This is, I’m told, David Lynch’s least loved film. It certainly isn’t well regarded by fans of Frank Herbert, whose work, alas, I have not read. But it’s still cool, flawed though the film is, how David Lynch handles a sci-fi epic which, like Star Wars, has fantasy tropes underneath. I'm glad he got to make one, and that something akin to a David Lynch Star Wars exists. The world would be a worse place otherwise.
It's oddly paced and awkward, of course, Lynch is on record as saying that studio interference moved the film away from his vision, and I'm told that the extended TV version is even worse. But I find this to be far from a bad film, flawed though it admittedly is. And how can you hate a film that has music by Brian Eno and, er, Toto, together at last?
The cast is superb, with Sian "Livia" Phillips as a kind of futuristic Pythia type, glorious performances by the likes of Paul L. Smith and Patrick Stewart that never tip over to parody but portray their characters with appropriate gusto. The design is superb; two years after Blade Runner establishes that future fashion can be cyclical we have a 110th century aristocracy which dresses like that of the 19th, something which works well and gives us an excellent shorthand for the kind of society this is.
The film doesn't only look good, either (well, some special effects may not have aged well); it's beautifully and druggily shot, as is Lynch's wont, and there are glimpses of what Lynch intended in moments of excellent, if weird, storytelling.As things stand this is a curiosity rather than a masterpiece, but I'm left fervently hoping for a director's cut.
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