A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

There is, admittedly, a truth here:

I tried explaining the plot of DUNE and DUNE MESSIAH to my wife recently while she was driving and she said if I didn't stop she would pull over

— Jordan Hoffman (@jhoffman) September 9, 2020

jeeze, Brian Herbert having dominion over Dune canon is like putting Jared Kushner in charge. I tried to read one of his prequels and it was the worst cringe fanfic I’ve ever slogged through.

I loved the Dune Encyclopedia as a kid, but don't have it anymore.

My sci-fi nerd cousin dragged me to the Lynch movie when were 10 and I did not dig it; I finally read it in my very late 30s and liked it more than I expected. Not enough to read any of the others but enough to read this thread

xps

If Herbert wrote it today, the 1965 novel would be at least three fat volumes. It's dense with characters and incidents he could have developed at far greater length (I suppose his recognition of what he'd left on the table prompted the sequels). It's fast-paced in a typical 1960s SF style, a bit disjointed like most fixups from magazine stories, but it kept surprising me and making me want to know and see more. Unfortunately the sequels didn't scratch that itch -- I read Dune Messiah and wasn't inclined to go farther.

I wasn't expecting that trailer to look so much like the Lynch film!

Repeating my reservations from elsewhere:

- Zimmer makes terrible movie music, I don’t trust him not to fuck this up even if what we’ve heard so far is pretty OK (for Zimmer).

- Everything on the screen could be recreated using three of the pages from my Benjamin Moore fan deck, namely the cold browns

- Chalamet’s not a total wimp, but is he up to this? His voice definitely isn’t in the same league as MacLachlan’s. I got expectations, man.

- the ornithopters and the shields don’t look weird enough. Dune is weird. Arrakis is weird.

The last two points are key for me. Still I appreciate the ornithopters looking strange enough.

Strangely, nothing about milking cats

https://www.scribd.com/doc/38049415/Dune-Encyclopedia

the ornithopters and the shields don’t look weird enough. Dune is weird. Arrakis is weird.

Yes, the designs are achingly tasteful and subdued. Not seeing much of a visual personality in that trailer.

I've read Dune two or three times (but not in the last 10 years) but never any of the other books - are any of them worth checking out?

perhaps perversely -- hi there! -- my favourite as a teen was dune messiah: possibly somewhat swayed by bruce pennington's cover art (also it had way less windy lectures on ecology and grown-up alia was hott and badd) (spoilers)

https://i.imgur.com/Mzwtjuh.jpg

Bruce Pennington is the best!

Count me as another ILXOR who first read and enjoyed Dune when they were in their 40s Just read this snippet on Facebook - Frank Herbert OTM!

When Frank Herbert was in Australia for a science fiction convention in Adelaide in 1981, he was asked who he thought should handle the movie soundtrack for any adaptation of DUNE. His reply, Tangerine Dream.

That cover makes me want this film to have Guardians Of The Galaxy style colour.

Also sack Zimmer obv, shoulda gone with Laurel Halo or OPN

see upthread for best pink floyd options

Messiah is one of the worst for me, but it has the heaviest lifting to do and sets up a lot of the rest in a pretty thankless task. God Emperor definitely my favourite after the first.

i will strongly rep for the first four, but the last two are, as i said, objectively bad

we should do a book club! i haven’t started and flaked out on one of those for awhile!

does anyone know who did the Berkley medallion covers? those are the ones that influence how I picture dune in my head the most ... oddly I can find no credit in the books themselves, just an illegible signature on the cover of “children” (leto and ghanima’s shadow is pointing at it)

http://i.redd.it/0g3w46o54ylz.jpg

Wikipedia says Pennington but I don’t think that’s right

Pennington is the mod, more colorful covers; those (at lease the top level ones, not certain about the bottom three) are Vincent Di Fate.
http://vincentdifate.com/

(i am trying to snag y'all a pdf of dune encyclopedia btw)

ah yes i can read the signature now. i thought it was "ed tate" at first but it's clearly "di fate"

the berkley trade covers are awesome too, they can be fit together to form a big image

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/af125/kwisatz-haderach/Cieszyn/Picture606_resize.jpg

apparently they are rare as fuck. i don't know if i've ever seen one IRL.

actually i should specify: the first three are quite rare, the last three are not so rare

just thinking about 0PN doing the score instead makes me a bit sad, that would have been a great way to fold in some unobtrusive weirdness

though his safdie brother scores are not exactly unobstrusive

uncut melange

colin stetson ftw imo

i will strongly rep for the first four, but the last two are, as i said, objectively bad

In ways that makes the Encyclopedia the perfect capper if you stop there.

