplexed, but it struck a chord with me. Eventually, I sought out the books--and even learning how vastly inferior the movie was by comparison never totally soured me on it. Still, Lynch overstuffed it with completely superfluous additions that range from the oddball, to the confusing, to the downright sacrilegious. I'm perfectly aware that a director will inevitably want to put his or her mark on a project, even one based on pre-existing material--but there's a fine line between expression and desecration: Here are 10 examples that ride a sandworm right over it....

[JP]

"Dune is indeed the worst sci-fi movie ever"

Armageddon
2012
Battlefield Earth
Pitch Black

[HS: Pitch Black was a much better movie, and it introduced the world to Vin Diesel.]

[f2point8]

had you read dune before seeing it? that's probably the only thing that can save a movie like that. it needs a peter jackson to make it a really good movie. wonder if i'll feel the same about john carter, which i've read twice.

[Peter A]

"Dune: the worst sci-fi movie ever made?"

Worse than "Zardoz"? Worst Sci-fi movie is a pretty competitive bracket. If you want to argue worst relative to its source material, Dune probably is hands down the worst. The book is still a classic, the movie is pretty awful.

[HS: Well Zardoz was pretty bad, but it wasn't made with the same expectations as Dune.]

[JP]

"Pitch Black was a much better movie"

It was so bad that my buddy and I sat there loudly mocking it during the showing, and nobody else in the audience even cared.

Zardoz is MUCH MUCH better than Dune. What does Dune have to compare to the Stone Head saying "The Penis is evil! The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots Death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth, and kill! Zardoz has spoken." ?

[Victarion]

I also think the first half is decent. The main things that ruined the movie are:

• Kyle MacLachlan
• Too much weird visual stuff not even in the already weird books
• Replacing hand-to-hand fighting with sounds-weapons, thus ruining one of the most interesting innovations in the Dune-Universe (individual skill determines wars).

Personally, I like some of the individual scenes, such as the Guild Navigator one.

[Half Canadian]

I agree that Dune sucked. I saw it in theaters, after reading the first book.
I wasn't impressed with the acting, and the changes from the book were just too off-putting.

Speaking of Pitch Black, the sequel, "The Chronicles of Riddick" was also really bad. Not as bad as Dune, but really bad.

[Tanizaki]

"Sean Young and Fransesca Annis were both really hot in the original Dune. That's two redeeming qualities."

Truth. I also adopt DaveinHackensack's comments.

I also appreciate the SyFy mini-series. I wonder if there isn't something about Dune that makes it defy a very good screen adaptation. There is a lot of weird stuff in it and maybe it just doesn't translate well.

I have a soft spot for Dune. I read the whole series when I was in junior high/high school. Dune stands up to repeated readings, but I cannot say the same for the rest of the series.

Then there are the expanded universe books by Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert's son) and Kevin J. Anderson. I read the three Dune prequels and the Hunters/Sandworms of Dune. They were pretty much rubbish. I haven't read any of the other ones since I am sure they are all turkeys. Then sometimes have hot chicks in stillsuits on the covers, though.

I think this Dune redub is funny. I particularly like the Baron's sound effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B6jgkcANRE

[Zimriel]

"Pitch Black" made money, so audiences liked it. The critics liked it too. So it wasn't *objectively* bad; it just didn't please JP and his buddy.

The first Riddick *game* was better, granted.

[albert magnus]

"Lawrence of Arabia" is pretty amazing and it takes place in a desert. Also, the opening scenes in "Star Wars" are pretty cool.

[JP]

""Pitch Black" made money, so audiences liked it. The critics liked it too. So it wasn't *objectively* bad; it just didn't please JP and his buddy."

Objectively bad movies make money ALL THE TIME.

Two words: Pearl Harbor.

Other examples:
Godzilla 1998
The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps
Armageddon

I will make a confession though. The movie my buddy and I mocked was not Pitch Black, but Event Horizon, which was pretty much a crappy haunted-house-movie-in-space. I have no specific memory of watching Pitch Black - I know I saw it, but I can't remember anything about it.

[HS: I liked Pearl Harbor, it was beautifully filmed.]

[JP]

All the horrible Star Wars I / II / III movies are well-filmed, too. They're still bad. And they still made money! Go figure.

[EWCZ]

In 1983, I spent a summer in the village with my then newborn son, my hubby, my mother, the in-laws and Herbert's Dune book, just translated in Czech
.
The Dune was my link to my pre-maternal self. I read it over again and again. I could quote whole passages. I've seen the whole Arrakis world before my eyes...

And after the political changes in my country in 1989, me and my hubby eagerly ran to see Lynch's version in a video-cinema. My God! What an awful experience! Almost repulsive. And the worst of all - the wooden Kyle McLachlan.
I really don't understand, what Lynch had seen in him.

[goddinpotty]

Oh come on, you would be hard-pressed to find a worse movie of any kind compared to Battlefield Earth. Dune had many interesting moments; in Battlefield Earth is physically painful to watch throughout. It's won multiple Razzie awards including worst movie of the decade: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185183/awards

[Mirco Romanato]

@goddinpotty
I hate you. I was able to remove from my mind the fact Battlefield Earth was filmed. It took years to be able to forget it.