Dune

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

20 hours ago, JVOSS said:

So what the hell.  they made this in to a 2 part movie.  the worst damn thing is WB has not green lighted the second part....

they spend to much time on the intro and not moving the movie along.  i watch this and hand to bleach my brain by watching the Smity Release 3 time. still can get the crap out of my head.  why, why, god why give a great b movie a "f" movie remake.  ill stay with the second original release. 

Have you actually read the book(s)?  I'd guess no, as how this new version was split is more or less spot on with how the book goes.  There were a few scenes that I feel they could have added to the first bit (Leto making delicate overtures to building a relationship with the non-Fremen smugglers/bootleggers, Jessica in the conservatory, more backstory details on Gurney, Duncan and Thufir, etc.), but it did a good job, overall.  The casting of the original 1984 adaptation is still very solid, but there were a few from this newest version that are as solid or better than the original.  The second iteration, produced by SciFi Channel, is decent, with the scenes chosen (and how they played out) being much closer to the letter of how the book was written, but I think suffered from a poorer cast than either of the other two versions (at least in acting capacity and believability).

As of a day or so ago, it was announced that Lionsgate had greenlit the production of the second half, so those of us clutching pearls at the thought of only getting half a movie this time around can breathe a sigh of relief.  Hopefully what occurs in the "sequel" to this new movie will satisfy the appetite for balls-out action that some craved from the first half of the story (but, realistically, was largely missing from virtually all of the books--they're nearly entirely about political maneuvering and intrigue, with the occasional slash of action to shake things up and set a new scene, but never the focus).

[G-type | 2,476]

22 hours ago, JVOSS said:

why, why, god why give a great b movie a "f" movie remake.  ill stay with the second original release. 

[JVOSS | 1,762]

@darkchylde28on the aspic of reading the book and then watching the movie has no baring. they are to different exceptions.  if enjoying a movie requires you to read a book before then you have lost what a movie is about.

now as to you review.  is with merit. the David lynch and later the the Alan Smithee revision was in my opinion the better cast before Denis Villeneuve's version.  The syfi, was a way to set up the Children of Dune.  which was for the most part a solid "B" movie.

Villeneuve's version is/was banking on the newer generation loving the movie.  The chance to make a "franchise" rather then make the movie.  the plans with in plans was so will hidden that they should of had this already filmed.  the second will now be 5 years after the filming and a much older paul, Duncan, and Jessica. the draw for me on the original was not the action it was the details.  comparing apple to apple or movie to movie the Velleneuve's version failed in most aspect of the Characters but not in the landscape.

now that i have seen Velleneuve's version a few times and i admit the first viewing i was pissed because the backstory was not included and the exception of a full movie, that sat the stage for a piss poor movie experience.  now after the 4 time watching "think god for MAX" and just forgetting the first 3 versions, the movie its much more enjoyable.  and guess what I DON'T HAVE TO READ THE BOOK TO ENJOY A MOVIE.      

Edited October 27, 2021 by JVOSS

[Gloves | 11,759]

16 minutes ago, JVOSS said:

if enjoying a movie requires you to read a book before then you have lost what a movie is about.

I disagree with this point. There are no rules set in stone regarding what a movie needs to be "about". There are plenty of movies, games, etc. which extend the universe of of pre-existing stories provided through other media.

A prime example is The Witcher series. The games are set starting 5 years after the last book takes place. You don't HAVE to have read the books to play and enjoy the games, however doing so enhances the experience. I'd argue it's the same with Dune. Having read the books would enhance the experience of the new movie and those which will follow.

You can absolutely watch Dune and enjoy it without having read the book(s), and the idea that the movie would end "abruptly" with a sort of "to be continued" ending is not uncommon in the slightest.

Of course sometimes you get people like my grandfather who when he took my brother and I to see The Fellowship of the Ring got pissed off that the movie "just ended". Maybe it's an old dude thing.

[fox | 1,665]

Dune was epic.  Great visuals and casting.  I would have liked to have seen more scenes with the supporting cast.  But in movies the clock is always running, so you don't get to hang out with these characters as much.

