Dune Spoiler Thread

[Zorral]

What is mostly missing from Villeneuve's film, the literal soul of Dune, because the writers didn't see it, going so far as to dismiss any of it as 'exotic decor' that no longer applies to 'our' world, if it ever did.  Though readers with any familiarity of the variety of Islamic cultures. the Qur'an, the life of Muhammad and the histories of the middle eastern empires did and do see all the embedded in the novel's text, as Herbert wrote it.  So the Orange Catholic Bible is MIA, with the exception of brief glimpse in the hands of, I think it was Yueh?. Yet reference to and out of the OCB. as well as quotations from the Qur'an and other classic Islamic texts run throughout Herbert's Dune.

Such a surprise that writers for the screen don't know or understand the source books as well as the writer does. Or even believe they know better than the author does.

https://www.tor.com/2021/10/18/the-muslimness-of-dune-a-close-reading-of-appendix-ii-the-religion-of-dune/

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 hours 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.

In the book when Duncan rescues Paul and Jessica there is a massive explosion.  Paul asks Duncan if that was the “family atomics”.  Duncan says no he set up a lasgun/shield trap that caused the massive explosion.

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

What is mostly missing from Villeneuve's film, the literal soul of Dune, because the writers didn't see it, going so far as to dismiss any of it as 'exotic decor' that no longer applies to 'our' world, if it ever did.  Though readers with any familiarity of the variety of Islamic cultures. the Qur'an, the life of Muhammad and the histories of the middle eastern empires did and do see all the embedded in the novel's text, as Herbert wrote it.  So the Orange Catholic Bible is MIA, with the exception of brief glimpse in the hands of, I think it was Yueh?. Yet reference to and out of the OCB. as well as quotations from the Qur'an and other classic Islamic texts run throughout Herbert's Dune.

Such a surprise that writers for the screen don't know or understand the source books as well as the writer does. Or even believe they know better than the author does.

https://www.tor.com/2021/10/18/the-muslimness-of-dune-a-close-reading-of-appendix-ii-the-religion-of-dune/

Gurney reads from the Orange Catholic Bible and then seems to recite a passage from it before the Atreides war-bagpipes play as they arrive on Arrakis.

You see other people reading the OCB throughout the film, but they never to identify it as such.

[Zorral]

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Gurney reads from the Orange Catholic Bible and then seems to recite a passage from it before the Atreides war-bagpipes play as they arrive on Arrakis.

You see other people reading the OCB throughout the film, but they never to identify it as such.

Exactly. Removal by non-reference/identification.  But then They'd need to explain what the OCB is, and They don't want to, thinking it matters not, any more than the overtly Islamist references.  Sigh.  The soul, the soul, the soul, that provokes all of Paul's ruminations about the future.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 10/22/2021 at 12:49 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I know that KJA and Brian Herbert are involved in this film.  I sincerely hope they do not adopt their horseshit version of the Butlerian Jihad.

I never read their stuff (well, I tried and read a prologue of one of their books once and it was bad). How did they change it?

[Lord Patrek]

Finally saw Dune tonight.

As expected from Villeneuve, it's visually stunning. Also expected, there are pacing issues throughout the movie. Basically every scene is overdone and lasts longer than it should, which makes it hard for the film to maintain any sort of rhythm.

The movie should never have been split in two installments. For something that lasts 155 minutes, not a whole lot actually happens. They might come to regret that decision.

Is it good? Hell yeah! Is it great? Not even close.

Actor performances are solid throughout and of course I'll be watching the second part as soon as it's released.

As was the case with his version of Bladerunner, I'm afraid that mainstream audiences might find Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune to be overlong and boring at times.

With authors, we talk about mental masturbation when they go on and on and it brings nothing to the plot. With director like Villeneuve, we should call this visual masturbation. The ship is about to crash into the sand. The sequence should last like 30 seconds. It lasts 4 minutes. :/ Countless scenes are like that.

