A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

I would like to see an extended cut with more pugs

a pug's history of maud'dib, by the princess irulan

Sudden desire to own a pug named Irulan

I truly love darragh’s entry into this thread.

truly he is the old man of the desert (ilx)

dunkon idunnos

I have a lot to say about this

but first - does josh brolin die in that attack or...? I mean, that's the last we see of him, right?

also bugged me how Duncan's facial hair changed like 3 times in the first thirty minutes. Like "I'm off to live among the Fremen and study their ways, may not return, see ya, but hey lemme first get rid of this Dimebag Darrell beard, gotta look presentable"

Also something tells me 8000 years from now no one will be using phrases like "we're good to go," and "that was insane" (when seeing a sandworm for the first time) but tbf I could be better with suspension of disbelief, I mean it also bugs me that everyone in this movie speaks english and has product in their conspicuously bedheaded hair

this was very well done. i appreciated that this baron won't give me nightmares, unlike the one in lynch's movie.

― treeship., Monday, October 25, 2021 5:17 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nightmare fuel is seriously what this remake was sorely lacking imo and Baron Brando is largely to blame

I did love that unlike the Lynch version in this they accent the first syllable of 'Harkonnen' so now it sounds like the Finnish surname I always hear in my head when I see the word.

― joygoat, Monday, October 25, 2021 10:02 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I dunno if there is a Herbertian consensus on pronunciation but it bugged me that it was pronounced differently

Lynch Dune is 1000x better.

― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Tuesday, October 26, 2021 1:48 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

If you remember lynch dune brolin was Patrick Stewart & he bumps into Paul again later during a battle

Right! Guess they're saving that for part 2. Ready for some Alia and Feyd too

I'd just say that the nearly universal rule in modern movies and TV is if you don't see a dead body, there probably isn't one

I’m watching this again, seeing what hits me now that I’m not hyper scrutinizing everything. Chalamet is really good! Someone was scoffing about his performance upthread, but it’s kinda perfect.

Ready for some Alia and Feyd too

Highly doubting the latter.

Meantime, cool interview

https://www.vulture.com/2021/10/stephen-mckinley-henderson-on-dune-lady-bird-and-timothe.html

Did you have any connection to Frank Herbert’s novels before accepting the role?

No. I remembered the book because I had a dear friend who loved it and would often quote from those passages. In each chapter, there’s a verse or an adage — some bit of wisdom. My friend, as he was reading the book, would tell me, “Hey, man, you should hear this one.” Even if you hadn’t read the book, you understood what issues were being dealt with and some of the spiritual nature of it. My buddy knew I had an interest in theology and philosophy. So that was my connection to it. I had started it once, I must admit, and did not finish...

My single favorite image in Dune is you walking with the cute little parasol. Was that detail in the script?

I’m so glad you mentioned that. That’s just delightful. It is a character that’s quite apart from me. The first thing I said was, “I’m playing a Mentat. I consider myself a passionate, feeling person, and this person is a very calculated individual. He’s an alien!” But here’s what happened. We were there in Budapest. [The rest of the cast] had come from Jordan; they’d been in the desert, but I never had to go to the desert. They came back with this incredible spiritual journey they’d been on, and they were sharing it. It was a really hot day when we were shooting. I was sitting off to the side, out in the sun. There’s nothing around, so there’s no shade. I think someone just offered it to me, not to be part of the scene at all but just to protect me. And Denis loved it. He came over and said, “Ah, you like this?” I said, “Yeah, I love it.” And he said, “Well, I think Thufir can have this.” I said, “I would love to do that; that’s fabulous.” It just says so much about where he is at the time and that he’s taking care of himself. He was a young man once. It was one of those wonderful spontaneous things.

It stands out because it’s such a human thing to be carrying a little umbrella to shield yourself from the sun.

Yeah, and it’s something that someone who’s not human would be attracted to. I just think it’s the desire to really be a part of these wonderful people as the alien that he is. It’s a very civilized thing to have.

Whoops, left out more about his reaction to the book:

I think a lot of people can relate to that.

But after I got the call from Denis, I jumped in. I was thoroughly engrossed with it, and it’s become one of my favorite books. I do understand why so many people were motivated by the book. A lot of writers and sci-fi people were inspired to do their own thing because of the elements of that.

thats a lovely detail about the parasol, and his insight into Thufir using it is v cool, never thought of it that way!

