Summary
- Lynch's 1984 Dune adaptation has gradually gained popularity despite critical failure - a must-watch for true Dune fans.
- Villeneuve's successful Dune reboot contrasts Lynch's version with different plot choices and visuals, leading to fan curiosity in both.
- Dune fans, faced with a dry spell between releases, can stream Lynch's 1984 Dune on Netflix starting June 1, 2025, as a fun viewing experiment.
Being obsessed with Frank Herbert’s Hugo and Nebula award-winning 1965 sci-fi novel Dune is like searching for water on the desert planet of Arrakis. Neither is it an easy series to read, constantly requiring the reader to look back at its glossary of terms to explain the lore-heavy text. Nor is it easy to adapt for the screen. Only two—David Lynch and Denis Villeneuve—have attempted successfully, and one has excelled. But come June, being a Dune fan might just get easier and a tad more fun.
It took over two decades for Herbert’s novel about the perils of a messianic figure to get adapted for the screen by David Lynch. A humongous effort that failed spectacularly yet made a mark on the sci-fi film psyche. It took another four decades or so for Denis Villeneuve to dare an attempt to reboot Dune, and this time, he struck spice. With Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024) both earning critical and fan acclaim, and production on Dune: Messiah currently underway, fan curiosity in Lynch’s Dune is resurfacing, more so after the visionary filmmaker’s passing.
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Fortunately, Dune fans won’t have to undertake intergalactic travel to excavate the 1984 film from the annals of time. David Lynch's Dune (1984) will be available to stream on Netflix starting June 1, 2025. It’s the perfect antidote to the dry spell that fans are faced with, since Dune: Messiah, the third film in Villeneuve’s ambitious franchise, won’t be released until December 18, 2026, and season 2 of Dune: Prophecy, HBO's prequel series, won't begin filming until August 2025.
The importance of David Lynch's Dune
After an earlier failed attempt by Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch’s Dune (1984) came in the wake of George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977) success. Interestingly, Frank Herbert’s Dune greatly inspired the world of George Lucas’ Star Wars, which set stylistic benchmarks for sci-fi adventures on screen, and this was quite the full-circle moment. However, the visuals of Lynch’s Dune felt closer in look and feel to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey than Star Wars. There were also plot choices that differed from Villeneuve's Dune. For example, the 1984 Chani didn't have any doubts about Paul's turn in the climax like Zendaya's Chani does in the 2024 sequel.
Dune was also Kyle MacLachlan’s on-screen debut. He played the blue-eyed messiah Paul Muad'Dib Atreides, the Bene Gesserit's Kwisatz Haderach and Fremen's Lisan al-Gaib, with powers of prescience, alongside a staggering cast: Francesca Annis as Lady Jessica, Kenneth McMillan as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Jürgen Prochnow as Duke Leto Atreides, Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, Sting as Feyd-Rautha, Richard Jordan as Duncan Idaho, Sean Young as Chani, Virginia Madsen as Princess Irulan, Siân Phillips as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim, Paul Smith as Glossu ‘Beast’ Rabban, José Ferrer as Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, Everett McGill as Stilgar, Freddie Jones as Thufir Hawat, and Alicia Witt as Alia Atreides.
Lynch’s Dune was a critical failure and currently holds a 36% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As much as Villeneuve’s Dune has been called an epic space opera with breathtaking visuals worthy of Oscars, the 1984 Dune had been dismissed as visually cheap and ugly, messy with exposition, and utterly inaccessible for anyone who hadn't read the books. Lynch himself didn’t like discussing the film during interviews. That being said, it gained popularity gradually, and Dune readers who watched the film appreciated how it captured important elements of Herbert’s novel, deemed impossible to adapt, all in one film. It was an incredibly difficult feat to even mount an adaptation of the novel, and Lynch had done it.
What Makes David Lynch's Dune a Must-Watch When It Hits Netflix On June 1
Some of Dune 1984’s more memorable elements include the scene involving Sting’s Feyd-Rautha in his underwear; he reportedly offered it to Austin Butler, who reprised the role in Dune: Part Two, when the two met during an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Another was a young Alicia Witt portraying the two-year-old Alia Atreides, born with the powers of a full Reverend Mother. It was a creepy visual to see a young girl with blue eyes walk and talk like an adult, one that Villeneuve thankfully chose to skip in his films.
Many elements from Lynch’s Dune, such as the blue eyes and the still suits of the Fremen, are pretty close to the designs of Denis Villeneuve’s modern adaptation. Moreover, its biggest wins, perhaps, were the sandworms, the score by the rock band Toto, and how effectively Lynch managed to incorporate the Spacing Guild and Navigators into the film, better explaining why the mysterious spice melange produced by the sandworms was such a valuable commodity in the Dune universe.
After more than 40 years, David Lynch’s Dune can now be a fun, curiosity-driven watching experiment, since its subject is better explained elsewhere, and it has no pressure to uphold the future of sci-fi films. Anyone claiming to be a true-blue Dune fan needs to have watched not just the new adaptation but David Lynch’s Dune as well, just to marvel at how he made the impossible possible, all those years ago.
Dune
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- December 14, 1984
