Denis Villeneuve's Dune

^^ Probably not, actually. But most likely you’re in the minority on this one.

Which isn’t a bad thing, per se, it’s just it is what it is, ya know?

I didn't think it was terrible but I was very underwhelmed. There was a distinct lack of things to get me excited, I guess. It feels like every aspect of the original story that I might have found interesting was changed in some way for the movie, or won't be explored until later movies. Which kinda leaves Dune part 2 as just... the movie where Paul hangs out in the desert, becomes the Messiah and wins effortlessly. That's not how the story ends, and there's this underlying sense that this is a bad thing maybe, but it is what the movie is mostly about.

Edited by GNinja on Mar 23rd 2024 at 5:25:44 PM

okay got back from it. For such a character focused movie there's a lot of stuff that just seems to happen. Like as has been said Paul going from fighting his destiny to embracing it pretty quickly. And Paul and Chani getting together as well.

one particularly jarring moment, maybe I just tuned out and missed something but it seems to leap from Chani helping Paul on his solo walk mission thing to suddenly them fighting a sandcrawler together.

This is more of a book thing as well but do I understand it that Paul's children and heirs to the imperial throne are going to be kids with Chani and not Irulan. Which really doesn't make sense, you can't marry into a position and then have no-blood related kids take it over. Beyond not dying that second, there's no incentive for the Emperor to go along with it, it's just losing the throne to another house with an extra step.

So are the spacing guild members just giant heads like in the 80s movie?

Unless I'm completely misremembering, we see no Guild Navigators in the Villeneuve films. The narrative barely acknowledges the Guild's presence. They're kind of important in Dune Messiah, though, so a decision will have to be made for the third film.

Edric the fish man moving in a water container, for Dune Messiah

Edited by jawal on Mar 23rd 2024 at 10:36:29 AM

I'm just gonna go out there and say that the fish-man Navigators aren't necessary. They don't enhance the story in any way and they just look weird. I wouldn't mind if Villeneuve does away with the concept.

I think the inhuman appearances of the navigators is the whole point,these people have been changed by spice like the splicers from bioshock have been changed by ADAM.

I guess it could set up Leto II's turn to inhumanity at the end of Children of Dune, but I never saw that as foreshadowing at the time.

The guys in the orange helmets are suppose to be Guild members

I love the huge scroll he reads from when they could have used like a huge tablet to same effect

I think 'looking weird' is a good enough reason to include them—or at least, it's kind of a strange reason not to, by itself. We'll see weirder shit than that if this series keeps going.

Moreover, literal physical mutation is the perfect symbol of the corrupting, destructive influence of reliance on Spice, which itself is the result of clinging to irrational dogma from half-remembered historical events that have gone unquestioned for millennia (and which I've begun to suspect were excluded from these movies for exactly that reason; prompt the audience to wonder what the point of it is).

Edited by Chortleous on Mar 23rd 2024 at 7:54:06 AM

Always cracks me up how the Herald has this big ass scroll with many paragraphs of text and only bothers to read a couple lines. The Emperor also likes to waste paper it seems.

he needs to ring a bell like a town crier as well for the full effect!

Why did I think this movie is actually bad?

The director is obsessed with chiaroscuro, in many cases I think to disguise the inadequacy of the sets rather than producing any real artistic effect.

There are a number of times when characters hold the Idiot Ball, in the sense that they're making grossly stupid and uncharacteristic decisions merely to move the altered plot along. The worst — minor spoiler ahead! — is when the direct assault on Sietch Tabr is broken off so that the attackers can reload. (What? What?!) There are also scenes where characters who keep their own counsel and have complex motivations instead explicitly state a simple reason why they acted — most especially the RM Mohiam to Lady Fenring and Irulan, and the Emperor to Paul. The last is actually offensive, as the Emperor in the novel thought of Duke Leto as a son and wished he could have married him into his family line, but felt he had to act to maintain his power.

I don't think that Villeneuve really understood the plot of the novel. The movie completely removes most of the plot developments — now, some of this is inevitable in an adaptation, sure, but what was taken out were "loadbearing" elements. Characters whose plot functions had been erased were left in pointlessly, and orphaned scenes stripped of their meaning were put in seemingly because they could be made to look cool.

I can recognize true necessity — the fight at Sietch Tabr was changed almost certainly because they couldn't afford an expensive set for that single scene, for example — but this film massively disappointed me after the first raised my hopes.

Sorry, quick addendum:

I agree with excluding the fish man stuff. It's not in the original novel — Paul wonders if they never let themselves be seen because they've mutated, but it's revealed in the endgame that it's because their utter addiction to the Spice would be easily detectable to even a casual observer. The fish stuff was in the later novels where Herbert retconned many things. There's a difference between adapting a series and adapting a single book.

I have seen the movie! It was great. A bit hard to follow sometimes though, especially when they start speaking Fremen, and I can't quite read the subtitles...

Will there be a Dune: Part Three? Yes… with caveats on timing: Timing of a big-screen return to Arrakis mostly depends on director Denis Villeneuve.

Looks like a part three is on the table, but it might take a long time... Maybe even a decade.

Well, yeah, we gotta wait for Timothee Chalamet to get old enough to play a father.

It'll be really awkward when Alia's actor is in her late twenties.

A decade?

Well, that would be a bummer.....

Yeah, Villeneuf is clearly not in a rush.

Hey,they did practically the impossible,they made TWO dune movies and they were both great,even if it takes a decade or more they've achieved something worthwhile

Oh, absolutely. Give the man his space, he will create yet another masterpiece out of a tricky sequel.

And in the meantime, he's slated to do another "impossible to adapt" sci-fi epic novel, Rendezvous with Rama.