Oh for the innocence of my youth when I really had no idea AT ALL in God Emperor what Herbert was getting at with the 'Fish Speakers.'

... do tell? what do you think he was getting at?

Watched the trailer, was completely unmoved. I think Marvel Phases 1-3 completely burned me out on big budget SF spectacle. Give me Agnès Varda collecting heart-shaped potatoes.

got some sad news for you

Lynch's images and visual design are far sexier than what I've seen aboit this thing to date.

Yeah, Lynch's isn't like the greatest thing ever but it's astoundingly faithful to the general thrust of the book while adding a sheen of that beautiful weirdness David is famous for.

This doesn't feel necessary.

it is weird seeing all the david lynch regulars like jack nance and everett mcgill in a sci fi setting.

also weird how lynch lifts all of herbert's inner monologue asides and presents them as voice-over.

i saw the lynch movie a couple of times before i read the book, and i was surprised by how much was in the book that wasn't in his movie - mostly the roles and perspectives of the women characters, which is one of the most interesting aspects of the book, were completely excised from the movie

Well I mean that's one thing Villeneuve got right (and that Lynch probably didn't have the opportunity to change): two hours is an insufficient timespan in which to adapt the book.

I forget who said it somewhere the other day but if you come to the table assuming that NO adaptation will ever truly be successful -- which I agree with for a variety of reasons, the book itself really resists an easy boiling down thanks to its various digressions, the internal monologues as noted, even the framing of each chapter with a Maud'Dib quote or anecdote essentially -- then you can enjoy each attempt for where it succeeds and rightfully criticize it for where it doesn't. Lynch's pluses and minuses as noted, the miniseries version has its virtues, etc.

it's not a truly successful adaptation of dune unless the princess irulan teleports in every five minutes and reads a paragraph from one of her many identical books

i've never seen any of the long versions of the lynch film. i saw the movie first as a kid and was completely entranced by it and mystified by what was happening. when i read the novel later on i was surprised that the 'weirding module' wasn't there. it's hard to represent herbert's ideas of intense human refinement and conditioning (the BG's voice, yueh's ethical blocks, the mentats) so i wonder what this film will do differently.

i watched the lynch movie recently on HBO and all the weirdness and oddball glamour was still there but yeah it is a very brief accounting of the plot and not much more. the turn of paul being lost in the desert to being the savior-leader of the fremen is really rushed -- but my memory of the book is not great, maybe it's all too convenient there too. it's too bad lynch doesn't like the movie so much. he has such a great eye for beautiful and ugly faces; it'd be nice to get a lavish official re-ish of it. oh well.

i'm not really sold on chalamet, who seems a bit too young and too west coast in his voice -- maclachlan sounded very preppy waspy. i thought villeneuve's blade runner sequel was in the end kind of pointless. but it was pretty! and he can do thriller action well, which isn't really lynch's thing

the turn of paul being lost in the desert to being the savior-leader of the fremen is really rushed -- but my memory of the book is not great, maybe it's all too convenient there too

it spends a good amount of time on his early days with the fremen, but his ascent from respected member of the sietch to god-warrior-king literally happens between books 2 and 3, with a multi-year time gap

between books 2 and 3

sorry, to be clear i mean "Book Two: Muad'dib" and "Book Three: The Prophet," both of which are divisions of the original book entitled Dune

hoping for a set-piece of gurney halleck playing the baliset in this one and the sequel tbrr

wonder how josh brolin's voice is

Hey man Patrick Stewart just let the music speak for himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuBSvNtlAq8

Also I want an oral history of just that scene.

I think it's important to remember that Paul Atreides is 15 in the first book.

yeah that's one of the reasons why i don't mind the chalamet casting. he's seems to have the dicaprio-esque boyishness that he'll retain until he inevitably attempts to grow facial hair.

It's also interesting to note the Chalamet and MacLachlan were approximately the same age at the time of filming.

oh damn that scene has an important moment from the book, kynes spitting on the floor!

xpost Wow, that sure doesn't make any goddamn sense in my brain.