Not at all too soon, that was my first impression. Villeneuve’s was a “better movie” but was kinda boring.
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Spoken like a true de Oriole.
@Brainspore, we are maybe talking about the same impression - though I didn’t consider it visually inventive. I might reconsider, but that would need some contemplation of other films which preceded D84, or are about the same age - like Time Bandits, Blade Runner and Brazil, to name but the ones which spring to my mind when I search for comparable visuals.
What sets D84 apart from those is a more erratic storytelling, with the dialogue and sound design working actively against the viewer’s expectations, and both lighting and camera (which I think you would include in visuals, not only creatures and costume, am I correct?) are of a more subtle dream-like quality. Terry Gilliam’s films have something similar, but they exaggerated that style up to the point of farce and satire. Ridley Scott used similar methods to create unease, but toned them down, made them more conventional. D84, I think, is in a sweet spot in between - it does take itself completely seriously, warts and all, and lacks the humour of Gilliam. And it is still much weirder and maybe bolder than Scott’s take.
However, I have the feeling none of the mentioed films is particularly innovative, visually: they are all slightly different variations, iterations of visuals along a spectrum of visual ideas which - I think - come from Fritz Lang’s work.
D21, on the other hand, has the problem of being completely polished. It’s like playing a “remastered” LucasArts adventure with high-definition graphics. Guybrush Threepwood in 8K graphics and a different palette. It’s not bad as such, but it lacks the emotion.
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It’s too bad Petrophaga lorioti had not been discovered yet when Frank Herbert wrote the first book. Something like it would really round out the ecology of Arrakis.
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You gave a lot of credit to Snyder’s skills as a director, but the choices in the story may not fall on his shoulders. The screenplay was written by David Hayter and Alex Tse. I don’t know how much the film diverts from what was written, though.
Is that what I was doing?
Let me put it this way: his movie looked an awful lot like the Watchmen source material. Certainly a lot more than (say) the X-Men movies looked like the source material. But it didn’t feel like the source material. It didn’t feel like much of anything.
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yep, the rocketeer is for what it is a perfect movie. its definitely more than the sum of its parts, while watchmen is definitely only and barely the sum of its parts.
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It also helped that the Rocketeer was a comparatively obscure comic so most viewers didn’t come in with any specific expectations. In a lot of ways it felt more like an Indiana Jones movie than anything else.
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Lynch’s Dune is a train wreck, nearly two hours of whispered narration and symbolic dream sequences, and yet, in many ways, was an absolute masterpiece. The casting pretty much perfect, the special effects for the sand worms of Arakis and the Voice surpassing the Villeneuve version (although other SFX were laughably poor), and the sense of otherworldliness far more developed.
Villeneuve’s version is a better mass-market adaptation because it dumbs the highly cerebral novel down to a children’s movie level while being visually and emotionally engaging (and the score is great), but for fans of the novel, it really is the pre-school level Dune. I enjoyed it after I let go of the need to compare it to the novel. Fingers crossed part deux of the Villeneuve version is as good as part one, but I would go crazy for a part two of the Lynch version.
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Whaaaaat??
Phew, okay. Welcome to BoingBoing!
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That’s the trick, isn’t it. So many of these discussions aren’t “is this one better or that one”, they’re “do I like this one or that one better”.
It seems like you should be able to compare the Villeneuve and Lynch Dunes, but when you get down to it, it’s really hard to, because they’re different things, emphasising different parts of the same original story, through different filters, and trying to achieve different effects on different people.
Whether any given person prefers one over the other, they’re both excellent movies for what they are. (And Corridor Crew made a point of showing how while everyone goes mad for the Worms in Lynch’s Dune, one of the Tours de Force of special effects was the forced perspective shot of the Atreides forces disembarking for the first time on Arrakis. Don’t worry, they also geeked out over the ornithopter effects in Villeneuve’s Dune.)
Each Dune is a masterpiece of what it is trying to do, it’s just that they’re trying to do different things with the source.
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Make a movie about the making of the movie.
Muad’dib Now?
Hahaha, I had the exact same reaction. That first sentence is a rollercoaster of emotion!
I love the first book but my interest tails off as you go through the series and I find myself rewatching Dune 84 every so often I just love the way it feels. Villeneuves I feel less strongly about, there’s a lot to like but I feel less captivated by it but I’m still interested to see how the sequel turns out.
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I am a fan of the novel(s), but I would definitely not go that far as to say that dune2021 is “pre-school level” or “children’s movie level” (thats really harsh!).
e/ I would like to argue that its actually the other way around; dune84 is “pre-school-level” because everything is exposition, starting with princess irulans explaining monolouge right at the beginning. and. it. never. stops.
broadstroke like an old war painting; the movie is the big, broad painting for the book. and it delivers.
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I don’t know, I never bought Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck. An ugly lump of a man he isn’t. Josh Brolin’s better for the role, IMO.
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(dammit. diggin through my very old stuff…couldnt help it.)
interpretation of a guild navigator I drew ´87;
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