What people think it is: A huge mess that doesn’t take enough time to develop its concepts and characters. They also think it’s a film that does the book a disservice by not representing the novel in its entirety and complexity.

It also takes heat for it’s direction by David Lynch.

What it is: If you’re looking for an exact duplication of the book, of course you’re disappointed. But for a David Lynch film, it’s surprisingly coherent and complex, that develops a universe, full of possibilities. It also develops the relations between the characters and the political relations between the different regions of the world. For what it is, it’s not a complete dumpster-fire of a film.

Could it have been better if David Lynch was able to direct it his way? Absolutely.