mark-4522 I love good documentaries and this is one of them but one thing to keep in mind about most of them is their need to steer and corral you into a point of view. The point of view of this one is that Jodorowsky's Dune wasn't made because of inflexibility and lack of vision by the Hollywood studio machine.The film ended with me thinking that was an unfair judgment. Two key factors would kill this film even today: One was the demand by Jodorowsky that the film be 15 hours. Imagine if the original Star Wars trilogy was made all at once into a 6 hour film. We'd certainly enjoy it but would many 13 year olds who fell in love with the first film be able to handle sitting for 6 hours straight even with an intermission? Also, three movies made 3 times more money than one.This film COULD have gotten made! If Jodorowsky started out from the Planet Caladan and ended on Arrakis just after the Baron had killed Duke Leto and Paul had escaped, for instance. The budget would have been reduced and even if Hollywood had rejected it, he could have filmed from a private investor (no doubt Salvador Dali and Orson Welles could have made some phone calls) In the end, ironically, the studio execs were right: Jodorowsky simply wasn't practical enough of a director to get the film cut. He was ingenious in negotiating and compromising with the biggest egos of all time including literally Orson Welles and Dali but couldn't figure out a way to make this project viable to a simple minded Hollywood exec? His genius could have manipulated such a simple mind if he had allowed himself to.So it's thoughts like that which make this documentary into one of the best thoughtful experiences ever. Even if you disagree with my conclusion, the vision of what this film could have been, and why it wasn't, is as engaging as any of the three Star Wars "prequel" films. What I think the film could have been like is a 100 times better than what Lynch's Dune turned out to be.

attae Is Jodorowski a genius? He certainly sells it well. on the other hand, it took me two viewings to get through Holy Mountain, and I would not describe it as mainstream entertainment - or even general entertainment for that matter.The genius of Jodorowski is in cherry picking other geniuses to work with, and developing a team that was later poached by mainstream Hollywood.The team of Moebius, Giger, O'Bannon, and Foss is inspired on so many levels for a choice of artistic design. It's no surprise that the best we could have hoped for after the failure of this project was a classic in its own right, 'Alien'.On the music front he was trying to bring in Pink Floyd for the Atreides score, and Magma for Harkonnen.And actors... Dali for the emperor, who immediately demanded the highest pay in Hollywood - what better choice for emperor than such an arrogant, spoilt, self-absorbed know-it-all? Orson Wells for Baron Harkonnen is also another masterful choice.Love him or loathe him, Jodorowski knows people. He chose some pretty incredible people to take on this project, and succeeded in pulling them all together. It's a damn shame that it failed.Sure, Jodorowski's Dune would probably have been a financial and critical failure, but I think it would also have developed a cult following as the best film of all time.In the end it was just too 'European' for the pay masters. Hollywood and the States love a clean cut hero in a black and white story. Philosophical and metaphysical does not go down as well there as it does in Europe. Although, that seems to be changing a bit now.This project was far ahead of its time for Hollywood, though they do seem content to poach parts of it to splice into more mainstream and less thoughtful movies.

StrayFeral This movie is a spiritual enlightenment in a documentary form.Let us start with this: I own the blu-ray version of the movie. Never saw any Jodorowsky movie, but I am huge fan of both books and David Lynch's "Dune".So far somebody would expect me to judge this documentary from the perspective of a "Dune" fan, but honestly I tried to be as neutral as possible. Of course, part of me was the "Dune" fan when I was watching, part of me was trying to get into the mind of this crazy genius, as Jodorowsky appears to be.Some quick facts and impressions: I have never seen the theatrical version of the documentary, but the blu-ray version do contains additional footage, giving even a bit more insight from both Jodorowsky and Michel Seydoux on the events and relationships of Jodorowsky and the crew. I consider this bonus material a very valuable add-on to the whole story, so I do recommend you to buy the blu-ray version.What to say... The movie pretty much speaks about itself. It is well done and very interesting to see, especially it touches such a mysterious subject in the world cinematography, as the never made movie about "Dune". What the movie shows however in addition, is a valuable insight on Jodorowsky's mind and we are given the chance to experience from first person perspective the creative process of the mind of a genius.Yes, I said I have never seen a Jodorowsky movie. However experiencing the way this man thinks and creates, I cannot deny he is a true genius. While we are not given the chance to see the whole book he prepared for the movie studios, showing the storyboard of "Dune", we almost feel like we could watch the movie from some of his words.Jodorowsky's "Dune" would have been a true spectacular movie. David Lynch's "Dune" is already spectacular - we have the monsters by Kit West , the same who created the monsters in "Star Wars", we have the music of the legendary TOTO and Brian Eno, we have a whole constellation of famous actors, including Sting in addition. Jodorowsky was about to offer much more - different music for every Dune house, starting with the cult Pink Floyd, even more constellations of stars - Mick Jagger, Amanda Lear, Orson Welles, H.R.Giger and even, oh my, Salvador Dali! And all this experienced in a totally different palette of colours trough the prism of Jodorowsky's mind.Honestly, while I think the movie would have been very very different than everything we saw and maybe considered too "mature-rated", if not even little "pervert" by some, I think the world really lost by not having this movie created.The moral of the story however, is that even true geniuses have to consider the budget and some boundaries in the end. Otherwise we are left with nothing, but legends.

Diamond Geezer I wanted to like this movie having read most of the Frank Herbert books and not being aware of this movie that was never made. Okay so it has connections to modern sci-fi movies having had people that were working on it then go and work on other films but man - this movie is all dialogue: people talking at the camera about what could have been, what should have been and really there's only so much of that I can take before falling asleep. The movie they're talking about is probably one of the greatest movies NEVER made - but this is one of the slowest, boring movies ever made. I apologise to everyone who really loved this - I see where you're coming from but balancing that out this is one slow moving, yawn-fest if you don't know what you're in for. The guy's a genius. This movie isn't.