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I Found David Lynch’s Lost 'Dune II' Script

It was only about halfway done, but the script David Lynch wrote for the sequel to his 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel, "Dune," was still better than "Dune Messiah."

He also cracked a way to tell the complex story of Herbert's 1969 novel Dune Messiah, easily the least cinematic book in the series due to its emphasis on palace intrigue over action, along with the inner turmoil of a reluctant dictator (Paul Atreides) in place of a traditional hero’s journey. The half-finished script also features the return of Lynch's oft-maligned inner voice monologues, such as when Abulurd thinks to himself: “Yes … this Scytale could make a good distrans—unwittingly … yes!” (For the uninitiated, a “distrans” is essentially a person or animal carrying an implanted message that can be unlocked with a word, not unlike William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic.) He may have voted for Reagan and Obama, and told interviewer Richard Barney that he is “not a political person,” but adapting Dune Messiah would have forced Lynch to pick a side: Does he consider Paul a true hero, or a reluctant horror who killed 61 billion (with a “b”) people?

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