Glad the second part is greenlit.  Need  that catharsis for Paul.

[JVOSS | 1,762]

11 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Of course sometimes you get people like my grandfather who when he took my brother and I to see The Fellowship of the Ring got pissed off that the movie "just ended". Maybe it's an old dude thing.

that was me.  not reading a book and the movie JUST ENDED

[B.A. | 1,139]

11 minutes ago, JVOSS said:

that was me.  not reading a book and the movie JUST ENDED

Yep, put me in the old dude camp, but I prefer my movies to have an actual end.  I'm not excited about the 2 year "commercial break" before anything resembling closure.   I get that's it's not entirely uncommon, but it certainly isn't my preference. 

[fox | 1,665]

And the 80s film is not required to view the new film.  All the bytching and moaning over it being too much or not enough like it have no merit.

33 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Of course sometimes you get people like my grandfather who when he took my brother and I to see The Fellowship of the Ring got pissed off that the movie "just ended". Maybe it's an old dude thing.

Richard Roper gave Fellowship thumbs down for this very reason

Edited October 27, 2021 by fox

[Gloves | 11,759]

1 minute ago, fox said:

Richard Roper give Fellowship thumbs down for this very reason

Exactly. It's called context and it's important.

[fox | 1,665]

Must be why old people love CSI.  You know they are going to catch the bad guy and wrap up everything in under an hour and still have room for depends ads.

[fox | 1,665]

My main take away from the 80s film, is they seemed entirely focused on the setup.  So the second half of the story gets a speed run as Paul goes to the desert, has a training montage, and comes back a leader all crammed into the last 25 mins of the film!

Paul doesn’t fight a dragon at the end of disc 1.  Paul spends several years in the desert so that is the natural endpoint for the new movie.  Perfect for our young actors to age and train up.

In the end, Dune is not about action.  It is about the characters and world.  So even with the movie being 2 1/2 hours,  character moments and scenes were cut.  But they still did a great job keeping the spirit of the material.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

54 minutes ago, JVOSS said:

@darkchylde28on the aspic of reading the book and then watching the movie has no baring. they are to different exceptions.  if enjoying a movie requires you to read a book before then you have lost what a movie is about.

While I mostly agree with you, Dune is somewhat of a different beast.  Many (most?) people in the industry over the years have long considered it an adaptation that's impossible to make to the "big" screen.  And, in every case so far, they're right--there's so much information and nuance missed by every version that has yet existed (plus the mid-70s version that began to be attempted but never came to fruition) that none of them really hold a candle to everything that's going on in the book.  The world that everything takes place in is so damned alien and weird that if you don't do a lot of fancy visuals, or exposition, or both, people just aren't going to be able to grasp what's going on then bitch about how the movie (or TV series, or whatever), with unfair whispers about the underlying material, are crap, nonsense, etc., when it's really down to an issue with the amount of material to be covered and the medium that it's being attempted in.  The guys making all three versions which have been released so far haven't lost what a movie is about, but have had to pick and choose what they put up on the screen to try to make a cohesive movie while staying to true to the source material, and all, every last one of them, has fallen short because of restrictions in the medium (or, more accurately, with the amount of attention and money that the audience is willing to provide).

If you're expecting something that's grand, but one-and-done like, say, Interstellar, then Dune, in any of its incarnations, simply isn't for you, and you'll never be truly happy with it because of how much relevant and important information has hit the cutting room floor (in Lynch's case) or is just left out entirely (in the cases of Smithee and Villeneuve).

1 hour ago, JVOSS said:

now as to you review.  is with merit. the David lynch and later the the Alan Smithee revision was in my opinion the better cast before Denis Villeneuve's version.  The syfi, was a way to set up the Children of Dune.  which was for the most part a solid "B" movie.

I disagree entirely in regard to the Smithee/SciFi Channel version, as the cast there was mostly crap, even from actors that I knew and respected then (or ones who caught my attention then who I've seen do much, much better work later on).  That version might have been to set up "Children of Dune," but if that was the sole reason to create it, with zero other motivation to make the story and acting great, why bother?  Just churn out the "sequel" to the Lynch film which would be linked solely by the source material and call it a day.

