Ridley Scott’s Lost Dune Script Found: 'I Don't Think It Would’ve Made Fans Happy'

This week marks the 40th anniversary of David Lynch's "Dune," a film that initially bombed at the box office with a $40 million haul upon its release on December 14, 1984. Over the years, it has cultivated a dedicated cult following, especially when juxtaposed with Denis Villeneuve's recent two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's iconic novel. In May 1981, after Ridley Scott withdrew from the project, David Lynch, known for his unconventional style, was announced as the director for mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis.

Until recently, scant information had emerged about the version Ridley Scott developed for De Laurentiis before Lynch took over. Thanks to the efforts of T.D. Nguyen, a 133-page draft of Scott's unproduced "Dune" film from October 1980, penned by Rudy Wurlitzer (known for "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Walker"), was discovered in the Coleman Luck archives at Wheaton College and shared with this author.

When Scott joined the project following the success of "Alien" in 1979, Frank Herbert had already crafted a sprawling two-part screenplay that was overly faithful to the book but lacked cinematic flair, as previously reported by Wired and Inverse. Scott identified a handful of scenes from Herbert's script that he wanted to use but ultimately enlisted Wurlitzer to rewrite it from scratch in London, as pre-production commenced at Pinewood Studios. Like Herbert's and Villeneuve's later versions, it was intended as the first part of a two-film series.

Rudy Wurlitzer described the adaptation process to Prevue Magazine in 1984, saying, "The Dune adaptation was one of the most difficult jobs I’ve ever done. It took more time to break it down into a working outline than to write the final script. I believe we kept to the spirit of the book but, in a sense, we rarefied it. We interjected a somewhat different sensibility." Ridley Scott echoed this sentiment in a 2021 interview with Total Film, stating, "We did a script, and the script is pretty fucking good."

Several factors contributed to the collapse of Ridley Scott's "Dune" project, including the emotional toll of his brother Frank's death, his reluctance to shoot the film in Mexico as demanded by De Laurentiis, a budget exceeding $50 million, and the allure of the more viable "Blade Runner" project at Filmways. Universal Pictures executive Thom Mount noted in this author's book A Masterpiece in Disarray – David Lynch's Dune that "Rudy’s version of the script did not receive unanimous, glowing enthusiasm."

Was Wurlitzer's adaptation a poor cinematic execution of Herbert's expansive story, or was it too dark, violent, and politically charged for a mainstream studio blockbuster? Readers can explore our detailed script analysis with expert insights to form their own opinions.

Rudy Wurlitzer (age 87) was approached for this article but was unable to participate. Ridley Scott was also contacted but chose not to comment.

A Wilder Shade of Paul

The October 1980 draft of "Dune" opens with an impressionistic dream montage of deserts, where white dust vapors morph into "apocalyptic armies burning and pillaging their way across the universe," signaling Paul's "terrible purpose" from the outset. Ridley Scott's visual style, described as dense as an 88-layer cake, is evident in phrases like "birds and insects become a whirling hysteria of motion," showcasing the dynamic energy he brings to the narrative.

As Scott told Total Film, "We did a very good take on Dune, because early days, I’d work very, very closely with the writer. I was always glomming the look of the film onto what he or she was writing." This vision is capped by a desert erupting into darkness, dreamt by Paul Atreides, who awakens to rain pelting the windows of Castle Caladan. In this version, Paul is a 7-year-old with long blonde hair, about to be tested by the Reverend Mother with "the box." His recitation of the Litany Against Fear during the ordeal is crosscut with his mother Jessica's, underscoring their psychic bond. Visuals of a burning hand and flesh falling off bone, reminiscent of Lynch's film, are included but are not real.

