Dune (Denis Villeneuve)

Maybe get Paul Thomas Anderson to do Dune, like There will be Blood Lol. You know the movie is sort of lacking in emotion when you find the "jedi mind trick" voice scenes with the LFE boost to be the most enjoyable parts Lol.

 

There are plenty of problems with Lynch's version. The weirding module stuff is a pointless detour, most of the acting is either over the top and hamfisted or oddly upbeat for such a serious story, the inner monologue stuff is so melodramatic that it comes across as laughable. The shield effects look like the actors are in cardboard boxes and you can't make heads or tails of the fights that feature the shields.

But there are many things to admire in the Lynch version. Lynch really tried to make the intricate story digestible for a mass audience without oversimplying everything to death, the visuals are stunning and there is a distinct sense of each culture. Caladan looks nothing like Arrakis looks nothing like Geidi Prime, etc. The costumes and creature effects and vehicles all have distinct looks, the Mentats have their own distinct look, it's a visually imaginative and cohesive work.

The new one has the opposite. Good performances, nothing too melodramatic or over the top, but no imagination whatsoever and the story is simplified to the point of wondering why they even wanted to make the movie.

 

I find it exceedingly rare for any movie to be as good as the book it is based on, but some are certainly much better than others.

 

Quick take: it's a loooonnggg and sloooooowwww Blade Runner 2049 version of Dune, with, as noted, very unimaginative production. Lynch Dune looks like the year 10000, this one doesn't. Brutalist slabs and the odd bas-relief don't cut it.

Movies and books are different, and should be different. Movies, at best, are novelette length, not novel length--and Dune is a doorstop of a novel. To make it filmable, it would have to be changed significantly to correctly set up the various conflicts in an engaging way (show, not VO, thank you)...but this would make Dune the Film wayyyyyyy different than Dune the Book, which would upset the book fans.

Personally, I would have upset the book fans and made a very different movie. But take this as the blabbering of a SF writer that doesn't really write much anymore.*

*I once worked on a film adaptation of one of my short stories. It didn't go anywhere, like most stuff in Hollywood, but the thing that struck the producers was that I didn't have any problem at all completely restructuring the story to meet the requirements of film. I told them, "Of course, it's unfilmable as is." They were shocked a prose writer (a) understood this, and (b) was willing to make huge, sweeping changes in the work.

 

This is why I think complex novels are more suited to the mini-series format. It is really hard to fit any sort of complicated story into 2 or 3 hours. Consider last years remake of Stephen King's The Stand (one of my all time favorite novels). Even at 10 hours, there is a huge amount of detail left out, it is simply not possible to fit it all in (I also think the 1994 version was better, perhaps for the same reasons being discussed here). TV shows like Game of Thrones prove that movie-like production values are possible in a serial format, but having a theatrical release has typically been a requirement for the budgets required. This is changing, and as more and more content starts to move direct to streaming, hopefully we will see longer and more faithful features going forward.

 

Ding ding ding! Dune the Book is absolutely dependent on internal dialogue and exposition--stuff that doesn't work on the screen. Show, don't tell, is the bottom line for screen. It's a different art form.

One of the biggest things that bothers me about Dune the Movie 2021 Edition is the Asgard Problem--as in, I can't imagine one of the most powerful families in the universe actually living in a brutalist castle, same as I couldn't envision Thor living in Asgard, as portrayed in the movie. Compare to The Fifth Element--that is a future that humans actually live in.

 

To bring it all full circle, The Fifth Element was heavily influenced by Jodorowsky’s comic The Incal, which as I mentioned earlier in the thread was created with ideas Jodorowsky had when he tried to make Dune.

 

As someone who has never read the book or seen the first movie, I loved Dune. I can't even really disagree with any your complaints, they are valid, they just don't take away from what I love about it.

Then again, Blade Runner 2049 is one of my favorite movies ever, so maybe this is expected. Something about the way Denis Villeneuve makes movies just clicks with me I guess. But this really just shows that people can go into the same film and take completely different things away from it based on whatever baggage they take into the experience.

As a reader of The Wheel of Time since I was like 7, I am pretty terrified that Amazon is gonna f**k that up, so I see where all of you are coming from.

 

FWIW I really liked Blade Runner 2049. I thought it was an intelligent, meaningful sequel to the original and was constructed more like an actual noir and less like a blockbuster action/sci-fi film.

 

Yeah, I tend to agree. But not Incendies. f**k the gut punch that is that movie.

 

1. @purr1n I hated it from the opening scene. I thought I’d hate Timothy Chalet but his mall goth costume was worse than his acting.

Everything was way too clean. There was no setup for part 3: the prophet of dune. That is setup from the opening prayer in Dune when the Fremen pray for deliverance.

No Emperor means the world cannot work. Lynch set his emperor as he is in the book. He even sits atop a space version of the golden Peacock Throne of the Shahs. The emperor’s name is Shaddam. The Arab Muslims who swept the Sassanians from power are echoed.

