I actually like this movie quite a bit. There really isn’t that much more to say about that. Is it as good as the book Dune upon which it is based? Not even close, don’t be ridiculous.
But there are a lot of great aspects of it. Alia stabbing the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen with the Gom Jabbar which is meant to kill only animals is an extremely satisfying act in the book (and the movie as well) and the fact that the movie hyper-dramatizes it is something that I like quite a bit.
The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is a cruel and disgusting character who lives for unbridled sadism and okay that does exaggerate his qualities from the book but I would defend that on the grounds that
1) it emphasizes his evil
2) it makes him that much more easily hate-able
3) The book always meant for us to see him as depraved
The amount of the film devoted to showing us the inner thoughts of the characters was necessary given the source material from which it was adapted.
Thufir Hawat’s Crowing Moment of Awesome when he says he would not fail his Duke twice was great. And Duncan Idaho’s Heroic Sacrifice was extremely well-done though not as well as it was done in Children of Dune and Sir Patrick Stewart was spot-on as Gurney Halleck.
We didn’t get to see Piter de Vries’s sadism the way we did in the book due to an Adaptation Personality Change making him a more calculating figure but I would defend that on the grounds that he is a Mentat and as such that makes more sense (don’t get me wrong the book was still better).
Come to think of it, when the Baron explains his entire Evil Plan for once the Villain explaining his Evil Plan is something that makes contextual sense.
And I can’t help but sympathize with the traitor Dr. Yueh when Jessica proclaims (on-screen instead of in the chapter’s opening quote) that a million deaths wouldn’t be enough to punish him and was rooting for him during his “you think you’ve defeated me”.
Alia is more sympathetic than she was in the books sure but she wasn’t an antagonist until the third book. And it was pretty clear that the Harkonnens were as evil as they come even by the Grey and Gray standards of the books.
Paul’s battle with Feyd at the end was a genuinely engaging epic battle and the fact that Feyd was an accomplice to the Baron makes Paul justified in seeking his death even though in the movie (unlike in the book where he talks to compensate for fear of losing) Feyd’s fight comes across (to me) as Villainous Valour.
Sure, Paul plays straight a Messianic Archetype that the books deconstructed but the books Constructed it first. And the first book always was more black and white than its sequels.
Sure, this movie is nothing compared to the book that it’s based on but it’s still quite good
Film It is through Will alone that I set Review in Motion
I actually like this movie quite a bit. There really isn’t that much more to say about that. Is it as good as the book Dune upon which it is based? Not even close, don’t be ridiculous.
But there are a lot of great aspects of it. Alia stabbing the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen with the Gom Jabbar which is meant to kill only animals is an extremely satisfying act in the book (and the movie as well) and the fact that the movie hyper-dramatizes it is something that I like quite a bit.
The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is a cruel and disgusting character who lives for unbridled sadism and okay that does exaggerate his qualities from the book but I would defend that on the grounds that
1) it emphasizes his evil 2) it makes him that much more easily hate-able 3) The book always meant for us to see him as depraved
The amount of the film devoted to showing us the inner thoughts of the characters was necessary given the source material from which it was adapted.
Thufir Hawat’s Crowing Moment of Awesome when he says he would not fail his Duke twice was great. And Duncan Idaho’s Heroic Sacrifice was extremely well-done though not as well as it was done in Children of Dune and Sir Patrick Stewart was spot-on as Gurney Halleck.
We didn’t get to see Piter de Vries’s sadism the way we did in the book due to an Adaptation Personality Change making him a more calculating figure but I would defend that on the grounds that he is a Mentat and as such that makes more sense (don’t get me wrong the book was still better).
Come to think of it, when the Baron explains his entire Evil Plan for once the Villain explaining his Evil Plan is something that makes contextual sense.
And I can’t help but sympathize with the traitor Dr. Yueh when Jessica proclaims (on-screen instead of in the chapter’s opening quote) that a million deaths wouldn’t be enough to punish him and was rooting for him during his “you think you’ve defeated me”.
Alia is more sympathetic than she was in the books sure but she wasn’t an antagonist until the third book. And it was pretty clear that the Harkonnens were as evil as they come even by the Grey and Gray standards of the books.
Paul’s battle with Feyd at the end was a genuinely engaging epic battle and the fact that Feyd was an accomplice to the Baron makes Paul justified in seeking his death even though in the movie (unlike in the book where he talks to compensate for fear of losing) Feyd’s fight comes across (to me) as Villainous Valour.
Sure, Paul plays straight a Messianic Archetype that the books deconstructed but the books Constructed it first. And the first book always was more black and white than its sequels.
Sure, this movie is nothing compared to the book that it’s based on but it’s still quite good