After passing this test, young Paul retrieves a sword from a guard using The Voice and nearly kills a sleeping Duncan Idaho to test if "a true warrior never sleeps." This Paul embodies a "savage innocence." Stephen Scarlata, producer of the documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune," notes, "Rudy Wurlitzer’s version of Paul is far more assertive. He actively takes charge. We even see a flash-forward of his growth spanning from age 7 to 21, where his relentless training leads him to surpass Duncan Idaho. Personally, I prefer Lynch’s depiction of Paul. There’s an added tension in believing Paul might defeat Gurney, only to realize he doesn’t. This vulnerability makes us feel more fear and concern for him, especially when Paul and Jessica are forced to escape."

By age 21, Paul is a master swordsman, described as "handsome, charismatic, regal." Duncan, who replaces the omitted Gurney, has "broader with white hair and beard" and a humor akin to Jason Momoa's portrayal. Duncan's dialogue reflects his mentorship:

DUNCAN
It is a teacher's duty to have his pupil someday surpass him.
(smiling)
But, don't think you can relax. This is just one level you have reached. There are other, more perilous, methods to master. But, not now. Now we are going to get properly drunk.

Long Live the Emperor

The narrative shifts to a rock garden outside the castle where Jessica observes a gardener raking white pebbles into patterns. A sudden rain prompts the gardener to fall to his knees, proclaiming, "the Emperor is dead." This pivotal moment, as noted by screenwriter Ian Fried, who worked on Legendary's "Spectral" and an unproduced modern version of "The Island of Dr. Moreau," adds a new layer to the story. Fried told IGN, "I absolutely love the moment of Jessica looking out across the castle at the gardener raking white pebbles into patterns. Then all of a sudden it starts raining and the gardener falls to his knees, prostrates himself, looks up at the sky and says, 'the Emperor is dead.' I get chills just saying that. On the other hand, that's not at all from the book. There's so much material in Dune that to be adding new stuff is probably not what most people would have wanted or would want now. That was a really, really interesting part of the script, that the catalyst for everything is the Emperor dying."

The scene transitions to "the Emperor's Inner Kingdom," surrounded by snow peaks and a mystic circle, where members of the Twenty-Four Great Houses gather to mourn the Emperor. The atmosphere turns mystical as the dead Emperor speaks through an old Medium with hollowed-out eye sockets, bequeathing Duke Leto Atreides the Planet Dune/Arrakis to combat the looming darkness in the universe.

This darkness manifests in the form of Leto's cousin, Baron Harkonnen, who, through Feyd-Rautha, proposes splitting Arrakis' spice production to avoid conflict. Duke Leto rejects this offer. A line of dialogue closely resembles a famous quote from the 1984 film: "He who controls the spice controls the universe."

BARON
(to DR. YUEH)
Understand the position well before you leave. Who controls Dune controls the Spice, and who controls the Spice controls the Universe. Without me, your Duke controls nothing.

Mark Bennett of DuneInfo remarked, "Normally I have credited Lynch with this great line. Given that this was a De Laurentiis project script, I wonder if Lynch read it and borrowed that line, or came up with it independently?"

Flight of the Navigator

The Atreides family's departure from Caladan on a Guild Heighliner introduces a Navigator, a spice-mutated creature described as "an elongated FIGURE, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned, membranous hands, floating in a transparent outer container, like a loose, flexible skin; a fish in a strange sea with eyes of Total Blue." The Navigator takes a pill, falls into a coma, and charts the course with musical intonations, echoing themes from Scott's later film, "Prometheus."

Ian Fried expressed his disappointment, saying, "I absolutely loved that they were able to show the Navigator. Even though I love the Denis Villeneuve movies, I'm really disappointed we didn't get to see his take on that. A missed opportunity."

Upon arriving on Arrakis, the Atreides' Arakeen fortress is described with dark chambers and massive fireplaces, reminiscent of Scott's "Legend." The world exudes a medieval tone, with an emphasis on swords, feudal customs, and fealty. Bosch-like Dew Collectors use scythes to gather moisture in the castle gardens, reflecting Scott's concurrent development of a dragon-filled "Tristan and Isolde" project.

