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Dune Spoiler Thread


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On 10/22/2021 at 12:36 PM, Corvinus85 said:

Things that were good, but maybe missed a step or note

They missed an opportunity during Duncan's death scene to show why lasers aren't often used in battle. Duncan could have made a grab for the lasgun and shoot it at one of the shielded Sardaukar to have them all go out together.

That would've been a pretty big departure from the books as:

Spoiler

Duncan is recognised as a badass and they recover his body before he's resurrected hundreds of times over the following centuries. I'm sure a lot of the fanbase would have conniptions if he were vaporised. Lasgun / shield interactions are meant to be like a nuke going off.

 

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1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

That things change, and that this should have changed a long time ago?

Your edit a couple of posts up changes things a bit of course - I mean this in regard to the ritualistic necessity of crysknifes 'tasting' blood when unsheathed.

I'm still not understanding your criticism, which could well be my fault.  Nor do I know which edit you mean -- I edit my comments a lot, I know, because I realize something was not expressed very clearly, or because more aspects occur to me, and so on.  Generally, those edits are for myself because I do not flatter myself that others read backwards after what they've already read! :)  Or even haven't read at all coz too many comments.

However, if you mean by "Things should have changed a long time ago" that crysknives shouldn't need to be blooded after being drawn -- this, not addressed in the film (at least this part). that blood feuds can go on among the tribes and sietchs. Part of the point of Paul -- and Lady Jessica -- is they will pull the tribes together for the greater good of Arrakis, which would then put an end to that ritual. Or for the greater misery of the galaxy. But that ritual ending isn't addressed in the novel either.

The thing is though, that custom, ritual -- culture -- keeps peoples alive and functioning when everything else is taken away from them.  So why would this particular custom be dropped, what is the need for it? Particularly when blood = water, water = blood among them?

Now if you want I can at this stage of my life can speak to the great holes that are in Herbert's cultural and environmental world building of Dune.  However, I still remain nonplussed, the longer time goes by, at how seamlessly he knitted together what might seem to be such disparities of the cultures and histories upon which he drew to make Dune, and will always doff my chapeau to him, because I never found anything like that before in SF or after either.

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44 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

That would've been a pretty big departure from the books as:

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Duncan is recognised as a badass and they recover his body before he's resurrected hundreds of times over the following centuries. I'm sure a lot of the fanbase would have conniptions if he were vaporised. Lasgun / shield interactions are meant to be like a nuke going off.

 

I know, but they showed lasguns, but for a non-reader audience it would raise the question, why aren't they more used? But maybe in Part 2 we'll see something.

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Caught this in the theater today. I really like the book, read it several times, but the most recent was enough years ago that the details have become fuzzy. Think that was probably a good place to be in terms of knowing enough to follow everything and not getting too caught up on changes. Overall, I enjoyed it, although I found Chalamet to be a distracting casting choice. I've also decided that no amount of money and fancy CGI can make the blue eyes thing work on screen. It just looks cheesy.

This was certainly not in any way a self-contained story, so they better go ahead with Part 2 or it will be a big disappointment in hindsight!

6 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

That things change, and that this should have changed a long time ago?

Your edit a couple of posts up changes things a bit of course - I mean this in regard to the ritualistic necessity of crysknifes 'tasting' blood when unsheathed.

But they did show all the Fremen blooding their chrysknives before sheathing in the scene before Paul and Jamis fight. So it's clearly still there as a tradition, even if it's not explained.

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So saw it today. Thought it was surprisingly faithful to the books, but I didn't love it. Felt like it spent the whole time rushing to the next plot point with some massive exposition dumps inbetween, which is to be fair how the books were, but I didn't really feel like it worked so well here. Friend I saw it with said he thought it was like a giant trailer for a better (the next) movie.

Obviously it wasn't able to do a lot of the internal monologues and it cut a few scenes in the interests of time (for example the dinner scene with Keynes), so the end result was I didn't really feel I cared much about any of the characters. Felt like it could've been served better as a GoT budget miniseries rather than trying to stuff it all into 2.5hrs. Otoh I didn't think it was terrible, certainly better than the Lynch version.

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9 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I know, but they showed lasguns, but for a non-reader audience it would raise the question, why aren't they more used? But maybe in Part 2 we'll see something.

I have to imagine it will come up when Paul/the Fremen weaponise it in the major battle near the end, I guess they just decided it didnt need to be setup and explained this early. 

I actually thought the first time it was fired at Duncan was a much better spot to show what happens, when its tracking his Ornithopter - if he'd pulled up and it hit a shield a long distance behind him, you could have had nuke blasts in that moment which didn't take him out.

I loved it, I actually agree with the reviewer that the emptiness of the spaces was striking but I actually liked it as a stylistic choice in combination with the enormous scale of everything. The thopters looked so good they have me wondering if that design is superior to helicopters if we achieve the necessary technological steps to build them - after all dragonflies do exist and their design takes advantage of certain physics traits. I assume the big things are materials tech to make the wing blades sufficiently strong yet flexible and whatever improvements are needed to make pistons which can cycle at that speed with enough force to move the wing blades.

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1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I have to imagine it will come up when Paul/the Fremen weaponise it in the major battle near the end, I guess they just decided it didnt need to be setup and explained this early. 

I actually thought the first time it was fired at Duncan was a much better spot to show what happens, when its tracking his Ornithopter - if he'd pulled up and it hit a shield a long distance behind him, you could have had nuke blasts in that moment which didn't take him out.

