DUNE Movie: Thoughts, Opinions, and Impressions

[payn]

I think the reason they didn't talk about it was 1) Jordan didn't seem to like it as much. 2) They talked about the movies they could watch. The Scifi channel version may not have been available. Dan hadn't seen any of the movies so they can't get his thoughts on something he hasn't watched.

Yeap, I think its out of print and not sure how to view it.

Their podcast is about Alex Jones. He sees himself as Paul Atreides. I wish I were kidding. He talks about Dune on his show and likened himself to Paul. He will sometimes compare current politics to those in Dune also. It seems Alex likes to reference movies in his rants, especially scifi movies even if they're not really connected in any way.

 

[LordBP]

Yeap, I think its out of print and not sure how to view it.

You can find it on BluRay on Amazon still.

 

[J.Quondam]

Only tangentially related:

The Official Dune Colouring Book

The first official colouring book based on Frank Herbert's Dune - one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. Visit Arrakis in a whole new ...

www.gollancz.co.uk

, which, sadly, does not come with a box of crayons that includes one "sky blue" and 47 different shades of orange.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I found the manner in which the movie addresses the white messiah trope to be rather limp. I'll give them points for trying. Well, one point. Cos, they really didn't try very hard.

Wait, why would they try to "address" that? That would subvert the themes.

The point was that Paul is not a good guy. He's a Duke from off-planet that is mistaken for a messiah by the indigenous population because thousands of years ago a Bene Gesserit left manipulative and false mythologies in place so that an outsider could swing in and be a savior and take control. He's a nobleman that comes to Arrakis, co-opts the religion of the indigenous population for his own political ends, and uses the power it gives him to literally make himself Emperor of the Known Universe.

The reason Paul seems to fit the prophecies is because he's remembering the future subconsicously, but he's still taking advantage of the manipulative prophecies to make himself Emperor. That's his incomplete foresight. It just happens that first his mother begins the manipulation, and then later after Paul becomes the QH he explicitly takes the reins from the Bene Gesserits' hands.

Paul is a white messiah trope. Intentionally. That we know it's an offensive trope is part of the dramatic irony, and we're supposed to find what he does offensive because it is. It's the same reason the Fremen call Paul "Mahdi." Nobody in 10,191 would know the history of the term, but we the audience should understand what the people calling themselves Mahdi were (and Frank Herbert's contemporaries in the 1950s did).

 

[Clint_L]

I really enjoyed Dune 1. Just saw Dune 2 on IMax and found it kind of exhausting.

It looks great. There are stunning vistas and some legitimately awesome effects. The sound design was...well, I found it punishing and relentless, for the most part.

But my biggest problem was with the characters. The psychic fetus dialogue is just silly, and all of the Atreides went from being sympathetic to sort of incomprehensible. Chamalet is horribly miscast; he has none of the gravitas the character and situation demand. Zendaya, likewise. They felt like they wandered in off the set of a YA film.

The BBEG is paper thin, only existing to fight and lose to Paul in the finale. Javier Bardem is great but when is he not?

It just felt like bombast to me. And, yeah, the cultural aspects of it are problematic. I've read the books and it's problematic there, too.

 

[briggart]

Wait, why would they try to "address" that? That would subvert the themes.

The point was that Paul is not a good guy. He's a Duke from off-planet that is mistaken for a messiah by the indigenous population because thousands of years ago a Bene Gesserit left manipulative and false mythologies in place so that an outsider could swing in and be a savior and take control. He's a nobleman that comes to Arrakis, co-opts the religion of the indigenous population for his own political ends, and uses the power it gives him to literally make himself Emperor of the Known Universe.

The reason Paul seems to fit the prophecies is because he's remembering the future subconsicously, but he's still taking advantage of the manipulative prophecies to make himself Emperor. That's his incomplete foresight. It just happens that first his mother begins the manipulation, and then later after Paul becomes the QH he explicitly takes the reins from the Bene Gesserits' hands.