At a weather station, Liet Kynes introduces his daughter Chani to Duke Leto and Paul. The ecological theme is highlighted through dissected native creatures, with Kynes discussing the devastating impact of spice harvesting. Chani accompanies them on an Ornithopter trip through the desert, her interactions subtle yet significant. The flight through the smoky chimneys of a factory ship mirrors the hellish cityscapes of "Blade Runner." When a worm attacks the ship, Kynes and Chani choose to trek the desert on foot, allowing the last two factory workers to escape on the Duke's 'Thopter.

This scene is intercut with house servant Shadout Mapes gifting Lady Jessica a crysknife, and Jessica hearing city dwellers begging for water outside her castle window. The streets of Arakeen are depicted as squalid urban "ghettos" with homeless peddlers, dilapidated vehicles, and piles of skeletons, emphasizing class disparity inspired by Gillo Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers."

A new action-packed scene follows Paul and Duncan tracking a Harkonnen agent through the city streets to a trading post, where they engage in a bar fight reminiscent of '80s action films. Duncan wields an axe like Conan the Barbarian, while Paul kills a man with a finger jab to the throat.

DUNCAN picks up the axe.

DUNCAN
(looking at it)
Nasty little instrument. Not very well balanced, but it will have to do.

With a short snap to his wrist, he throws it at BURLY MAN coming towards him holding a long iron bar. The axe strikes him in the chest, splitting him in two.

Stephen Scarlata commented, "That feels like a bar brawl you’d find in a Burt Reynolds or Walter Hill action movie. The fight scene feels out of place because it makes Paul seem too invincible too soon. His journey is about growth - learning to survive, adapt, and lead. If he’s already effortlessly beating enemies, we lose the tension/fear for his safety key to making his transformation meaningful."

In this brawl, they meet the stoic Fremen leader Stilgar, who leads them to a smuggler's market where he decapitates a lone Harkonnen agent. The scene shifts to the Bene Gesserit Jessica levitating during meditation, and she and the Duke decide to conceive a child that night, with Jessica's dialogue explicitly stating, "When you release your seed it will be like sacred oil poured into an altar fire."

Baron Wasteland

After receiving a secret message from a blinking insect, Dr. Yueh shares a moment of veiled regret with Paul before sending him to the city for a night of freedom. Paul follows a homeless boy into a Fremen Spice Den, inhaling blue spice vapor and experiencing visions of his unborn sister Alia chanting "Maud'Dib." He then encounters an Old Crone overseeing a pit with a red ball and a tiny snake-like sandworm, which he hypnotizes and drops into a conch shell.

Yueh poisons and kills Thufir during a chess game, then deactivates the house shield, allowing Harkonnen Death Commandoes to enter the castle. Paul, returning from the slums, is attacked by a Hunter-Seeker, which in this script is "a bat-like creature with a cobra's head." He manages to decapitate it with one swift movement as Jessica enters the room.

Stephen Scarlata finds the Hunter-Seeker scene intriguing, noting, "Introducing a biological twist to the usual mechanical device mirrors Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade Dune from a few years earlier, where the Hunter-Seeker is a flying creature with a bomb strapped to its back… Paul slows his heart rate, disarms the creature, and throws the bomb out the window. Both versions experiment with an animalistic take."

Duke Leto decapitates several Death Commandoes before Yueh shoots him with a dart. Duncan arrives to save his poisoned Duke but is stabbed by Yueh, whom Duncan then cuts in half. Yueh's motivation is solely to obtain the antidote to his own poisoning by the Baron. Jessica places a poison gas capsule in the dying Duke's mouth, and Duncan fends off Sardaukar, sacrificing himself to allow Paul and Jessica to escape in a 'Thopter. The violence is graphic and decidedly R-rated.

The Deep Desert Controversy

Paul and Jessica's escape into the deep desert is intense, with Paul's piloting causing G-forces that ripple their cheeks. After a wing is clipped, they crash-land as sand quickly fills the cabin, eroding the fuselage. They wait out the storm in a Stilltent, don Stillsuits with hoods and mouth filters, and search for Fremen. A scene akin to Villeneuve's film features Paul facing a massive sandworm without fear.

