Indeed, this felt like a sand castle washing away upon the surf. The documentary directed by Frank Povich, tells the story of cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempt to made Frank Herbert's novel into the big screen, but ultimately failing. While, I'm a huge fan of Alejandro Jodorowsky's work in 1970's El Topo. I can't get behind his version of Dune. It's a lot worse than David Lynch's 1984's Dune movie. It has little to do with author Frank Herbert's work. Alejandro Jodorowsky even admits to raping Frank Herbert's work in the film. To understand the mess that Jodorowsky made of Herbert's work, a brief discussion of what Dune is about, must be in order. The novel is about, a young hero, call Paul Atreides whom family is killed, when an interplanetary emperor fears the rising power of his family clan. The youth man find shelter on Planet Arrakis, a harsh and arid desert planet in which only two things thrive; mélange (spice currency) and Fremen, a nomadic warrior tribe. Wanting revenge, Paul use the tribe, to send out a holy war or Jihad against the Emperor. The book is supposed to represent the unforgiving growing conflict between Western beliefs and that of its Arab World. Instead, Jodorowsky wanted a dream-like sequence of self-revelation. Jodorowsky states that his intention was to replicate for his audience the experience of LSD-induced hallucinations, without having to take the LSD. He wanted to open the minds of viewers to possibilities. By doing this, he has chosen a trippy happy ending where the book did not had. What the hell is with that ending, he wanted!? Without spoiling too much of it, it made little sense and felt like a spiritual cop-out. Over 30 minutes of deleted scenes go further into the plot and differences between Herbert's vision and Jodorowsky's planned film in the documentary special features and you can see, clearly why this movie wouldn't had work. What made it, worst, is the fact that Jodorowsky chose to adapt the novel without ever having even reading it! If made, the movie would certainly lose some themes that Frank Herbert wanted to put. I do give some credit, some of Jodorowsky's themes were indeed complex meditation of society, but the way, he wanted to make it, didn't look so clear. First off, the length of the movie, he wanted to make. 14 to 10 hours sit is a hard watch, even for any die-hard Sci-Fiction fan. The acting choices for the film are pretty outrageous. Salvador Dali as the Emperor? Orson Welles as a fat snob Baron? Mick Jagger as a speedo wearing bad guy? Is this a comedy, or a Sci-Fiction? This movie is soundly more and more like 1974's Zardoz with its bad concept. The one thing, Jodorowsky got right is hiring Dan O'Bannon, H.R Giger, Chris Foss, and Jean Giraud Moebius. Most of them, would later go on, making the awesome movie, 1979's Alien. Jodorowsky had already spent nearly a third of the budget without shooting a thing, the producer decided to replace him. The project ultimately stalled for financial reasons. The film rights lapsed until 1982, when they were purchased by Italian filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis, who eventually released the 1984 film Dune, directed by David Lynch. Watching the documentary, it made it seem like Jodorowsky won it out in the end, but watching this documentary, and watching Lynch's Dune, I can't see Jodorowky doing better. I would even say if Jodorowsky's Dune had been released. It would flopped, and Star Wars might never have been given the green light, which would be a shame. So, I'm glad, it never got made. Now to the documentary, the film had this mostly one-sided cult like praise, as everybody saying this movie would be awesome, and its Hollywood fault, for not understanding art. Excuse me, there are reasons, why certain art films are great, and other sucks. It's the fact, the people put a lot of work and heart into it. The documentary biggest mistake, is using Hollywood as a main reason excuse why the movie was never made. Just because the studio decline to fund it, doesn't mean the movie couldn't be made. The documentary felt so whinny, without little work to show. Instead of doing countless interviews about why Jodorowky's dream will never get made. Why don't the documentary, instead focus on pitching Jodorowsky's ideas to people that can fund it. That's the biggest fault of the documentary. It felt so temper tantrum, showing Jodorowsky is bitching, while doing nothing after the fail attempt. 'The goal of life is to create a soul", he says in the film. What does he knows? He's such a hypocrite. Why bother making a documentary about a person who give up? How is this uplifting? Another fault of the documentary is the audio track. Half of the time, you can't understand, half of the people being talk to. It really needed so sub-titles. Then the movie even has the nerves, to keep an interview that get interrupt by a cat in the film. WTF!? Overall: The documentary was pretty entertaining, even if I don't agree with most of the ideas, Jodorowsky had for the film version of Dune. The production art-work feature in the film are beautiful to look at, and probably is the highlight of the film. It's a must watch for any film student, or Sci-Fiction nut. A good 'What If' documentary for sure.