A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

Meantime on the technical front

https://www.wired.com/story/dune-sandworm-vfx/

No matter where anyone stands on the film itself, the FX are remarkable.

I liked this. Soundtrack was wonderful, I assume Lisa Gerrard was in there?

I see the planned tv series is a spinoff about the witches and not the main story (which would have been crazy).

That was one of the loudest films I've ever seen, Dunkirk included.

The technical stuff was pretty masterful, and reminded me of all the scifi paperback covers I used to stare at in the drugstore as a kid, the John Harris-type illustrations

i can't believe this film made me give a shit about dune

(i love the lynch film but not because it's dune)

It's funny, we were at a basketball game Friday night, and my wife's Apple watch gave her a dB alert. Something like 90dB? Anyway, that's how loud the Bulls game was. I wonder what "Dune" measured?

they don't have 'decibels' as a unit of measure in Duneland, they are called "kevarks"

They're called "thumps," iirc.

Lynch apparently came down and spent one day with Lucas, and that was enough to have him on the phone to his agent begging "Get me out of this!"

Vocals are Loire Cotler, not Lisa Gerrard... who does work with Zimmer a lot

Yeah I'd noted their collaborations but I've watched a Gerrard documentary that said a ton of people sprung up in the film business deliberately imitating her, which is bizarre.

Popular/distinctive artist gets imitated by a bunch of people in their wake? You don't say!

I dissent! Was thinking of braving an imax showing full of unmasked popcorn munchers, but am very glad I finagled a "free stream" instead.
The CG is so sterile and disposable, basically about the level of prestige TV or one level up from a videogame cutscene -- nothing you can really complain about but nothing that immerses you, either.

There should be a level above uncanny valley where the effects aren't so much creepy as it is depicting something that subconsciously forces the viewer to think of green screens and racks of servers grinding away at a render. I feel like there's ways to get around this (like maybe having a tiny bird in the corner smash into a spaceship as it's landing, or have people react to it in a specific rather than non-specific "gaze at this white ball on a stick" way), but it seems like the better CG gets, the less directors feel like they have to orchestrate things to compensate.

Not that Lynch bothered with it either, but if you're on Dune, why not more little scenes of people dumping sand out their boots or gagging on sand, picking sand out of their teeth and eyes?

I liked the CG and aliens in Arrival much better; the thing that took me out of that movie was Amy Adams living in Dr. No's pad on a linguist's salary.

Ned - It shouldn't be surprising and it does make sense, but it still surprises me that a singer from a band like Dead Can Dance ends up in the biggest films imaginable. Same with Diamanda Galas in mainstream films.

Arrival was real science fiction - I felt like Dune is similar to the Star Wars-WWII world, but also as a metaphor for oil prospecting in the middle east, with a bit of 60's mysticism thrown in, and of course giant worms

Not that Lynch bothered with it either, but if you're on Dune, why not more little scenes of people dumping sand out their boots or gagging on sand, picking sand out of their teeth and eyes?

Well it's worth noting that Villeneuve got closer -- at least at points, would have been nice to have full consistency -- to the stated idea that the stillsuits really are full body coverings, where it wasn't just the mouth/nose being covered up but the eyes were hid behind goggles of some sort built into the a face covering. Having it be just the eyes exposed at points was a reasonable enough balance but again, wasn't really done down the line.

Ned - It shouldn't be surprising and it does make sense, but it still surprises me that a singer from a band like Dead Can Dance ends up in the biggest films imaginable. Same with Diamanda Galas in mainstream films.

To my mind it's just a reflection of two intertwined goals -- a desire on the part of musicians like that do more (and certainly get more to live on) combined with not only contemporaries who enjoy the work as they find it but a slew of sensitive artistic teenagers who worshipped said artists becoming working artistic creators who can do something about said fandom after a certain point. (Also worth remembering that another reference point for that kind of vocal approach, especially in terms of the European popular imagination, are Bulgarian women's choirs; I wouldn't be surprised if Zimmer was coming more from that direction.)

is johnny marr on the soundtrack tho

He's the Emperor

I dug the eye-rolly move of mentats calculating, but you could weirdly see the pupils underneath, so is it not really an eye-roll but a white flap of eyeball membrane moving up?
If that was so, they could have done a quick thing of this eyeball-flick white membrane ejecting some sand and grit. Also, could have included a scene of Bautista going ape on a servant for not picking off every grain of sand on his space pizza. What better way to establish why he's the BEAST Rabban?

