Review of Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) by Michael T — 26 Sep 2015

Alejandro Jodorowsky had directed the original "Midnight Movie" El Topo and the equally bizarre Holy Mountain when he decided to attempt an adaptation of Frank Herbert's Science Fiction classic Dune.

Jodorowsky wrote a script (which really deviated from Frank Herbert's novel) and assembled a crew to handle visual effects, talked to David Carradine, Mick Jagger, Salador Dali, and Orson Welles about appearing in the film, and had his son (Brontis Jodorwsky) training with a French martial arts champion to play the role of Paul.

The film fell apart when the producer's failed to get a major American studio to put up money for this pretty wild production. Interestingly enough, Dan O'Bannon who had been hired to do the FX for the film wrote the screenplay for Alien and brought along artists H.

R. Giger and Chris Foss to help design the look of the movie. In fact, Jodorowsky claims that many of the concepts from his Dune adaptation ended up in Star Wars. Jodorowsky is a very charming egomaniac throughout the film.

He doesn't hold a grudge against poor David Lynch, he recognizes that the studio messed with the concept. Its a fascinating look at a movie that was never made but still seemed to have left a mark on Science Fiction films today.

Without Jodorowsy's Dune is their Alien? Is their Blade Runner? Would studi executives have said "Yes" to Star Wars without first having this version of Dune to say "No" to? I will now have to try and see El Topo and Holy Mountain.