Apparently his cut was 5 hours long…
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You may want to do so before accepting Paul Atreides as an unambiguous “good guy.” Herbert himself said he wrote the sequel in part to dissuade fans of that kind of thinking.
A big part of the Dune universe is about people and organizations who have the hubris to think they know what’s best for everyone getting taken down a peg.
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Well there you go.
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It is currently on limited release in a few hundred theaters. General release oct 21/22
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Porn “parody”
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I am not accepting him that way, from the book, or from Lynch’s Dune –– and I’ve not seen enough of the new one to form an opinion.
What I am doing is arguing for experiencing the story as it unfolds from a given story teller. If this is the insight that Villeneuve wants me to draw, I prefer to follow the story teller’s lead than burden my impressions with “pre-knowledge” from other versions.
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In the early part of the book Paul isn’t aware of the Fremen at all and they’re never subjects, they’re a distinct free caste largely ignored and considered myth by the non natives so not a compelling review…
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However “good” Paul Atreides is, before or after his Fremenization, he’s at all times an autocrat.
Any worm messiah (or for that matter Elven/Numenorean king), however beneficent, who is not in the process of engineered a smooth transition to representative government is, at best, ambiguous.
And then what? Robert Mugabe and Ferdinand Marcos and Daenerys Targaryen, 20 years after liberation, become just as bad as the people they liberated their country from.
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That’s kinda the point.
Part of the tragedy of Paul Atreides was that his exposure to the Spice and his becoming the Kwizats Haderach kicked in powers of foresight and prophecy, so he knew that the result of what he was doing was going to be a theocratic tyranny spanning the galaxy, but he couldn’t figure out a way to stop it. In the end, he abdicated and tried to stop the prophecy by no longer being in the middle of it, but that just made room for his son Leto II to become the God-Emperor of Dune.
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It’s not a deal breaker if you already know the story. The film is worthwhile just on the basis of the visuals, world-building and atmosphere, and the part of the story that is covered, albeit incomplete, is still well told. The ending will be a bigger problem for viewers who have never read the book or seen previous adaptations, but it is still a good film overall.
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ETA
Never mind.
Watched it. Loved it. Watched it again. Love it even more.
I was not so excited for a movie in years. The last time I loved a movie so much was probably LOTR.
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True, the film only covers part of the story, but the benefits might be that
a) by spreading the film out it feels properly epic like the books
b) if there is a pause between the filming of the two halves, Paul might actually age appropriately to match the book.
Any previous versions of Dune in film/TV never quite managed to pull this off, with time constraints and having to choose an actor that would be teenage boy and also young man.
I have high hopes for this… please please please make part 2!
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I tried to read Dune a couple of times in my teens and early 20’s and never finished, don’t really remember why.
I’m now staring at a paperback copy of Dune that I just got from the library, should i read it before the movie?
Got it, and thanks.
Its going to take a lot to get me to a movie theater in the middle of a pandemic and this ain’t it for me.
Maybe I’ll give it a chance when rentable for streaming.
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Far be it from a mere mortal like me to comprehend the reasoning of Hollywood executives, but it looks like in addition to the good reviews, the film is doing well at the box office, which should be good news for part 2:
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And for Alia to become one of wickedest rulers in the interim. One of the greatest crazy rulers of all time.
*20 seconds
It is admittedly a bit of a dry read.
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