What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Michael Barnes wrote: I don’t think anything Villineueve could do will top the Guild Navigator…a giant blobby vagina mouth monster with human eyes floating in a giant tank of spice stew.

This is the part I really missed, as well. Of course, the navigator scene in Lynch's film doesn't appear in the book, but I thought it was really essential to demonstrate to the audience just what the spice was and what it could do, along with the moments showing navigators actually opening the portals in space to send through the Guild transports. Otherwise, the spice is just some dust and essentially becomes a MacGuffin. They tell you it's crucial for space travel and the imperium's existence, but when you see it happening AND see what prolonged exposure does to people, it becomes a much more textural element of the story. Villeneuve somewhat compensated for this by showing how it was affecting Paul when he was out in the desert, but I still think Lynch's scenes worked better in that respect.

Michael Barnes wrote: I saw the Lynch version when I was 9 in the theater. To call it a formative event is an understatement. I loved it and I remember wondering why my parents hated it so much. My dad said “it was like two hours of staring at someone’s hand”.

On the podcast "Unjustly Maligned" where they talk about films where most people hate but some love, the Dune episode talks about how common it was for those who love it being a bit too young when they saw it. They knew it was big and important and a bit too adult for their minds and it blew them away.

EDIT: (link, because I think it is a good discussion on the original film: https://www.theincomparable.com/ump/37/ )

I have long resented the Lynch Dune movie, as I have always believed that Dune wasn't a suitable book to make into a movie. Lynch made a heroic effort, totally nailing crucial early scenes from the book. And then he realizes the futility of it and just skims through the entire rest of the book, hitting a few highlights. Only fans of the book could have walked out of the theater understanding what they saw. I've always meant to look into the tv adaptation from many years ago, because that might have been the better format to fully capture the setting, the intrigue, and all the characters.

I was wrong. Villeneuve pulled it off, or at least half of a Dune movie. He managed to find the absolute minimum amount of information to convey the story, the primary characters, and even a decent amount of the setting. The visuals are amazing, though often quite dark. The casting choices were shrewd, especially the selection of Rebecca Ferguson to play Lady Jessica. Even Hans Zimmer managed to transcend my expectations, turning in a suitably alien soundtrack.

Still, there were a few disappointments. The music was too loud relative to the dialogue. The Voice lacked subtlety. The pace was a little too slow at times, which I always resent in a movie that goes over two hours in length. And I suspect that people who haven't read the book may have struggled to follow along at times during the final hour, once Paul starts having frequent visions. And the combat scenes were sometimes sketchy, dimly-lit chaos focused mainly on people running around.

jason10mm wrote: I'm gonna be the usual wet blanket here (huzzah!) and say the new dune is a shallow imitation compared to Lynch. All the actors are set to 4 when they should have been set to 11. Only Mamoa knows he is in an epic space opera, everyone else thinks they are in a British drama set at a funeral.

FWIW I felt this was about all of Villeneuve's latest stuff (BR2049, Arrival). That guy can't inject real emotion into his films for some reason. Might just be me

New film is gonna sell a lot of knives though, damn if it wasn't an organsmic display of blades. Cosplayers are going to go apeshit over it as well.

Some fair points here Jason. I agree that Momoa is the only actor who think's he is in an entertainment film. Villeneuves films are generally about stoic people staring at the camera against stark visual backgrounds. His leads in The Arrival, BL2042, Sicario are all very understated in key emotional scenes. Its like the polar opposite to Star Wars which is emotion cranked up to max.

Other thoughts;

surely stabbing blades would be better as slow blades than machetes? I love the idea that in the future the machete is the main weapon of warfare.

I do also still love the Lynch film (probably saw it when i was around 15). I prefer this new one but the Lynch film has some great character to it.

The lynch film spells out the conspiracy a bit more clearly. It opens with an alien in a fish tank (navigator) telling you the plot. In the new Villeneuve film its not abundantly clear that the Duke realises that its a trap, and there is no wheels within wheels, feint within a feint type dialogue. Its really loaded on some slightly hard to hear comments made by Colonel Kurtz and the trip to the Sadukar planet. Im not sure this is necessarily a bad thing. Dune is a fairly complex book and a film maker has to decide what is their film about. The political intrigue doesn't seem to top the list for Villeneuve.

As with many others here, I watched Dune this weekend. I really liked it and I want to watch it again, as I was a bit too drunk the first time.

