Dune (2021)

[Gobalopper]

 

[Andrew]

https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/paul-atreides-and-chani-travel-from-planet-dune-to-the-fortnite-item-shop

Dune is now mainstream! Or fortnite is just the new version of merchandising/promotion.

Walk without rhythm emote...

[Dante]

Just got back from seeing the movie. Still digesting it.
Also all the dust that was on this account, cough cough hi folks.

There were things I liked, things I didn't. Spoiler-free overriding thought is that I'm not sure it will be accessible enough to make money, no matter how much the critics are fawning over it.

[Andrew]

I've been reading on reddit what I assume to be people that havnt watched previous installments or read the books are a bit lost or wondering why it ended on a non cliff hanger or climax or something.

[Gobalopper]

Yeah, I can see how if you didn't know the story beforehand the ending would be unexpected.

But the movie has done well at the box office, highest domestic opening weekend of any Villeneuve film so that is a good sign for a part 2.

[Andrew]

Wow, I would not have expected it to make more than say Arrival (prepandemic box office). Must be the giant cast and director that got people in seats, because I doubt general public care about "Dune". Also, it made more than bladerunner? nice.

Maybe they want 2nd greenlit so they can add it to their online streaming library to get people to pay $ each month like netflix. Pay money to create content they own, pays dividends over decade (not having to pay another studio for the rights to it).

 

 

They greenlit the 2nd movie. I have no idea how, but they did it.

 

EDIT:

reddit thread on box office dune. EDIT: how do I turn off these inlined or smart links and just post a link only?

 

[Gobalopper]

On 10/26/2021 at 4:06 PM, Andrew said:

EDIT: how do I turn off these inlined or smart links and just post a link only?

When you past the link and it converts it to an embed there should be a line that appears at the bottom of the input box that asks you if you want to make it a link instead.

[Gobalopper]

I've also read, forget where now, that Villeneuve wants to make 3 Dune movies to cover Paul's entire character arc. Which makes me wonder if that would include Children of Dune and not just Dune Messiah.

[MrFlibble]

I've not yet watched it but watched the trailer and snippets available online.

It looks like the movie tries to make some allusions to Lynch which are not based on the book directly, like the levitating Baron and the Sardaukar speaking an alien language (like the Guildsmen in the 1984 movie, but here it makes a lot less sense it seems).

I've re-read parts of the book recently, and it seems that Piter in particular is rather off compared to his book prototype. He does not have signs of Spice addiction, not sure why this change was made. In the book, this is what binds him to the Baron, because withdrawal would likely be terminal, and emphasizes the way the Baron controls everyone around him -- fear and power.

I've also heard that Yueh has been given a shallow treatment in the movie, despite being a major character in the first book of the novel. Apparently the Baron kills him himself (kind of going against the entire plot with the tooth, as Yueh in the book says that he'd never be let close enough to the Baron to make an attempt on him), and it seems that he is not given the "You think you defeated me" lines either. This also ruins the Baron as someone who kept his own hands clean, and for no real purpose than to show that the Baron is a monster?

I've always liked the part in Lynch's version where Yueh weeps after betraying the Duke, a scene which was not in Frank Herbert's vision, but feels consistent with it. He's clearly portrayed as guilt-ridden in the novel, even though his determination to kill the Baron is much greater than any other considerations, although one could say that he keeps some of the loyalty to the Atreides by saving Paul and Jessica. He also appears to stand up to the Baron in some grander way than even Leto. I've always wondered at the hints about his wife's role as a Bene Gesserit, which make one think whether this was some part of a plan as well.

The conversation between Yueh and Jessica on Arrakis is a very powerful scene in the book, I wonder if anything was left of it in the new film?

[exatreide]

I watched it last night. It lacked a lot of the subtle nuances of the book, but it was entertaining. The Lynch version was a confusion riddled mess that was a bad movie(I still love it) when the Mini series had the ability to tell significantly more due to its time allowance.

