Dune (1984) The Alternative Edition Redux | 480p Edition

The best fan edit that I've ever seen thus far without making it such an enterprise like Adywan's Star Wars Revisited.

- Much more comprehensive to those who find Dune complicated to understand.
- Very coherent narrative with well placed explanations either by Irulan, the male narrator or by the characters own "audible thoughts".
- Very good work with music mixture and sounds.
- Good visual treatment, added blue eyes to the 3rd stage navigator, Fremen and other characters, etc.

Dune is a piece of literary art that, almost like LOTR, has a tremendously large universe and information. I don't like that people or even David blames himself. The film was made in the 80s and they've done the best they could at that time. George Lucas had to build his own special effects company to bring his vision to the big screen. I don't care that some things are not exactly adapted from the book, like the Weirding Modules (Paul says in the movie that it is just another part of the Weirding way he'll teach the Fremen. Frank Herbert gave his approval), i don't like the miniseries adaptation of it although true to the book. The Bene Gesserit having telepathic powers and the voice effect itself, so on...

My personal praise to SpiceDiver and whomever may have contributed to this edit. I've seen it before but at the time i didn't wrote my review because i didn't had the sufficient knowledge to do so and even today i'm continuously learning more about this wonderful universe.
It is now my official version of the film to watch. Great Work SpiceDiver =)

PS: i saw the DVD9 version, i don't know if I've chosen the correct classification.

Better story development than any other version. Unfortunately some footage has quite bad picture quality, but the improved narrative justifies including it.
Thank you for this tremendous effort.

Thank you spicediver for finally giving us a great version of this movie.

It was a great idea to break the movie into four 'books'. This version is so much more cohesive and flows from scene to scene much better than anything that has been presented thus far. There are a couple of hiccups but nothing that detracts from the overall experience. I use the word experience because watching any David Lynch movie is an experience more than anything else. Even though this is one of his more straightforward movies it still has some moments of oddness and very unique imagery that can only be associated with Lynch.

This will definitely be my go-to version from now on. It's just so much better than the other cuts. If you are a fan of Dune, or just curious, start with this version and forget about the rest. You won't need any other version. Well done and thank you again spicediver.

THIS IS IT. This is the edit that made me realize how much a talented, imaginative and passionate individual can change/improve/transform a movie. This is the edit that made me write my first review. I have seen other edits. Good edits that add some scenes, remove some scenes, improve the pace, the narrative etc. But nothing had prepared me for this. This is an unbelievable achievement and my go-to edit to prove to other people the power of fan edits.

I first watched Dune as a kid in the late 80s/early90s. I was mesmerized by the visuals, but didn't understand s**t. Then I watched it again after reading the book and didn't like many parts of the movie. The pacing was bad, the script at places was bad, uneven... but certain aspects like the art direction impressed me, and I found Lynch's vision and atmosphere very fitting... when it worked.
Then came the extended edition. It added many interesting deleted scenes, but the overall result was of bad quality. The storybook intro was amateurish and the added scenes were just thrown in there without even some added effects. The Third stage edition fanedit managed to vastly improve the above extended edition and it was my definite version... up until spicediver did his magic.

The change in the pace is phenomenal. The Book-Chapter separation works really good and many scenes have been very cleverly altered to fit the mood. The removal of most of the inner voiced dialog improves the movie immensely. Technically this edit is perfect in my eyes and considering the some of radical changes, this is a huge achievement. The fact that this fanedit includes English subtitles is another big plus. I wish more faneditors did this. Even if I consider myself pretty fluent in English, I usually choose to watch movies with English subtitles because they help me a lot, especially with strange accents and/or low voices. Faneditors should have in mind that non-native English speakers always welcome English subtitles.

Anyway, this fanedit is a testament of talent and love to the franchise as a whole. This edit transformed an interesting but deeply flawed gem into a brilliant movie. Thank you.

Let me preface the review I'm about to give with a bit of my own backstory regarding Dune. The first time I'd actually seen the theatrical cut was in about 1987. I was six or seven at the time and the movie was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The tone, the production, the music...all of it. Totally the antithesis of Star Wars, which I'd experienced shortly before. During my teens, I'd revisit the film from time to time and at the age of twelve, finally read the novel. Each time I'd watch the movie after reading the book, I kept getting this feeling that the film was gutted. And watching the extended Alan Smithee edition in 2005 drove that point home. Alas, neither of those cuts did the true job of demonstrating how good the book is.

Spicediver has completed a masterwork here. Every gripe I had with either of the film's prior official releases is vapor. The pacing, the exposition, the execution are in synchronicity. The film's...rhythm is now on point. It breathes and the spice certainly does flow. As with the previous reviews below mine, is it perfect? No. But any quibbles I have are minute to the Nth degree and wouldn't be worth the keystrokes.

As a true testament of how good this edit is, I cajoled my wife into watching it with me. She's an avowed Star Trek fan and upon viewing Dune the first time with me years back, let's just say that she was wholly unimpressed. Even trying to get her to read the novel was a fruitless labor. Upon convincing her to watch this version of the movie, she wants to read the book now. THAT is how good this cut is. To take a doubter, practically a hater even and show them what really could have been. And to actually sway them.

The only real gripe I have is that I don't have a version of this cut on uncompressed Blu-Ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio sound mix. Universal should hire Spicediver. No joke.

THIS is my go-to version of Dune to watch and I will watch no other, henceforth. I consider this canon.