Dune 10 Biggest Differences Between The 2021 and 1984 Versions
Dune: 10 Biggest Differences Between The 2021 and 1984 Versions
Contents
Denis Villeneuve and David Lynch are known for their styles of directing, so there are big differences between the 2021 and 1984 versions of Dune.
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In 1984, director David Lynch, known mostly for small-budget movies involving body horror, set out to do the impossible — adapt Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece, Dune. Lynch’s original version was over 14 hours and required heavy cutting, so the movie fans received needed a great deal of exposition to be understood. Though its H.R. Giger-inspired aesthetic and certain creative liberties taken with the source material made it divisive, there’s no denying that Lynch’s Dune was an epic blockbuster for its time.
In 2021, Denis Villeneuve decided to see if he could conquer the novel that had been deemed unfilmable, and the resulting Dune has been a masterwork. Unlike Lynch, Villeneuve didn’t try to fit the entire book in one movie but instead split it into two parts which, when combined with his own unique visual style and narrative decisions more faithful to Herbert’s work, made for some very big differences between the two films.
Baron Harkonnen
As he’s depicted in Lynch’s movie, the Baron (Kenneth McMillan) is a truly disgusting man with boils all over his face and a tendency to torture animals and people. A scene depicting him sexually violating a young man not only shows his complete disregard for others (it’s also heavily implied he lusts after his youngest nephew) but what book readers know is entirely accurate to Herbert’s Dune.
Villeneuve’s Baron (Stellan Skarsgård) is still villainous, but rather than be a murdering psychopath, he’s intelligently manipulative, and any hints at his sexual appetites have been removed. He doesn’t get very much screen time by contrast, but he helps establish House Harkonne’s participation in the Emperor’s master plan to crush House Atreides.
The Emperor
The Emperor, the person responsible for sending House Atreides to Arrakis, appears in Lynch’s movie (played by legendary actor Jose Ferrer) outlining his scheme to set House Atreides up to fail. Villeneuve doesn’t feature the Emperor at all but does mention him, incorporating parts of this conversation into dialogue with other characters.
Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV is a prominent part of the book and is said to have turned on House Atreides because Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho trained a fighting force to rival his Sardaukar army. It’s not essential to have the Emperor in Villeneuve’s movie because the exposition he offers happens in other ways, but this also makes viewers less likely to understand his motivations.
Sandworms
The sandworms from Dune are some of the most iconic creatures in all of science-fiction, and Lynch’s movie features them prominently. Not only are they regularly seen, but they’re also vital to Paul Atreides taking back Arrakeen from house Harkonnen. In Lynch’s adaptation, the Dune sandworms have mouths that look like flower petals and are filled with sharp teeth.
By contrast, sandworms are seldom seen in Villeneuve’s version, perhaps out of a desire to keep them mysterious threats. At the big moment when one is eventually seen, its mouth is simply a round tunnel of hundreds of thousands of sharp teeth. Unlike in Lynch’s movie, fans will have to wait for Part 2 to see if Paul (Timothée Chalamet) learns how to ride one!
The Weirding Way
The Weirding Way, a form of movement that combines physical and psychological training, was an aspect of the Bene Gesserit that Lynch depicted as a sonic beam weapon called the Weirding Module. As Paul Atreides (Kyle Maclachlan) tells the Fremen, “Some thoughts have a certain sound. That being the equivalent to a form. Through sound and motion, you will be able to [kill] your enemy.” He then fires the Weirding Module at a stone, shattering it.
Villeneuve does feature the Voice, another deadly component of Bene Gesserit teachings, but chooses to leave out any aspect of the Weirding Way. It may appear in Part 2, but it’s just as likely that like Lynch, Villeneuve found it a difficult concept to introduce without a physical component, and chose to leave it out entirely.
Internal Monologue
An interesting thing that happens quite frequently in Lynch’s Dune involves accessing characters’ thoughts through internal monologue. They’re often direct quotes from the contemplations they have in Herbert’s book and something that Villeneuve completely does away with.