The cinematography in this was great.

I'm quite pleased. 

 

[Khan]

I thought it was a solid big screen adaptation. It missed some of the intricacies of the book but overall was able to portray the general themes and concepts of the novel. There were certain characterizations of which I wasn't a fan (Yueh role being more of a bit part, Jessica crying multiple times). Outside of that it was well written, well shot and well acted. I particularly liked the way he showed Paul seeing the different potential paths of the future.

Also the invasion of arrakeen was spectacular, the visuals conveyed the intimidation of a combined harkonnen/sardaukar assault very well. One particular aspect I liked was the Baron. The combination of the suspensors and the long flowing robes (while not quite in keeping with the books) gave him an almost vampiric quality that looked, to me, like an attempt to use his weight gaining disease to add to his overall intimidation - making him more like a living figure of myth for his subjects.

[Andrew]

 

Part 2 is real with some pics of new characters

[Gobalopper]

 

[Andrew]

Looks great!

[Gobalopper]

 

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

Looks dope. The movie got me thinking about Westwood's alternate Dune-iverse, with Dune 2000 and it's sequel Emperor: Battle for Dune. I'm thinking Paul Atredies died during the events of Dune 2000, as well as his father. The baron also died. Then in Emperor there is a new Duke Achilles, who's a cousin of Leto or something. The new Baron Rakkan is a cousin of Vladimir.

Westwood's Duniverse doesn't have a Maud-Dib, and has much less knife fighting with personal shields.

[MrFlibble]

I finally got around to watching the movie and I must say that I... didn't like it. It's probably okay as, I don't know, a moving pictures picture-book to more or less illustrate the novel, but as a full-fledged screen adaptation, it does not do justice to the source material IMO.

I don't believe I've ever seen any other movie by Villeneuve, except for a few scenes from that alien contact film I don't remember the title of. But I gather that he is very fond of "great" visuals, and it looks like here he sacrificed almost all character development to showing off the scenery, and even then could not fit the entire story into a single movie. The characters are incredibly one-dimensional at best, and I cannot even imagine what the viewers who had not read the book thought about the characters at all. Almost everyone except Paul, Jessica and maybe Leto and Chani are not fleshed out at all. There is very little dialogue; the film made me realise how full of dialogue and monologue the book is. All the nuance from any character's motivation, thoughts and actions is removed because of this. And don't tell me that it's hard to convey stuff from a talky book to the screen because it's a different medium. David Lynch made Yueh cry after he betrays the Atreides and that's a short scene with no dialogue, but it is more accurate to Yueh's character from the book, even though he does not cry in the book, than the incredibly bland guy doing the doctor in Villeneuve's version.

Also there are very obvious shout outs to Lynch's version, but very poorly made. There's a completely pointless scene where Piter (who is completely inefficient in this version, does nothing evil and generally acts as if he were the Baron's weak-willed, not very smart son or nephew or some such) visits Salusa Secundus -- which is total BS from the standpoint of the book's lore but anyway -- and talks to a Sardaukar commander, who speaks in some "cool" gibberish language. This is obviously a "nod" to the Navigator scenes in David Lynch's version, but. In that film, the Guildsmen use an automated translation tool, which shows that they a. rely on technology and, possibly more important, b. are so alienated from the general populace of the Imperium and feel so superior that they do not even deign to use Galach when talking to outsiders. This detail very well matches how the Guild treats the Emperor and orders him around -- hinted at in the novel but never shown there. Very clever. However, here there is no language barrier between the Sardaukar commander and Piter, which makes the use of the Sardaukar language just a pointless gimmick of no actual relevance. And the same scene also shows the Sardaukar getting marks with some red paint or perhaps blood, which is another shout out to David Lynch, this time to the Fedaykin initiation scene from the second part of the movie. How many shout outs do you put into less than ten minutes of screen time? Why? What for?