Productions face challenges. This is normal. But some productions prove so inherently challenging that they never get made at all. From the beginning, Jodorowsky's Dune was destined to take a long, hard tumble down a small hill. That doesn’t mean it isn’t essential to science fiction today. While infamously unmade, the film now exists as an interesting case — a production that was doomed from the start, yet one whose concept is still worshipped by fans of the series to this day.
Dune is one of science fiction's most important, densest pieces of work. Adapting it is a challenge — let alone adapting it well. Dune is one of my favorite pieces of media ever, but I'll be honest — the thing is a brick. Herbert seems to expect readers to come into the series already knowing the history, rules, and vast lexicon of made up and unexplained terms that fill Dune's "known universe." You are not given any slack. You must learn this fake history. This is just one of the things that has made Dune so infamously unadaptable for so long.
How do you adapt a book with a hundred page appendix of essential information and terminology? It takes a few tries.
The 70’s adaptation of Dune was in turmoil from the start — from delays, to changing directors, to the original chosen writer dying, the film travelled a rough path before it even ended up in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s hands. At this point, he was known for his surrealist style in movies such as El Topo and the John Lennon and Yoko Ono funded film, The Holy Mountain. After planning out the story and writing the script, Jodorowksy ended up with something far beyond the scope of what was ever intended by the studio. Already, things were starting to spiral out of control.
Jodorowsky's story made changes to the book's original plot. Drastic changes. His casting decisions also immediately created problems. His choice for Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, Salvador Dali, asked to be paid $100,000 per minute. Rather than finding someone else to play the role, Jodorowsky opted to scale back the emperor's part—5 minutes of screen time for Dali himself, with a robotic copy of the famous surrealist artist taking his place for the remainder of his scenes. How would this robotic Dali would have worked? I have no idea. A part of me suspects neither did Jodorowsky. But the visual of a broken carnival machine spitting out canned phrases about the fate of House Atreides on Arrakis is certainly... something.
From here, the production became a game of telephone over the film's ultimate story — with Jodorowsky the sole player. To an already convoluted mess, the director added wild animals, a baffling new conception story for protagonist Paul Atreides, and Orson Welles. There is something beautiful about throwing everything to the wind and trying to make whatever you want. Jodorowsky did not care about anything the studio (or anyone else) said to him. He was going to try to make his version—and no one else's.
Many lament the loss of Jodorowsky’s Dune, proclaiming it to be a lost masterpiece. As much as I love Jodorowsky’s work and Dune as a story, I have my doubts about that. At 14 hours, Jodorowsky’s version would have been double the length of Sátántango. Frank Herbert described the script as the size of a phonebook. Hollywood wanted this film to be 2 hours long.
We've all seen what happens when epic films get cut down for time by the studio. Perhaps the most infamous example is Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 film, Greed. Cut down from 7 hours against Stroheim’s wishes, only 12 people ever saw the original version. I believe Jodorowsky’s Dune would have suffered a similar fate. If the movie had ever seen the light of day, it would be in a severely condensed 2-ish hour studio edit. The lucky few who saw the 7 hour version of Greed may have proclaimed it the best film ever, and that a better one could never be made. I don’t think they would’ve said the same for Jodorowsky's Dune.
There’s no way this movie would have been remotely good. No way that it would have succeeded the way the fans wanted it to, or the way Jodorowsky wanted it to. Seeing how it all spiraled downwards in pre-production, I simply lack the faith of the film’s many modern acolytes.
I am fine with Jodorowsky’s Dune not existing. I am, in fact, happy. It’s entirely possible that it might’ve been the nail in the coffin for big-budget science fiction adaptations, especially Dune itself. Jodorowsky’s Dune belongs in the grave it started digging for itself on the first day of pre-production.
On paper, parts of the adaptation still seem like a dream come true. Moebius, H.R. Giger, Orson Welles, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger. Of course, that’s the thing — it was only ever a dream. It stayed on paper, and maybe it was meant to. I’d love to read and flip through Jodorowsky’s copious production notes and sketches, but I don’t think I’d have it in me to watch the film if it existed.
With all of this in mind, it’s interesting to view the cultural phenomenon that this non-existent adaptation has become. From the 2013 documentary, to fans speaking of the film itself as a kind of lost Dead Sea Scroll that would’ve changed film and science fiction forever. Personally, I just don’t see Jodorowsky’s version as this. For me, it seems like a staggeringly predictable failure. Dune, especially Jodorowsky's Dune, was simply too big for the time it was produced in — and for the studio writing the checks.
It's easy to view something that has never existed (and never will) through rose-colored glasses. Especially something you're a passionate fan of. There is nothing wrong with this — I’ve done it myself. It’s an important part of many people’s relationship with their favorite media. It’s part of being a fan. It’s part of loving something. It’s the same joy you get when trying to imagine the work that Kafka burned, all the trashed paintings by legendary artists, and the first version of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. The infinite, enthralling possibilities of "what might have been." We don’t just do this with media of course. We do it in our lives, with our memories, our decisions. It’s not just “fan behavior.” It’s human nature.
