History YMMV / Dune2021

* AwardSnub: Despite the movie gaining 10 nominations including Best Picture for the Oscars 2022, Denis Villeneuve wasn't nominated for Best Director which is strange given that he was nominated in many critics' association awards including the Director's Guild. As Creator/JoshBrolin, who played Gurney, puts it, "I don’t know how you get 10 nominations and then the guy who has done the impossible with that book doesn’t get nominated. It makes you realize that it’s all amazing and then it’s all fucking totally dumb!" It then lost both its non-technical awards to ''{{Film/Coda}}'', which some considered to reflect the Academy's longtime SciFiGhetto.

* CommonKnowledge: Many early impressions made mention of the movie "missing" various elements that were never in the original book and were, in fact, complete fabrications by David Lynch for the 1984 version. Ironically, the opposite is also true, as the film incorporates a lot of elements and aesthetic choices that hail from the 1984 film and aren't in the book either.

** Despite [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter his lack of screen time]], the Baron has quite a few fans thanks to his genuinely unsettling appearance, as well as Stellan Skarsgård's performance perfectly portraying the ruthless and cunning schemer that he was in the novel. Skarsgård also achieved the not small feat of making fans accept a stark AdaptationPersonalityChange, as his portrayal of the Baron gives the character a gravitas and dignity than his novel version lacked.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: Many feared that various factors would potentially leave Creator/DenisVilleneuve's planned two-part adaptation of the original story [[StillbornFranchise doomed to be only half-finished]], given the fact that ''Dune'' is a slow-paced, complicated narrative, the AcclaimedFlop status of his previous sci-fi blockbuster ''Film/BladeRunner2049'', and the day-and-date streaming status provided by Creator/HBOMax (which opened the movie up to piracy due to HD copies of the film being easier to distribute) due to the issues with the ongoing UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic (which was still depressing box office turnout around the world). The fact that the US release date was boxed in the middle of other expected blockbusters like ''Film/VenomLetThereBeCarnage'', ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' and ''Film/{{Eternals}}'' also led to concerns about the movie being crowded out of the spotlight (a fate which befell ''Film/TheLastDuel'' just a week before ''Dune''). Yet the movie consistently overperformed to expectations around the world (with the exception of China, where it was crushed by local super-blockbuster ''The Battle at Lake Changjin''), thanks in part due to a staggered international release strategy that helped build up good word-of-mouth ahead of its arrival in several key markets, and it managed to defy expectations to become Warner Bros.'s most successful day-and-date movie since the likes of ''Film/GodzillaVSKong''. It then got a whopping ''ten'' Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, which rarely happens for sci-fi films, and one ''six'' of them, making it the most-decorated movie of the 2022 Oscars. As such, Legendary quickly greenlit the sequel mere days after it opened in the United States.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: Many feared that various factors would potentially leave Creator/DenisVilleneuve's planned two-part adaptation of the original story [[StillbornFranchise doomed to be only half-finished]], given the fact that ''Dune'' is a slow-paced, complicated narrative, the AcclaimedFlop status of his previous sci-fi blockbuster ''Film/BladeRunner2049'', and the day-and-date streaming status provided by Creator/HBOMax (which opened the movie up to piracy due to HD copies of the film being easier to distribute) due to the issues with the ongoing UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic (which was still depressing box office turnout around the world). The fact that the US release date was boxed in the middle of other expected blockbusters like ''Film/VenomLetThereBeCarnage'', ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' and ''Film/{{Eternals}}'' also led to concerns about the movie being crowded out of the spotlight (a fate which befell ''Film/TheLastDuel'' just a week before ''Dune''). Yet the movie consistently overperformed to expectations around the world (with the exception of China, where it was crushed by local super-blockbuster ''The Battle at Lake Changjin''), thanks in part due to a staggered international release strategy that helped build up good word-of-mouth ahead of its arrival in several key markets, and it managed to defy expectations to become Warner Bros.'s most successful day-and-date movie since the likes of ''Film/GodzillaVSKong''. It then got a whopping ''ten'' Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, which rarely happens for sci-fi films. As such, Legendary quickly greenlit the sequel mere days after it opened in the United States.

* AwardSnub: Despite the movie gaining 10 nominations including Best Picture for the Oscars 2022, Denis Villeneuve wasn't nominated for Best Director which is strange given that he was nominated in many critics' association awards including the Director's Guild. As Creator/JoshBrolin, who played Gurney, puts it, "I don’t know how you get 10 nominations and then the guy who has done the impossible with that book doesn’t get nominated. It makes you realize that it’s all amazing and then it’s all fucking totally dumb!"

* Chani's declaration to Paul that "This is just the beginning" at the end of the movie struck some as too out of place and on the nose of a conclusion to Part 1.

** It might be unintentional, but the casting of the Spaniard Creator/JavierBardem as a space bedouin in a story with heavy Arabian elements doesn't lack irony, as [[UsefulNotes/MoorishSpain Spain was an ancient territory of the Umayyad Caliphate]] until the UsefulNotes/SpanishReconquista re-Christianized it. Bardem's mother was even born in Seville, Andalusia, where the Muslim conquest had its main influence.

