DUNE 1984 miniature effects 

I agree completely. There are some cringe parts in the David Lynch one but I love the style of it. Denis's Dune immediately felt dry (no pun intended) too many well known actors with too many distinctly different and regional accents. I never saw it on the big screen. It comes across as an "academic" painting if you follow. The kind of art where all the rules are clearly there and it's technically beautiful, yet lacks the soul. I did see Lynch's in the theater and loved it. I think leaving out the Guild was a mistake. Maybe the third film will bring that element in.

i kind of have a mixed opinion on this. the visual style was nothing short of spectacular. but the effects shots seemed to be all over the place in quality. i liked the worm scenes in particular. they also really nailed geidi prime. while also having some shots that just felt bungled or like they are showing a painting instead of a scene. lynch dune also gets the worst thopter award. even the scifi miniseries concept was better. new dune hits it out of the park. also costume design i feel was better in new dune. i think it was a good idea to ditch the medieval garb in favor of something more pragmatic. now from a book readers perspective, lynch dune game us more memberberries. i didnt read the books (all of them) until after children of dune miniseries, but then going back to lynch you really start to notice them. little bits of dialogue and a couple sequences that say they really played homage to the source material even though they didnt quite have time to cover everything with as much detail as i would have liked. the miniseries remains the most book-accurate in my opinion and really goes into it in detail (though its worms were lame).

@@LordOfNihil They ran out of time and money to finish the effects. If you understand that going in it is easier to appreciate it I think. The models, the sets, the costumes... much of it is unrivalled. The sets especially were hand-carved in wood. Nobody builds sets like that. It's a jewel IMO.

@@patreekotime4578 i was always a huge fan of lynch dune. there are a ton of things about it i like.

I discussed this with my friends. If there was a way to blend Lynch's *Dune* and Villeneuve's, it would be near perfect. Even so, I am one of the weirdos who wishes an army of animators from around the world would animate the 10 hour Jodorowosky's *Dune.*

Yes.. except the love the new Dune.. fuck that shit.. but otherwise yes Agree.

You need to watch Dune Redux aka the Spicediver edit here on RU-vid. It is the best version of Dune available on film.

@@khyronkravshera7774 Idk if it's purely "better" in the sense that it's constrained within the limits of a fan edit.. but yeah, def better than the old tv cut for sure.

Whenever an opinion is given it will be bashed by the entitled person. Edit: As in 'believing their opinion is the correct one'.

@@ThePancakeJedi it's a war out there.

Ed Naha's book: The Making of Dune should be on your list

@@williambowden4192 Cool, thank you! I have heard it mentioned before but I forgot!

I agree. Always have had a soft spot for this movie. I know David Lynch has disowned it, and I haven't seen the new Dune movies. However, there is a quality of imagination that this film has that feels more in keeping with the novels, in my humble opinion.

I was confused by the anecdote to be honest. I didn't understand why it was made out of chocolate. I got the impression it had to do with the worm teeth being damaged, but I didn't see how chocolate addressed that problem.

Chocolate gets crushed easily. Softer material than fibreglass or resin.

@@piercefilm I was just surprised they used chocolate, especially given the heat there. Is chocolate a known substitute for these types of things? I love the creativity if they came up with it themselves.

@@piercefilm Don't Sandworms like the taste of Chocolate? Almost as much as mélange which tastes like cinnamon.

@@berendharmsen The behaviour of chocolate can vary significantly depending on the ingredients. The melting is greatly affected by the fat content and chocolate with a high cacao and low fat content does melt less easily and was probably used. Given that the very word "chocolate" comes from the Nahuatl (=Aztec) word "xocolatl", the Mexican crew probably knew exactly how to use this indeed very unusual model building material.

@@rickytoddbotelho9555 The scene where the ship lands after folding space and they departed the ramp. It was done using forced perspective from 30 feet away. Looked so cool.

Skip the Netflix version - you need to watch the Spicediver edit, here on RU-vid - especially if you liked the original cut. I grew up loving Dune, the Spicediver version is the icing on the cake though!

Thanks! It was fun to edit and organise all those great photos. There are many more stories I had to edit out because it got too long.

I think they mainly differed on their general philosophy of design - Lynch was style over function, while Villeneuve was function over style. I am conflicted between the 2 movies and appreciate both for different reasons.

@@aliensoup2420 Without style movies die. Hollywood is long dead.

