Dune

[Dukasaur]

Only 16 more hours until I get to see it! I'm like a little kid on the night before Christmas!

[jonesthecurl]

Saw it on IMAX yesterday, followed that evening by a live 'Rocky Horror'.

[Dukasaur]

Saw it on IMAX yesterday, followed that evening by a live 'Rocky Horror'.

Cool!

Yes, I'm definitely seeing it in IMAX also.

[riskllama]

i've watched this fan edit/redux a few times now when i'm in the mood for Dune, pretty good...



always found it a bit weird that he can just post this on the youtubes & it hasn't been taken down or anything...*shrugs*

[mookiemcgee]

Only 16 more hours until I get to see it! I'm like a little kid on the night before Christmas!

I really loved it! Better than I expected

[Dukasaur]

In general, really really good. Not perfect.

Splitting the book into two movies was a good idea. There's simply too much there for one movie; but let's hope the second movie actually happens and we're not left hanging with an unfinished product.

Visually, 5/5. Excellent depiction of the Dune World and the technology of the series. The ornithopters are beautiful.

Book adaptation, 4.9/5. I'm tempted to say 5/5. Very faithful adaptation. Very few plot differences, mostly trivial, and mostly for the better.

The largest plot difference is that in the book we spend a lot of time wondering who the traitor is and investigating. In the movie, the traitor is identified very quickly without any great fanfare. I understand why: the movie is already more than two and a half hours. Some minor subplots had to be axed to prevent bloat. The search for the traitor got the axe in the interest of time economy.

The death of Liet Kynes in the book was just tragic and lonely, a vehicle for nothing but despair. In the movie, it was used for dramatic effect and actually served a plot purpose.

Damn, just saw the time. Gotta get to work. I'll continue tomorrow.

[jonesthecurl]

I just loved the ornithopters. Always had trouble envisaging them.

[therozza]

At last, the identities of the 2 people that actually finished "Dune" has been revealed!

[Dukasaur]

At last, the identities of the 2 people that actually finished "Dune" has been revealed!

Lol, the book sold 20 million copies, so I suspect there's more than 2 people that finished it.

I ran out of steam in the fourth sequel, though. Never made it to Chapterhouse.

Anyway, back to the movie.

In general, really really good. Not perfect.

Splitting the book into two movies was a good idea. There's simply too much there for one movie; but let's hope the second movie actually happens and we're not left hanging with an unfinished product.

Visually, 5/5. Excellent depiction of the Dune World and the technology of the series. The ornithopters are beautiful.

Book adaptation, 4.9/5. I'm tempted to say 5/5. Very faithful adaptation. Very few plot differences, mostly trivial, and mostly for the better.

The largest plot difference is that in the book we spend a lot of time wondering who the traitor is and investigating. In the movie, the traitor is identified very quickly without any great fanfare. I understand why: the movie is already more than two and a half hours. Some minor subplots had to be axed to prevent bloat. The search for the traitor got the axe in the interest of time economy.

The death of Liet Kynes in the book was just tragic and lonely, a vehicle for nothing but despair. In the movie, it was used for dramatic effect and actually served a plot purpose.

Damn, just saw the time. Gotta get to work. I'll continue tomorrow.

So anyway, this morning I listed the strongest points. Tonight I have to mention a few weaker ones.

Casting/Acting. 4/5. Lady Jessica, absolutely awesome! Paul Atreides, Gurney Halleck, excellent. Both Harkonnens, very good. Duncan Idaho, Chani, pretty good. Liet Kynes, Reverend Mother Mohaim, Duke Leto, all reasonably good. Stilgar, kinda stilted, to be honest. I'm actually sad, because Javier Bardem has long been one of my favourite actors, but either this is the wrong role for him or he's getting old and complacent. Dr. Yueh, sucked.

Soundtrack/Score, 3/5. Good, but didn't really impress. Which is too bad, because a lot of the pre-release commentators said it was great and I expected much, but in the end there was nothing really memorable about it.

The ending. I have a hard time giving it a score. I have both good thoughts and bad thoughts about it.

On the minus side, it's rather anticlimactic. Paul and Jessica march off to Sietch Tabr with their new-found friends. Of course we know that in the second movie they're supposed to make a spectacular comeback and blow up the Shield Wall and humiliate the Emperor. But if the first movie was our only point of reference, we might assume that they're just going to go live peaceful lives as hermits in the desert. There's really not much dramatic tension.

On the plus side, this is once again Villeneuve being faithful to the book. This is where we are in the plot. Paul needs time to lick his wounds and learn the ways of the Fremen and build his army. Things are going to be quiet for a while, and you can respect Villeneuve not inserting some ludicrous twist just for the sake of inserting a ludicrous twist.

