Dune... is bad.

[colker]

Dialogue may work w/ 11 yr old boys. Maybe. Why does Hwood insist w/ this book?

[Saab2000]

Dialogue may work w/ 11 yr old boys. Maybe. Why does Hwood insist w/ this book?

It’s a very interesting story that is virtually unfilmable in a watchable amount of time. Lord of the Rings is similar in its scope but has a larger potential audience. Dune’s audience isn’t large to start with. Sci Fi isn’t mainstream.

I assume with CGI anything can be technically done now and can even be nearly indistinguishable from live action but that story requires prior knowledge, unlike say, Star Wars, which isn’t that complicated. Dune kind of is. Or at least that’s my recollection from having read it. But I read it 25+ years ago…. I’d love for it to be good. Sad it’s not.

[Scott G.]

When the David Lynch Dune came out, the theater gave you glossary
of terms so you could attempt to understand what was going on.
At least the new movie is only half of the book, the Lynch movie was the whole
thing.

If you want to see the comprehensible version of Dune, try 'Lawrence of Arabia'

[colker]

When the David Lynch Dune came out, the theater gave you glossary
of terms so you could attempt to understand what was going on.
At least the new movie is only half of the book, the Lynch movie was the whole
thing.

If you want to see the comprehensible version of Dune, try 'Lawrence of Arabia'

Lawrence of Arabia is a good movie.

[72gmc]

Still a fan of the book. Re-read it and the second book just a few years ago, then hit the wall on book 3 (is that God Children of Dune?)

Dune has to be a really hard universe to establish within a movie-length time frame. LOTR has lots of familiar elements (wizards, goblins, trolls, swords) that help an unfamiliar viewer get the idea. Frank Herbert’s style of world creation makes things harder to recognize.

[bironi]

I'm just not a fan of epic boy fantasy.
I like mine in one take, not film after film.
I have a short attention span and memory.

[vertical_doug]

Like 'The Expanse', Dune will work as a story told over a full season.

Bezos needs to step up to the plate again.

[sk_tle]

It is rarely done that way because Hollywood is about buying and recycling ideas from other more than creating new stories but movies are usually better seen before reading the books. Otherwise your movie experiene is clashing with all the imagery you already created on your mind.

As with all sci-fi and fantasy things, it is also almost always better seen with a kids heart as Jorn says. Star wars was total crap by looking at it with adult eyes, but a great story for kids. Adults need more cynicism and parallels with their real life struggles.

[EDS]

Like 'The Expanse', Dune will work as a story told over a full season.

Bezos needs to step up to the plate again.

Will be interesting to see what they do with Wheel of Time (at least I think that is Amazon).

[Scott G.]

Dialogue may work w/ 11 yr old boys. Maybe. Why does Hwood insist w/ this book?

Paul Krugman thinks the book is for 14 year olds

The blogger John Rogers once noted that there are two novels that can shape the lives of bookish 14-year-olds:
“Atlas Shrugged” and “The Lord of the Rings.”
One of these novels, he asserted, is a childish fantasy that can leave you emotionally stunted;
the other involves orcs.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/o...on-series.html

[j44ke]

I think Arrival was Villeneuve's best to date. And in re: book versus movie - I thought Villeneuve's achievement was making a movie that honored the original story (it was taken from a short story titled "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang - brilliant short story) and creating a movie that was its own telling and not just a transfer to different media. So they were different but related. And arrival felt so much in the present moment. Not like the future. Like tomorrow. Or even later this afternoon. Which was part of the concept of time in both the story and the movie, and after reading the story or watching the movie, in the reader/viewer.

I can see why Villeneuve would logically progress from there to doing Dune.

[BBB]

I think Arrival was Villeneuve's best to date. And in re: book versus movie - I thought Villeneuve's achievement was making a movie that honored the original story (it was taken from a short story titled "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang - brilliant short story) and creating a movie that was its own telling and not just a transfer to different media. So they were different but related. And arrival felt so much in the present moment. Not like the future. Like tomorrow. Or even later this afternoon. Which was part of the concept of time in both the story and the movie, and after reading the story or watching the movie, in the reader/viewer.

I can see why Villeneuve would logically progress from there to doing Dune.

Well, he progressed from Arrival to the Blade Runner sequel and then to Dune.

A sequel to Blade Runner was brave, but he pulled it off. While I thought it was a bit overblown in parts, the film stood on its own and as a sequel. Which is a rare achievement in Hollywood. James Cameron with Terminator and T2 and then Aliens are comparable examples.

