Thursday, March 13, 2008

Dune Challenge: The Baron

Ok this weeks Challenge over on Unleaded Artists was Frank Herbert's Dune. Here's my riff on the Baron and Feyd walking around on Geidi Prime.

5 comments:

Bill Ferguson said...

Very cool. I love your colors! I heard that Salvadore Dali did some of the predesigns for that movie before he died? I don't know?

Ray Lederer said...

Thanks Bill. Dali huh? Wow I could see that. What does Wikipedia say...?

Ray Lederer said...

Here we go: http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/dune_jodorowsky_991019.html

"In the early 1970s, underground filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, best known for the psychedelic western "El Topo," assembled an all-star pre-production team to "recreate" Frank Herbert's novel. Swamped in the Hollywood backwash of "Star Wars," the film was never made..."

Now that would've been cool!

"...In perhaps the ultimate coup for Jodorowsky's unworldly sensibilities, even surrealist painter *Salvador Dali* was onboard in a small but important role as the galactic Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. After a brief but typically eccentric display of egoism, Dali agreed to spend an hour on the film set as the emperor for a fee of $100,000 -- an extreme sum for a project with a reported budget of $20 million.

To work around this apparent cinematic problem -- apparently caused by Dali's desire to earn more for his dramatic efforts than, if not God, then Greta Garbo -- Jodorowsky reworked the script, assigning most of Shaddam's scenes to "a polyethylene puppet" molded to exactly resemble the money-crazed surrealist.

Fortuitously, Dali introduced Jodorowsky to the work of Swiss painter H.R. Giger, who was quickly pressed into creating the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime and all associated elements of design and costuming.

Giger was captivated by the chance to "arrange a whole planet," as he put it in his essay, "Dune: Giger on Jodorowsky."

"My planet was controlled by sinister magic and the indulgence of aggressions," he recalled of Giedi Prime. "Perversions were on the agenda -- briefly, an area for me."

Jodorowsky's samurai would work on the film until 1976, when they fell away one by one. By 1977, the project was dead."

Ray Lederer said...

And that's why you can go over to Giger's website and order a reproduction of one of his Harkonnen chairs for $15k. Cool!

Bill Ferguson said...

Jesus you did your research! Mr. Giger's art is so incredibly ahead of the times even now.