The (temporarily) shield-contained explosions of the Atreides ships was incredible.

And some Fremen could just later hand Paul a big old sand sandwich and he just chomps down on it, grit and all, chomp chomp chomp grit grit grit, bits of sand flying out the corner of his mouth.

Then they can all murmur, "he shall know your ways as if born to them..."

pic.twitter.com/17iyMQUwXc

— Andy (@alreadytaken74) October 24, 2021

thats right

Dune is a movie that dares to ask the question: what if Scottish people invaded Iraq

— femboj zizek 😵‍💫 (@fembojj) October 25, 2021

emailing Noam Chomsky for his opinion on political matters in the year 10191 AG pic.twitter.com/LhtEexnqMt

— The Lich King of Lugbúrz (@lodgepolepines) October 25, 2021

another good thing about this movie is Lynch Dune memes coming back into fashion to own the libs!

best line in the whole movie pic.twitter.com/BXVst2tbqN

— Good Luck (@DoorHinge9) October 25, 2021

This was the best, surely

Loved this scene from DUNE pic.twitter.com/rt81cUPAyn

— James Urbaniak (@JamesUrbaniak) October 25, 2021

lmao

Not a meme, but wow, I had forgotten how utterly abysmal this was

I don't know what I love most about this trailer for the SyFy (then SciFi Channel) version of DUNE: the soundtrack composed entirely in free software, the clunky CGI, or William Hurt just going ALL-IN with his take on "THEY TRIED TO TAKE THE LIFE OF MY SON!" pic.twitter.com/Q6uxXeF8lB

— I'm A Doctor Not A Kevin Church (@Kevin_Church) October 25, 2021

the director of the SyFy series, John Harrison is an exec producer on the new movie - i think perhaps because of rights rather than direct involvement in the movie itself

(also he played the screwdriver zombie in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead)

I don't like much about Villeneuve movies so far apart from the Blade Runner sequel, which took me a 2nd viewing to realise it was more than just franchise product and actually a very good movie. But this one I expected to like, because I saw the Lynch version at the cinema when I was 13 and it was a wonderful and daft headfuck with seriously fucked up psychosexual undercurrents and allsorts of weird shit going on for a PG cert movie. This adaptation is a bit more normal but still it rocks bells and the soundtrack is just as good as the Toto one.

scolds: “there is no humor on this movie!”

thufir huwat, holding his little parasol: *smiles gently*

i watched that video upthread of villaneuve breaking down the gom jabbar scene and it was dope. gonna fall asleep to the movie tonight

Yeah that was one of the better such ones I've seen.

I loved this! In particular I loved that it felt like a unique fight-choreography language was devised. I am going to watch this a second time for sure

Just had to google "gom jabbar," which underscores the different levels of "Dune" familiarity in this thread.

pic.twitter.com/RVmnCBnePh

— 🍂 an autumn afternoon enjoyer 🍂 (@c0mmunicants) October 23, 2021

pic.twitter.com/tbfrAEMuli

— Dark Priestess Fembot (@__femb0t) October 24, 2021

In particular I loved that it felt like a unique fight-choreography language was devised.

Yeah I read something about that in the art book -- paraphrasing but the idea was that if indeed 'the slow blade penetrates the shield' then fighting has to be incredibly adept to do just that, combining fast and slow moves.

If you dropped a big boulder on someone with a body shield, would they survive but just be stuck there?

Presumably like the bombs used on the ships, as Spencer noted above, gravity could do the rest but it seems like you need a little something extra.

i didn’t know what “gom jabbar” was before seeing the movie either

I have to remind myself sometimes that I've been familiar with the term longer than some of you have likely been alive.

Bo shuda.

i liked the movie but i do think this is right about it and villeneuve, idk if its right about the book since i never read it

'Dune' has no ideas: https://t.co/GYcbwkRnYY pic.twitter.com/9c0t8ZoknS

— Defector (@DefectorMedia) October 26, 2021

we want the shields to make sense but probably they dont its just some cool shit

his Blade Runner 2049 recaptured much of the shine but little of the soul

okidoke

I'm so familiar with the gom jabbar scene that I noticed the set-up and took my pee break accordingly