* EpilepticTrees: The Harkonnens have a weird dog-sized insect creature wandering around which Piter de Vries calls a pet. It’s original to the film and never has any effect on the story, so it’s anyone’s guess what the purpose is. Many assume that it is just a small ShoutOut to the [[WatchItStoned random weirdness for the sake of being weird]] that tend to be part and parcel of ''Dune'' adaptations, but were purposely understated in this one. It's become a WildMassGuessing theory that [[spoiler: the spider pet is what's become of ''Wanna'', Dr. Yueh's wife]] (although other possible explanation is Villeneuve wanting to foreshadow the Tleilaxu in case the films do well enough to warrant a ''Literature/DuneMessiah'' adaptation).

** The Sardaukar were already a BadassArmy in the novel, but the film reimagines them as a psychotically devoted ProudWarriorRace who speak in BlackSpeech and practice human sacrifice rituals accompanied by Mongolian-style throat singing. From their introductory scene they immediately come off as more badass and intimidating than the Harkonnens.

** The Sardaukar. In [[Film/Dune1984 Lynch's adaptation]] and in the [[Series/FrankHerbertsDune 2000 miniseries]] they were barely acknowledged and for the most part [[WTHCostumingDepartment looked goofy]] (wearing black hazmat suits in 1984, then black armor offset by large puffy hats in 2000) disappointing many readers. In this adaptation however, they are reimagined as a warrior cult who make human sacrifices, look like Vikings when unmasked, talk in BlackSpeech, and wear white bodysuits which make them like [[Franchise/StarWars Stormtroopers]] on steroids. Their introduction scene in Salusa Secundus with throat-singing and their weird rituals cemented them as fan-favorites and made them popular in the old and new fanbase.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Most people agree that the sex (and race) flip of Liet Kynes was unnecessary and detrimental to Chani's arc.

** The film is jokingly referred to as "Dunc" because a fan recreation leak of the official logo - approximated in Unicode as ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ -- missed the dot and lens flare that formed the middle line of the "E", making it look like ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᑕ instead. Amusingly, there is actually a character in the film called Duncan.
** Some have also jokingly read ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ as "June".

** The Sardaukar priest is onscreen for approximately 5 seconds, but makes such an impression with his loud, intimidating chanting that he pretty much immediately became this film's equivalent of [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad the Doof Warrior]]. Part of his chant is also heard at the very start of the movie even before the company {{Vanity Plate}}s, booming out from an all-black screen and subtitled "Dreams are messages from the deep", basically shocking the audience and telling them to pay attention.

* SpecialEffectFailure: One of Paul's visions is of a battle in the middle of the desert between many armored soldiers, and one of those soldiers is revealed to be [[spoiler:himself]]. It's very obvious that it's [[spoiler:Timothée Chalamet's]] face superimposed over a stuntman's in the reveal shot.

* AwardSnub: Despite the movie gaining 10 nominations including Best Picture for the Oscars 2022, Denis Villeneuve wasn't nominated for Best Director.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: Many feared that various factors would potentially leave Creator/DenisVilleneuve's planned two-part adaptation of the original story [[StillbornFranchise doomed to be only half-finished]], given the fact that ''Dune'' is a slow-paced, complicated narrative, the AcclaimedFlop status of his previous sci-fi blockbuster ''Film/BladeRunner2049'', and the day-and-date streaming status provided by Creator/HBOMax (which opened the movie up to piracy due to HD copies of the film being easier to distribute) due to the issues with the ongoing UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic (which was still depressing box office turnout around the world). The fact that the US release date was boxed in the middle of other expected blockbusters like ''Film/VenomLetThereBeCarnage'', ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' and ''Film/{{Eternals}}'' also led to concerns about the movie being crowded out of the spotlight (a fate which befell ''Film/TheLastDuel'' just a week before ''Dune''). Yet the movie consistently overperformed to expectations around the world (with the exception of China, where it was crushed by local super-blockbuster ''The Battle at Lake Changjin''), thanks in part due to a staggered international release strategy that helped build up good word-of-mouth ahead of its arrival in several key markets, and it managed to defy expectations to become Warner Bros.'s most successful day-and-date movie since the likes of ''Film/GodzillaVSKong''. As such, Legendary quickly greenlit the sequel mere days after it opened in the United States.

** Leto's, and later Paul's, emphasis on harnessing the power of Arrakis's resources and people to make House Atreides stronger than ever before makes complete sense, but calling it "desert power" is an awkward way of phrasing it (after the initial comparison to sea and air power). The movie emphasizes that phrase a couple of times during otherwise serious scenes, which leads to a bit of unintentional hilarity.

