I Still Need to Read DUNE
It’s official: DUNE-mania is sweeping the globe! Denis Villeneuve’s long delayed adaptation has been a rare beast: acclaimed by both critics and general audiences, and a genuine box office success (even without a single MCU character appearing!) A sequel was confirmed shortly after the opening weekend domestic grosses came in, and I personally am already counting the days until October 2023 when it is released.
That slightly-less-than two year timeline also sets up a long delayed personal challenge: reading Frank Herbert’s original DUNE novel. Yes Other Worlds fans, it is true: I have never read a single page of the actual book. I don’t have any real excuses. I grew up with a copy in our house (courtesy of my older brother). I was always aware of its existence. And back at the start of the pandemic, I made a list of things I wanted to do to try to maintain some loose grasp of sanity, and finally reading it was at the top of the list. After all, we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything for the foreseeable future, so what better time to try and tackle it? Alas, one thing lead to another, and there were a lot of streaming services available, so I didn’t do it.
My main DUNE credentials come from the other obvious source: David Lynch’s unfairly maligned 1984 adaptation. It was one of those cable staples in my youth and I probably saw it all in various bits and pieces before ever sitting down to watch the entire film. While the movie definitely has some flaws (that Lynch himself has discussed over the years), I have always enjoyed it. Was that because I was viewing it as a standalone work separate from the novel? Possibly. If nothing else, the film is a fascinating relic of its time, when Lynch was a hot young director tasked with trying to make the STAR WARS of Christmas 1984. Maligned as it may be by both its own maker and some audiences, I will always be glad that Lynch got to make one big budget blockbuster attempt that was also a platform to sell toys, coloring books, and bedsheets to kids. And let’s be honest, Stellan Skarsgaard’s Baron Harkonnen has nothing on Kenneth McMillan’s skin-crawlingly creepy interpretation.
So now I have a new copy of DUNE sitting on my coffee table, the cover proudly stating it’s “Now A Major Motion Picture!” The hard part is over. Now I just have to read it
