Emmet Asher-Perrin has a good point about the film doing a disservice to Jessica, as they point out book Jessica is always in control and i’m wondering if this is to make it easier on audiences who don’t know the material to see a more clear progression of the character’s strength. And again i did want more palace intrigue to be shown because they’re also spot on in that it makes House Atreides look a bit foolish in that they didn’t see the fall coming, although maybe that’s not entirely true because Leto and Gurney know things are going to fall apart.
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So watching it again today (second viewing) I noticed the Harkonnen Drop ships also employed balloons to arrest their drop before landing. So Denis must really like balloons or something. The carryalls I can buy but a troop transport being very vulnerable for its final landing seems like a tactical no no.
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Just saw this yesterday with two friends who’ve never read the book nor seen either the David Lynch film or SyFy’s (still Sci-Fi back then) tv mini-series and they had a lot of questions and confusion. This film relies far too heavily on its audience being familiar with one of those former iterations; a lot of key pieces of context get skipped over or left out, which is a shame. Even I was left bewildered in certain places, wondering why they chose to jump around, nonchalantly introduce certain characters, play out some situations without giving necessary context, and tossing off key pieces of information in casual bits of random dialogue that don’t reflect that we’re receiving a key piece of information.
I have a soft spot for Lynch’s epic failure of his one and only shot at a mainstream studio massive budget film. Despite its own chaos and confusion, it managed to do a (slightly) better job of letting the audience know what’s going on. Unfortunately, it was through cheesy voice-over “inner monologue”.
I feel like with this version, Villenueve was trying hard to achieve a feeling of epicness through visual storytelling, but given the density of writing and description in the book that’s just not an achievable way to craft this particular story. I feel like Villeneuve was so intent on giving us visual splendor which, in turn, made a lot of the movie feel a bit hollow to me.
The art direction, effects, and cinematography are spectacular. The daytime action scenes are amazing. I thought the casting was impeccable with the exception of Jason Mamoa (I like Jason Mamoa, but the dude cannot act; and that was really evident in any scenes in which he was with any other actor). Given the great cast, it’s disappointing how little weight or character development was given to some fairly key characters like Shadout Mapes, Dr. Yuen, and Pietr de Vries; even to some extent Jamis and Kynes felt underwritten. And I’m especially annoyed with how little time we got with Javier Bardem’s Stilgar, though to be fair Stilgar is more prominent in the second half, but still, Bardem’s portrayal was so captivating despite so little screen time. And we didn’t even get to see whoever is going to play Feyd-Rautha prancing around in a blue space speedo.
All in all a noble effort, but one that falls victim to the same issue that every previous adaptation fell victim too, namely trying to translate the density of ideas and philosophical concepts that really give the book the massive depth it has as a story into a visual medium without relying on an omniscient narrator being forced to provide extending exposition dumps. So the book still remains to be “unfilmable” to a certain degree.
Also, shout out to bagpipes! I can’t believe they lasted the test multiple eons of time and still remained classically the bagpipe. Now that’s longevity!
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Firstly th Atreides always knew it was a trap, their cunning plan was to ally/use the Fremen as an army so I don’t know that they were stupid so much as the speed of the retakeover with the imperial army was beyond their calculation.
Secondly Jessica in this was fundamentally different to the Lynch version. She bore a son out of pride, not love. She was angling to be the mother of the Kwisatch. Power yes, but she wasn’t in control. Her relationship to Paul is also much more complex and interesting. She is playing her own game, one as a member of the Bene Gesserit, and also she is still his mother. He asks you: do you say this as my mother or on behalf of the Bene Gesserit. He doesnt seem to realise the third option.
I think she’s great in it.
Stellan Skarsgaard getting props for cosplaying Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now is a bit odd to me.
ETA
Paul Atreides being so deeply unlikeable and explicitly down with a genocidal war in which the Fremen are exploited as canon fodder is a bold move for me.
To be more accurate to colonial history they should have split the Fremen into groups and created an ethnic or caste elite in order to convince them to be complicit in the imperialism.
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This. I took deep notice of how she didn’t answer Leto on their last night together. That was a huge tell for me.
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They certainly do in the book but the criticism of the film is that they are seemingly caught with their breeches down which is not strictly true, it may be subtler but they know it.
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Glad to see it is official.
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It’s pretty much true to the book though.
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They explicitly do in the film too, they just have the cunning plan of enlisting the Fremen as an army and are exultant that they were right: there are many more than all the rest of the empire believe. They keep on repeating the mantra of desert power. They are not stupid, but too proud of themselves for having a piece of the puzzle that nobody else has. They didn’t figure that the emperor would go scorched earth rather than leave himself with plausible deniability by sending in the Sadaukar straight away. He didn’t want two houses killing each other, he wanted to warn all the houses by destroying one, publicly. They thought they could make a force to beat the Harkonnens. It’s really an explicit reference to Lawrence of Arabia, but the book and this film critique that.
Worth remembering too that the Bene Geserit would have been quite happy with a Harkonnen as the false Messiah to reap the benefit of the prophesies they sowed. Jessica wants to wield that power herself.
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Hmmm i’m just not sure it’s all that explicit in the film if i’m honest but other commenters seem satisfied that it is, as you point out they have over inflated egos of knowing something the Harkonnens do not but not fully grasping the bigger picture until it’s too late. Poor House Atreides, they really are the Starks of the Dune verse.
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Yeah! Not Cartoonishly evil Ike the Harkonnens / Lannisters, but actually not better in reality for the vast majority of people. Imperialism with a caring face.
And failing to grasp that.
Also mystical sons.
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Like the Brits versus the Germans?
My guess would be more access to movie theaters over there. Most of the American audience will probably be streaming the film.
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That all depends on time and place. The British were not better for, say, Sudanese people than anyone. They were better for Jewish people than Germans surely but their imperial slaughter across Africa and Asia in the 19th century doesn’t really have many competitors. Like they were Cartoonishly evil in Sudan.
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Which makes the Lawrence of Arabia references more on point. Despite Lawrence’s assurances to his Arab allies that their would lead to independence, he ended up being a tool for imperialist forces (British & French).
The book was written in the middle of worldwide post colonial independence efforts. The British didn’t leave the Middle East until 2 years after it was published.
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And India.
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Absolutely. Some see it as being like LoA, I see it as critiquing him and the cult around him.
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There were several large scale famines in India that killed many millions as well as large scale, asymmetric, imperial slaughter as well as, of course the more insidious destruction of Indian industry to provide markets for English industrial goods. The triangular trade and it’s later versions were astonishingly brutal. Slavery, extraction, destruction, impoverishment, forced trade.
Massive military retaliation against populations, often getting the retaliation in first, often accusing the victims of the very thing that the imperial armies actually do, and those armies often being private armies of plunder.
Not much has changed if I’m being honest.
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Someone told me these are in the film, supposedly they are the white suited figures in helmets filled with Melange when House Atreides receives the order to take control of Arrakis.
What the hell is that pet in the Harkonnen’s place though when the Reverend Mother visits? I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere and it was… disturbing.
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Tleilaxu creation I would imagine. Fan theory I read was that it was Yueh’s wife ‘taken apart and put together again’
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