I loved it, I actually agree with the reviewer that the emptiness of the spaces was striking but I actually liked it as a stylistic choice in combination with the enormous scale of everything. The thopters looked so good they have me wondering if that design is superior to helicopters if we achieve the necessary technological steps to build them - after all dragonflies do exist and their design takes advantage of certain physics traits. I assume the big things are materials tech to make the wing blades sufficiently strong yet flexible and whatever improvements are needed to make pistons which can cycle at that speed with enough force to move the wing blades.

They're on it in Russia

 

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Interesting! And that's just handling the piston speed issue by using additional wings. I noticed the effects in the movie had the wings using the complex flap motion used by dragonflies, not simply up and down and it makes sense that would be one of the harder elements to reproduce - even if it's also one of the key parts of doing it well. That one needed at least a short run way rather than being a helicopter replacement.

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I thought the movie looked and sounded amazing. And it seemed to do a good job explaining what was going on (albeit by simplifying some things), I was watching with a friend who hadn't read the book and he was able to follow what was going on easily.

What was missing for me was any sort of heart to the movie. It was entirely plot beat, plot beat, plot beat. There was almost never any moments for the characters to express how they felt about what was going on or how they felt about each other. For instance, my friend noted that he had no idea if Jessica and Leto were supposed to be in love with each other or not.

I think this actually would've worked better as a trilogy, with the first movie just covering up through the sneak attack; ending with Leto dying and Paul and Jessica on the chopper (or maybe ending with them killing the Harkonnen crew). That way there'd be more room for the story to breath, and have some scenes that aren't just about advancing the plot as much as possible.

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24 minutes ago, Fez said:

What was missing for me was any sort of heart to the movie. It was entirely plot beat, plot beat, plot beat. There was almost never any moments for the characters to express how they felt about what was going on or how they felt about each other. For instance, my friend noted that he had no idea if Jessica and Leto were supposed to be in love with each other or not.

I think this largely sums it up for me too. The scenes didnt flow for me all that well.  If a trilogy wasnt an option, I would have trimmed back on the Caladan exposition and added more to the pre-invasion Arrakis scenes to get the local characters more established and Paul developing his powers more organically. 

The main characters, Paul, Jessica, Leto, the Baron were all good, but a lot of the secondary actors I felt were pretty rough- Chani, Stilgar, Yeuy, and Thufir were pretty weak performances.  I also thought some of the tonal shifts were awkward- particularly the 'comedy' banter with Duncan/Gurney and the need to explain world building plot items with words that are a bit jarring (not the actors fault in those cases). 

On the positive side, as others noted, I really liked the prescience scenes and the hints that Paul is not a hero in the long run.  Oh and Ornothopters, check!  

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6 minutes ago, horangi said:

I think this largely sums it up for me too. The scenes didnt flow for me all that well.  If a trilogy wasnt an option, I would have trimmed back on the Caladan exposition and added more to the pre-invasion Arrakis scenes to get the local characters more established and Paul developing his powers more organically. 

The main characters, Paul, Jessica, Leto, the Baron were all good, but a lot of the secondary actors I felt were pretty rough- Chani, Stilgar, Yeuy, and Thufir were pretty weak performances.  I also thought some of the tonal shifts were awkward- particularly the 'comedy' banter with Duncan/Gurney and the need to explain world building plot items with words that are a bit jarring (not the actors fault in those cases). 

On the positive side, as others noted, I really liked the prescience scenes and the hints that Paul is not a hero in the long run.  Oh and Ornothopters, check!  

I agree with this for the most part. The only thing in this movie that comes close to heart is the scene where Paul and Leto talk at the start of the film and Leto tells Paul, he'd love him, even if he doesn't become a leader.....................naturally this scene is not in the book and contradicts a scene that happens much later in the story, but at least it's something. I wish this film also had more scenes between Gurney and Paul, because I remember Gurney being like a second father to Paul in the novel. I feel like the movie gave a lot of Gurney's moments to Duncan, since he's a relatively minor character in the novel.

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For what it was, I loved it. I could list a bunch of things they did differently or left out or didn't do as well as I think the book does it, but I am happy with the result and look forward to the second movie. The book readers and non-book readers I watched with all loved it (we watched at home with captions). It is sort of bittersweet though, because this was meant to be a 9-10 episode series, and with this cast and everything it would have been my favorite series ever, no question. I thought Duncan had a nice arc, but Kynes, Yueh, and Leto could have used more time to build their relationships with others. A show wouldn't have had to leave so much out or rush so much. But I think this accomplished about as much as you can trying to split Dune into just two movies. And it could have been a slow and plodding film, but the time went by very quickly.

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11 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

faithful to the books, but I didn't love it.

I feel the same, despite the spectacular spectacle almost making up for the lack of soul -- with the great exceptions of Momoa and Isaac, and the presence of mud lighting.  Which latter for a location that is a desert, burning sun, sort of planet, was a poor choice.  Nevertheless it is good enough in the visuals and some other parts that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

 

33 minutes ago, horangi said:

added more to the pre-invasion Arrakis scenes to get the local characters more established and Paul developing his powers more organically. 

:agree:

 

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I think this actually would've worked better as a trilogy, with the first movie just covering up through the sneak attack; ending with Leto dying and Paul and Jessica on the chopper (or maybe ending with them killing the Harkonnen crew). That way there'd be more room for the story to breath, and have some scenes that aren't just about advancing the plot as much as possible.

Certainly true that!

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1 minute ago, sifth said:

Never read that book? Does Duncan come back to life or something?

Spoiler

Duncan is resurrected in the form of a ghola, essentially a clone... and later in the series is resurrected some thousand times, as the series covers ~6,000 years.

 

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I've never read the book and thought the original movie was borderline terrible. This movie was....okay? The visuals were great, but after that I'm not sure much else stands out. The acting was just okay, the story was alright, didn't really care about the characters and the sound was an issue at times, though not as bad as some made it out to be. 

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