From: mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Charles B. Owen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Dune the movie
Date: 10 Jan 1993 23:26:31 -0600
Organization: Educational Computing Network
NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

In article <1993Jan11.013409.18218@cunews.carleton.ca> wcstom@alfred.carleton.ca (Tom Hamill) writes:
>In article mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Charles B. Owen) writes:
>>In article David.Dyer-bennet@f341.n1146.z1.tdkt.kksys.com (David Dyer-bennet) writes:
>>> DZ> 16. I was told that the director's cut of DUNE was seven hours long,
>>> DZ>    and did a much better job of portraying the novel.  Where can I
>>> DZ>    find it?
>>>
>>> DZ> As Jerry Boyajian
>>> DZ> (boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com) explains (hopefully for the last
>>> DZ> time [but of course it wasn't]):
>>>
>>> DZ> There is *no* "director's cut" of DUNE of *any* length.  The existence
>>> DZ> of one is a complete myth.
>>>
>>There is a basis for discussions about a longer version of DUNE. 
>
>        [...blah,blah,blah...blah,blah,blah...]
>
>>So, you can see that there may not be evidence for a "director's cut" of
>>the film, but there may exist and definately COULD exist a much longer,
>>more complete version.  In the process maybe some of the stupidities
>>could be cut.
>>
>Well, I don't know about that, but my brother-in-law's third cousin
>used to share an apartement with someone whose sister met a guy in
>a supermarket checkout line who swore on a stack of bibles that his
>younger brother had been hitchhiking in Europe one summer and met an
>Austrailian who told him that he'd met an American fellow who claimed
>to have met the sister of an acquaintance he'd been in the same 
>basketweaving class with at junior high, and she told him that she
>had a friend who'd been assured by her uncle in Toronto that while
>visiting Spain, he had spoken to the second cousin twice removed 
>of the gardener who worked on the same street in Venice as the
>sister of the man who'd once rented a car to a movie critic who
>claimed to have been told by a baggage handler at Heathrow airport
>that his sister's cousin had been told by her hairdresser in L.A.
>that a 31 hour 13 1/2 minute version was in the possession of a 
>sailor working on a tuna boat out of Osaka.
>
>So, believe what you will, but I'm still looking for that damn
>tuna boat...
>
>---tom
>
Well, lets not get silly now.  I have in front of me a book.  This book
has Frank Herbert's name on the front.  In it he discusses the movie
dune on pages 9-14.  He tells very much what he thinks.  If I had the
other essay he wrote concerning the film handy I would site it, also.

It is one thing to say "quit listening to all those stupid rumors".  It
is another thing to say that you are the expert and that even the author
is not considered a reference beyond yourself.  No, I do not believe
there is a 9, 5, 3, or 2.1 hour version of Dune floating around in
finished form.  However, there are "director's cuts" that are longer
than the US release of the film and there is a lot of solid, edited
footage sitting in the can somewhere that, according to a source I feel
I can trust, could be edited into a longer version that restores
numerous elements of the original story (again, according to Frank
Herbert.  He even lists them.)  

So, flame if you wish or be more sarcastic, but lets not scream that
there is the US release version and nothing else.  Anyone who has seen
the recent releases of Sparticus, Lawrence of Arabia, Close Encounters
of the Third Kind (like it or not), or numerous other restorations will
realize that that may prove to be untrue.  While I do not expect to see
a four video, 9 hour, set of the New Improved Dune movie, I would not be
surprised to see a three hour recut that is much more faithful to the
original work.  


-- 
| Charles B. Owen                            Internet: mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu |
| Western Illinois University                            Phone: 309-837-4292 |
| 1002 E. Murray                                                             |
| Macomb, IL  61455                                                          |