I don't think it ever mentions in the Lynch one or this one that Paul is a trainee mentat. In the book he is given a choice whether he wants to continue and he agrees to.

This was fucking great. I dunno how it would stand up to repeated viewings, & I think it would lose a lot on a small screen, but i came out of it totally stoned by the experience. Chalamet wasn’t awesome, but as I remember, Paul was a bit of a space cadet in the book too. All he had to do for the role was look great, and he did manage that. I thought his mum was fantastic (with some weird choices re:being overwhelmed by emotion all the time altho she’s supposed to be a space yogini - but it would have been pretty boring to have the 2 main characters inhabit a stoic space in the middle of all that chaos anyhow). For a long, slow-paced movie it didn’t drag much, but I’m a sucker for the basic setup. I dunno how someone who didn’t have any Herbert or Lynch prep would have received it.

saw this last night on a moderately big screen, it flew by, each scene delicious, and i'm actually thinking abt seeing it again, so as to see it in IMAX or other REAL big screen. my boo, who was in it first and foremost for Timothee, was all in on the visuals and mood as well. a hit!

as someone who adored the book in high school and whenever i last reread it (2009?), i love that they're embracing the major major theme of Paul's alarm at the "holy war" he foresees himself pushed towards leading. always found that one of the most fascinating things in the book and presumed it one of the likeliest things to get stripped out in any adaptation. the other big thing i most loved was all the 60s-but-also-ahead-of-its-time planetary ecology stuff, which wasn't as clearly on display here.... but the way they did the Liet-Kynes material suggests they DO intend to really spend time on this. if Chani is indeed the protagonist next time, that could be a great gateway into how the Fremen have come to understand their planet.

really enjoyed the visuals at a design level, all the machines and buildings, how these super mega scaled structures seem to have been built as bunker-like slopes to handle the desert wind loads and so forth. up close, dialogue scenes sometimes had a washed-out or flat "TV look" but that coulda been specific to the projection at the 19th Street AMC. all the landscapes and spaceships and outfits and pools of healing blecchy ooze looked fantastic.

in hindsight i would have liked just a BIT more of the tense calm before the storm - more scenes between the Atreides family and hangers-on. and yeah, i do miss the emphasis placed on weird mentally conditioned humans and all that stuff. but i can't complain that DV dropped one thing i always thought was kinda neat, if he's centering several others that i found really mind-expanding at 17!

definitely curious how the sequel will stick the landing --- right now i'm sort of extending my faith that they have a solid take on the inherently risky Orientalism and real-world parallels that are all over the source material. here again i hope the idea of treating Chani as a protagonist with agency and a supporting cast/lore of her own could do some work. right now the Fremen belief system is being presented mainly as a nonsense con job put over on them by the Bene Gesserit. which iirc is part of the story! but DV leaves off *just* before we'll have the chance to delve much more into their side of the story, so there's a lot of room to show more to this picture.

i love how the human/worm pic pops up like every 90 posts or so on this thread

Good read, I thought:

https://www.vulture.com/2021/10/dune-has-a-desert-problem.html

(Also I'll be seeing it again the IMAX here in an hour.)

The year's most OK movie. I'm not enamored with Villeneuve; there's a lack of spontaneity to his compositions I can't get over, like he's photographing a space calendar.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, October 24, 2021 12:32 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

otoh I wasn't bored, which given this project's history is big shit.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, October 24, 2021 12:33 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is exactly how I felt. I found it a little humorless and austere, but somehow not boring. not a great movie or anything but gonna do some edibles and watch on imax in a couple days

It is QUITE good on IMAX, it turns out a large amount of the film was shot for it, including some sequences in full like the sandworm attack on the spice harvester. It also struck me that Villeneuve/the editors' sense of pacing is really good, I was able to get a better grip on how they balanced out the longeurs with concentrated action.

Minor revelations from the credits: oddly enough, given the Lisa Gerrardisms of that one motif, Gerrard IS a credited vocal performer, but not of that piece, which is...odd.

Also: one of the Bene Gesserit voices that Paul hears during his visions? Marianne Faithfull!

