"It would be very easy to make a bad film of Dune…" –Ridley Scott, South Bend Tribune, 1979
This week marks the 40th anniversary of David Lynch's Dune. A $40 million box office disappointment upon its release, it has since cultivated a dedicated cult following over the four decades since it debuted on December 14, 1984, especially when juxtaposed with Denis Villeneuve's recent two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's renowned novel. The eccentric Lynch was announced to direct Dune for mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis in May 1981, shortly after Ridley Scott, known for Blade Runner and Gladiator, exited the project.
Until recently, little was known about the version Scott developed over seven to eight months for De Laurentiis before Lynch took over. Thanks to the efforts of T.D. Nguyen, a 133-page October 1980 draft of Scott's unproduced Dune film, written by Rudy Wurlitzer (known for Two-Lane Blacktop and Walker), was discovered in the Coleman Luck archives at Wheaton College and shared with this author.
When Scott joined the project following the success of Alien in 1979, Frank Herbert had already penned a comprehensive two-part screenplay that was meticulously faithful to the novel but un-cinematic, as previously reported by Wired and Inverse. Scott reviewed Herbert's script and identified a handful of scenes he wanted to incorporate but ultimately hired Wurlitzer for a complete rewrite in London as pre-production commenced at Pinewood Studios. Like Herbert's and later Villeneuve's adaptations, Scott's version was intended as the first part of a two-film series.
Wurlitzer shared with Prevue Magazine in 1984, "The Dune adaptation was one of the most challenging jobs I’ve ever undertaken. It took longer to develop a workable outline than to write the final script. We stayed true to the spirit of the book but also refined it, infusing it with a distinct sensibility."
Scott told Total Film in 2021, "We did a script, and the script is pretty fucking good."
Several factors contributed to the collapse of Scott's Dune project, including his emotional response to his brother Frank's death, reluctance to film in Mexico as De Laurentiis demanded, a budget exceeding $50 million, and the more promising Blade Runner project with Filmways. A crucial reason, as Universal Pictures executive Thom Mount noted in the book A Masterpiece in Disarray – David Lynch's Dune, was that "Rudy’s version of the script did not receive unanimous, glowing enthusiasm."
Was Wurlitzer's script a poor cinematic translation of Herbert's expansive narrative? Or was it simply too dark, violent, and politically charged to be a commercial blockbuster? You can read our detailed script analysis with expert commentary and form your own opinion.
Rudy Wurlitzer (now 87) was contacted for this article but declined to participate. Ridley Scott was also approached but chose not to comment.
A Wilder Shade of Paul
The October 1980 draft of Dune begins with a dreamlike montage of scorching deserts, with white dust transforming into apocalyptic armies ravaging the universe, setting the stage for Paul's "terrible purpose." Scott's visual style is evident in descriptions such as "birds and insects become a whirling hysteria of motion," showcasing his ability to craft compelling imagery.
Frank Herbert's Dune (First Edition)As Scott told Total Film, "We did a very good take on Dune, because early on, I worked very closely with the writer. I was always integrating the film's visual style with the writer's narrative."
This dream sequence transitions to Paul Atreides waking to rain pelting the windows of Castle Caladan. In this script, Paul is not the dashing figure portrayed by Timothée Chalamet but a 7-year-old with long blonde hair, facing the Reverend Mother's test with "the box." His recitation of the Litany Against Fear is intercut with Jessica's, emphasizing their psychic bond. Visuals of a burning hand and flesh falling off bones evoke Lynch's approach, though they remain symbolic.
After passing the test, young Paul demonstrates his prowess by using The Voice to retrieve a sword from a guard and nearly kills a sleeping Duncan Idaho to test a warrior's vigilance. This version of Paul embodies a "savage innocence."
Stephen Scarlata, producer of the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, remarked, "Rudy Wurlitzer’s portrayal of Paul is far more assertive. He actively takes charge, and we see a flash-forward of his growth from age 7 to 21, showcasing his rigorous training surpassing Duncan Idaho. Personally, I prefer Lynch’s depiction, where Paul's vulnerability adds tension and concern for his safety, particularly during his and Jessica's escape."