** The Sardaukar priest is onscreen for approximately 5 seconds, but makes such an impression with his loud, intimidating chanting that he pretty much immediately became this film's equivalent of [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad the Doof Warrior]]. Part of his chant is also heard at the very start of the movie before the company {{Vanity Plate}}s, booming out from an all black screen and subtitled "Dreams are messages from the deep", basically shocking the audience and telling them to pay attention.

** The Sardaukar priest is onscreen for approximately 5 seconds, but makes such an impression with his loud, intimidating chanting that he pretty much immediately became this film's equivalent of [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad the Doof Warrior]]. Part of his chant is also heard at the very start of the movie after the company {{Vanity Plate}}s, booming out from an all black screen and subtitled "Dreams are messages from the deep", basically shocking the audience and telling them to pay attention.

** The Sardaukar priest is onscreen for approximately 5 seconds, but makes such an impression with his loud, intimidating chanting that he pretty much immediately became this film's equivalent of [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad the Doof Warrior]].

** Shadout Mapes is a powerfully acted character, but it's hard not to find it funny when she suddenly breaks wailing at the top of her lungs, shaken by Jessica's reveal, and then immediately composes herself and continues talking in the intense manner she was using right before (in the novel, there is an intermediate question by Jessica that justifies the MoodWhiplash, and the scream itself is described as closer to a {{Squee}}, not to the terrified lament Mapes gives out in the film). Her explanation about the "shock of the moment" doesn't exactly help.

** The Sardaukar. In [[Film/Dune1984 Lynch's adaptation]] and in the [[Series/FrankHerbertsDune 2000 miniseries]] they were barely acknowledged and for the most part [[WTHCostumeAgency looked goofy]] (wearing black hazmat suits in 1984, then black armor offset by large puffy hats in 2000) disappointing many readers. In this adaptation however, they are reimagined as a warrior cult who make human sacrifices, look like Vikings when unmasked, talk in BlackSpeech, and wear white bodysuits which make them like [[Franchise/StarWars Stormtroopers]] on steroids. Their introduction scene in Salusa Secundus with throat-singing and their weird rituals cemented them as fan-favorites and made them popular in the old and new fanbase.

** The Sardaukar. In [[Film/Dune1984 Lynch's adaptation]] and in the [[Series/FrankHerbertsDune 2000 miniseries]] they were barely acknowledged and for the most part [[WTHCostumingAgency looked goofy]] (wearing black hazmat suits in 1984, then black armor offset by large puffy hats in 2000) disappointing many readers. In this adaptation however, they are reimagined as a warrior cult who make human sacrifices, look like Vikings when unmasked, talk in BlackSpeech, and wear white bodysuits which make them like [[Franchise/StarWars Stormtroopers]] on steroids. Their introduction scene in Salusa Secundus with throat-singing and their weird rituals cemented them as fan-favorites and made them popular in the old and new fanbase.

** The Sardaukar. In [[Film/Dune1984 Lynch's adaptation]] they were barely acknowledged and in the [[Series/FrankHerbertsDune 2000 miniseries]] they just looked goofy, disappointing many readers. In this adaptation however, they are reimagined as a warrior cult who make human sacrifices, look like Vikings when unmasked, and talk in BlackSpeech. Their introduction scene in Salusa Secundus with throat-singing and their weird rituals cemented them as fan-favorites and made them popular in the old and new fanbase.

* MisaimedFandom: While hardly a rare phenom in pop culture, nor an unforgivable case due to the ''Dune'' franchise's definitely ''not'' BlackAndWhiteMorality, it's amusing that both fans and casual viewers have found the evil, brutal Sardaukar as the [[EvilIsCool coolest thing in the film]], while the Fremen, which Frank Herbert held in comparison as a race representing pragmatism, tough virtue and closeness with nature (even if just as fanatic and manipulable at the end), have gone relatively unnoticed, despite having the starpower of multiple actors on their side. A lot of it comes from Villeneuve's captivating portrayal of the Sardaukar, which is universally described as a highlight of the film; also from the Sardaukar' distinctly western culture compared with the more Arabic Fremen, which helps many viewers to relate with them at a personal level; and of course, from ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' having taken enough inspiration from ''Dune'' for the latter to be able to recall easily the former's memories.

* FightSceneFailure: The movie follows the original novel's rule that personal shields stop high-speed attacks while being easy to penetrate by slower hits, but the choreography gets quite inconsistent with this through the film. Paul, Gurney and occasionally Duncan are forced to grapple in order to slash slowly (there are even pellet bullets that slow down by themselves so they can pierce shields), yet Duncan and the Sardaukar are generally able to smash through shields with regular-speed strikes, to the point it's possible to forget how shields are supposed to work altogether by the point the Harkonnen attack happens. Most egregiously, the blow that mortally wounds [[spoiler:Duncan himself]] is a full run stab.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Most people agree that the sex (and race) flip of Liet Kynes was unnecessary and detrimental to Chani's arc, and arguably one of the most questionable choices Villeneuve picked to do.

AwesomeMusic/Dune2021