There are no middle eastern people among the space Bedouin. There are no weird mutants who are supposed to like they have been exposed to massive amounts of tetrogens. Lynch nailed that. There are no entire planets of 19th century industrial shitholes or apocalyptic post industrial wastelands.

Technology in dune is barely understood by most yet used. Like modernity x a million with no digital! Yet Villeneuve’s looks pristine, cartoony, and digital like Marvel’s Hot Topic Lawrence of Arabia.

Where is the moral ambiguity? Jessica lies. Paul is a whiny guy. Where are the people who use him to achieve power? Where is the crazy religious fanaticism? Lynch’s version only has Paul as a fascist. Only Paul echoes triumph of the will despite the changed ending of his visions. The rest of the universe is feudal.

Yet everyone in Villeneuve’s Dune is triumph of the will? How is that Feudal?medieval kings, and early medieval caliphs did not convey power that way. Popular will? big speeches? What? They sat atop thrones? Made you get on your knees, and had people write incredibly complex diatribes on why they have to kill you and take your stuff. It’s Feudal. They didn’t have that kind of power, even in Norman England, be an asshole, die in an unfortunate hunting accident where someone totally didn’t shoot you in the head with a crossbow or your retainers and guards totally didn’t see when you got robbed and murdered in front of them while going out to meditate in m the desert like. Of course being the Middle Ages, they totally forgot to get rid of William II’s body or dispose of Al-Hakim’s bloody clothes.

Nothing is feudal in Villeneuve’s version. They are not running a hierchical society based on personal loyalty where wealth and power comes from doing the emperor’s bidding and he can take it away. Well at least try. His version is snarky and feminist. Independent smart scientist chick who is an unintentioanl secret agent to spread the messianic message of the Kiswatch Haderach? What? The person who enabled Paul’s message to be spread , just like the Greeks and Romans spread Greek philosophy through conquest. Without it, there would be no Christianity and therefore no Islam. That would never happen in the world of the Dune novels, which treat women like medieval Europe and the Middle East.

Paul’s mother isn’t a warrior princess. She’s a run away space nun whose mother and father are a big plot reveal



major spoiler



oh and her setting up Paul as the Fremen messiah has unintentional consequences when they proclaim him the Mahdi, who will convert the world to their religion and usher in the kingdom of god.



Bigger spoiler



Of course without a second thought he just kills everyone who didn’t believe he was a living god and nukes on the infidels. And he’s not a god because he can neither stop it nor does he want to. He is neither omnipotent nor omnibenevolent. How can you have Dune Messiah without this and then the godfuckingawful children and unintentionally hilarious god emperor?

 

I'm in the enviable position (depending on your point of view) of never having read the books and I adored every second of this movie. I really hate seeing fans disappointed, but then again y'all can be a demanding, insatiable bunch! And this is likely the best you're ever going to get from a Dune adaptation, unless they do another TV series.

 

This is actually good to hear. Sci-fi is a niche genre even at its best (a category to which Dune belongs, imo) so your opinion is much more likely to be representative of the opinion of those who are likely to determine whether the second movie gets made, though there have been many reports that it's pretty much a fait accompli. The amount of material extant in this series of books is more than sufficient in volume and quality to justify a series after the movie(s) as well, but they could always f**k that up too.

 

The movie followed very closely to the book (which I read some 20y 35y ago), of course with less detail. It was a great movie, I enjoyed it immensely on my home big screen. Later we will go see it in IMax.

I was realising during the movie that it's (the book) part GoT, part Star Wars, part The Matrix. Written with a great imagination, intrigue, and attention to detail in the 1960's.

Edit: I guess I should say that I absolutely hated everything in the 80's Dune movie. It cut out all detail and essentially gave bullet-points over the giant novel in a single movie. If you hadn't read the book, it was hopelessly disconnected bunch of scenes that didn't really make a story.

And I'm older than I thought.

 

The 80s Dune was an interesting failure. I never really cared for it, but the visuals were cool.

The aborted Jodorowsky version sounded like it would've been a disaster much like the Lynch film, if not more faithful to the book, but likely wouldn't have worked as a compelling film.

Books are hard to adapt into movies, as movies are just a different beast entirely.... more concerned with creating a certain mood, with the story, cinematography and acting being there to support that mood. Silence of the Lambs is nothing without that creeping sense of dread. The Godfather is nothing without that old-photograph looking cinematography and the forlorn atmospherics. Jurassic Park is nothing without the grandeur and spectacle.

 

The Jodorowsky version would have been spectacular, but it would have resembled Dune only in the most broad strokes. Jodorowsky is not really one for adaptations, he was using Dune as a launch board for his own (very cool) ideas. I think he had a genuine appreciation for the book but he’s his own artist and was never going to be faithful to the source material.