The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
[Dune]Open Spoilers for movie, closed for books!
localhjay
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
DUNE
Dune (Part One) is pretty damn good movie, dir. by the excellent Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049). The first of atleast two films, this adaptation of the 1965 by Frank Herbert mostly covers the first half of the book. We follow Paul Atreides as he and House Atreides are entrusted with stewarding the desert planet Arrakis. As it is the lone source of the spice Melange, and the only means of interstellar travel in the distant future of 10,191, the planet is coveted by many.
Starting Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, and the worms from Beetlejuice
Dune (Part One) is pretty damn good movie, dir. by the excellent Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049). The first of atleast two films, this adaptation of the 1965 by Frank Herbert mostly covers the first half of the book. We follow Paul Atreides as he and House Atreides are entrusted with stewarding the desert planet Arrakis. As it is the lone source of the spice Melange, and the only means of interstellar travel in the distant future of 10,191, the planet is coveted by many.
Starting Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, and the worms from Beetlejuice
localhjay on
+10
Posts
Oh, the new one is fine too.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
I uh
Didn't get this reading
The Jamis stuff doesn't exactly play well. "Oh, this black guy just has to be my friend and teacher! Wait, no he's not. I have to kill him to realize my power." I know the visions are a metaphor, but... yikes.
I have my second screening tomorrow so will get a chance to see again and consider if I am missing something.
Quasi-related: I was really hoping to eventually see it in Regal's "4DX" which is a hilarious attempt at upcharging for an amusement park / cinema experience that involves moving seats, haptic seat feedback (think a lumbar support slamming into your back) atmosphere effects, etc but it stops showing in 4DX after tomorrow so I will miss it.
Are you like, getting Jamis confused with Stilgar? Jamis was never anything even approaching a friend to Paul.
There's a short, probably metaphorical, vision of Jamis a bit they met the Fremens where Jamis says something like "I will teach you the ways of Arrakis".
Which he does, since the ways of Arrakis is to kill people.
Paul: Upgrade
Chani: Upgrade
Jessica: Downgrade
Leto: Draw
Duncan: Upgrade!
Gurney: Downgrade!
Raban: Upgrade!
Stilgar: Downgrade
Baron: Draw
Welcome to Larrytown!
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Conversely, upgrade with a couple of exclamation point to Kynes.
I'm wondering exactly what was left on the cutting floor with her.
Both good additions! I completely blanked on Kynes. I really liked the updated version, but I have great love for von Sydow in the more limited Lynch version of the character as well.
Steam | XBL
I don’t know that “I have to kill potential allies so that I will not, myself, be killed” is particularly close to “I have to kill him to realize my power.” I mean, I guess Paul can’t realize his power if he’s dead, but that’s… really not what Paul’s worrying about in that moment.
As for Jamis being an exemplar of the magical black man… I just don’t think that’s the case. It’s a little closer to the old (and related) “noble savage” trope, but even that is undermined—pretty throughly undermined, in fact—by the fact that Jamis doesn’t want to help Paul and Jessica learn a lesson. He wants them dead to preserve the safety of his tribe; he has his own motivation contrary to the white interlopers.
I do wish Jessica had come down a little harder on… basically everyone in that scene, though. I felt the absence of her calculated and intentionally cruel, “How does it feel to be a killer?” from the original book, in particular. Honestly, I think Villeneuve’s film has a way of shortchanging Jessica repeatedly.
EDIT:
book spoiler
But Dune short range?
And even though I knew it was coming, the image of one of the fremen riding them at the very end gave me chills.
I thought that guy was just some random Harkonnen functionary
Also I thought Javier Bardem was terrific as Larry Stilgar
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I mentioned this in the movies thread, but Piter really felt like a waste of a great casting decision. I hope that, if we ever get some obscenely long Jackson-style special edition, that we get to see more of what makes that character special.
I dunno why I was hesitant over Bardem before I saw the movie, but his Stilgar was fucking great. Loved him.
In fact I don't recall them mentioning anything at all about forbidding thinking machines. There might have been something alluded to when they talked about the Spacing Guild navigators, but if so it was easy to lose in the flow of things because I certainly don't remember it. It's not super important to Paul's story, so I'm not like angry or anything, but it's a weird thing to leave out when it is quite a foundational aspect of the setting.
I didn't particularly have a problem with Jamis being different in the visions than in actuality. Paul was pretty happy to be able to call himself Paul Muad'Dib, instead of just Muad'Dib. Plus it was a nice bit of misdirection.
I'm REALLY glad I saw it on imax... just incredible. I am 100% in on the worldbuilding and aesthetics going on here. Can't wait for the second part.
I really did want to hand Paul a tissue a few times though
- I thought the acting in general was great, but they did make a few alterations to characterization that I'm still a bit on the fence about
- I feel they leaned a bit too far toward turning Leto a the virtuous tragic father figure. If I recall correctly Leto in the book absolutely engages in some far more sketchy behavior than what is implied in the movie. I get they wanted to make Leto more palatable to the audience to crank up the tragedy around his demise, but still, I feel that taking away some of the more nuanced aspects of his life and rule do an overall disservice to the narrative.
- Similar with Jessica, downplaying her role as a Bene Gesserit a bit, framing her more as an unwitting victim rather than a manipulator in her own right, though they did do that scene with her and Paul in the tent when he lashes out at her that at least somewhat shows the audience that what she and the Bene Gesserit did was pretty fucked up, and her role in escaping her kidnapping did show off how scary she can be, so that at least helps address some of my concerns in that vein.
