Denis Villeneuve Responds to Quentin Tarantino's ‘Dune' Criticism: “It's Not a Remake"

Quentin Tarantino recently had a hot take about Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune.’ In short, he said that he refuses to watch Villeneuve’s films because he’s already seen David Lynch’s version.

“I saw [David Lynch’s] Dune a couple of times,” Tarantino said. “I don’t need to see that story again. I don’t need to see spice worms. I don’t need to see a movie that says the word ‘spice’ so dramatically.“

Villeneuve recently took part in a Q&A at Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal where he had a simple response to Tarantino’s refusal to watch ‘Dune.’

“I don’t care,” Villeneuve bluntly stated, which prompted the audience to erupt in laughter. However, he does believe that Tarantino is right about the ad nauseum number of remakes in Hollywood, “I agree with him that I don’t like this idea of recycling and bringing back old ideas,” he said. “But where I disagree is that what I did was not a remake. It’s an adaptation of the book. I see this as an original.” Villeneuve then added, “But we are very different human beings.”

Villeneuve isn’t wrong. You can’t compare his ‘Dune’ to Lynch’s 1984 trainwreck. Tonally, stylistically and narratively, they are both completely different films — it’d be foolish to believe they share any of the same cinematic DNA.

In a recent interview with Cahiers du Cinema, Lynch confessed that he’s still bitter about his experience making “Dune” and that he has no interest in watching Villeneuve’s version:

“I will never watch it, and I don't even want you to tell me about it, ever.”

Lynch's "Dune" is well-known to be one of the worst flops in Hollywood history and the director’s worst film. It's practically unwatchable. I don't think I've ever been able to sit through its entire 137 minutes. I've tried, because I’m a Lynch completist, but good heavens is it bad.

Widely panned at the time, Lynch lost total creative control on his “Dune,” so much so that he asked the studio to remove his name from the project, but sadly, his wish wasn’t granted. It now sticks out like a sore thumb in his filmography.