A gift to you for Christmas.

I had been good leading up to the holidays in clearing out the drafts queue or just writing stuff meaning I’ve been on a little bit of a roll. I wanted to post something of a gift for anyone who actually comes here to read my scribbles and I came across the greatest of treats to share. This should hit the mark with anyone who loves science fiction or comics and it really is fascinating.

To put it into context… HBO now has adapted DUNE and is on the cusp or releasing the third part in a series of movies that have been wildly successful. They’ve even cashed in on the movies success with the HBO series Dune: Prophecy.

Before HBO did their turn with Dune, there was a Dune TV series and of course the 80s movie being the earliest adaptation to arrive on the big screen BUT THAT REALLY WASN’T THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT MAKING A FILM!

Back in the seventies, Alejandro Jodorowsky whose name comics fans with a long memory will recognize from Moebius’ The Incal as his collaborator. Jodorowsky somehow got wrapped up in being attached to doing an adaptation of Dune that never got made. Jodorowsky imagined the run time to be about 14 hours… at the time this sounded insane but if we look to the recent adaptation of Dune by HBO that people have been raving about, Jodorowsky wasn’t too far off in his estimates of what it would take to do the story justice. Dune part one on HBO clocks in at 2 hours and 35 minutes, part two clocks in at 2 hours and 46 minutes and part 3 is expected to have a runtime between 2 and half to 3 hours!

That would be almost SEVEN HOURS! Sure it’s half the time Jodorowsky estimated but still way longer than David Lynch’s film from the eighties.

There’s a documentary about it and I could go into a lot more detail about the failed attempt to make Dune in the seventies and the documentary about it but that would keep me from your gift that I’ve already made you wait for.

I give you your gift, THE STORYBOARDS FOR THE SEVENTIES VERSION OF DUNE DONE BY MOEBIUS AND HR GIGER!!!!!!

Now there are a bunch or reasons this is really worth looking at because of just how amazingly influential this became for films made after it. Remember, this is BEFORE Alien! BEFORE The Fifth Element! Before Jupiter Ascending! Before Rebel Moon!

There are parts that are just vulgar but the fashion design is ahead of its time as is the imagery. Not only that but it’s in pdf form and downloadable too!

Merry Christmas!!!!