Jodorowsky's Dune

Over the past year I have seen blurbs about this movie in various places.  The picture of the strange ship (above) in the advertisements certainly interested me.  It was unlike anything I'd seen before - it has a very psychedelic look.  After seeing this a few times, I definitely wanted to see this movie - not just the documentary, but the film itself.  This is a documentary about a movie that Alejandro Jodorowsky wanted to make back in 1975 - but it was never made.  This documentary aired on Starz recently and I had an opportunity to watch it, and I have to say it was very interesting.  Jodorowsky's vision was to make a film that was like an LSD trip - but without the drugs.

There were some pretty big names associated with this film.  Well, let's say that in 1975 some of them were big names, and others would *become* big names in the very near future.  Dan O'Bannon was personally selected by Jodorowsky to do the special effects for Dune after seeing his work on John Carpenter's Dark Star.  O'Bannon would be responsible for some big movies in the near future (Alien, Heavy Metal, and Blue Thunder among them).  During preproduction, the following people were also hand-picked by Jodorowsky:

• Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) for storyboard art and set design, who would work with Jodorowsky on comics for many years to come.
• Chris Foss, who was best known for science fiction book covers.
• H. R. Giger, for set and character design (yeah, the guy who worked on Alien)
• Salvador Dali (yeah, the melting clock artist!) to play the Emperor Shaddam IV
• Orson Welles (yeah, Citizen Kane)
• David Carradine (Kwai Chang Kane from Kung Fu!)
• Mick Jagger (lead singer for The Rolling Stones)

In addition to artists, he also specifically wanted rock music for some of the film, and he selected Pink Floyd and Magma to do the some of the music (after looking into Tangerine Dream, among others).

This project was described as extremely ambitious.  It was discussed that Jodorowsky had plans to do things that George Lucas didn't even attempt in the Star Wars prequel movies more than 20 years later.

The script and storyboard book

The script, pictured here with Jodorowsky in the documentary, was HUGE - larger than several phone books.  Frank Herbert himself, the author of the science fiction book Dune, felt the script would result in a 14-hour movie, but Jodorowsky didn't really care.  Ultimately, movie companies loved everything about the project - they just didn't want Jodorowsky as the director.

Storyboards inside the script

The project was also deemed too expensive.  In preproduction alone, about two million dollars had been spent, out of a projected fifteen million dollars, which was quite a bit of money in 1976. So, the project died.  Oddly enough, just a few years later, O'Bannon, Foss, Giger, and Giraud would all work together on Ridley Scott's Alien, which was history in the making, given the revenue generated by the Alien franchise of books, comics, and movies.

When this project failed, Jodorowsky turned to comics, with Moebius as a partner, and elements of his Dune concept ended up in works like The Incal and The Metabarons.  The Incal apparently influenced the work of many others over the years - there was even a lawsuit filed that Luc Besson's The Fifth Element borrowed heavily from The Incal (the case was lost).  Many future films were influenced by Jodorowsky's Dune, including (among others):

• Blade Runner
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Masters of the Universe
• Prometheus

In my opinion, it even had influence on David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune - specifically the Emperor's ship which lands on a pyramid-like base on Arrakis.  Jodorowsky saw this version when it came out and thought it was terrible - he called it a failure.  I've seen both this version of Dune, and the mini-series that was created by SyFy.  I don't remember much of the SyFy series, but there were elements of David Lynch's Dune that I quite enjoyed, even though it was not 100% faithful to the book - in fact, some of the things I really liked weren't even in the book (the extended version is the only one to see - the original theatrical release leaves out too much detail).  Apparently, Jodorowsky took some liberties with the story as well, but from what I've seen that is fairly typical of Hollywood.

Jodorowsky's Dune

In my opinion, it even had influence on David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune - specifically the Emperor's ship which lands on a pyramid-like base on Arrakis.  Jodorowsky saw this version when it came out and thought it was terrible - he called it a failure.  I've seen both this version of Dune, and the mini-series that was created by SyFy.

Lynch's Dune

I don't remember much of the SyFy series, but there were elements of David Lynch's Dune that I quite enjoyed, even though it was not 100% faithful to the book - in fact, some of the things I really liked weren't even in the book (the extended version is the only one to see - the original theatrical release leaves out too much detail).  Apparently, Jodorowsky took some liberties with the story as well, but from what I've seen that is fairly typical of Hollywood.



I recently bought a copy of The Incal, knowing that it influenced The Fifth Element and other works of fiction.  I had also heard of Moebius in the past, so I thought it would be an interesting read, and it would be interesting to see what helped influence many works of science fiction that I have enjoyed.

The book came with the pictured sticker on it - the bold statement reminds me of a book I saw in a book store in the late 1980's that was something like "The Greatest Lines From the Worst Books That Were Never Written".  I have to say I really wonder what this movie would have been like had it been made.  I also wonder if anyone will ever attempt to make Jodorowskys Dune as a TV series or series of movies sometime in the future.  Certainly, aspects of his vision are 40 years out of date (the whole psychedelic LSD thing may not be so popular today), but I think it would be interesting.