i hope we get to see part 2. is that ever happening? it seems so long ago now. ( i suppose i could google these things. 
)
eta: the internet says november 23. although it’s already been delayed twice, so 
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My only beef with that one is the Sardaukar costumes were goofy
Loved that they did the following 2 books
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ETA another phrase that I love.
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One thing I think utterly failed in Villeneuve is that he tried to make Dune character-driven. Which, if anyone has ever read Dune, is clearly at best an immense challenge. This isn’t to say he couldn’t have succeeded – but he didn’t succeed. Here’s something I wrote in another venue (lightly edited):
World-building is a huge part of the novel. What makes it especially compelling is that it’s immense, it feels not fully knowable, and yet it feels intricate and complete. Villeneuve’s approach to world-building was fine, showing a big universe with many moving parts. But Lynch, I’d argue, successfully conveys the intricacy and mystery of that world (even as the techniques he used, such as the use of expositional VOs for inner monologue, were ultimately pretty clumsy).
One scene where the differene really stood out was in the Hunter-Seeker scene. Lynch lingers, creates and then heightens the tension, suggests the technology behind the device and the implications of the scene. In Villeneuve it’s just an event that kind of happens. This and other similar editorial choices model the important aspects of world-building from the novels that I think Villenuve missed.
A significant part of the world-building that was weakened by Villeneuve’s choice of character-driven storytelling is the role that people and their stations play in the plot. A central theme of the novel is “A place for every person and each person in his place”. Even when the novels appear to contradict that tenet (e.g. Jessica defying the wishes of the BG, ending up giving birth to the Kwisatz Haderach), they reinforce the overarching theme that even when characters reject station, they simply end up filling a different agenda’s station.
Villeneuve touches a little bit on the significance of station, but he seems to refuse to go all-in: people talk a big game about roles and allegiances but they mostly just kind of do what they want. On the other hand, Lynch does an excellent job of capturing this: in every scene, there’s a sense that characters are consciously inhabiting a particular role and choosing an appropriate register to speak and act in. This is even true in intimate scenes, like those between Paul and Chani.
Dune the novel is a story where the characters primarily serve as macguffins – but they’re macguffins that drive the entire plot. Villeneuve tried to make the characters more relatable by adding characterization (such as it is), but that came at the expense of the characters’ macguffin roles. As much sense as this choice makes as an approach to appealing to to casual viewers, I don’t think he succeeded.
Characterization is well and good (not to mention important for the film to appeal to people who aren’t just coming as fans of the novel or Lynch), but I think Villeneuve both missed the mark on creating compelling characters and on creating the sense that those characters had cosmic roles to play in the grander story.
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“Up top I’m giving chaperon, I’m giving chef’s toque, I’m giving serious bad-hair-day beret. Down below I am OWNING the moto pants, and I’m tying the look together with puffy sleeves and a chunky oversized turtleneck sweater. You know – shabby chic.”
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Monochromatic Swiss Guards…
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I re-watched it shortly after reading the novel and I was actually struck by how faithful it was to the source material compared to the vast majority of sci-fi adaptations.
The 1950s version of War of the Worlds used flying saucers instead of mechanical tripods. The most famous film version of Frankenstein wasn’t even set in the same century as the original novel. Starship Troopers never mentioned cybernetic battle armor or the military’s alien adversaries-turned-allies. There wasn’t a single electric sheep in Blade Runner. The movie adaptation of World War Z used almost none of the source material apart from the title.
Lynch’s Dune wasn’t an especially coherent adaptation of Herbert’s novel but it wasn’t an unusually unfaithful adaptation. Probably the two biggest liberties that Lynch took were giving the Fremen sound-based weapons and making it rain at the end of the movie (and the latter change was really just fast-forwarding to something that happened in later novels).
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A good review of why “sound based weapons” were used.
David Lynch did not want “Kung-Fu on sand dunes” and he felt the concept of the hyperspeed moves of the Weirding Way would be unworkable and unfilmable.
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Yeah I personally thought those weapons felt like something that fit right in to the narrative universe Frank Herbert created even if they weren’t a technology dreamt up by the author himself.
Kind of like how the “Point of View Gun” in the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie felt like something Douglas Adams might have thought up even if the movie as a whole didn’t quite capture the magic of the original novel.
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My view of film adaptions are that given a choice between “looks good on screen” and “faithful to the book”, looks good is far more important.
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Don’t get me fucking started on that movie…
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Mel Brooks’ agent managed to get him the right of final cut on all his films. So when AVCO/Embassy complained about the swastika dance number in The Producers during production, he would say “no problem, I’ll cut it” and they’d leave him alone. Then he wouldn’t cut it.
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his loss. i love both movies, and his gets props for being the first noble attempt, but Villeneuve’s is just a glorious eye feast. i could watch it for twice its runtime and be happy.
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If half of it is visually boring, can a wonderful second half save it? Why not make the entire movie interesting to look at? Is there a reason to make the audience slog through impeccably composed but lifeless frames? What artistic reason justifies being boring for half the project?
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Again:
You have a great day, now.
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Can we at least agree that the movie would look nicer if it were in color? Of all the things I don’t want to see desaturated to lifelessness, it’s a mysterious alien future.
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Dude, no one is required to agree with your opinion.
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