In regard to Lynch's cast, I think Gurney, Jessica, Gaius Helen Mohiam, and Dr. Kynes were absolutely, 100% better than what we saw in the newest version (and not just because of any acting pedigrees by the actors).  At the moment, I'd include Emperor Shaddam IV in that list, but solely because the newest version skipped any actual display of that character, which goes against both previous versions as well as the original source material.  Dr. Yueh, Stilgar, Thufir, Piter, Chani, and Paul were about on par with what we saw in the new movie.

As for the new cast, there's just absolutely no denying how much better and truer to the original material the casting for both Duncan and Rabban were compared to any other version.  Leto is a much better character in the new movie than in either of the others, but also even in the book--Oscar Issac really fills that role and fleshes out everything that you would have had to read between the lines to get from the original material.  As for the Baron, I'm torn, as the new one captures much more of the cunning and menace that the character is meant to have, but it also focuses so much on being dark and serious that it really misses out on some of the flamboyance that the character is meant to have which is great in the Lynch version but taken a few steps too far.

In all of these cases, having read the source material really helps, since you're able to know what each character, scene, etc., is supposed to be, and you're able to tell how well and whether that gets pulled off.  Dune is some really, really dense shit, and if you just walk into it totally blind, I can't see how anyone has completely enjoyed any of the versions presented thus far.

1 hour ago, JVOSS said:

Villeneuve's version is/was banking on the newer generation loving the movie.  The chance to make a "franchise" rather then make the movie.  the plans with in plans was so will hidden that they should of had this already filmed.  the second will now be 5 years after the filming and a much older paul, Duncan, and Jessica. the draw for me on the original was not the action it was the details.  comparing apple to apple or movie to movie the Velleneuve's version failed in most aspect of the Characters but not in the landscape.

Villeneuve is wanting to make the story of the books, so in order to do so, he has to have a starting point, ala the first novel, Dune.  It's not about a new or old generation digging what he's doing, it's about getting to do all of the material, which in this day and age means doing all of it, in order (both so people don't get confused as well as so more money can be made).  In the book, the second part literally is several years after the point at which this last movie closed, so it makes absolute total sense if you actually reference the source material it's coming from--whether you bother to read the book or not.  If it's not going to be true to the source material to appeal solely to popcorn munchers, then they should have hired some writers to make a different fucking movie.  Also, if you actually watched this last movie, you really ought to remember:

Spoiler

Duncan 100%, straight up DIED in the last 1/4 of the movie!

If you're actually into it for the details, then you should actually be happy that this movie is taking it longer, and slower, than past attempts, as they're doing a bang up job of world building, in balancing how much of a deluge of information they can get to the screen while maintaining a casual viewer's ability to keep up and care.

1 hour ago, JVOSS said:

now that i have seen Velleneuve's version a few times and i admit the first viewing i was pissed because the backstory was not included and the exception of a full movie, that sat the stage for a piss poor movie experience.  now after the 4 time watching "think god for MAX" and just forgetting the first 3 versions, the movie its much more enjoyable.  and guess what I DON'T HAVE TO READ THE BOOK TO ENJOY A MOVIE.      

So you're experiencing what most anyone (me included, with the Lynch version) experience when going in blind--not really knowing WTF is going on until you've seen it a few times.  As for needing to read the book to enjoy a movie, if you watch it enough times to grok what's happening, no, you absolutely don't.  But if you view it once?  Yeah, you're gonna have a bad time, and be much, much better served having read the source material.  Why?  Because it's so incredibly information dense that if you don't have that background, you're either not going to know WTF is going on at any given point (until you view it a bunch of times, if you're lucky) or there's going to be so much information being dumped, that the rest of the movie suffers (either being a bad flick or just too much for too long, so viewers can't/won't pay attention) as a result.

47 minutes ago, B.A. said:

Yep, put me in the old dude camp, but I prefer my movies to have an actual end.  I'm not excited about the 2 year "commercial break" before anything resembling closure.   I get that's it's not entirely uncommon, but it certainly isn't my preference. 