Should you see it? Hell yeah! Just don't expect the best thing since sliced bread. If you've seen any of Denis Villeneuve's movies, you should know what to expect by now.

I'm just glad it's finally out.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I never read their stuff (well, I tried and read a prologue of one of their books once and it was bad). How did they change it?

The Butlerian Jihad was humanity throwing off the shackles of its AI overlords.  Not the way it is portrayed in any of Frank Herbert’s Dune books, at all.

[Scott_N]

On 10/23/2021 at 11:25 AM, 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 enjoyed the film much more than I expected to. It was very good. Then again, I have never read the book so no notions going in, good or bad.

The one thing that did strike me as peculiar was just the weapons technology overall. Or the lack of it to be more precise. I had it explained to me in the previous thread, knives and stab weapons are used because anything moving faster will be caught by the personal shield. So the drone that killed Atreides Sr. succeeded because it continued to hammer away at the shield after initially being caught? If so, why is that approach not carried over to projectile weapons at large? And why no bombs of any kind? A bunker buster would surely overcome personal shields.

Given how extremely skilled and inventive humankind is at developing weapons, in Dune it comes across as really rather unsophisticated. Maybe even to the extent it feels like a bit of a fudge, just to be able to tell/show hand-to-hand combat and all the associated themes associated with that.

PS. Yes, I do want know why lasguns are not used more though I suppose I get the principle from your other post.

[karaddin]

There were literally bombs used at multiple times in the movie, why on earth would you complain about the lack of them. Obviously they're not going to donate bombs where their troops are.

In the opening dream showing Fremen attacking a Harkonnen force the Harkonnen response was bombing all the surrounding sand dunes with some of the Fremen getting away. During the conquest of Arrakeen we see them taking the palace and the space port with infantry troops, but then they carpet bombed the rest of the city.

To state the lasgun thing explicitly - if a lasgun comes into contact with a shield then both the gun and the shield explode with the force of a tactical nuclear weapon.

[Kalbear]

And in particular they dropped slow moving bombs that explicitly slowed down when they hit the shields. It was kind of a cool effect, though it made me really question the value of actual shields. 

[Scott_N]

Thank you.

I did word that poorly. I thougth the use of bombs could have been done more effectively. It's a quibble anyway and it did not detract from the film. I suppose I'm just curious as it is likely explored more in the book.

[Impmk2]

2 hours ago, Scott_N said:

So the drone that killed Atreides Sr. succeeded because it continued to hammer away at the shield after initially being caught? If so, why is that approach not carried over to projectile weapons at large?

I believe in the book Yueh catches the Duke just as he realises they're under attack, while he still has his shield down, and shoots him with some kind of tranq dart. Why they changed it in the movie? Who knows. Did seem odd

[Isis]

On 10/22/2021 at 9:58 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s a fast 2 and a half hours.

It definitely felt like a fast two hours. Then it felt a little like a faltering 'will it end after this scene? Ok, what about THIS scene? No. Ok, how about this one? Haha, no!' You had that feeling of: it must end soon, so what is a good hinge to break the narrative on?

Afterwards we spent a lot of time wondering and discussing what a person who had not read the book would have understood about Jessica, the BG, the weirding way, what they were capable of, etc. Yes, they would have understood 'the voice', thanks to the earlier breakfast scene, but what else?

So many beautifully framed scenes. Dreamy.  The score was perfectly fine, without doing anything outstanding imo. I like Zimmer well enough, but I never really find his stuff to be that moving, if I'm honest.

Overall, I wasn't disappointed and I liked it better than I hoped I would. 

[Clueless Northman]

5 hours ago, Isis said:

It definitely felt like a fast two hours. Then it felt a little like a faltering 'will it end after this scene? Ok, what about THIS scene? No. Ok, how about this one? Haha, no!' You had that feeling of: it must end soon, so what is a good hinge to break the narrative on?

