I love Lynch's film version of Dune - but particularly the extended cut that was recently released on DVD. I really liked the feel of the original theatrical version, but it always seemed rushed to me, like there were big chunks missing. And there were. Much of this was restored in the extended version. Dune could have easily been 6 hours long. With the extended version we get 3.

I should preface this by saying I saw the movie long before I read the book, and I am glad that I did it that way. When I did read the book, all the characters from the film inhabited the pages in my mind in the style and aesthetic vision of the Dune film. And I really like seeing the Dune world in that way. It was like visualizing one big long extended version of the film that I wish existed. There were some things that had to be left out, and some things that were changed. But I feel most of them were necessary for filmmaking at the time, and I actually like the movie's addition of using amplified vocal sounds as a weapon with 'weirding modules' - this was NOT in the book (standard combat was used instead), but I think it's great.

Also, Frank Herbert apparently liked Lynch's vision of Dune, and gave it his approval, saying that if you want to see what Dune really looks like then see this film. He also liked the extended cut much better than the edited version.

I'll go with what Frank Herbert said.

--SKot

P.S. - When I read the book, almost all of the characters appeared as their movie actor counterparts in my head. Incidentally, the one casting that I just couldn't picture as that character in the book was Patrick Stuart (pre-Star Trek TNG!) as Gurney Halleck. I thought he was great as Gurney, but somehow he just didn't match the way the character in the book looked. I had a different mental picture in my head for Gurney... something more like John Rhys-Davies portraying Gimli.