- Maybe it's because I'm an old, but I think the Gom Jabbar scene was better in the 1984 original (cheezy though it was). The burning hand was far more gruesome than the sanitized "ash" hand we got here, making the scene more visceral, and Chalumet going stoic compared to McLanahan's over-emoting didn't feel as affecting to me
- Everything about the technology in Dune was amazing. The Ornithoptors - 10/10. Seeing the Spice collectors and even the freakin' silos made me nostalgic for Dune 2 on the PC
- Pitor was under-utilized; and where was Feyd?
- I'm not sold on the Harkonnen aesthetic. Feels too cruel and alien and breaks my suspension of disbelief somewhat. Again, this might just be 80s nostalgia talking here, but the old cast, as ridiculous and gross as they were, still somehow felt more relatable that these weird unsettling monsters that we got
- Bardem's Stilgar was absolutely great. Look forward to more from him in the next movie
- Action scenes in general were tense and exciting. The shields are a neat special effect and also provide a good shorthand to what and who is getting damaged and how.
- This includes the kidnapping into the sandstorm scene - great tension, great execution!
- I think they could have cut down on the prophetic visions a bit. They felt like they interrupted the flow of the movie sometimes. I knew what I was looking at because I was familiar with the story, but I could see uninformed viewers finding them jarring and confusing. I felt a good number of them could have been implied rather than made explicit, but then someone might accuse me of wanting to violate the "show, don't tell" rule, so what do I know?
- The duel at the end was clichéd but I did enjoy Stilgar on the verge of annoyance and disgust going: "is he toying with him?". I just love the thought of someone's inner monologue going "What kind of asshole shows mercy to their opponent? Ugh! DISGUSTING!"
Overall, I did enjoy it, but I am worried that aspects of it will make it tough for a general audience to buy in. They've already announced part 2 though, so it's good to know that it was at least successful enough to warrant that much. Also, I now feel the urge to re-watch the mini-series with James McAvoy to compare and contrast to, as I barely remember anything from that one.
So once Paul is informed of that fact, he is supposed to go for the jugular. Which the movie shows, multiple times. Without Paul actually cutting it.
That's the part that worries Stilgar and when the tribe starts being outraged . Being Fremens, they have trouble with the whole concept of "remorse for killing someone" and, until Jessica explains, interpret those hesitations as actual sadism.
Killing someone is not something that cause problems for Fremens (it's part of life for them), but torture, that's something else.
He's got a small role in the new season of the BBC's Shetland, which is currently showing, and he's only just barely recognisable. Still a fine actor though, I thought he portrayed Paul's growth through both miniseries very well.
Steam | XBL
No no, I got that just fine, I just felt the way they chose to show it via Stilgar's frustration was amusing, it made for a clever way to short hand the contrast between audience expectations (good guys offer mercy) and the Fremen's (only assholes insult their opponents like this in a battle to the death).
He seems bad to begin with but I think it makes sense later. Young Paul is often impatient or petulant but it makes his growth as a character quite palpable as it goes on, which I think he plays well. Actor and character really hit their stride from episode 2 onwards.
Some of the casting is poor (Gurney in particular), and the CGI hasn't aged well at all. But on the whole I still like it, its pluses outweigh its minuses by orders of magnitude for me.
Steam | XBL
Actually I'll have you know the ornithopters are 0/2
I have a feeling that if Denis wants to do a third movie, they'll let him. Even though Warner Bros was trying to play coy they really want a new Lord of the Rings style franchise. And another indicator that they were trying to set this up is the series for HBO Max about the Bene Gesserit. The writer for the movie stepped away from the series to start work on the sequel but I have a feeling WB is firing up the franchise machine for this one.
It feels like a lot of the important background got left on the cutting room floor, perhaps explicitly because they figure enough of the audience has the general background of Dune already and the rest of the audience won't care? A lot of aspects of the world were either left to be totally implicit or only covered by a line or two.
I mirror the sentiment that I really want to see the extended edition. There were a lot of things that could've been fleshed out that weren't. Piter getting such short shrift really hurt, especially given how iconic his role is in the original movie, though honestly I wonder if it was really just an unfortunate case of him not being as visually distinct among the style of the Harkonnens as well as the choice for a more understated performance.
I think it was an interesting choice to make Jessica more clearly sympathetic and more of an emotional center, but it did remove a lot of her sense of agency. You don't get a lot of her as the Bene Gesserit in this movie, but what little you get of it is certainly frightening and maybe that's something that will come out more in the next film. I suppose her being less stoic of a character sells her decisions to go against her order for the sake of Leto and Paul better.
I felt like a lot of the actors managed to do a great job giving their character presence with only a few scenes. Doctor Yueh managed to make a strong impression, as did Stilgar and Kynes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole part with Kynes and Duncan in-between the escape from the kidnapping and wandering into Stilgar in the desert was added for the movie, right? I think it was a smart move on their part to expand the focus on Duncan in this movie if only for how that will pay off if they end up getting in the later books, though I felt like that segment really broke up the flow of the story.
That all said, overall I think that visually this film was everything I could've wanted, and I'll be honest and say that's the part of Dune that is more important to me personally; simply the aesthetics of it. Just spectacular.
I remember reading that Villeneuve really wants to do Dune Messiah as the end of a potential trilogy. It's a really interesting idea to me, partly because while I have mixed feelings on the book, the good shit in there is really good. It'd also really cement the idea that Dune is critical, and not celebratory, of white savior and "great man" narratives.
The book is also very much a bridge between book 1 and book 3, so I'm curious to see how he plans to make it a definitive ending to a trilogy.