DVD Talk review of 'Dune Extended Edition'
 

I read DVD Savant's DVD review of Dune Extended Edition at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=20126 and...

widescreen version anamorphic?

Aspect ratio?

Article says they're both 16x9 2.35. You could also check out the huge thread in the main forum.

You can make the extended version more palatable by lopping off the silly Prologue-heres how:

Rip both sides.
On side A (theatrical) extract Chapter/cell#1 ONLY (Princess intro)
On side B (extended) DELETE Chapter/cell#1 ONLY, and leave the rest of the cells;

Now using your favorite DVD compressor (you will need a DL disc for this, it is a 7.50Gb file)
Marry them together, and voila! You are rid of the whole crappy prologue;
There will be a little overlap, as both happen to end as the guild ship lands, but it is almost a non issue, and your movie will be 4 mins shorter.
But you get the luscious Virgina Madsen to start the movie.

If you want breathing room, add the blazing Universal Home Video intro at the start (24mb)

YES-BOTH films are 16:9 anamorphic WS, 2:35:1 (or thereabouts)

There's more wrong with the TV extended cut than just the prologue. There's really no way to "fix" it short of re-editing the whole movie again.

in case no one else has answered your questions at the end:

1) as far as I can remember, the baby sandworm is killed via drowning in water on purpose. The water is then drunk by the reverend mother or by Paul and he gets all psychic. Paul sees the 'place where women can't look' but otherwise can see all the same stuff as the women (i..e all the different voices and lives of all the previous reverend mothers). After a while, he/she then 'converts' the poisoned water in his/her bloodstream into the water of life, which is then drunk by all the freemen, creating a mildly psychic 'high' and produces a wild orgy.

2) Yes the rain is shown to demonstrate power, but is truly a goal of the Fremen -- just like on Earth, in the New Arrakis there will be deserts still (like at the equator or south - i can't remember exactly where) and areas where rain falls and grass/plants grow. In subsequent books they are faced with the dilemna of improving environmental conditions for humans and the decaying environmental conditions for sandworms/spice production. As the world is more pleasant for humans, the sandworms are dying off, which will choke spice production and crash the Arrakis economy/power.

I think this is done to echo the dichotomy of our own Earthbound conflicts between commerce, environmental soundness, and the protection of renewable resources

I had hoped for a more detailed analysis of the A/V of the theatrical cut. I just want another opinion, even though I've already decided I'll skip this.

I've added screencaps to my review on this page, which show how poor the video transfer is:

http://www.mindspring.com/~dunestuff/av.html

Wow, not good at all. So much for that, then. The French DVD does like nice, though. Nice Dune site, Josh.

If you're not region-free, the Korean "Ultimate Edition" box set is an R0 NTSC port of the French transfer. It has some judder issues as a result of the PAL-to-NTSC conversion and still suffers from PAL speedup, but the colors are much better than the Universal disc. YesAsia carries it for about $30.

I dont disagree with you Josh-neverthelesss, cutting out the idiotic prologue makes that version a bit more palatable-and for some reason, the transfer on the extended version is much better than the theatrical-which has too many dirt and white spots.

But the French Theatrical version is the 5 star transfer-it is near perfect-almost HD...its too damn bad they didnt get to use the 16:9 extended version-then it WOULD have been 'versione ultimate'

Those new scenes exclusive to the extended version are indeed cleaner and better-looking than the theatrical cut transfer, but the bulk of the extended version comes from the exact same transfer as the theatrical cut. You can see shot-by-shot variances in picture quality whenever new footage appears.

How does this newer version compare to the Special edition Director's Cut pictured below (just to be totally clear)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Just to be totally clear? This newer version contains a film by David Lynch; the version you've pictured contains a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries made sixteen years later.

Well that is clearly one of the worst explanations I have read recently. Yes, I know the newer version was directed by David lynch but that still does not explain the difference between the two versions. Is it two different stories with the same title? Is the Miniseries totally different from the recently released version?

The Sci-Fi Channel miniseries is a different (and, IMO, far inferior) adaptation of the same book.

I agree with Hackmann's assessment. The feature film by Lynch is not perfect by any means but it has a fantastic cast and many memorable scenes...highly enjoyable though flawed. The Sci-Fi miniseries attempted to do a more thorough adaptation but IMHO just succeeded in being more boring...and the costumes were dreadful (the climactic fight in which the two participants wore garb that resembled large diapers or 'Depends' bordered on the ridiculous).

Having said that, we did enjoy the Sci-Fi Channel sequel "Children of Dune"...thought it was light years beyond their adaptation of the first book (although haven't read CHILDREN OF DUNE so don't know how the video compares to the novel).

There are a few of us here who know a little more about what's usually called "the scene"...

Some time ago, a talented anonymous group made the so-called "Fanfiltration" version of the TV edit of Dune, cutting out some of the most embarassing parts (including the extended prologue, which was replaced with the theatrical one), and correcting the obvious unfinished parts (like the eyes of the Fremen not being blue in the added scenes)

The result was surprisingly good, to say the least. Unfortunately, it's a 4:3 transfer, since they didn't have a better source for the TV edit at that time. They also went ahead and added quite a few bonus items, including some Frank Herbert footage.

Yet again, we are slowly but surely seeing the democratization of movies, manifested through obviously talented fan edits.

"The democratization of movies"? Good Lord, I would never trust a fan to edit something.