Ditto for the fight between Paul and Jamis. Villeneuve wraps it up in under a minute. Peter Jackson or Zack Snyder would have dragged it out for 45 minutes. On a visceral level, I was kinda hoping the fight would be more spectacular. But on an intellectual level, I'm glad that is was reasonably realistic and didn't give us some Legolas versus Godzilla level of stupidity.

Overall, I guess I'd give the ending 3.5/5. I would have liked a little more heart-pounding action. But I have to admire the decency and restraint.

[riskllama]

[mookiemcgee]

At last, the identities of the 2 people that actually finished "Dune" has been revealed!

Lol, the book sold 20 million copies, so I suspect there's more than 2 people that finished it.

I ran out of steam in the fourth sequel, though. Never made it to Chapterhouse.

Anyway, back to the movie.

In general, really really good. Not perfect.

Splitting the book into two movies was a good idea. There's simply too much there for one movie; but let's hope the second movie actually happens and we're not left hanging with an unfinished product.

Visually, 5/5. Excellent depiction of the Dune World and the technology of the series. The ornithopters are beautiful.

Book adaptation, 4.9/5. I'm tempted to say 5/5. Very faithful adaptation. Very few plot differences, mostly trivial, and mostly for the better.

The largest plot difference is that in the book we spend a lot of time wondering who the traitor is and investigating. In the movie, the traitor is identified very quickly without any great fanfare. I understand why: the movie is already more than two and a half hours. Some minor subplots had to be axed to prevent bloat. The search for the traitor got the axe in the interest of time economy.

The death of Liet Kynes in the book was just tragic and lonely, a vehicle for nothing but despair. In the movie, it was used for dramatic effect and actually served a plot purpose.

Damn, just saw the time. Gotta get to work. I'll continue tomorrow.

So anyway, this morning I listed the strongest points. Tonight I have to mention a few weaker ones.

Casting/Acting. 4/5. Lady Jessica, absolutely awesome! Paul Atreides, Gurney Halleck, excellent. Both Harkonnens, very good. Duncan Idaho, Chani, pretty good. Liet Kynes, Reverend Mother Mohaim, Duke Leto, all reasonably good. Stilgar, kinda stilted, to be honest. I'm actually sad, because Javier Bardem has long been one of my favourite actors, but either this is the wrong role for him or he's getting old and complacent. Dr. Yueh, sucked.

Soundtrack/Score, 3/5. Good, but didn't really impress. Which is too bad, because a lot of the pre-release commentators said it was great and I expected much, but in the end there was nothing really memorable about it.

The ending. I have a hard time giving it a score. I have both good thoughts and bad thoughts about it.

On the minus side, it's rather anticlimactic. Paul and Jessica march off to Sietch Tabr with their new-found friends. Of course we know that in the second movie they're supposed to make a spectacular comeback and blow up the Shield Wall and humiliate the Emperor. But if the first movie was our only point of reference, we might assume that they're just going to go live peaceful lives as hermits in the desert. There's really not much dramatic tension.

On the plus side, this is once again Villeneuve being faithful to the book. This is where we are in the plot. Paul needs time to lick his wounds and learn the ways of the Fremen and build his army. Things are going to be quiet for a while, and you can respect Villeneuve not inserting some ludicrous twist just for the sake of inserting a ludicrous twist.

Ditto for the fight between Paul and Jamis. Villeneuve wraps it up in under a minute. Peter Jackson or Zack Snyder would have dragged it out for 45 minutes. On a visceral level, I was kinda hoping the fight would be more spectacular. But on an intellectual level, I'm glad that is was reasonably realistic and didn't give us some Legolas versus Godzilla level of stupidity.

Overall, I guess I'd give the ending 3.5/5. I would have liked a little more heart-pounding action. But I have to admire the decency and restraint.

Fair review... I think some of the 'anti-climactic' choices were actually good choices by the film makers. As you said its more honest to the book, but I think they realized this isn't the first time someone has made this movie. You don't need to shock and awe since a huge number of your viewers aren't new to the story and so much of hollywood now action at the cost of storytelling. They had their share of action, but didn't let a need for action to interfere with the telling of the story.

I thought you comments about the weakness of the music was interesting. I frankly wasn't paying much attention to that element, outside of that kind of bass/drumbeat they used persistently. I'll probably try and rewatch it soon and by more attention to that detail. I did like some of the previous attempts at making this book into a movie, how did you feel this ranked vs them?

My biggest complaint? WTF were they doing with the bagpipes, that just seemed so out of place to me.

[riskllama]

Hans Zimmer did the score, no? he usually does good work. then again, he does so many movies, perhaps he is starting to finally burn out...

*also, Sean Young was hot AF as Chani in the David Lynch version. Lady Jessica was no slouch either, but i forget her name now.

[Dukasaur]

I did like some of the previous attempts at making this book into a movie, how did you feel this ranked vs them?

This is unquestionably the best so far. The 1984 version was visually beautiful but the script sucked and butchered the plot. The 2000 version was much more faithful to the book, but being made for TV instead of the big screen it lacked the visual impact. I haven't yet seen the alt-1984 version that llama posted.