As Paul matures to 21, he becomes a master swordsman, described as "handsome, charismatic, regal." Duncan, now older and broader with white hair and a beard, embodies a humor reminiscent of Jason Momoa's portrayal:
DUNCAN
It is a teacher's duty to have his
pupil someday surpass him.
(smiling)
But, don't think you can relax. This
is just one level you have reached.
There are other, more perilous,
methods to master. But, not now.
Now we are going to get properly
drunk.
Long Live the Emperor
The scene shifts to a rock garden near Castle Caladan where Jessica observes a gardener raking patterns in white pebbles. As rain begins to fall, the gardener kneels and proclaims, "the Emperor is dead," a significant departure from the book that adds a new catalyst to the story. Hollywood screenwriter Ian Fried, who worked on Legendary's Spectral and an unproduced modern version of The Island of Dr. Moreau, expressed his admiration for this moment:
"I love the scene where Jessica watches the gardener, and his reaction to the rain signifies the Emperor's death. It's chilling and impactful, though it's not in the book. Given the vastness of Dune, adding new elements is bold and interesting."
The narrative then moves to "the Emperor's Inner Kingdom," a mystical setting surrounded by Snow Peaks and a Mandala. The Twenty-Four Great Houses gather to mourn the Emperor as his soul ascends amidst colorful energies. The Emperor posthumously entrusts Duke Leto Atreides with the stewardship of Arrakis, hoping to counter the rising darkness in the universe.
The darkness manifests through Leto's cousin, Baron Harkonnen, who, through Feyd-Rautha, proposes sharing Arrakis' spice production to avoid conflict. Leto declines, and a line similar to a famous quote from Lynch's Dune emerges:
BARON
(to DR. YUEH)
Understand the position well
before you leave. Who controls
Dune controls the Spice, and
who controls the Spice controls
the Universe. Without me, your
Duke controls nothing.
Mark Bennett of DuneInfo commented, "I usually attribute that line to Lynch, but since this was a De Laurentiis project, I wonder if Lynch read Wurlitzer's script and borrowed the line or came up with it independently."
Flight of the Navigator
A scene reminiscent of Lynch's version occurs as the Atreides family departs Caladan aboard a Guild Heighliner, revealing a Navigator. This spice-mutated being, described as "an elongated FIGURE, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned, membranous hands," falls into a coma after taking a pill and plots the course with musical intonations, echoing Scott's Prometheus.
Fried added, "I loved the Navigator scene. It's a missed opportunity in Villeneuve's films not to show this."
Upon arriving on Arrakis, the Atreides' fortress is described with a medieval aesthetic, reminiscent of Scott's Legend. The world feels feudal, with a focus on swords and loyalty. Dew Collectors use scythes in the castle gardens, reflecting Scott's concurrent development of a Dark Ages "cowboy" version of Tristan and Isolde for Paramount.
Liet Kynes introduces his daughter Chani to Leto and Paul at a weather station, highlighting the ecological damage caused by spice harvesting. Their Ornithopter journey through the desert echoes the hellish cityscapes of Blade Runner as a sandworm attacks a factory ship, prompting Kynes and Chani to escape on foot.
This sequence is intercut with Shadout Mapes, who has three breasts, gifting Lady Jessica a crysknife. Jessica hears city dwellers begging for water outside her window.
The streets of Arakeen are depicted as urban "ghettos" with homeless vendors, dilapidated vehicles, and skeletal remains, highlighting class disparity inspired by Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers. A new action scene features Paul and Duncan tracking a Harkonnen agent to a trading post, resulting in a bar fight. Duncan uses an axe like Conan the Barbarian, and Paul kills a man with a finger thrust.
*DUNCAN picks up the axe.
DUNCAN
(looking at it)
Nasty little instrument.
Not very well balanced, but it will
have to do.With a short snap to his wrist he
throws it at BURLY MAN coming
towards him holding a long iron
bar. The axe strikes him in the
chest, splitting him in two.*
Scarlata remarked, "The bar brawl feels out of place, making Paul seem too invincible too soon. His journey should be about growth, survival, and leadership. If he's already beating enemies effortlessly, it diminishes the tension and fear necessary for his transformation."
In this brawl, they encounter the stoic Fremen leader Stilgar, who later decapitates a lone Harkonnen agent at a smuggler's market. The scene shifts to Jessica meditating and levitating, reminiscent of early 20th-century magicians. She and Leto decide to conceive a child, with Jessica explicitly stating, "When you release your seed it will be like sacred oil poured into an altar fire."
