Dune
You definitely need to read the book to see the film, there is no way one can see this film without knowing a lot about its universe beforehand. The film is indeed just as confusing as everybody says, and I remember very well why I dropped it after 15 minutes the first time I saw it. Nothing gets a proper introduction; heck most of the storyline becomes completely pointless! (Why is this Duncan character in there? How the heck did the main characters actually in love? Why is Princess Irulan a completely irrelevant character in the story and why did Sting never do anything at all besides this random duel at the end?)
Basically, the story is all but confusion, unless you know what is happening. Even then, I feel like David Lynch is merely a bad replacement for Jodorowsky. The cast Jodorowsky has brought out (Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Mick Jagger AND Pink Floyd for music) is so scarily good that I cannot help but wish *that* movie had been made instead. So if it were to be 10 hours, it would have been 10 hours of artistical goodness, not this half-hearted, horribly edited crap.
I believe Lynch has a good original cut and there would have been much more interesting scenes if the film were not shortened to 2 hours something. The Lynch style, which unfortunately also makes the film more confusing, is actually the best thing about the whole film. Dune, strangely enough, fits this sort of 80s, sort of steampunk odd style which is supposed to be noir, or something.
In the end, I am very glad for having seen this classic which I have been meaning to see for a long time now – but apart from that, there really is no reason to see not this, not even as a Lynch fanboy. I am still lamenting the loss of Jodorowsky’s version, after all. This is a serious case of “Read the book.”