Notably absent from this draft is the incestuous relationship between Paul and Jessica, which had been included in earlier versions and incensed both Herbert and De Laurentiis. Herbert told The Sacramento Bee in 1982, "He wanted to do an incest movie! Can you imagine the effect that would have had on the Dune fans?" Wurlitzer confirmed in Prevue Magazine, "In one draft I introduced some erotic scenes between Paul and his mother, Jessica. I felt there was always a latent, but very strong, Oedipal attraction between them, and I took it one note further. It went right in the middle of the film, as a supreme defiance of certain boundaries, perhaps making Paul even more heroic for having broken a forbidden code."

Although no mother/son union is present in this draft, there is a moment where Paul and Jessica "lie on top of each other" while sliding down a sand dune, losing their supplies.

They take refuge in an ancient cave formed by a giant worm carcass, waiting for morning. At dawn, a group of Fremen led by Stilgar arrives on a giant Sandsled. Jamis challenges Paul to a death duel, which Paul eagerly accepts. Jessica, not Chani, advises him on parrying and hands him the crysknife from Shadout Mapes, declaring him the Lisan al-gaib, a Bene Gesserit-seeded legend Paul must now embody.

The battle with Jamis is brutal and swift, moving into the worm carcass where Paul ends his opponent. Some Fremen take items from Jamis' body, claiming they were "a friend of Jamis," and Paul sheds tears for his fallen foe, marveling the Fremen. These elements are similar to the Jamis battle David Lynch filmed but cut from his theatrical release.

At night, the Fremen conduct a Spice ceremony, passing a bowl around like a "peace pipe." Jessica abstains from inhaling, but Paul does, earning the name Maud'Dib from an old-timer. They confer with Kynes, who is aware of the Lisan al-gaib legend but supports it to expedite the transformation of Arrakis through its vast underground water caches.

Paul learns that Jamis' widow, Chani, becomes his new mate and Jessica her new mother. Paul offers Jamis' water to Chani, who declines, so he pours it into the tribe's reservoir. The Fremen then board a Sundancer, a giant trimaran with colored sails, to cross the great salt flats. Kynes aims to unite the Fremen tribes behind the Lisan al-gaib legend, encouraging Chani to stay close to Paul and remain loyal to their ecological goals. Chani, however, harbors a deep-seated fear of Jessica and her influence over Paul.

Paul, in a seemingly authoritarian manner, demands complete acceptance from Chani:

PAUL
I ask for acceptance without reservation, even for that which you cannot understand.

CHANI
As we share the same purpose, I withhold nothing from you.

Rudy Wurlitzer noted in 1984, "A true leader is never a clear model of Christian goodness. Many times he is ruthless, very determined, and willing to make sacrifices to serve certain ends. That doesn’t mean he has to be a consummate Machiavellian, only that certain shadings in his character make him a little dangerous, a bit abrupt. Even Christ drove the merchants out of the temple."

Ian Fried commented on this portrayal of Paul, saying, "I feel like Paul is almost a cipher. He's too much of a perfect Messiah. It's very hard to relate to him. It's not clear, based on this take on the material, that Paul's even the main character."

The script culminates in a Water of Life ceremony led by a seemingly female Shaman with three breasts and male genitals, who performs an erotic dance while her bald attendant, whose lips are sewn shut, has an epileptic fit. A 10-foot-long sandworm emerges, emitting smoky vapor, and dies in a water ditch, turning the water blue. Jessica drinks the Water of Life, merging auras with the Reverend Mother, and survives, proclaiming herself the new Reverend Mother. All Fremen now believe Paul is their Messiah.

As the new royal family stands before the Fremen, Paul alludes to a feat he must perform to prove himself. The script ends with Jessica, now in a black cloak, using a thumper to summon a giant sandworm, which Paul presumably will ride. This ending falls short of depicting the iconic worm-riding scene, which Frank Herbert told The Vancouver Sun in June 1980 was essential: "That's at the heart of the book. The worm is the monster, the monster that lives under the surface, in your head, the monster that lives everywhere. I want that in the movie."