On a whim we took another look at the 1993 Clint Eastwood film In the Line of Fire, in which he plays an aging secret service member facing off against John Malkovich. This movie holds up well enough, and Clint's character has a bit more range than his normal, for the time at least. That said, viewed through today's lens... Clint's character seriously sexually harasses Renee Russo's character! He really creeps on her, and in the film it's all meant for laughs. :/

I just watched it today at an IMAX theater (totally worth it, by the way). The movie was packed, as were the three shows I contemplated going to yesterday. I hope that's a sign it's doing well in the theater.

I loved it. I have a lot of little niggling complaints, but most of them have to do with choices and just the unfilmable nature of some of the coolest parts of the novel (which I just re-read earlier this year).

Michael Barnes wrote: IIt’s a fascinating adaptation- it challenges what is really important in the book and leaves really quite a lot unsaid or understated. Some details are almost abstracted.The Landsraad is mentioned only one time but the context is clear. Same with Weirding and Guild Navigators. Kanly isn’T mentioned at all, we never actually see Shaddam IV or Irulan. Feyd isn’t in it at all. I feel like the script respects the material as well as the audience…for example, we don’t need a big walk and talk about how nobody uses guns because shields render them useless. All we need is Gurney’s slow blade line and the rest is shown, not told.

I totally agree with this, but in some ways I think he went too far. Some things that are just barely mentioned made me wonder if they did that just for fan service rather than as a significant part of the story. I wonder how well non-readers will be able to catch any of the subtlety.

jason10mm wrote: I just watched Lynch's version today with the kids and almost every scene that is similar to Villeneuve's is superior in Lynch's version. You FEEL the pain with the box, the stillsuits are elaborate enough to actually require Kynes to do stuff to them, the tooth scene is incredibly tense. The old blurry shield concept is much more impressive as well.

So, I'm not a fan of the Lynch version, but I agree with a lot of this. I really wanted to see burning flesh peeling off of Paul's hand, or at least some smoke coming out of the box. I couldn't tell that Kynes did *anything* to the other stillsuits.

But I will say that the sandworm attacking the spice crawler scene is FAR superior in DV's Dune. So much tension and danger! Great stuff.

I really liked the hand signals with translations. That was really effective on a lot of levels. I missed having the palace intrigue. Not only did we not get to know Dr. Yueh at all, but we didn't get to see any of the suspicion of different characters that's in the book (but again, hard to film). Also, I'm sure it won't play well that the only Asian in the film is a traitor.

I absolutely loved where the movie ended. That was my hopeful prediction, but I didn't dare to believe they would do that. I hope they're planning to do a sort of Tom Hanks in CastAway thing where they really buff/age/weather Chalomet in the months (years?) before the next film.

The wait for part 2 is going to painful.

Absolutely. I'm looking forward to watching it again on HBO at least once over the next month.

If you’ve never seen the SyFy TV DUNE, it’s worth checking out IMO.



While I liked the new movie, w/o seeing how it ends it’s hard to evaluate. While it’s good, I think the TV version and Lynch both have things that make them worth watching.

I have the DVD of "Children of Dune". Damned if James McAvoy, the star of the whole thing, is even listed on the poster! But it has Susan Sarandon!

Gonna dive into the series once I finish season 2 of For All Mankind. Is the syfy series even stream able these days? It, along with the Tartakovsky clone wars series, might be my most valuable dvds (ie worth more than a dollar each) as they seem to be OOP. Need to track down some blyrays if they are reasonable.

Villeneuve breaks down the Gom Jabbar scene.

Can we all agree that the opening left us shook?

I totally agree with this, but in some ways I think he went too far. Some things that are just barely mentioned made me wonder if they did that just for fan service rather than as a significant part of the story. I wonder how well non-readers will be able to catch any of the subtlety.

Yeah, I kind of felt like this too, like “Landsraad blah blah blah” was a nod to me and other Duneophiles but for everybody else, does that really mean anything? Everything about the Imperium, the Bene Gesserit, and the entire power structure was maybe a bit too understated but I think Villineueve’s chief interest is in focusing on the wind-up to Paul’s monstrous ascension and the jihad. There is a -lovely- bit (straight from the book) where he tells Kynes he could make Arrakis a paradise with a wave of his hand…he means it to be hopeful, but it’s actually horrifying…the false promise of colonization/civilization.

So, I'm not a fan of the Lynch version, but I agree with a lot of this. I really wanted to see burning flesh peeling off of Paul's hand, or at least some smoke coming out of the box. I couldn't tell that Kynes did *anything* to the other stillsuits.

