40 Years Later, David Lynch's Sci-Fi Bomb Has Never Been More Beloved

Exactly 40 years ago on Dec. 14, 1984, David Lynch's $40 million Dune — at the time, the most expensive film in Universal Pictures' history — was released to vicious critical jeers and disappointing box office returns, opening at No. 2 against the second weekend of Beverly Hills Cop. Audiences who showed up were equally bemused, with many theaters handing out a desperately explanatory glossary of terms from the sci-fi epic alongside one's movie ticket. Mountains of Dune action figures and phallic plastic sandworms sat unsold at toy stores, awaiting their destiny at the local landfill.

Dune '84 was neither the franchise-starting Star Wars killer the studio hoped it would be, nor the arthouse epic fans of Lynch's Eraserhead and The Elephant Man were expecting. Just what was this thing, then? As it turns out, one of the most unique blockbusters ever devised — something that has made many fall in love with it in more recent years…

Modern tentpoles strive toward user-friendliness to the point of mundanity, terrified of alienating anyone in the global audience executives need to please, lest they not get their massive year-end bonuses. Contrary to this, Dune '84 hurls its viewers headfirst into four very foreign planets containing dozens of wild characters all with their own whispered inner-dialogue narrations. It boasts strange futuristic customs, Shakespearian political machinations, maximalist architecture, grotesque mutations, sonic assaults, dreamy visions, bushy eyebrows, explosions, knife fights, Sting's jockstrap, and rampant nosebleeds. Plus plenty of drugs, thugs, and pugs. Was it a broadside against fascism or a UFA-style propaganda film promoting it? Who knows!

When I started writing my book A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch's Dune – An Oral History in mid-2021, the 1984 film was something of a punchline, so bad its own director had long since disowned it as a mistake. All through the release of Warner Bros.' recent two-movie Dune cycle, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve bent over backward to express that his version is "not a remake" but a newer, truer telling of Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi novel. The main difference to me is that Villeneuve made an authentic large-scale translation of Herbert's themes without revealing much of who Villeneuve is as a person. Lynch made a movie filled with personal touchstones, from the Weirding Modules (activated by a word) that function like mantra meditation to the cat/rat milking antidote box perfectly exemplifying his absurdist view of the world.

Since my book's release in the build-up to, and wake of Dune: Part Two, so many of "the great silent majority" of Dune '84 fans have been coming out of the woodwork, leading to revival screenings across the country and new editions on Blu-ray. Proliferation of the full production backstory alongside new discoveries like Lynch's partially completed draft of a never-made Dune sequel have shown the director's rabid followers that this beautifully baroque movie was more than just a sell-out gig for him. Lynch truly had a love of and facility for worldbuilding on a grand scale, something he later hinted at with his expansive Twin Peaks mythology.

Reassessments and fresh young fans have begun to proliferate in the wake of renewed interest, including recent 5-star Letterboxd reviews that defy the vitriol Dune was met with 40 years ago…

• "You know what? Hell yeah." (marielhc)
• "this is genuinely such a gift i cant believe this film is real." (bjork)
• "Tercera película de David. Respect." (Lu Bordino)
• "so f**king fire. what a f**king raw ass movie. honestly its one of my all time favs." (cardell93)
• "I think it's perfect. Great cast and sets, fantastic soundtrack. The baron was freaky AF." (Elizabeth)
• "Perfect, no notes. except maybe more pugs." (jbaehr)

Probably the most criticized aspect of my own Dune book was the inclusion of a few sections related to interviewees, famous or not, talking about their positive recollections of the film and how it touched them:

• A journalist's father who watches Lynch's Dune every year on his birthday…
• A comedy writer who got a tattoo because of it…
• A filmmaker who did a loving sweded version for YouTube…

My book's cover artist Chris Thornley said the lure of the film comes from it feeling "both familiar and truly alien, as if there’s some bigger picture underneath the surface." Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson revealed to me that his show's iconic phrase "movie sign!" came from hearing "wormsign" in Lynch's Dune. Even "king of the world" James Cameron complimented the Lynch film's visuals, saying the imagery was "like the raw subconscious… like being in a dream."

I insisted all these accounts be included because the idea that the '84 Dune was an all-around bust needed to be countered. In fact, given all that was working against him from a production standpoint (i.e. a massive international cast/crew, an outdated studio facility, scrambling for VFX, crippling studio-mandated edits), what Lynch was able to accomplish with his flawed-but-fascinating movie is a minor miracle of true creativity triumphing over the Hollywood machine's pathological striving for homogeny. Among the pantheon of classic ‘80s sci-fi — your Tron's, your E.T.'s, your Return of the Jedi's — Dune is the class weirdo that a few discerning kids secretly had a crush on.

Not too long ago, it was announced that David Lynch has sadly been housebound while suffering from emphysema, but has no plans to retire. So many fans I spoke to hope against hope that their beloved director might yet dip back into the footage archives and put together a new cut of Dune that more closely resembles the picture he wanted it to be. Whether he does or not, the version that exists will continue to be a North Star for individuals who not only want to make movies, but make movies that tell the world who they are.