Should their faces look so pristine, and their outfits look so fresh-from-the-cleaners?
I don’t know Dune very well but these look like rich people visiting the desert from their tour bus, then getting back inside to go to the pyramids.
I like a little grit and realism in my sci-fi. The costumes look great, but the actors look like they’ve never worn them before and are standing a bit uncomfortably. Reminds me of 80s movies where there would be a “punk rocker” who had some wild costume that didn’t look “lived in” at all.
Yes, Deckard has a fake sheep. Of course, pretty much all of the thematic material about the animals and Mercerism—i.e, the main point of the novel and what Dick construed as the difference between the android and the human—is jettisoned from the movie. I mean, the movie is okay as a movie, but has very little connection to the book.
I’m generally not an advocate for strict adaptation. For one you can never translate things perfectly, and assuming you could what’s the point? The original work is still right there.
Often times the worst adaptations are the ones that go for the rote approach, but don’t do it particularly well.
Lynch seems to have attempted to keep things reasonably close, but execute something more interesting. Even though it didn’t work out, so it’s awesome down to the unique mix of Lynchian weird, Dune weird, and all out jank.
But given Dune’s reputation as unfilmable, anyone adapting is going to have to make changes. To the extent that those changes serve a purpose beyond marketing and practicality it should be good.
If anything the shortcomings of the Lynch movie probably had more to do with his attempts to make the movie feel like the book than the deviations from Herbert’s story. Overdependence on voiceover/inner monologues for exposition, complicated multigenerational political relationships, long periods of relative inaction between action set pieces… all storytelling devices that work better on the page than on screen. It was a pretty visually impressive movie anyway.
If that’s the scene of Paul and Jessica I think it is then “rich people stepping out into the desert in uncomfortable outfits they’ve never worn before” is exactly the right look for that part of the story.
The book was very specific that even Paul didn’t learn how to adjust his stilsuit to fit quite right until they’d encounted the Fremen:
Presently Paul stood again before Stilgar, who said: “Now, you are of the Ichwan Bedwine, our brother.” His face hardened, and he spoke with command in his voice. “And now, Paul-Muad’Dib, tighten up that stillsuit.” He glanced at Chani. "Chani! Paul-Muad’Dib’s nose plugs are as poor a fit I’ve ever seen! I thought I ordered you to see after him! "
It still looks like neither of them has had a pimple in their lives. But maybe pimples have been eliminated in the year 10,000 or whatever it’s supposed to be.
I agree! Textually, it wasn’t wrong; Lynch did choose to focus on some odd bits, the grosser bits, which, given Lynch, is not a surprise, but I thought that there were so many more interesting facets to the novel than the ickiness of the Harkonnens. As my mother would have said “The emPHASis was on the wrong syLABle”. But the acting, dialogue, pacing … yikes.
I am willing to love anything Dune. I read the book in my early teens, then saw the Lynch movie on the big screen. It’s one of a dozen or so movies I’ve re-watched a few times, and I still love it for
(disclaimer: I’m a Lynch fan, duh.)
On a re-read of the Dune sagas a few years back, I realized I liked the world better than the story. Brian Herbert’s prequels written from Frank’s notebooks are fun and fascinating to me, and more enjoyable than the actual stories.
All Dune adaptations are just that, adaptations, and work on the strength of the costume and set designers as much as the writers, directors, and actors.
That seems like a good explanation. I’m also thinking of “I, Claudius”, where the characters (the ones that survived into old age), sometimes had to age from their teens into old age. Derek Jacobi started out playing Claudius in his teens (he was, I believe, in his thirties at the time), into his mid-sixties. They wanted to keep the same cast for the entire run, unlike the contemporary series “The Crown”, which has changed the cast as the characters have aged; that’s an unusual choice.
That’s… kind of exactly what they are. The Atreides clan are newcomers to Arrakis (…desert planet…dune) and originate from a water-rich earth-like world. The native Fremen look more weathered and gaunt because they’re still not “water fat”. They do all look very pretty for cave-dwellers, though.
This casting is amazing and I really hope this works well. After the space wars silliness, I can’t even be bothered to get worked up one way or the other for adaptations, relaunches, etc. Even at their absolute best (LOTR, I guess?) I just haven’t found myself caring or thinking about them for very long compared to original scripts. This looks like it could really be something.
Actually, I just remembered the one film that I think is far superior to the book; The Iron Giant. The film is a nuanced, fun, feelsy romp and the book is… well, not any of those things.
Also, is no one going to mention the mountain bikes? WTAF? I can’t imagine those serving the story in any way. In fact, if it’s what Paul & Jessica use to flee the Ornithopter crash, it ruins a great opportunity for exposition about Shai-Hulud.
Sort of where I’m at, and I think that’s the major reason for a Dune following in the first place. Like I said, I couldn’t stand the book or Herberts writing in general. And I get the impression that it’s a lot of HIGH MINDED THINKING about high school level philosophy concepts. But the setting, world building, and general plot outline are really compelling.
So practically any well carried off adaptation using all that is right up my alley.
That sort of makes it an excellent candidate. Lots of good to tease out, short comings to work around or tease out. It’s fertile ground for sure.
If Michael Bay was directing we could be assured that the brand names on the sportswear would be featured more prominently. And the Fremen would definitely all be wearing Under Armour® beneath their stilsuits.