Jodorwosky’s Dune exists in a place I’ll call the ideal unreal; things that are able to be perfect simply because they only have to exist in your mind. Part of the appeal of it is imagining it yourself, by in turn creating your own Dune. The version in your head is not Jodorowsky’s, it’s all yours. It provides the ability to create a perfect version that you can say “almost was.”
Of course, at the same time, the influence of Jodorowsky’s Dune is all around us. Just because the film was a failure does not mean it is not important. Without it we would not have Alien, which was the 13th script written by Dan O’Bannon after entering a psychiatric hospital following the failure of Dune. Along with Ridley Scott, O’Bannon would collaborate with another Dune alum, H.R. Giger to bring the film, and its impossibly iconic Xenomorph, to life. Scott was even brought into Dune as a last attempt to revive it before moving onto directing another science fiction adaptation called Blade Runner. In retrospect, this was a smart move.
Jodorowsky was not the last to fail at adapting Dune. He would soon be followed by David Lynch, and eventually by Frank Herbert’s Dune, a miniseries released in the early 2000s. Both of these versions were set to fail like the one before it for similar reasons.
Although a cult hit now, David Lynch originally released the 1984 Dune under the shame of the moniker Alan Smithee. Another production rife with studio battles, Lynch’s Dune also suffered from a length problem. While it was much shorter than Jodorowsky’s 14 hour version, it clocked in at a little over 4 hours long in the rough cut — still, simply, too much for the studio.
Unlike Jodorowsky, Lynch refuses to discuss the film and refuses any possibility of a director’s cut. I personally believe Lynch’s version is a lot of fun, especially as a fan of the book, but it is definitely not the ideal version. It’s clunky, the narration is distracting and reads like a dictionary, but God, Sting as Feyd Rautha is a lot of fun. Same goes for the version of Baron Harkonnen that just flies around the room constantly like an annoying mosquito.
Frank Herbert’s Dune, was, by comparison to the previous two adaptations of the story, the least rife with production challenges. At the same time though, it is the adaptation most conspicuously absent from modern popular culture today. Jodorowsky made waves. Lynch made a cult classic. Neither of these things can be said of John Harrison’s miniseries. Sure, Frank Herbert’s Dune won two Emmys and had a sequel adapting the next two books, but can you honestly say you’ve seen it? Can you say in honesty that you have any interest in seeing it? It has none of the longevity of previous adaptations. It was simply made and then quickly forgotten. The made for television version of Dune simply does not excite me. I have never once had the thought, “I wish I had watched the 2000 adaptation of Dune produced by Hallmark.” I’m sure the series is alright, perhaps even good. I’ve seen some of the costume and production designs and find them pretty fascinating, and definitely in line with Herbert’s original vision. Maybe someday I'll give it the credit it might deserve.
Perhaps the love for Jodorowsky’s Dune is a sort of pained longing for a good version of the film — a hope that an infamously dense book can actually be adapted, and that such a masterpiece adaptation was just out of our grasp. Long time fans of the series have had to watch failure happen again and again. In the face of this, why not imagine a perfect version? Many of us just want a good adaptation of our favorite book. For Dune fans, this took over 60 years to come to fruition.
When it comes to being an adaptation of Dune, Villeneuve's adaptation is everything it needs to be. It elegantly navigates the formidable hurdles of lore and narrative intricacy that tripped up Lynch's version and have made the story so infamously unadaptable for so long. Fans of Jodorowsky's mythical take on the story have a lot to enjoy in Dune 2021 as well, from Geidi Prime's harsh, Gigerian structures to the angular, sand-blasted palace of Arrakeen. In Villeneuve's Dune, we finally get an adaptation that has learned from both the mistakes, and successes, of its predecessors. An ideal adaptation — or at least, an ideal adaptation to me.
I was a child in the early 2000s, but I can only imagine this is how Lord of the Rings fans felt when seeing Fellowship of the Ring in theaters. “It’s finally happening and it’s perfect.” When I saw the 2021 adaptation of Dune, staring up at the screen felt like decades of work coming together, finally, perfectly. Maybe Jodorowsky is tossing and turning at night that there's a major studio adaptation of Dune that is doing exceedingly well at the box office. I doubt it, though.
Jodorowsky's Dune is a film mythologized for, and ultimately compromised by, its utterly uncompromising vision. Perhaps there’s something to be said about standing by your art so wholeheartedly that you drive it into the ground, never to be seen. Maybe it was meant to die in a flame of hubris instead of seeing the light of day burnt and damaged. Maybe the most important part of Jodorowsky’s Dune is the relationship that we are able to build with ourselves, imagining something that was to never exist.