There’s been a call for a spoilers-be-here open discussion of the movie Dune. Let the spice flow here in comments!
BEWARE SPOILERS! in comments.
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And The Fremen I Admire Most
For me, the most interesting part of Dune 2021 is that Villanueve actually played out some scenes very close to the book. For example, in 2021 the Paul vs Kynes scene and the Gurney vs Paul scene seemed awfully familiar….
I thought this movie was visually gorgeous. I’m probably one of the minority who really liked Blade Runner 2049, but I’m wondering if the same cinematographer was used for both, as many of the shots seemed to be set up in the same way. I also really appreciated that the story and scenes were given time to breathe. I don’t care if it was nearly three hours long, my attention was held throughout.
Needless to say, it’s vaulted to the top of my Hugo list.
BR 2049 may have had issues…but the visuals definitely were not one of them for me. The half buried Las Vegas was starkly memorable.
I’m not a big fan of Dune or really anything else by Herbert that I’ve read. I wasn’t into the Lynch version and am in no real hurry to see the new movie.
But I really love the headline for this story.
Nope.
https://theplaylist.net/roger-deakins-dune-james-bond-20181205/
I just got back from seeing it a second time, and really loved it. Visually, it’s stunning. The story lined up with how I remembered things from my first read of the book in high school.
I think what I liked about it the most is how real the world felt. And the costumes — I want to make all of them.
Award-winning headline! Though it’s created an ear worm …
I enjoyed it very much, and want to see it again. A range of good actors doing good work together. Apropos of not much, what an interesting career Stellan Skarsgaard has made for himself.
Really impressive visually, as others have noted. My favorite thing was the ornithopters. I always pictured these with wings flapping like birds, which couldn’t really carry enough weight. The movie had them with rigid wings moving so fast you couldn’t see them. This might actually work.
“The Fremen I admire most…”
Stilgar, Chani, and Duncan Idaho…
I also thought of this line…
(Bye bye Miss American Pie) I wear my stillsuit on Arrakis, ’cause the desert is dry
And the Fremen I admire the most
Fought Sardaukar and the Baron’s host,
Moved through the sandstorm like a ghost,
The day Atreides died
(OK, not entirely accurate, but at least it scans.)
Given all of the positivity and enthusiasm related so far, I find I don’t want to be a buzz kill.
So I won’t be.
I agree with the comments about the visuals and the movie being reasonably faithful to the book. What we got was great!
My only complaint is that it was half a movie. That was a surprise.
I’d like to see the whole thing with an intermission (or two) like movies used to have.
Hopefully, all of the buzz will motivate Legendary to green-light the second half of the movie.
Regards,
Dann
My random tagline generator.
I (we) enjoyed it. We watched it at home, but can see the merits of “see it in a theater on a big screen (and [perhaps] even on iMax.”
A cavil or two: at some level if felt like the movie assumed we had read (and remembered at least the core who’s who of) the book. E.g., I didn’t near Thufir Hawat being referenced as a Mentat, he could just as easily been a an accountant with an Alexa Bluetooth to the inventory/etc computer.
And it sure felt like Zendaya (Chani) didn’t get enough lines or screen time.
But these are sub-sub-minor. It looked great. It felt like the book, in characters and visuals and plot. I’m ready for Part II. Meanwhile, considering (re)watching the David Lynch movie, perhaps even the 2000 SyFy miniseries.
Separately, thanks for the title love, and the brief filk. I occasionally wonder which Filers don’t recognize/know the embedded cultural reference. (For those that missed it, an SFnal hint: (Weird) Al Yankovic did a great Star Wars parody using this song/tune (search keywords include “Saga,” otherwise you might get his “Yoda” parody) (as oposed to “The Star Wars Cantina” Comedy Parody Song by Mark Jonathan Davis, part of Davis’ great batch/CD of great Star Wars parodies, including Johnny Carson at the Cantina comedy monologue.
A separate title-related thought: what other SFnal title hacks could be done using/to this scroll’s title? The first one that occurs to me:
o For FAHRENHEIT 451, “And The Firemen [OR MAN?] I Admire Most…”
As someone who found both Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 enthralling (despite the latter’s third act problems), I liked it, mostly; I did not love it.
It was, not remotely surprisingly, visually stunning, and I thought the cast was uniformly excellent.
It’s a very close adaptation of the book – and therein lies the problem. Even though it’s only the first half of the book, they were trying to stuff 300 pages of plot-heavy novel with a very large cast of characters into a 2 1/2 hour film. The result is that they hit most of the highlights of that first half of the book, but in order to do that they’ve pretty much had to jettison anything resembling character development or interaction that isn’t just moving the plot along. So you get scenes that are pretty much just quick jump cuts to “And this is why this is going to happen next” and then a cut-away to something else.
It works, mostly, if you’re familiar with the novel, so you know who everybody is and what their backstory is and thus why things that happen are important. For example, it’s a huge deal that Paul risks his life in order to save the Shadout Mapes from the hunter-killer dart that’s been sent by the assassin, rather than letting it kill her in his stead. In the film, she just gets picked by Jessica because she’s a Fremen, Paul saves her, and then she’s killed – the audience barely knows who she is if they haven’t read the book.
I’ll disagree a bit with what’s been posted so far. I agree that the art direction, the set design, the vfx, the makeup, and the photography are excellent. Villeneuve makes beautiful pictures. The people are all beautiful, and have bought into their roles.
There may be spoiler type pronouncements below, but I assume anyone who’s here has at least seen the Lynch movie if not read Dune, a jillion times, and I’m not sure what constitutes a spoiler in that context.
I think this is as accessible an adaptation as you could want. It isn’t so much the writers assume you’ve read the book as they assume it’s irrelevant. You don’t need to know what a mentat is, or an Ixian, or a Facedancer, or Imperial conditioning, or really anything at all. The plot is straightened, the motivations sympathetic, the action long on explosions and short on feints within feints. The Shadout Mapes is presented and departs. Piter de Vries struts his hour and bids adieu without ever being named, I think. You don’t need to know their backstories. It’s a canny move and the right one if you want to avoid “THE VOICEOVER.” Okay, there’s a little voiceover.
All that said…it’s okay. A bit tired and familiar after decades of sprawling violence and epic bloodbaths. I’d watch the rest of them if they make them, but mostly because the score and the photography are so alluring. 13 year old me would probably have asphyxiated on squee if this film had appeared in 1985.
Visually gorgeous.
Surprised by the bagpipes
My friend, new to Dune, watched Lynch and this, and found this more accessible.
Dreams are messages from the deep.