After Paul and Jessica's first escape, I was indeed wondering at which point of the book they were going to stop. Hopefully, it went better for non-readers than the last half hour of Return of the King.

 

8 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Butlerian Jihad was humanity throwing off the shackles of its AI overlords.  Not the way it is portrayed in any of Frank Herbert’s Dune books, at all.

Herbert never intended it to be litteral shackles though. In fact, from what's in Dune appendices, I always assumed it was more some religious/obscurantist/superstitious revolt aiming to get rid of computers and robots, a bit like Talibans or Khmer Rouges banning music and stuff, rather than some existential fight for mankind's survival. Even if they might have a point in the very long run (say, tens of thousands of years) that relying on AI would limit humanity's potential and innovative abilities, and therefore would lead to stagnation and die-off eventually.

[Spockydog]

Apart from the occasional spice harvester, what the hecc do sand worms usually eat? Sand? 

[Heartofice]

So my overall reaction to the movie was I’m not sure if I actually enjoyed it. This is a big shock to me because I assumed I’d love it.

The issue I think, and it’s been hinted at by others, is that the movie doesn’t have much of a heart. For a film set on a desert planet it is very cold.

Part of that is maybe the source material and the detached nature of some of the characters but there was very little emotional depth from anyone as it seemed to be more interested in amazing vistas and pushing the plot along rather than pulling on the heart strings.

It also has pacing problems. Ending it where it did meant there there doesn’t feel like any kind of 3 act structure.. the pacing feels very flat, very linear. Things happen, move on to the next thing. Nothing feels like it’s building up to anything else. There is little down time creating tension for the big moments, it’s just boom boom boom. 
 

That last hour I was kind of bored, which is shocking. It just didn’t seem to be going anywhere and by the end it really hadn’t got there. 
 

There has to be another movie because it’s the only way to fix what I just saw. Really the whole thing would work much better as a tv series in 3 or so seasons. 
 

Otherwise it looked incredible and some good performances.. but it just felt… hollow

[Ran]

19 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Apart from the occasional spice harvester, what the hecc do sand worms usually eat? Sand? 

Spoiler

They eat sand plankton and smaller sandworms. Sand plankton are basically a larval state of sandworm, and those that are not eaten enter an intermediate stage of development known as  "little makers" or sand trout, who find and soak up water, creating a pre-spice and who are also responsible for making Arrakis a desert. The "spice blow" mentioned in the film is the result of gases building up and releasing the pre-spice into the air, which then under sunlight becomes melange. Finally, sand trout eventually develop into sandworms.

 

[Spockydog]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

  Hide contents

They eat sand plankton and smaller sandworms. Sand plankton are basically a larval state of sandworm, and those that are not eaten enter an intermediate stage of development known as  "little makers" or sand trout, who find and soak up water, creating a pre-spice and who are also responsible for making Arrakis a desert. The "spice blow" mentioned in the film is the result of gases building up and releasing the pre-spice into the air, which then under sunlight becomes melange. Finally, sand trout eventually develop into sandworms.

 

Ah, that's great. I did spend a lot of the super-slow-mo scenes wondering about this. Thanks for the explanation. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

Herbert never intended it to be litteral shackles though. In fact, from what's in Dune appendices, I always assumed it was more some religious/obscurantist/superstitious revolt aiming to get rid of computers and robots, a bit like Talibans or Khmer Rouges banning music and stuff, rather than some existential fight for mankind's survival. Even if they might have a point in the very long run (say, tens of thousands of years) that relying on AI would limit humanity's potential and innovative abilities, and therefore would lead to stagnation and die-off eventually.

Precisely.  KJA’s conception of the Butlerian Jihad as throwing off our robot overlords pissed me off for that very reason.  It contradicts existing canon.

[Corvinus85]

I think we need a director's cut version eventually. It appears the banquet scene was filmed then cut. I think Villenevue even said that if he could he would have done a 5 hour movie.