Baron Wasteland
Dr. Yueh, after receiving a secret message from a blinking insect, shares a moment of regret with Paul before sending him into the city for a night of freedom. Paul follows a homeless boy into a Fremen Spice Den, where he inhales blue spice vapor and has visions of his unborn sister Alia intoning "Maud'Dib." He encounters an Old Crone overseeing a pit with a red ball and a tiny sandworm, which Paul hypnotizes and places into a conch shell.
Yueh poisons Thufir over a chess game, reminiscent of Blade Runner, and deactivates the house shield, allowing Harkonnen Death Commandoes to enter the castle. Paul, returning from the city, confronts a Hunter-Seeker, depicted as "a bat-like creature with a cobra's head," which he decapitates.
The bat-like Hunter-Seeker in Ridley Scott's version resembles the "flying creature with a bomb" from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unproduced Dune, seen here in storyboard art. Scarlata commented on this script addition, "The biological twist to the Hunter-Seeker mirrors Jodorowsky’s unmade Dune, where it was a flying creature with a bomb. Both versions explore an animalistic approach."
Duke Leto decapitates several Death Commandoes before being darted by Yueh. Duncan arrives to save Leto, only to be stabbed by Yueh, whom Duncan then bisects. Yueh's motivation is purely survival, seeking an antidote from the Baron, unlike the noble intentions in other versions. Jessica places a poison gas capsule in Leto's mouth before his death. Duncan fends off Sardaukar, sacrificing himself to allow Paul and Jessica to escape in a 'Thopter. The violence is graphic and R-rated, with a Harkonnen troop carrier driving over the bodies of fallen Atreides soldiers.
The Deep Desert Controversy
Paul and Jessica's escape into the desert is intense, with Paul's piloting maneuvers causing G-force ripples on their cheeks. After a crash landing, they wait out a storm in a Stilltent and continue their journey in Stillsuits, facing a massive sandworm "face-to-face" without fear.
One notable omission from this draft is the incestuous relationship between Paul and Jessica, which had been included in earlier versions. Herbert and De Laurentiis were vehemently against it, with Herbert telling The Sacramento Bee in 1982, "He wanted to do an incest movie! Can you imagine the effect that would have had on Dune fans?"
Wurlitzer explained to Prevue, "In one draft, I introduced erotic scenes between Paul and Jessica. I felt there was a latent Oedipal attraction, and I took it further. It was placed in the middle of the film as a defiance of boundaries, perhaps making Paul more heroic for breaking a forbidden code."
While the incest is absent, there is a moment where Paul and Jessica "lie on top of each other" as they slide down a sand dune, losing their supplies.
They seek shelter in an ancient cave within a giant worm carcass, waiting for morning. At dawn, Fremen warriors on a Sandsled, led by Stilgar, appear. Jamis challenges Paul to a duel, which Paul accepts without hesitation. Jessica, not Chani, advises Paul and gives him the crysknife from Shadout Mapes, announcing him as the Lisan al-gaib.
The brutal duel moves into the worm carcass, where Paul kills Jamis. Some Fremen take items from Jamis' body, saying they were "a friend of Jamis," and Paul laments, "when you kill… you pay for it," shedding tears for his fallen foe, similar to Lynch's excised scene.
At a Spice ceremony, the Fremen pass around a bowl like a "peace pipe." Jessica does not inhale, but Paul does and is given the name Maud'Dib. Paul and Jessica confer with Kynes, who is aware of the Lisan al-gaib legend but supports it to expedite Arrakis' transformation.
Paul learns that Jamis' wife, Chani, is now his, and she accepts her new role and Jessica as her mother. Paul offers Jamis' water to Chani, who refuses, leading him to pour it into the tribe's reservoir.
The Fremen carry their possessions to a Sundancer, a giant trimaran, to cross the salt flats. Kynes aims to unite the Fremen tribes behind the Lisan al-gaib legend and encourages Chani to stay close to Paul, despite her ambivalence toward Jessica. Paul asserts his leadership:
*PAUL
I ask for acceptance without
reservation, even for that which
you cannot understand.CHANI
As we share the same purpose, I
withhold nothing from you.*
Wurlitzer remarked in 1984, "A true leader is never a clear model of Christian goodness. Many times he is ruthless, determined, and willing to make sacrifices. That doesn’t mean he has to be a consummate Machiavellian, only that certain shadings in his character make him dangerous and abrupt. Even Christ drove the merchants out of the temple."
