A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

a thing i found out from rereading the wormbook is the perhaps unstartling fact that a person in a stillsuit entering a normal room absolutely stinks lol

the smelly jihad

Conquest of the universe carried out via gas warfare.

it's basically a fancy colostomy bag that you drink out of

A quick check tells me the movie has hit almost $300 million worldwide so far, which in all kinda tells me that whatever Villeneuve may want for how to see the film, Warner Bros/Legendary made a good bet: HBO Max allowed people to take in a 'new' franchise at if they were subscribers however much that may have cut into the initial box office, there's a groundswell of interest that's resulted, and now pursuing a path where they have the Bene Gesserit series for streaming while keeping the next film solely theatrical at the start, assuming that's how things will be shaking out for everyone in two years, leaves them sitting pretty.

I think a major part of it is just that when Dune or Star Wars were written, the technology generally was inspired by what-if space age equivalencies to technology in the real world. I suspect the current reliance on drones and the prevalence of desktop gaming rigs that feel similar etc. were just a step outside of the imagination of the time. Sci-fi from every generation is usually pretty blatantly "us and the things we have, but more advanced and in space!". But again, the important thing is that the pure drama of actual combat is preferable to watching/reading about drone armies controlled by giant LAN parties (like the biggest CSGO tournament ever), or a cold war with lots of political debates and tension involving whole planets instead of the continents on one. Less at stake or more at stake but boring, respectively.

had no idea there was going to be an HBO series

Yup, Spaihts was going to be the showrunner but some months back he bailed to concentrate on the second film, so Diane Ademu-John has taken over. I've followed her on Twitter for some years and I think she's a great choice.

Supposedly the series is meant to be a prequel effort of some sort, which is probably both good and bad since I can see Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson going "Okay so what REALLY happened is" etc.

Yes, it appears to be based in part off one of the new books

spoiler: the butler did it

just vibes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQ5iQ-NbFA

while we're worrying about lasers and armor etc, why aren't there more of those drilly dart things flying around?? WHY FRANK

How come we dont hear everyone complaining about getting sand in their underwear

It keeps taking me out of the movie not to hear this why villeneuve why

xxp

Paul says the hunter-seeker operator must be nearby so perhaps the hunter-seeker regs have transmission range restrictions etc.. etc

in an extremely high-tech solution in the book the hunter-seeker's operator is in the cellar bricked into a cairn

*mentat thufir hawat gazing at a cairn in a cellar*: ok that's very normal and not at all sinister or weird

fwiw, on my own part, I wasn't trying to ask why two distinct notes came from the same rib (some kind of magic xylophone?). Was somewhat carefully trying to highlight a larger criticism that was brought to mind via the confusing apparent technology discrepancies of Dune warfare.

xp

lol what a bizarre set up. I guess the cairn could have been pre-built with a small opening and enough bricks inside for the operator to brick themselves in from the inside. But what a lot of faff when you could find a quiet spot somewhere, do the deed and then try and blend in with the other staff rather than waiting to be discovered inside a cairn with the incriminating remote control.

Saw it last night it, liked it, not sure that many aspects of it could have been done better but... though very visually arresting it seemed strangely light on content, the whole plot could easily be summarised in three sentences which seems pretty thin for a 2 1/2 hour film, many 25 minute tv shows manage more. Lots of important meetings and conversations dispensed with in under a minute, lots of thinly sketched relationships (we know leto and idaho are besties because they do a couple of running bear hugs). But I'm not sure that loading it down with ponderous political conversations or bro love scenes would have improved it. And immediately after getting home I wanted to see it again, which is something.

saw it on imax this time, and maybe I was just feeling bad after some travel misery, or maybe I just don’t really like imax all that much. also can’t say I’m zimmer’s biggest fan.

it’s this second viewing that really clarified what an influence malick is on villeneuve’s vision — but bereft of the romance, and substituted with doomsy late marvel/nolan/even star wars “darkness” in a way that I think steamrolls a lot of the humanity. it’s an almost grotesquely brutal movie, both aesthetically and emotionally. (jason momoa is the exception)

it’s an almost grotesquely brutal movie

It's a pretty grotesquely brutal book!

xp

there are absolutely some very Malick moments throughout the film! Of course, real headz know that the ultimate cinematic realization of Malick's vision is Spring Breakers.

