Hold the Line

David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's world-famous sci-fi epic Dune is remembered mainly for flopping so spectacularly that Lynch would never again mount such a mainstream production. Yet for all its "Star Wars"-challenging pretentions -- its enormous budget, huge set-pieces, and estimable cast -- the film is weird, deeply so, deserving of that eponymous adjective -- "Lynchian" -- that so many now use to describe texts and events with the least bit of surreality.

But even Shai-Hulud, the mighty sandworm, is as nothing next to the sight of Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, Duke Leto Atreides' master-at-arms, charging valliantly into battle with a rifle and a...pug?


Visiting death upon the enemy by cute overload, no doubt. Or perhaps it's no pug at all but a pug-shaped lump of C-4. Either way, it's good to see evidence of those leadership qualities that would serve him so well in some other lifetime: