Yeah, that was a really weird choice, and he really didnt seem like he gave a single fuck… i would have much preferred some no-name actor in the role that wouldnt have ripped me out of the story with his face and cadence.
1 Like
It’s not far off where the miniseries ended its first episode, so ending where it did shouldn’t be completely baffling, as it’s where the story shifts gears from Paul’s pre-Fremen period.
1 Like
… the size of a freight train
3 Likes
Because they are not in the novel, and adding them just feels gratuitous. I like to think they are saving them for when we meet Edric, the ambassador for the navigators in Dune Messiah.
1 Like
That’s just, like… your personal opinion, yo.
It’s fine if you didn’t like the film, but no one single person gets to define what is or is not “art.”
Regarding the sound mixing:
I guess I saw Part 2 in a decent (standard) theater; the sound was not an issue for me.
It was the uneven pacing of the narrative that bothered me the most.
10 Likes
Well, I wouldn’t say that. He studiously avoided the physics on purpose, because that road leads to dating your fiction. As there are no known ways to travel faster than light, saying how it’s done risks running afoul of actual discoveries, and then you look as silly as the previous generation did with the æther between the planets and stars.
He did go a little more into the idea of interstellar travel in his Destination:Void series, but even there it was more exploring the concept of artificial intelligence, of religion, and totalitarianism more than any actual physics.
2 Likes
I don’t mean that it’s a problem in the series; it just wasn’t a big part of the story he was telling or the universe he was constructing so it makes sense that there would be little focus on the spaceships in the movies.
If you want lots of cool spaceships in your sci-fi movies you’re better off with Star Wars or Star Trek or The Expanse.
2 Likes
It was a matter of coinciding conveniences, I think. Since this was sold to the studios as a two-parter, ending on Paul’s first trek to Sietch Tabr with Chani saying ‘This is just the beginning… (fade to black)’ is a delicious cliffhanger for part two from a marketing perspective.
From a story perspective, it ended mere moments after Paul symbollically gave up his boyhood as a fancy lad and began his life as a Fremen man, being literally marched into a future he was blind to (because he wasn’t super spice-infused quite yet). I’d posit that it was the best, if still a little ragged, cleaving point in the story.
I’m going to see pt.2 tomorrow so they could have totally whiffed the landing, I dunno. But I’m still optimistic to have an overall non-dogshit adaptation! Despite all relevant complaints I’ve become drunk on the feeling that finally, after all these decades, someone with financial backing read and understood my favorite book.
6 Likes
That’s apt, because to me part 1 felt like a miniseries first episode padded out to fit a 2.5 hour runtime. Anyone familiar with the story knows the payoff and resolution is coming, but the credits roll before part 1 gets to that. Buh-bye, see you in two years and change.
It was a very odd choice for a standalone movie.
1 Like
No argument there. I think if I had watched both parts back to back I would have zero complaints.
1 Like
Bingo.
It was a point of emphsis for the directors/writers/showrunners of series like Firefly and The Expanse to treat the ship like a character.
1 Like
So… you’re complaining that it takes a lot of time to make so much film (and Covid happened along the way, too) and you’d rather they’d held back part 1 from release until part 2 was ready to release?
Part 1 was never a standalone film. Part 2 was always coming.
3 Likes
Not quite. I would say that had I known in advance where where part 1 was going to end I would have not have watched it until part 2 was ready. I’m looking forward to part 2, but I don’t think I would choose to re-watch part 1 again without liberal use of the fast-forward button or a Topher Grace style fan edit.
1 Like
1 Like
I thought it was great. I’m delighted that today’s movie industry is capable of making a major blockbuster that is, ultimately, a bummer. That’s the thing about the novel: it’s a tragedy; Paul is a tragic hero (or maybe an antihero) and things DO NOT turn out well. Until I actually saw the movie, I wasn’t sure that Denis would be able to go through with this. But oh does he ever. The movie is a bummer. And I say that in the most positive sense.
I’m not a huge Zimmer fan… He’s incredibly talented and has really innovated the way electronic music is handled in scores, but he’s always left me a little cold. But I thought this score was fine. Unobtrusive. I do love the Toto score for the 1984 movie. Not unobtrusive. Obtrusive, even. Just great though.
3 Likes
ICYMI, this is fun reading:
(apologies if this is somehow a re-bOING or crosspost)
I kinda wish somehow Brian Eno had gotten the job to do the whole thing. I just felt Toto was not relevant or appropriate given the film’s story.
I do love Eno’s contribution to the 1984 score. It’s evocative. Atemporal. Spare. Ethereal. Haunting if not tragic. Not overtly plugged into one specific culture’s trad or pop music.
4 Likes
If there’s any planet that will get you missing the rains down in Africa it’s Arrakis.
12 Likes
And blessing them rains down in Africa too!
Y’know… but for a minor rewrite… you can almost make it work…
… I seek to cure what’s deep inside
Frightened of this thing that I’ve becomeIt’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never hadHurry boy, she’s waiting there for you
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)
I bless the rains down in Africa (I bless the rain)I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa (gonna take the time)
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
Imagine a young Kyle MacLachlan grabbin’ the mic (or animal horn, or whatever they use in-sietch) and balladeering this to Sean Young while ol’ Patrick Stewart maybe plays backup on his baliset. Oh man, David Lynch just didn’t go far enough, I guess!
4 Likes
I loved it. General observations:
- The way they understated the explosion of the spice harvester in the first Fremen attack scene made the action feel bigger and more real.
- Paul at the end was cold as fuck. He didn’t murder the Baron, didn’t defeat an enemy, didn’t assassinate a ruler- He just slaughtered an animal like it was Tuesday.
- The movie genuinely managed to capture the enormous scale of the Dune universe.
- The Harkonnens were terrifying. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure this is why they didn’t include the Spacing Guild, Tleilax, or too much with Mentats- They wanted to make sure the Harkonen were the most alien thing we saw.
- First and foremost, though, was how well they really captured the manufactured nature of the prophecy, and how Paul and Jessica deliberately positioned him as the Messiah. This was the premature end of a long con, and they stole centuries of Bene Gesserit manipulation the way Trump stole the Republican base.
- They handled Alia pretty decently. A small child with the accumulated memory and psychopathic tendencies of a hundred generations of eugenics-obsessed sex cultists is not a character which lends itself to easy film adaptation.
- Stilgar’s transition from skeptic to True Believer™. =chef’s kiss= See “opportunistic theft of manipulated prophecy” above.
- The moment Paul decided that becoming the villain was the best way to become the hero, and decided to roll with the Messian vibe. Dune is a story with no good guys or bad guys, only varying levels of psychopathy and political manipulation. NAILED IT.
Also, and most importantly, when Chani hisses “He’s not the Messiah” and storms out, it was a perfect opportunity to lean over and whisper “He’s a very naughty boy!”
I really hope they continue with Messiah and Children. God Emperor is my personal favorite, but fucked if I can see how to do it as a movie.
4 Likes
I dont know; the 2000s miniseries was around 4.5 hours runtime, covered almost all of the book, but did not felt that rushed. had a lot of dialogue. wished dune part one & two with its more than five hours runtime -which covers not nearly as much as the series- had only half the dialogue the series had.
2 Likes