I'm a total unbeliever in all this "you aren't doing it right unless watching it in a big-screen warehouse" bollox being talked up by the director, without meaning to be an arsehole towards ppl who enjoy IMAX. Such an oafish thing to say and yes some of my best memories of watching movies were on a 14" b/w tv!

Yeah a film has to be good in its own right to start with. And there are tradeoffs -- at points the images were noticeably darker in IMAX in comparison to similar sequences via regular theater viewing and on TV.

IMAX was a huge step up from TV, no idea if I'd miss much watching a normal theater showing.

“frankly, to watch ‘DUNE’ on a television, the best way I can compare it is to drive a speedboat in your bathtub. For me, it’s ridiculous. It’s a movie that has been made as a tribute to the big-screen experience."

Villeneuve wasn't strictly talking about IMAX tbf on him, but still there are a lot of people who liked this movie who can't afford to or don't want to go to cinemas for various reasons rn and they enjoyed it with their headphones on in their living room or even their PC and to say it's ridiculous way to watch it like this is quite fucking ridiculous imo!

if that's how he feels, maybe he shouldn't have taken hbo's money?

I've seen one Mission Impossible movie and one Star Wars movie in IMAX and they've been pretty similar experiences to the other films in the series that I didn't watch in IMAX. nb I don't know if those movies were shot specifically for IMAX (and don't really care)

But I am jealous of y'all able to watch Dune in any kind of theater (theaters still not open here!)

if that's how he feels, maybe he shouldn't have taken hbo's money?

― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Sunday, October 31, 2021 11:01 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

iirc he made the film prior to hbo deciding to do day and date?

anyway half of the movie is awesome scenes of spaceships landing so of course the creator is going to tell us to watch it on the biggest screen possible and he's probably right! but we're all adults and can do what we want and he'll never know.

lol you're such a myopic poshboy!

Watching Dune on HBO Max as socialist praxis, fite!

I definitely felt like the big screen and the fantastic sound (so much sub-bass in the sound design) was a factor in my enjoyment of it, but I’d hardly tell anyone they shouldn’t watch it on their phone if that’s their jam.

if you have a 70-80" TV and a good 5.1 speaker setup a theater isn't really necessary, especially because you can freely abuse drugs at home

I'm idly wondering if Villeneuve makes more out of a theatre ticket than a stream.

lol we don't even have a cinema! (actually we really don't) the last one in Town was a 2nd hand furniture warehouse for decades + now an empty building and there is no blue plaque informing people that David Peace was a regular. And yeah people do have impressive home cinemas these days, hardly a ridiculous option at all during a pandemic.

I saw it in the cinema and it was worth it tbh, but ill watch it again on the tv no bother, its the sound ill miss

the desert sun touched lightly on
the eyes of Lucy Jordan
in a tleilax ghola's vat-room
next to gaius helen mohiam

I saw it at Cambridge IMAX and it was too loud :( but I am a delicate bloom.

The VOICE bits reminded me of the "LOOK AT MOI" bits from Kath & Kim.

Kath evidently the Fountain Springs representative of the Bene Gesserit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSMmxyGeEb4

the last time I went to a cinema it was only because I had to kill a few hours and it was too rainy to walk about and too early for a pub and it was a grim choice between Postman Pat the movie and some X-men shite in 3d. Too loud, too expensive and I should have chose Postman Pat obv.

postman pat and his deadly mentat

lol you're such a myopic poshboy!

― calzino, Sunday, October 31, 2021 11:24 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

interesting, thanks! i don't have any thoughts about you at all.

😢

Finally got to watch this Saturday night, I liked it quite a bit. There probably could have been 20 minutes shaved off, mostly in the slo-motion dream sequences, but the set design was fantastic. Watched it with my 10 year-old, who loved it - especially the 'thopters and the way they showed the shields, and my wife, who (with no previous experience with the book or the 1984 version) found it confusing, but mostly enjoyable.

Had fun with this but still really hard for me to turn my brain off during sci-fi battles in any franchise where insane technology exists but people still fight and die in battle where they should just use robots/drones or whatever. It's one of those things I can't get over. That hang up goes further than the super common "why swords" question specific to Dune, and even accepting that premise there is no logical answer to "ok but why not also have sufficient armor under the shields"? But the overall human/alien soldiers logic issue, no matter how much fun sci-fi battles are, is such a discrepancy it drives me nuts.