I think the logical flow here is from Blade Runner 2049 to Dune. While Arrival and Dune have more complex story lines, the Blade Runner sequel showed what he could do with a broad canvas, which is what is needed (imo) for Dune.

[Sascha Roszak]

I'm looking forward to the second Dune as I loved the first one so I'm open to it but for me the second Blade Runner (2049) was a disappointment...the first was stellar with the limited dialogue, darkness and shadows, the rain, music by Vangelis...

[Amaro Bikes]

Blade Runner 2049 was amazingly disappointing

Dune is a better result

Don't worry about the dialogues, the story or any other conceptual whatevers, get yourself into a big screened movietheater with loud dolby speakers and simply enjoy the amazing drone sounds, the wonderful clothing design and some beatiful frames which are like moving photographs (the bene gesserit march is worth the whole movie). I also like some of the minimalistic dark aesthetics if compared to the more baroque histrionic of David Lynch's take, which sometimes seemed a bit overdone. I also liked how the movie suggests the whole mesiah story is nothing but a government brainwash to the people with legends and the like so people end up believing whatever they're told to, all that was not really in the book or David Lynch's one, or at least I don't remember it like that. I prefer this conspiranoic take, looks like more what it might have been in reality. To be honest, I remember the book as quite a simple adventure story about some fight for power and family revenges on a future time, but nothing as mind challenging as any of the P.K.Dick masterpieces (do androids dream, Palmer Eldrich, etc), so you can't expect any film maker to create a complex story from something is not.
Probably I would say first hour is better as a movie than the second hour which becomes more of a blockbuster new era star wars style stuff, specially the childish battle-hero stuff, but I guess they need to make it somehow approachable to all publics (tickets have to be sold). At least I hope some blockbuster people might appreciate the nice photography and open their minds to other aesthetics.

And anyway, it's just 7$ for almost three hours of quility entertainment, we should keep supporting arts in their proper places, or we'll all end up missing big screens and shared experiences with strange people. I hope cinema never becomes a private thing to enjoy at home in a tiny screen with damn netflixamazonwhatever. It's our responsibility to keep museums open, cinemas, musicians doing music, both with records and live concerts, local restaurants and so many real things, like mechanical shifting or rim brakes.

Enjoy

[ides1056]

I watched it last night and was underwhelmed in the end.

Paul and his mother fleeing across the sand: insert dialogue: "let's get out of here."

I liked Blade Runner, especially the music.

I heard the Velvet film was special.

[j44ke]

Who gets into a movie theater for $7 these days? I think the last time I went I spent $10 more than that. And reserved seats were not possible, which meant our party had to sit at opposite ends of the theater. And the audience just never shut up. Plus all the glowing screens from texting. NYC is probably the worst place to see a movie.

[j44ke]

Well I thought it was great. Tremendously flawed, but great. Landscape is dialogue. Faces are words.

And the space ships! Whoever did them really knows how to take these tremendous volumes and make them into space ships. Arrival’s space ships were something else - perfect depiction of extraterrestrial technology in this vertical ovoid hovering motionless above the ground. These are battleship buildings - Empire! a necessity in a nomadic Imperial realm.

Anyway

[BBB]

I finally got around to seeing Dune (it was only released in Oz on 2 December). At an IMAX cinema as well.

I thought it was very well done. It's brooding, moody and atmospheric.

With the second half of the book given the green light for production, I think the pandemic will actually provide a positive. There is a few years between the start of the book and the end. Had they shot the movies back to back, the protagonist would not have had a chance to age or grow up. Now with approximately three years between shooting part one and part two, this process should happen automatically with the Paul in part two a slightly more mature version of the Paul in part one.

Interesting to see who gets wheeled in as Feyd-Rathua (Sting in the David Lynch version) and the Emperor. I though the Baron was well done.

[steve garro]

I just re-read "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?"

And man, is it a fucked up book !!
Way more than I recall and much stranger than the movie - the Empathy tests, the pets, what the do to the NEXUS models, the colonization of Mars - pretty far out.

Now re-reading Dune, and man......what a load of info to take in all at once - the first book could very well be two books but I'm mowing through it, better then I thought it would be at 53.

Not going to see the movie, but a friend of mine did film on the first Dune and "A River Runs Through It" as well.

As far as lord of the Rings - why do they fall down so much?

- Garro.

[BBB]

What do you mean "As far as lord of the Rings - why do they fall down so much"? Do you mean the books or the movies?

Michael Moorcock always had a bit to say about Tolkien (see for example...https://www.newyorker.com/books/page...r/anti-tolkien), but generally the books and the movies have been critically and commercially successful.

Going back to Dune, the soundtrack was pretty good.