I was actually Ok with this being more understated. I also felt like the power of the Reverend Mother was much more menacing and dominant.

But I will say that the sandworm attacking the spice crawler scene is FAR superior in DV's Dune. So much tension and danger! Great stuff.

But no David Lynch yelling back in his goofy voice!

Not only did we not get to know Dr. Yueh at all, but we didn't get to see any of the suspicion of different characters that's in the book (but again, hard to film). Also, I'm sure it won't play well that the only Asian in the film is a traitor.

Yeah, Yueh was really abbreviated…he and Kynes were the characters I think they reduced too much. But then, in the context of a film about Muad’dib and the ascension of a messiah…are those figures worth 5-10 minutes more screen time? I’m sure the screenwriters felt they were being judicious and economical, but we know there was more story for them there.

Momoa was dope as hell, people are going to love it when he comes back.

I think the lack of explanation was fine.

It focused the story on the key parts of Paul’s journey while avoiding expounding on details that would ultimately be uninteresting to viewers who are not normally into science fiction/fantasy, government, ecology, social evolution, etc. Those details that make the book so interesting to some make it dull to others. If this were ever to succeed as a movie it would need to be a human story, not a detail-laden, dense watch. Sort of like playing ASL versus a game you actually want to play (yes, I know people play ASL, they aren’t playing it with the mainstream gaming audience).

It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a story of people who live in this world. So no fish out of water explanation of how things work. No people unnaturally discussing with each other the daily workings of the world they already live and know.

It leaves people who want to the space to think about it and explore it more.

Msample wrote: If you’ve never seen the SyFy TV DUNE, it’s worth checking out IMO.

While I liked the new movie, w/o seeing how it ends it’s hard to evaluate. While it’s good, I think the TV version and Lynch both have things that make them worth watching.

Lynch's version was stunning visuals, with a script written by a high schooler.

The SyFy version was HS drama club production values, but with a better script.

Merge the better parts of the two and you could have had the Kwisatz Haderach of movies...

That’s a great point and that is a key reason the Lynch version didn’t work for a lot of folks- lots of jargon and terms. In fact back in 1984 the studio distributed glossary sheets to be handed out to ticket buyers at the box office.

A contrast to Villineueve- Shaddam IV explains in a really stilted way that he will be sending “legions of my ‘Sardaukar Terror Troops’” and you can practically hear Jose Ferrer putting air quotes around the term. Villineueve- “look at this planet where they are doing a blood ritual and throat singing”.

Likewise Thufir Hawat- Leto asks for a calculation and he does it. There is no exposition about “human calculators”. And you are right, that leaves something for the interested right discover without burdening the film with something that is not actually about the narrative arc.

Agree with all of this. I mean, I know that a movie can never be all of the things that a book can-- they're different media that have different aims. And the book is so dense with little details and subplots, it would be folly to try to include it all. But still, in my mind, I wanted all of it.

One thing I loved was a seemingly throwaway line that probably blew right past non-readers but was almost a lampshade to readers: The BG Mother Superior's line, "You have more than one heritage, boy. You are also your mother's son." I'm sure there are more like that in the movie that I hope to find on rewatch.

Gregarius wrote: Agree with all of this. I mean, I know that a movie can never be all of the things that a book can-- they're different media that have different aims. And the book is so dense with little details and subplots, it would be folly to try to include it all. But still, in my mind, I wanted all of it.

While I loved the movie, I did feel like it sanded off (pun fully intended) a lot of Frank Herbert's unique weirdness. The Mentats are a good example. I can't think of another sci-fi story that doesn't have computers. The fact that computers and AI have been outlawed in Herbert's fictional universe is really interesting and unique. The word "Mentat" is not mentioned once in the film, and Thufir's abilities are never explained or even commented upon. The movie makes the story of Dune a lot more approachable for a mainstream audience, and I get why they did that, but at the expense of the nuance and details that make Herbert's book such a timeless classic.

My only real issue with the movie was that the relationship between Jessica and Leto gets really short-changed. I think they have ONE scene together?!? You have no sense of their relationship, and the fact that they're not married barely gets a mention.

Otherwise, I loved it. I thought the cast was great, and the actress playing Jessica steals the whole movie. James Brolin was a badass, and Jason Mamoa was ... well, just doing Jason Mamoa stuff. His line delivery felt like it was from a different movie entirely, but it was fine. Are YOU going to tell Jason Mamoa how to deliver his lines?? I'm sure the hell not.