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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JThursby" data-source="post: 8436909" data-attributes="member: 7025596">Did we watch the same movie?  This film was an absolute masterpiece and one of the best adaptations I've ever seen, possibly the best (up there with Amazon's Good Omens).  The characters, setting and themes are translated to the silver screen with such elegance that this movie could functionally replace the book when combined with the inevitable Part Two.If what people wanted was a remake of David Lynch's Dune movie then I can see why they would come away disappointed, since this movie is almost it's opposite: it's slow, deliberate, subtle and self serious, while the David Lynch version is campy, self aware shlock. This movie is not nostalgic for the original adaptation or that era of hollywood science fiction.I've seen lots of accusations by critics that this movie has no characterization and no acting in it, and that the top shelf cinematography and effects were put there as a distraction from this supposed lack of substance.  To those critics, I would ask them what the hell did they think Paul and Jessica were doing the whole movie?  This movie has their emotional conflicts as the center of the movie's pathos. [SPOILER="Spoilers for the entire movie."] Jessica has to continually battle with her two conflicting priorities between a member of the Bene Gesserit and Paul's mother, and the way Rebecca Furgeson shows all the little ways these two responsibilities pull at her emotional state is Oscar worthy.  As for Paul, he experiences an emotional arc that serves as the three act structure of this movie.  In the beginning of the movie there is deliberate contrast shown between the promise of incredible future power to Paul (political, martial, and "supernatural") and the fact that Paul has no say in being bestowed this power.  The Act 2 crisis is the extermination of house Atreties, with Paul knowing there's nothing he could have done to prevent any of it.  He even has a breakdown as he realizes the horrible harm he will cause in the future; in that moment, he isn't the most powerful man in the universe, his power of prescience only convinces him that the universe is deterministic and preordained, that he isn't capable of making real decisions, that he's doomed to simply be a tool of fate.  As he journeys in the Desert in the third act he comes to realize that much of his visions aren't literal, that there is room for interpretation in them and that he needs to examine them thoughtfully to discover the actual future.  Pauls' emotional arc in the movie concludes with him realizing that despite being gifted with every possible advantage and power the human race could ever dream up, it's in his human fallibility that he finds the most comfort, because it means he has the ability to either succeed or fail and have real agency.  Paul is more complete and happy as a man than he is a God, and it sets up the character's eventual downfall when people do treat him as a God, which is ironically a diminishment.  Since the movie only got to cover the first half of the book, using Paul's character progression to frame the movie was a savvy move, as the movie would have to work as both a singular film and the first part of a larger saga.  I found the way the movie portrayed Paul's inner dialogue and emotional journey both masterfully done and incredibly faithful to the book.  The director and Paul's actor Timothee Chalamet did a great job translating all of this to film, and I find calling the acting in this movie bad/wooden/nonexistent is a bad take and a disservice to the artistry on display.[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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