The internal monologues highlight a big aspect of Herbert’s book that would have been lost in the visual medium of film, but they can be jarring, and they don’t allow the actors a chance to emote. In Villeneuve’s version, the actors come across as much more emotionally resonant because they aren’t staring vacantly into space while their inner monologue plays.
Lady Jessica
In Lynch’s movie, Lady Jessica (Francesca Annis) has only a handful of scenes, most of which involve Paul in the desert. Her most important scene occurs when she becomes the new Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit and gives premature birth to her daughter as a result. Villeneuve’s movie makes Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) an essential part of the plot and a strong mentor for Paul both before and after his father’s death.
Herbert wrote strong female characters but that strength wasn’t always conveyed through their actions, especially since the power structure in his world favored men. Villeneuve’s Lady Jessica is made much more than “Leto’s concubine” by showing how Paul gets his strength to face his trials.
Feyd Rautha And Alia
Since Lynch’s movie is a complete film, he includes two important characters from the book’s second half; Feyd Rautha (played with bluster by Sting), Baron Harkonnen’s power-hungry nephew, and Alia Atreides (Alicia Witt), Paul’s little sister with all the power of the Reverend Mother. Villeneuve focuses specifically on the Baron’s older nephew, the Beast (Dave Bautista), and Lady Jessica is only mentioned to be pregnant.
Feyd Rautha and Alia will most likely come into Villeneuve’s Part 2, now that House Harkonnen has retaken Arrakeen and claimed Arrakis and its spice for itself, and Lady Jessica will give birth to Alia among the Fremen. The fight between Paul and Feyd makes for an exciting conclusion to Lynch’s movie, and Alia plays an important role with her special powers, so these characters will no doubt be greatly anticipated in Villeneuve’s next movie.
Story Construction
Because Lynch’s movie is complete, it has a beginning, middle, and end. It, therefore, includes several more characters from Herbert’s book but also relies a great deal on spelling things out (for instance, Lynch shows what’s happening in Paul’s mind in the Gom Jabbar sequence with the Reverend Mother; Villeneuve leaves it up to viewer imagination).
Villeneuve prefers to reveal his plot by showing the actions of his characters rather than relying on expository dialogue, so it makes sense that his movie is not only longer, but saves quite a bit of the novel’s plot for later. What happened to Gurney Halleck, and how Paul Atreides will lead the Fremen against House Harkonnen are questions for Dune Part 2.
An incredibly impressive — for the time — scene in Lynch’s Dune involves a Guild Navigator speaking with the Emperor, and later making the journey from Caladan to Arrakis possible for House Atreides by folding space and time. Villeneuve’s version leaves the entire conversation (and the Guild Navigator) out.
Guild Navigators, high-ranking superhumans mutated from years of consuming spice, are mentioned throughout Herbert’s first novel but only given a full description in Dune Messiah, where it’s revealed they have elongated, fish-like bodies and are suspended in tanks filled with melange-infused liquid to enhance the prescience that makes interstellar travel possible. Villeneuve’s decision to leave this wild moment from the Dune book series out is more faithful to the first book, but it does lessen the impact of his movie’s world-building by having less otherworldly entities.
Visuals
Given the particular aesthetics of both Lynch and Villeneuve, it stands to reason that one of the biggest ways their two movies differ would be in the visual department. Lynch’s Dune is ornamental, sometimes overly so, full of intricate matte paintings and over-the-top costuming. Some aspects, like anything to do with Baron Harkonnen, are so visually intense as to be unsettling to look at (though they do help it feel more “alien”).
Villeneuve’s Dune also has similar attention to detail, but his movie is barren by contrast, meant to magnify the expansiveness of Arrakis. His truly cavernous interiors, which often dwarf the actors, help to make the movie seem larger than any one person in it. His visual effects are some of the most state of the art in cinema today, though Lynch made the most of what he could and had some of the top visual effects artists of the ’80s bringing his movie to life. The end result is the same story told in two visually unique movies made by two very different filmmakers.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dune-biggest-differences-denis-villeneuve-david-lynch-versions/
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