Trivia

Dune Trivia

The original rough cut of the movie Dune was over 5 hours in duration. This was considered too long for the pre-Titanic cinema-going audience, so it was severly cut down.

The visual variety of the Dune movie demanded 80 sets built upon 16 sound stages. Many of these impressive sets did not make it to the theatrical release.

More than 6 years in the making, the movie Dune employed David Lynch's talents for 3.5 years.

Kyle MacLachlan claimed Dune to be his bible and has read it every year since the age of 14.

The total number of production crew on the Dune movie came to a grand total of 1700.

The film cost $52,000,000 to make, the most expensive film of its time.

Immediately after completion of Dune. David Lynch started writing the screen plays for Dune 2 and Dune 3. A project that never came to fruition.

To underline the plot of the Houses of Dune. Designer Anthony Masters created the environment to represent the feuding times of the renascence in Italy.

One of David Lynch's favourite characters in the movie Dune is the Guild Navigator. Although Lynch felt he could have been stranger.

Alejandro Jodorowsky had originally planned on filming Dune in the early 70's, and had enlisted the help of Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger to create the movie's visual style. Salvador Dalí was enlisted to play the part of the Emperor, and the soundtrack was to be done by Pink Floyd. According to Jodorowsky, "The project was sabotaged in Hollywood. It was French and not American. Their message was `not Hollywood enough'. There was intrigue, plunder. The storyboard was circulated amongst all the big studios. Later, the visual aspect of Star Wars (1977) strangely resembled our style. To make Alien (1979), they called Moebius [Giraud], Foss, Giger, O'Bannon, etc. The project signalled to Americans the possibility of making a big show of science-fiction films, outside of the scientific rigour of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The project of Dune changed our lives." Ridley Scott worked on bringing the film to the screen, but was unsuccessful. H.R. Giger (who worked with Scott on Alien (1979)) was hired as a production designer.

David Lynch turn down the offer to direct "Return of the Jedi" before beginning production of the filming of Dune (he must have been so gutted; having missed out on a film involving so many Ewoks!)

Director David Lynch and producer Raffaella De Laurentiis arranged a screen test in New York with Sean Young for the role of Chani. Young's agent never told Young about the meeting, and she was in fact booked on a flight that evening to Los Angeles. Lynch and De Laurentiis missed their flight back to Los Angeles, and ended up catching the same plane as Young. During the flight, De Laurentiis noticed Young and told Lynch "I bet that girl's an actress." A stewardess told the pair that her name was "Sean Young", and De Laurentiis confronted Young about standing her and Lynch up. The misunderstanding sorted out, the three ended up drinking champagne and reading the script together upon returning to Los Angeles.

There is a scene where Thufir Hawat is seen giving orders through an intercom. Being a mentat, Thufir is 'reading' the flashing lights on the monitor that illuminates his face.

The inspiration for the design of the stillsuits was the medical textbook "Gray's Anatomy".

One scene called for Duke Leto (Jürgen Prochnow) to be strapped to a black stretcher and drugged. During one take, a high-powered bulb positioned above Prochnow exploded due to heat, raining down molten glass. Remarkably, Prochnow was able to free himself from the stretcher, moments before glass fused itself to the place he had been strapped.

Two hundred workers spent two months hand-clearing three square miles of Mexican desert for location shooting.

Some scenes were filmed in the same location and at the same time as scenes from Conan the Destroyer

During the filming of the dream sequence, the Baron (Kenneth McMillan) approached Leto, who had special apparatus attached to his face so that green smoke would emerge from his cheek when the Baron scratched it. Although thoroughly tested, the smoke gave Prochnow first and second degree burns on his cheek. This sequence appears on film in the released version.

Some special effects scenes were filmed with over a million watts of lighting, drawing 11,000 amps.

The tendons visible when Paul hooks the worm were made from condoms.

Mistakes in Dune

The scene where Feyd is holding the cat with the mouse attached to it, when it shows a close-up you notice that the mouse is next to the cat, when it cuts away from the scene to show Thufir, you can then see that the mouse is gone.

After the sandworm ride, Paul's eyes are seen changing from blue in one scene to normal in the next.

In the scene where the Emperor's tent blows outward you can briefly see the wires pulling the wall away from the camera.

A scene was filmed showing Atreides troopers carrying a bulls head just before their departure from Caladan. Although this wasn't included in the theatrical release, you can just see the bulls head the scene where Duncan Idaho meets Paul.

When the Third Stage Guild Navigator first appears (entering the Emperor's Throne Room), one of the escorting guildsmen trips and stumbles.

When the Fremen army is massing in the desert and planting thumpers (to make the attack on the emperor) you can notice fremen warriors in the far left are nothing but black cloth tied to sticks and placed in the ground.

At the end of the movie when the emperor, his generals and the princess walk into the room, one of the generals is about to step on the back of the princess' gown until he nonchalantly swips it sideways with his foot.

In the scene of Yueh in the autopsy room, he is surrounded by tables on which dead Harkonnen soldiers are waiting to be inspected. During an establishing shot of Yueh, you can see the top of the head and shoulders of a Harkonnen, with his shaved-top carrot coloured hair. The actor is apparently shifting around to try to get comfortable. As the scene unfolds, it is apparent that all of the bodies are quite dead with some already prepared for examination.

In the Feyd shower scene, a watch mark can be clearly seen on Sting's wrist.

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