I get that, but at the same time, realize that sometimes there's just so much stuff going on in the source material that in order for a movie to be true to it, but still have a reasonable runtime where viewers will be 100% willing to pay money to sit through it, you've got to break it up.  The last Harry Potter movie is a prime example of that happening--there was so much going on in the last novel that in order to tie up all of the loose threads and do justice to the last book and series as a whole, they had to split it into two movies in order to not turn out a shit movie that would be looked back on as ruining the rest of the series due to the disappointment.

46 minutes ago, fox said:

Richard Roper give Fellowship thumbs down for this very reason

Then he's a fucking moron.  I'm not a huge Tolkien fan (could never, ever get into and through the books), but ending a movie roundabouts where the book ends, and this information being broad, public knowledge for half a century when the movies were made, would seem to be the right call, not at all unexpected, and a moronic, piss poor excuse to shit on the movie.  I basically can't stand Tolkien's infinite meandering writing style, and yet I totally enjoyed all three of the live action LOTR movies that were produced.  Was I disappointed that I'd have to wait for the release of the second and third movies to get the whole story?  Yes, but that didn't make the first movie's story somehow bad.  The shithead knew that's how they were done and being released, so he should have held his actual thumbs up or down in reserve until all were out since he was apparently only willing to give a real review to the whole, completed story.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

28 minutes ago, fox said:

In the end, Dune is not about action.  It is about the characters and world.  So even with the movie being 2 1/2 hours,  character moments and scenes were cut.  But they still did a great job keeping the spirit of the material.

Yeah, I was glad that Jamis got included, but I have a feeling that unless the next movie picks up literally where the first one left off, I'm going to be highly disappointed at the resolution of that particular plot thread.

As for keeping up with the material in general, yes, 100% spot on.  They got the hooks in for all of the political intrigue (and social ramifications) that the first book was about to set up the comparatively action packed escalation that occurs as a result of most everybody being a shit heel in the first part.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

I'm going to see the movie in IMAX tomorrow. I've read the book, but haven't watched a single trailer, read any reviews, or read any posts in this thread. I'm going in blind, armed only with the knowledge that I love the book and Denis Villeneuve is a fantastic director.

[spacepup | 2,404]

I thought it was pretty good.  It left me REALLY wanting to see part two.  I think given the source material (being difficult to really translate well to screen), they did a great job with it.  I loved the characters and the development in part one.  I didn't see it in IMAX, but I may see it again in IMAX at some point.  

Definitely recommend!

[Californication | 1,477]

Some of the dialogue was solid filling in some of the areas that the original movie missed, but that almost seemed like the entire goal of the film. There were only a few areas where tension built up and I felt invested, notwithstanding the Idaho escape seen which was one of the coolest things ever. And the last bit was a bad transition to the second half imo. As a whole the film felt closer to an incomplete marvel movie beginning rather than a more wholistic first film like Star Wars. Also, based on the point of the movie we are in compared to the first film, I think they so far have failed in really showing of the Harkonnans, those guys are brutal in the original. I also thought the women who played the mother did alright, but really made it feel like the white people are coming to save the coloreds.

So all in all it was an okay movie, with one super dope scene, but the second half needs to step it up or this will be forgettable. I mean one of the new Star Wars movies has a cool spaceship scene and its still a pos. 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Californication

[spacepup | 2,404]

I had a very different takeaway from the movie - I guess I knew going in that this was clearly Part One, and was meant to help develop the background and characters, as opposed to having much resolution.  I think they did a pretty good job of translating the amazing world of Dune onto the screen, even if not perfect.

As for the racial analogy, I didn't really get that vibe at all.  I can see how you could look at it on paper and make that analogy, but I didn't feel that way at all. 

Spoiler

If anything, the Fremen (as portrayed in the movie), are a mysterious but clearly powerful group who can wield the power of the desert better than anyone, and the Atreides' have much to learn.  Paul being a potential "savior" / "The One" extends way behind helping the Fremen and is part of a much bigger situation.

This movie is definitely not focused on the "action" and is much more about the political / social dynamics of the different groups, and their stories.  I sort of knew that going on, and it framed my expectations well I suppose.