My biggest complaint? WTF were they doing with the bagpipes, that just seemed so out of place to me.

Did seem a little odd. But the Great Houses all have little things tying them to their semi-mythical ancestries on Old Earth. 99% of Old Earth's culture was lost in the Butlerian Jihad. The tiny little scraps that remain are cherished. I think the bagpipes are meant to be exactly this. A tiny little scrap of prehistoric human culture that survived the Jihad and signals House Atreides' pre-Jihad ancestry.

[mookiemcgee]

My biggest complaint? WTF were they doing with the bagpipes, that just seemed so out of place to me.

Did seem a little odd. But the Great Houses all have little things tying them to their semi-mythical ancestries on Old Earth. 99% of Old Earth's culture was lost in the Butlerian Jihad. The tiny little scraps that remain are cherished. I think the bagpipes are meant to be exactly this. A tiny little scrap of prehistoric human culture that survived the Jihad and signals House Atreides' pre-Jihad ancestry.

Good note.

The sequel was officially green lit today by warner bros, but it's looking like summer/fall 2023 for release

[TheForgivenOne]

[Dukasaur]

Have you seen Paul's mom? I'd be Dune her too!

[therozza]

Playful, quasi -sexual with - I suggest hestitantly and I confess, with the merest suggestion of a RAGING BONER, a hint of Wildean Wizadry - hear, hear, SIR, HEAR, HEAR!

[saxitoxin]

OK I finally saw it, now I can read this thread.

Top Line: As a visual complement to the book it was AMAZING! As a standalone movie I'm not so sure. If I'd never read the book I would probably have been like "WTF did I just watch?" But I did very much like it. (Like Duk, I only made it through the fourth book ... at a certain point Frank Herbert let the series basically become a way to play out his weird sexual fantasies.)

Items:

- They could have killed 45 minutes off the run time if they'd trimmed the number of dream sequences and slow-motion scenes. These got to be a little distracting after a bit. I get that they were trying to make is psychedelic to emphasize the central role of the spice melange but, for the viewer (IMO), it just became disruptive.
- The bagpiper was great. The other films didn't include any hints about Old Earth; the uninitiated would have just thought it was some random space opera like Star Wars or Chronicles of Riddick. The appearance of the bagpiper and - at the very beginning - the bottom right corner of the screen appearance of the date "Year 10,191" established that this was the current universe.
- I was very impressed at the set and costuming design. Faithful to the book, they were absolutely careful to make sure there were no computers anywhere - everything was analog down to the altitude dials in the ornithopters. And the baroque costumes were one of the solid carry-overs from the Lynch film.
- I liked the fact that the Emperor Shaddam never appeared in the film. It keeps him this figure in your imagination in the background.
- The music was basically good, the Arabic and North African homages were great and on-target. However, it lacked a big, sweeping orchestral theme like the 1984 film.
- One of the failures of the Lynch film is that it was very much an action hero film. This one they constantly hinted at the larger political battle going on and how it wasn't just about Paul defeating the Harkonnens but also of getting a message to the Lansraad about the Emperor's treachery. It made it much more sweeping.

[jonesthecurl]

I went to see it with my son. He knew nothing of the setting. He was totally blown away - actually more than I was. I thought it was a trifle slow in places, he was captivated the whole way through and is impatient for the next installment.
That evening we went to see a live 'Rocky Horror'. He knew very little of that either (I know, failed parent.) He was buzzing from that too. He told me the next day he had a crazy dream in which the setting was 'Dune', but the characters were 'Rocky'. They should make a movie of that.
For reference, he's 25 now.

[saxitoxin]

He told me the next day he had a crazy dream in which the setting was 'Dune', but the characters were 'Rocky'.

I think you better check under his mattress to see if he's hidden any Spice Melange joints.

[Dukasaur]

He told me the next day he had a crazy dream in which the setting was 'Dune', but the characters were 'Rocky'.

I think you better check under his mattress to see if he's hidden any Spice Melange joints.

[jonesthecurl]

Sadly he's moved back to NJ - this was by way of a send-off. Dave and Buster's and several beers were also involved.

[saxitoxin]

Sadly he's moved back to NJ -

It's sad that he moved, or sad that he moved to New Jersey?

[mookiemcgee]

Sadly he's moved back to NJ -

It's sad that he moved, or sad that he moved to New Jersey?

Almost certainly both

[bigtoughralf]

Never read any of the books but I just saw the film and thought it was great. I don't understand the complaints about the scene-setting elements of the film, I thought that was what helped get you into the politics and make it more epic (i.e. more like Gladiator, less like some Marvel film). The length felt fine, I could have easily watched for longer. Was also nice to see a movie full of strong sisters who weren't made to wear catsuits or bikinis to be deemed worthy of inclusion.

The only bit I didn't like was that it took them ages to explain why

show