My wife said last night that a lot of the shots of Chalamet in the first half brought to mind Caravaggio.

you mean the great painter or Jarman's Caravaggio?

The former, sorry.

HBO Max allowed people to take in a 'new' franchise at if they were subscribers however much that may have cut into the initial box office

OTM. I'm sure the studio would have preferred the up-front money from a pre-pandemic theater run, but in the long run that may be more valuable overall.

Dune book sales are through the roof and any number of moments have escaped into wider memedom, and while they're going to have to explain a LOT of shit in Part Two for those who remain nonbookreaders ("So Alia is, well, it's complicated," etc.), a wider audience now is much more aware of what the deal is in general. Reminds me of nothing so much as when LOTR first hit (almost twenty years ago now!).

an almost grotesquely brutal movie, both aesthetically and emotionally. (jason momoa is the exception)

I guess I'm the only one who really liked Brolin in this? I wanted to give Gurney Halleck a hug.

Also, in that video breaking down the gom jabbar scene, Villeneuve said that Dune is about the triumph of the human spirit?

??

I mean yes it came up in the context of the Buterlian jihad but his statement was ... broader.

as someone who only read the book for the first time late last year, i highly recommend giving it a whirl to anyone considering checking it out

obv theres the requisite names of things/people/entities that takes some getting used to, but the way he cranks up the plot almost immediately, and being so inspired by ecology & psychology (and psychedelics) … it is kind of wild to see how it all sprang from his brain so clearly (and so cinematically!)

Literally the only thing I don’t like about the book was how much it propelled you into needing the sequel - basically a cliff-hanger … and then how completely he dropped the ball on said sequels.

It’s as if the LOTR went straight from the ending of the two towers to the epilogue.

PAUL: “Here we are, on the verge of launching a holy war that will consume the universe! Let all the children …”

FREMEN JIHADI: “Boogie!!”

*Intermission*

*curtain riaes*

NARRATOR: 12 years later, having successfully executed said holy war, our hero broods. “Should I have done such a thing?” he asked himself

and so on

man I wish there was a 15-minute edit window

yeah i was going to read the sequel
but then i saw how far ahead it jumped &
paul in full megalomania
i was very ._.

The art book for the new movie had a pretty astute point about Herbert in that a lot of the 'action' scenes one would expect *aren't* there in his books -- like they're described afterward or only vaguely noticed/observed at a distance in one form or another. Dune Messiah starting where it does fits that brief perfectly.

yeah thats v otm

Having a massive intergalactic space war that claims billions of lives happen completely off stage, and instead focusing on this little neighborhood drama, is a supremely weird choice.

Maybe I’m missing the Trv B3avty of his artistry or something, but I found it an intolerably boring choice.

yr intolerably boring

:D

Ohhhhhh, heeeard THAT

dune (the book) rules, and one of the things i like about it is the tug of the plot forward... but the worst thing is definitely the way each sequel gets progressively worse

feeling better and better about following my "keep away" instincts with the sequels tbh

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/GodEmperorofDune-LetoWorm.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/GodEmperorofDune-LetoWorm.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/GodEmperorofDune-LetoWorm.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/GodEmperorofDune-LetoWorm.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/GodEmperorofDune-LetoWorm.jpg

from the outside, as someone who will never read dune, the sequels... fascinate

I really liked the first book and am sorely tempted to read the sequels, but...I will not. I will resist.

xp I have a feeling you would love them

God-Emperor is one of the strangest love stories ever, from what I remember.

“He’s a god emperor worm who’s lived thousands of years! She’s an Ixian ambassador planned to engage his interest! Can they get along in the suburbs?!?”

My somewhat face-blind wife was talking about how the guy from the Good Place was surprisingly good in Dune, which led to finding she thought these guys are the same person. pic.twitter.com/H0TnE9SaoZ

— John Herreid (@HerreidJohn) October 31, 2021

that poor woman. such a terrible affliction ;_;

Some of us are only married because of the availability of face-blind wives tyvm