All You Need To Know About Dune

Many, if not most, of you out there have read Frank Herbert’s classic Dune, or are at least familiar with the sprawling universe he created over the course of numerous novels (a mantle his son Brian Herbert has picked up). We’re talking about a big ass book. There’s a lot going on, and there’s a lot left out of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation, a film that is both revered and reviled in seemingly equal measure (and we’re left to wonder what could have been with legendary maverick filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s version that never materialized). Because of the extensive mythology and history that Herbert created, the studio was afraid that audiences wouldn’t understand what the hell was going on, so they created cheat sheets for the movie.

For a crib sheet, this is rather extensive; two sides totally means business. Not to mention there’s a great deal of writing, much of which is very, very small, that Universal wanted to the audience to study in a dark movie theater. That’s especially tough when the background makes it even more difficult to read. This doesn’t sound like it would be all that practical.