Was David Lynch's freaky, bizarre and nearly incomprehensible 1984 film Dune really all that bad?

Sure, it was a disaster at the box office. And many Dune faithful have dismissed the film as an embarrassment, as a bloated and overly abstract piece of dreck that bears little or no relation to Herbert's novel.

But let's look at what is so freakin' good about this film. Let's try to figure out why it's still a late-night favorite, why geeks quote it all the time -- and why, incidentally, Frank Herbert himself liked it so much.

The future on other planets

All but the film's biggest detractors concede that production designer Anthony Masters (2001) and costume designer Bob Ringwood (Batman, Excalibur, A.I.) fully realized a world alien enough to be 8,000 years in the future and familiar enough to be 8,000 years in our future -- a world that has advanced to an astonishing level of technology without computers.

The Source Material Endures

The cast and creators of the SCI FI Channel's television version of Dune maintain that their adaptation does it right.

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	Dune

And they did it with a minimum of description from the book. Herbert's world is rich and detailed, yes, but he devotes his attention to personalities, politics and ecology, not actual appearances.

The novel indicates that Castle Caladan is a "pile of stone" -- no more, no less -- and that the Atreides wear a red hawk emblem on the chest of their black uniforms. It's not much to work with, but Lynch's designers took the hawk and decided to put everyone in black and beige military uniforms, complete with epaulets and ribbons.

Since Paul wears full regalia even when he's relaxing, this attention to uniform clothing sets a tone of pomp and 19th-Century romantic opera -- and, tellingly, the military, quasi-feudal military outfits worn by Third World dictators. Ringwood and Masters hit us with imagery that recalls tinplated strongmen and banana republics -- just like Herbert's multipolar world, where great houses feud over territory and natural resources.

Lynch and his designers also took care to let the natural resources of the main planets influence the artistic evolution of clothing, sets and props, especially on Caladan and Giedi Prime.

According to the director, they thought of Caladan as the "wood" planet and Giedi Prime as the "oil" planet. This puts the Atreides in a natural, warm environment and the Harkonnens in a nasty, smelly one. We relax as we follow Paul through the vaulted hallways of intricately carved wood, and gag as we watch the Harkonnens eat bugs while they bask in dank glowglobe light surrounded by snot-green walls, the stench of burning oil no doubt choking the air. The contrast naturally tilts our sympathy toward the Atreides.

Forgotten technologies

But the designers' greatest triumph came in realizing the future of the Butlerian Jyhad, where computers -- and all machines that "imitate a human mind" -- have been banned.

What a civilization that has interstellar travel and high-speed communication, but no computers, look like?

Masters gave Lynch's film a look somewhere between Star Trek and 1890s London. The glowglobes float and hum through the air, adorned with wrought-iron wings. The "fighter" training module (mostly lifted from the second book, Dune Messiah ) whips, slashes and shoots like a HAL 9000-powered death machine, but steady-state components make it resemble a quaint brass-plated Rube Goldberg you might find in H.G. Well's study.

The Spacing Guild most effectively shows this deft oxymoron, mixing equal parts Blade Runner, Star Trek's Borg and The Great Train Robbery.

The Guild navigator travels -- or lives in -- a black wrought-iron holding tank that we might mistake for an old-fashioned train car, an ironic bit of reverse engineering for these new-era transportation monopolists. Despite its presumably advanced functionality, the tank seeps oil on the marble floors, forcing an underling to sweep up behind with a broom.

Another underling speaks into a classic wire microphone that looks like something William Jennings Bryan might have used, but it's hooked into a contraption sophisticated enough to translate the Rosetta Stone into Klingon.

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The cast

In case you're still reading to find out why Herbert liked Lynch's film so much, ask yourself: can you blame him for being somewhat flattered by the marquee names involved?

Finally, someone was spending the mind-blowing bucks to realize his vision, complete with a slew of prodigal designers, a hotshot young director fresh off an Academy Award nomination and a distinguished cast.

And what a cast. Some of the choices didn't work, but not even Sting could mess up a line as delicious as "Will your woman deserve my special attentions?"