Paul is a white messiah trope. Intentionally. That we know it's an offensive trope is part of the dramatic irony, and we're supposed to find what he does offensive because it is. It's the same reason the Fremen call Paul "Mahdi." Nobody in 10,191 would know the history of the term, but we the audience should understand what the people calling themselves Mahdi were (and Frank Herbert's contemporaries in the 1950s did).

Paul is definitely a messiah figure, but there is no mention of his skin color in the book. His father and grandfather are described as having dark/olive skin, same as some of the Fremen and others, including (I assume) the Emperor. But for most characters, including Paul, Jessica, and the Baron, we don't what color is their skin.

Personally, I believe that more than 10 000 years of bloodlines manipulations by the Bene Gesserit makes mapping skin colours of the people in the Dune universe to the current day ethnicities and related economic/cultural/political dynamics kind of a moot point, at least to the main characters who all come from the noble families which were the focus of BG breeding program.

I never got the impression that skin color was a factor in Herbert's message, while religion, ideology, and social status had everything to do with it. Paul is disruptive to the Fremen not because of his skin color, but because he is the messiah. And Fremen are vulnerable to this due to blindly following a religion in the first place. So they fall prey first to the Keyneses and then to Paul. Even the BP Missionaria Protectiva builds on the underlying substrate of the Fremen original religion, twisting it so that the saviour they were waiting for would match the Kwisatz Haderach.

 

[payn]

I really enjoyed Dune 1. Just saw Dune 2 on IMax and found it kind of exhausting.

It looks great. There are stunning vistas and some legitimately awesome effects. The sound design was...well, I found it punishing and relentless, for the most part.

But my biggest problem was with the characters. The psychic fetus dialogue is just silly, and all of the Atreides went from being sympathetic to sort of incomprehensible. Chamalet is horribly miscast; he has none of the gravitas the character and situation demand. Zendaya, likewise. They felt like they wandered in off the set of a YA film.

The BBEG is paper thin, only existing to fight and lose to Paul in the finale. Javier Bardem is great but when is he not?

It just felt like bombast to me. And, yeah, the cultural aspects of it are problematic. I've read the books and it's problematic there, too.

While I have some aesthetics disagreements here, I do think the casting has been a little inconsistent. I dont think Chamalet and zendaya are bad, but there doesnt seem to be much presence. Brolin and Bardem really bring it. I go back and fourth on Walken as emperor. On one hand, he feels weak and like a puppet, which makes narrative sense, on the other he is the damn emperor. Probably a combo of age and direction.

 

[Clint_L]

While I have some aesthetics disagreements here, I do think the casting has been a little inconsistent. I dont think Chamalet and zendaya are bad, but there doesnt seem to be much presence. Brolin and Bardem really bring it. I go back and fourth on Walken as emperor. On one hand, he feels weak and like a puppet, which makes narrative sense, on the other he is the damn emperor. Probably a combo of age and direction.

To me, he just feels like Christopher Walken. At this point of his career, it's basically stunt casting.

 

[GrimCo]

Watched both films.

They were visual delicacy. Match made for IMAX experience. Everything concerning visuals is great.

Story and characters? Not so much. And to be honest, Dune isn't friendliest source material for transfer to visual media. Book relies heavily on internal monologues. There is bunch of themes cramped into book, too much for movie to explore.

Personally, i think that old miniseries does better job of using screen time to present characters and story.

Also, while Dune is solid novel, sequels are incrementally worse and more convoluted farther they go.

 

[wicked cool]

Dune 2 better than dune 1. Its a good movie but not great but maybe it’s the books fault

The villians/heroes don’t get me emotionally invested
The bad guy dies.
Good mentor dies
Hero wins

Honestly the 2 villians did horrible things but don’t shine like the black panther villian, thanos henchman that hurts some avengers, or thanos or really good villians. There was no cheering or anything felt
Same with the heroes-sure I was worried they could die but there was no emotion behind it

I think both actors were capable of it but they didn’t drag me into it

The whole race argument and false messiah is just projection. He was able to accomplish things that most couldn’t