Well said. I think Lynch was a highly visionary filmmaker for Dune. Villeneuve's costumes and other production elements were definitely influenced by Lynch's. The miniatures (especially the Sandworms) could have been better.

@@jonathanswift2251 I think Villeneuve also conceded that he was in several cases inspired by Lynch' movie and he appreciated the visual style. The costumes and sets were amazing and hold up very well today. Ironically, I think that the 'guild highliner cathedral cockpit' that they were so proud of in this video actually turned out to be one of the weakest miniature sets of the movie. For me, they feel like bit of a break in the style of the sets and it feels a little slapped together. Part of it is of course also that they had to composite the navigator into it and that shot also didn't quite come together. Not to mention the fact that the psychedelic visualisation of the space folding, and the subsequent 'fade in' of the ship over Arrakis aged really, really badly (in fact, it looked wonky even when it came out). I was amazed to see how incredibly large some of those ship models were by the way. So much bigger than ILM ships of that age used to be. I was also surprised to see that the large cylindrical Guild highliner was actually a model. The way it was shot, both the shot of the full-sized ship and the decorated door detail always looked like paintings to me - and they might as well have been, because you only ever see them from one, and only one, static angle. As I said, I hated the yellow Atreides ornithopter, but the rest of the vehicles worked for me. The sand worms may have been a little hit-and-miss in some of the shots (especially when you see them from a distance), but many shots looked surprisingly good I thought. Back then, I certainly thought they nailed the design of the worms, but they clearly struggled with making the scale of them to look convincing all the time. But given the tools they had to work with, I have a lot of respect for what they managed to come up with.

@@berendharmsen The production design and Art Direction were generally excellent--it needed a master VFX supervisor of miniature photography like Dykstra to bring it to full, convincing fruition.

@@jonathanswift2251 Agreed. Although to be fair to those that ended up doing it: given the circumstances under which they worked it's actually amazing it ended up as good as it did. The details in this video are amazing. Not just the challenges of the electricity supply, but also that snippet about the flies: the idea that you need to fumigate the set before you start your motion control shot. The idea that they were genuinely afraid that watching dailies you might find a shot ruined because you would see flies in some of the frames is just too surreal for words.

Most of her role was cut out of the film. Luckily, she went around with her super 8mm camera and filmed behind the scenes.

Thanks!

They do use miniatures.

@@Oldsmobile69 Really? Where?

@@trainlover16 Some of the scenes with vehicles. Real dust looks better than cgi dust.

@@Oldsmobile69 True. Which vehicle shots used miniatures? The Ornothopters were CG were they not? At least the ones in wide shots were. I know they built full scale props for them for shots when they were on the ground.

A reply to that same question earlier in the comments points out that chocolate is easier to crush than fiberglass or resin. If the chocolate doesn't melt prematurely, it's a really good idea for the effects they were going for.

@@jimheimerl1637 aaah, k, cheers, I guess with so little materials to work with that makes sense, still a strange sense, but…

@@Lumibear. Oh, I agree - crazy choice for material, but it worked. One of my engineering classes was for material selection. Sometimes bone was best for a particular set of mechanical requirements. Yes, bone.

@@jimheimerl1637 well I guess if it works it’s not crazy eh? ;)

As I understand it, the ornithopters were supposed to get moving wings in post-production, but they couldn't get the effect to work or maybe they didn't have the money anymore by then.

No, that's his name. He started working on Thunderbirds with Derek Meddings and later supervised the model work on Dark Crystal and various Bond films. A model making legend!

@@piercefilm I just blame you for me not knowing that. 99% of my knowledge about model-based special effects comes from you! 🙂 I'm so glad you are now finding other sources to add stuff to your channel and continue to build your channel into a great resource about the coolest aspect of special effects: a one-stop shop to learn about the legends of shooting models for film. Every time you post a new video is one of those 'drop everything and watch' moments.

When shooting motion control you do a frame of film every few seconds so any flies would appear and disappear wrecking the shot

@@piercefilm You are so right! Excellent point.

People used to do real work back then, they were concentrated on their aims. Making these miniatures shows they were really talented.

"Shitshow"? That's what you took away from this?

It needed to be a soft material for the animatronic worm to crush it easily. In Mexico, chocolate is everywhere.

@@piercefilm, and the question I forgot to ask was - how did she keep it from melting in the back window of her car? Chocolate melts in my cupboard during summer... In northern England!

does look a bit train car cratelike😅

You should probably look into just how expensive it is to shoot on location in the U.S.

LOL, get a load of Cecil B. DeMille here.