OK, let's start with the lead: Paul. The biggest strike against Kyle MacLachlan was his age (too old), but to really do Dune right you'd need to cast two people as Paul, one about 15, the other 25.

However, MacLachlan keeps his voice high in the opening sequence and progressively lowers it over the course of the story to reflect his accelerated aging, and his classical training -- he was acting in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival before Lynch found him -- helped him fill Paul's enormity. It can't be easy to play a character who's a cross between Jesus and Mohammed (to the Fremen) and Machiavelli (to everyone else).

Grossness aside, Kenneth MacMillan barks and shouts his way through a decadent performance as the Baron. It's over the top, sure, but who wants an understated Harkonnen? The same person who wants an understated Khan in Star Trek II?

Probably his best moment comes when he ogles a sweat-slick Feyd-Rautha and whispers, "Lovely Feyd," then bellows, "Where's my doctor?!" The Harkonnen obsession with exotic sexuality -- incest and probably pedophilia, considering how "young" the slave boys (and Feyd) are described -- is straight out of Herbert's book.

Although Sting's advanced age pushes their sexuality away from pedophilia, MacMillan makes a strong choice to be true to the Baron's demented lust for his nephew.

The list of strong casting choices goes on. Despite a language barrier, Jurgen Prochnow, the Gibraltar-solid U-boat captain from Das Boot, makes a fine Leto. Linda Hunt is a no-brainer for the Shadout Mapes. Lynch stalwart Dean Stockwell finds the tragedy in Dr. Yueh. Old pro Jose Ferrer blusters and cowers just like Shaddam IV should, and the icy Sian Phillips is a razor-edged knockout as Reverend Mother Mohiam. Even though Shakespeare veteran Patrick Stewart hadn't yet figured out that boom mikes can pick up sound from far away, he's still crysknife-tough as Gurney Halleck.

Less successful are Francesca Annis, who delivers most of Jessica's lines with breathy over-significance, and Sean Young, a perennial candidate for world's most boring actor, as Chani.

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The kingdom of God seen from within

More than anything else (and perhaps most controversial to fans), Lynch nailed the spirit of Dune -- from the Fremen perspective. Certainly, Herbert wrote about political wrangling, feudalism, ecology and economics, but he also wrote about the actual coming of a messiah.

When the Fremen meet Paul and Jessica and realize that this ancient prophesy is actually coming true, the audience needs to imagine how impossibly mind-blowing that must be for the people involved. That's what Lynch is very good at: turning the world upside-down, blowing minds.

This film is similar in tone to many of his other dreamy, puzzling, and abstract projects. Watch Eraserhead and you'll see a creature who could navigate a Guild heighliner, not to mention the origins of Paul's infamous "Arrakis --Dune -- desert planet" voiceover dream sequences. Watch Blue Velvet and you'll see a villain just like the Baron, drowning in addiction and twisted sexuality.

Most importantly, though, when you watch Blue Velvet (or its TV cousin, Twin Peaks), you'll see a story that descends into dementia, but eventually embraces good over evil in a wholly un-ironic way.

This "heart-on-the-sleeve" attitude toward goodness translates well to the Fremen's black-and-white world. They're tough, but they serve God.

"God created Arrakis to train the faithful," the Fremen say, and they believe in the prophesy of Muad-Dib with utter, innocent conviction. Lynch's dreamy tone reflects that innocence. It puts us in the Fremen's minds -- how they must have felt like they were living a dream as they watched Muad'Dib lead them to power.

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Slimy, yet politically unsophisticated

But Lynch misses the irony for the innocence, and it's the historical ironies that make Dune a classic.

After all, the Bene Gesserit manufactured the Muad'Dib prophecy to protect their sisterhood should they be captured by Fremen, as Jessica is. The Fremen "legend" isn't an organic result of centuries of myth creation -- much less direct divine inspiration -- but someone in Bene Gesserit Research and Development probably typed it up off the top of their head.

Lynch isn't interested in this rather important historic wrinkle. In his movie, we only see a legend come true, and that's where he fails to adapt the deepest complexity of the original novel.