Fried noted, "Paul feels like a cipher here, too perfect as a Messiah. It's hard to relate to him, and it's unclear if he's even the main character."
The story culminates in a Water of Life ceremony led by a Shaman with three breasts and male genitals, performing an erotic dance. A 10-foot sandworm emerges, emitting smoky vapor, and dies in a water ditch, turning the water blue. Jessica drinks the Water of Death, merging auras with the Reverend Mother, becoming the new Reverend Mother. The Fremen believe Paul is their Messiah, and the trio stands before them as a new royal family. Paul must prove himself by riding a sandworm, which the script alludes to but does not depict.
Herbert told The Vancouver Sun in June 1980 that Paul riding the worm was crucial: "That's at the heart of the book. The worm is the monster, the monster that lives under the surface, in your head, the monster that lives everywhere. I want that in the movie."
Conclusions
H.R. Giger's exceedingly phallic sandworm design.Frank Herbert's aim with the Dune novels was to warn about the dangers of charismatic leaders, an idea ignored by Lynch but central to Villeneuve's films and his planned adaptation of Dune Messiah. Wurlitzer's script, though unfinished or intended as a two-part series, portrays Paul as a confident young man accepting his destiny as a universal dictator, with complicit actors like Chani and Kynes bolstering his rise.
This script, conceived during the dawn of modern science fiction cinema post-Star Wars and Alien, may have been too ambitious for audiences, expecting acceptance of a revisionist R-rated film addressing ecological devastation and exploitation. Similar challenges were faced by Zack Snyder with Watchmen.
As Scott noted in the Tribune in 1979, "For years sci-fi has been treated as underground material, yet there's always been a vast and enthusiastic readership for sci-fi novels. Dune has sold 10 million copies."
The script also enhances visual storytelling, addressing narrative gaps in Lynch's film, such as the relationships between Kynes and Chani, and the Duke and the Baron. The Emperor's death serves as a catalyst for the Duke's downfall, a more direct approach than the convoluted plans in other versions.
The initial draft of Lynch's version ended with Paul and Jessica fleeing a burning Arrakeen castle, while Wurlitzer's closes with the Water of Life ceremony, setting up the book's two-year time jump. Villeneuve's Dune: Part One ended with the Paul/Jamis duel, striking a balance between the two.
The script's grimdark and adult themes likely contributed to its lukewarm reception at the studio level, making Lynch's version seem more audience-friendly by comparison.
Mark Bennett, who has run his Dune fan site for nearly three decades, stated, "I don't think it would have made Dune fans happy. Too many deviations from the novel and too much 'magic,' which Herbert's novel avoids. Without the second half, it's hard to know how things would have played out. I assume Part 2 would have involved a guerrilla war with the Harkonnens, culminating in Paul and Feyd's duel, with Paul becoming Emperor."
The legacy of Wurlitzer and Scott's Dune includes H.R. Giger's phallic sandworm design and Harkonnen furniture made from skeletons, now at the Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland. Vittorio Storaro, who was set to be the cinematographer, later worked on the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune. Scott and De Laurentiis later collaborated on Hannibal, which grossed $350 million worldwide. Elements from this script also influenced Blade Runner and can be seen in Scott's recent Gladiator II.
Wurlitzer's script, as Scott himself called it, "a decent distillation of Frank Herbert," is unique in balancing the novel’s ecological, political, and spiritual aspects. Lynch focused on the spiritual, while Villeneuve emphasized the dangers of charismatic leaders.
Fried concluded, "The ecological aspect is covered in this script in a way it's never been in other adaptations. It's a strength of this version, feeling integral to the story without being heavy-handed. It genuinely reflects the consequences of human actions on the planet, particularly around spice mining. There are clearer motivations for a wider variety of characters."
Perhaps future filmmakers will create a version of Dune that resonates more with its ecological themes. As Herbert's book approaches its 60th anniversary, its warnings about environmental decay, fascism, and the need for societal awakening remain as relevant as ever.
