Because I happened to be in Van, Türkíye, and I had missed Dune 2 in Dublin, Ireland, I went to the Turkish screening of the movie. It was in English with Turkish subtitles. I’ve never read the books. I do remember that every time I stumbled on Dune, on a coffee table, 1000’s of years ago, that it just looked like too much engagement. So, fortunately, I am seeing the movies in the raw. I have nothing scriptural to refer to, unlike Lord of the Rings, Ulysses and the Bible. I have omitted both the names of the actors and the characters they play. There is absolutely no excuse for this, of course.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE (incomplete and not in alphabetic order or order of appearance either)
Big Baldy Bloke – is head of the house of bad guys on another planet. He bathes in what looks like treacle and floats up and down without warning.
Middle Baldy Bloke – Big Baldy Bloke’s older nephew, in charge of giving the natives in the desert a seeing to on the colony. He looks like the grim new bouncer from East of the Urals who read poetry when alone. He messes up and is dispensed with.
Skinny Psychotic Baldy Bloke – Big Baldy Bloke’s younger nephew. A bad piece of work. He takes on Curly Boy (see below) and gets filleted.
Curly Boy – His Da is killed in Dune 1 by the evil emperor and he wants revenge.
Lady – Curly Boy’s Ma. She was Curly Boy Da’s partner and can do strange stuff
Guerilla Girl – She lives with the crowd who live in the sand and falls in love with Curly Boy and fights the emperor’s lackies with him.
Tough Soldier – He reappears in Dune 2 and trained Curly Boy in how to beat people up.
Emperor – Miserable looking, mean type who doesn’t appear much, except at the end. Small loss.
Princess – The emperor’s daughter who doesn’t appear much either but gets hitched to Curly Boy in the end, without being given much choice.
Green/Blue Eyes – She is some sort of witchy person that wants to run things. Like the future and genetics and empires and time. I have seen her in a few movies and the eyes have it.
Deep Voice – He is the leader of the desert crowd. He was in another movie about Mexican gangs with Tough Soldier a few years ago. He doesn’t like Curly Boy at first but then he is totally converted and loses the run of himself and can’t stop banging on about him.
LOCATIONS: mostly in the desert which could equally be the mountains, the jungle, underwater, in caves, or the Artic with a similar set up – snow worms, jungle people etc. Sometimes in dark, more Shakespearian-than-thou interiors.
Special Stuff: Wonderful dragonfly helicopters. Spice mining machines. Hans Zimmer’s superb score that runs between musical metal door squeaking and high pitch squawling through seat-shaking bass lines. Perfect mix of menace, foreboding and payoff. Hint: if you lay in a pitch black floatation chamber with no other stimulation but this soundtrack, you would be sectioned at the end of it. But it is just the job for this desert worm opera.
QUEPASSAS (things that happen) Curly Boy and Lady lead the crowd who live in the deserts against the bad lads, led by the emperor and Big Baldy Bloke. Deep Voice is suspicious of Curly Boy first but then thinks he is a saviour. Guerilla Girl begins to fall for Curly Boy. A new Leader Oul Wan is needed by the desert people and Lady drinks stuff that looks like methylated spirits and doesn’t die twice and becomes the new Oul Wan leader. Her and Curly Boy seem to be on separate paths with the desert people now. There is a bit of sandworm riding in the desert, like the surfboarding interlude in Apocalypse Now. The sandworm yokes are attracted by a thing you stick in the sand that makes a banging sound. The sandworms like wrecking the mining gear that sucks the spice stuff from the sand which makes lots of money for the Emperor. The war goes on between the sand people led by Curly Boy. Skinny Baldy Guy replaces Middle Baldy Guy and Curly Boy kills him. Curly Boy isn’t really sure if he is the prophesied leader but he goes and drinks the blue stuff and, even though he isn’t female, he doesn’t die because Guerilla Girl uses her tears on him. Curly Boy declares himself the leader after he discovers that his sand friends have a lot of nuclear weapons stashed away. The war ratchets up when the other space leaders don’t agree to peace and Curly Boy and the sand people board the bad guys space ships and beat the hell out of them. The emperor, who looks very sour, has to kiss Curly Boy’s ring. Curly Boy demands the hand of the Princess who agrees if Curly Boy doesn’t top her Da. Guerilla Girl is not best pleased, whistles up a big worm and rides away on it, with a face on her because she has been dissed and dropped.
OVERALL COMMENT: Great fun. It takes itself very seriously so you can buy into all the empire and guerilla and magic carry on, unlike the 1984 version that was laughing up its own sleeve too much and was a bit too desert camp, TV Batman circa 1966. Loved especially: music, machines, Guerilla Girl, Curly Boy, Deep Voice, costumes. I believe.