Conclusions

Frank Herbert's overarching theme in the "Dune" series was the disastrous impact of charismatic leaders on humanity, a theme ignored by Lynch but central to Villeneuve's adaptation and planned continuation in "Dune Messiah." Wurlitzer's October 1980 script, while possibly unfinished or intended as the first part of a two-film series, portrays Paul as a confident young man accepting his destiny as a universal dictator, with complicit actors like Chani and Kynes bolstering his rise for their own planetary goals.

Despite its divergence from Herbert's material, Wurlitzer's script was conceived during the dawn of the modern science fiction movie era, following "Star Wars" and Scott's "Alien." The filmmakers may have expected too much from audiences in crafting a revisionist R-rated sci-fi film addressing real-world issues like ecological devastation and exploitation. Similar challenges faced Zack Snyder with his adaptation of "Watchmen."

As Scott told the Tribune in 1979, "For years sci-fi has been treated as underground material, yet there's always been a vast and enthusiastic readership for sci-fi novels. Dune has sold 10 million copies."

The script also enhances visual storytelling by introducing important relationships earlier, unlike Lynch's film. Instead of the Emperor's convoluted plan driving the Duke's downfall, it is the chaos following the Emperor's death. This shift makes sense given the Emperor's minimal role in the story. The script also compensates for the absence of characters like Gurney and Rabban with more focus on Kynes.

The initial draft of Lynch's version by Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren ended on a cliffhanger with Paul and Jessica fleeing a burning Arrakeen castle and vowing revenge. Wurlitzer's script concludes with the Water of Life ceremony and their acceptance into the tribe, just before the book's two-year time jump. Villeneuve's "Dune: Part One" splits the difference by ending with the Paul/Jamis duel.

The studio's lukewarm reception to Wurlitzer's script, given its grim and mature tone, is understandable. Mark Bennett, who has run his Dune fan site for nearly three decades, noted, "I don't think it would have made Dune fans happy. Too many deviations from the novel and too much 'magic,' something that Herbert's novel avoids. A bit like the Lynch Messiah script, without the second half you don't know how things would have played off. I'm assuming that Part 2 would have been a guerrilla war with the Harkonnens, Paul and Feyd would have had their duel at the end, then Paul becomes Emperor… Who has ruled the Universe since the Emperor died?"

The legacy of Wurlitzer and Scott's "Dune" includes H.R. Giger's phallic sandworm design and Harkonnen furniture made from collected skeletons, now housed at the Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland. Vittorio Storaro, originally set to lens this version, later worked on the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune. Scott and De Laurentiis eventually collaborated on "Hannibal" in 2001, which grossed $350 million worldwide. Some script elements also found their way into "Blade Runner" and share similarities with "Gladiator II," including themes of royal betrayal, strong mother/son bonds, and beheadings.

Rudy Wurlitzer's work, which Scott himself called "a decent distillation of Frank Herbert," stands as the only big-screen adaptation to give equal weight to the novel’s ecological, political, and spiritual aspects. Lynch's focused more on the spiritual, while Villeneuve's emphasized the dangers of charismatic leadership. Ian Fried concluded, "The ecological aspect of Dune is covered in this script in a way it's never been covered in any other piece of material. That's one of the strengths of this adaptation: It feels like it's important to the story being told. It doesn't hit you over the head with it. It genuinely is a consequence of what man has done to this planet, the ecological issues that have developed around spice mining. There are a lot more clear motivations in the Ridley Scott Dune script for a larger variety of characters."

Perhaps in the future, another visionary filmmaker will bring forth a version of "Dune" that aligns more closely with its ecological themes. Given that Herbert's book will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year, its themes of environmental decay, the dangers of fascism, and the need for societal awakening remain as pertinent today as they will be decades hence.