Dune Spoiler Thread

[polishgenius]

On sandworms: I think it's fair to say and I don't think it needs spoilering that there is no reasonable way to make them a feasible creature in the context of the planet they live on. Like yeah, very big animals living on microscopic stuff is a thing that happens in real life, and Herbert went to some effort to explain how the planet can be as arid as it is but still contain that level of biomass (though I was never entirely convinced by it)- but if that was the case they'd never need to surface, they'd not mistake large thumpings for prey, they'd not need crysknives for teeth. They're very much a creature where their symbology and their story-use came first and attempts to realise them came second. 

And, frankly, they're all the better for it.

 

[sifth]

21 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

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.

I was wondering why that scene was missing as well. It would have added some much needed humanity into the film. I find it strange that Dune wasn't made into a trilogy and not two movies.

[Lord Patrek]

51 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

That last hour I was kind of bored, which is shocking.

I felt the same way. I mean, I took time to check NHL scores on my phone, peruse my Facebook newsfeed, and even went on Instagram for a little while.

I still enjoyed the movie, overall, but it was too long for nothing. It's obvious that Dune could have been a 3-hour full-feature film. There was no need to split it into 2 parts.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Lord Patrek said:

I felt the same way. I mean, I took time to check NHL scores on my phone, peruse my Facebook newsfeed, and even went on Instagram for a little while.

I still enjoyed the movie, overall, but it was too long for nothing. It's obvious that Dune could have been a 3-hour full-feature film. There was no need to split it into 2 parts.

Yeah the pacing is a real problem. I think it definitely would work better as series, but as a movie I think either make it a super tight 3 hour movie that is pure hollywood or you turn it into a trilogy.

Part one right now has no narrative arc, there is little build up to the betrayal or sense of dread that should be seeping into every scene because they rush to layout the world building. So when the attack happens it just seems to sit in the middle of the movie.

From that point the story just kind of hangs there, sagging along towards no clear goal. It’s a real shame as there are some good scenes towards the end but I was actually hoping it would finish at one point.

Ive been begging for there to be a sequel but right now I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for one

[Ran]

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

but if that was the case they'd never need to surface,

Big pockets of spice blow throwing kajillions of sand plankton to the surface could explain this.

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

they'd not mistake large thumpings for prey,

Pre-blow precursor eruptions tending to happen rhythmically For Reasons could explain this. Although I see most people assume that because sand worms themselves "move rhythmically" -- I guess the undulation through the sand -- that the idea is that they think it's a rival sandworm/potential prey in their territory and that's why they show up.

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

they'd not need crysknives for teeth.

Sand is super abrasive, so need something much tougher than baleen for filtering through sand plankton, melange, and sand, I suppose... plus gobbling up lesser sandworms. 

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

They're very much a creature where their symbology and their story-use came first and attempts to realise them came second. 

 

But yes, it doesn't really hold up. One can squint and see the thought process by which he imagined them and hand wave.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

On sandworms: I think it's fair to say and I don't think it needs spoilering that there is no reasonable way to make them a feasible creature in the context of the planet they live on. Like yeah, very big animals living on microscopic stuff is a thing that happens in real life, and Herbert went to some effort to explain how the planet can be as arid as it is but still contain that level of biomass (though I was never entirely convinced by it)- but if that was the case they'd never need to surface, they'd not mistake large thumpings for prey, they'd not need crysknives for teeth. They're very much a creature where their symbology and their story-use came first and attempts to realise them came second. 

And, frankly, they're all the better for it.

 

Blue Whales don’t live on Krill?  Really tiny shrimp?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On the attack on Arrakeen.  I looks like Atreides forces had nothing in the all in the air.  Why weren’t they at least flying a CAP?  It wouldn’t have stopped the attack but it could have slowed it.  If they were shot down… that would have warned Arrakeen of incoming hostiles.

[polishgenius]

13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Blue Whales don’t live on Krill?  Really tiny shrimp?

Suppose they aren't microscopic as such but ya know, still really small. 

[The Mance]

8 hours ago, Isis said:

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?

In the scene where Paul and Jessica meet the Fremen, Stilgar attributes Jessica besting him to her weirding ways and it isn't clear to me at all what she had done to clue him in to her abilities beyond just being a more competent fighter than he'd anticipated.  What did I miss?

[Corvinus85]

33 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

On the attack on Arrakeen.  I looks like Atreides forces had nothing in the all in the air.  Why weren’t they at least flying a CAP?  It wouldn’t have stopped the attack but it could have slowed it.  If they were shot down… that would have warned Arrakeen of incoming hostiles.

What the hell do you think this is? Battlestar Galactica? 

But on that subject, there is a nice payoff setup in early movie: Leto talks about the sea and air power they enjoyed on Caladan. There is that shot of an Atreides frigate majestically rising from the sea, where it would have been well protected. OTOH on Arrakis the frigates were sitting ducks, easily targeted and destroyed.

[IFR]

Sand and sand plankton don't seem like they would provide sufficient energy to sustain the biomass and method of locomotion for a creature like a sandworm. The teeth of the sandworm would offset some of the energy required to burrow, but I don't see how it would be enough to make the sandworm a remotely plausible scenario. Hundreds of meters in length? No.

Also, I'm not a Dune scholar, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the life cycle of a sandworm as follows: sand plankton -> sand trout -> sandworm? The sand plankton feed off the spice, the sand trout encapsulate water, and the sand worms feed off the sand plankton, if I recall correctly. So a closed, cannibalistic system. And the sand plankton don't operate off of photosynthesis, so the system is sustained by its self-supplied energy. I guess one could say the mystical properties of the spice allow it to side step any energy conservation laws. But really, I don't think Herbert cared to address this on a deeper level.

Anyway, I really liked the movie. I agree with others that the movie had structural weakness. The point from which the Atreides arrived on Dune and then the invasion occurred felt too abridged. It should have been developed more. I hope there is a director's cut.

Other than that, I think this was about as good an adaption as one could hope for. It was certainly better than the previous attempts by a country mile.

I don't mind that a lot of the detailed politicking was jettisoned. While fun in the novel, it wasn't exactly deep stuff. I think it would have made the movie boring.

Where Villeneuve excels is visually compelling cinema. And with Dune he could run wild. And so he did. I loved the atmosphere and experience of Dune. Much of it was evocative of 2001. I'm glad Villeneuve went this route instead of spending a dozen minutes having the Baron monologing about outplaying the Atreides.

I really hope there's a part 2!

[Zorral]

If I'm recalling correctly sandworms also block off water wherever they can because water kills them.  Thus all the water locked up underground, all the tunnels.  I always assumed, as far as that goes! -- they hit the surfaces from where they sensed rhythmic vibration, treating it as they would an incursion of water from the sandworms' underground dams.  Which with so much locked underground, will happen, since, you know, sand. 

If my assumptions are wrong, I know I'll be corrected, so all good.  

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

If I'm recalling correctly sandworms also block off water wherever they can because water kills them. 

Yes, they do this in their sand trout stage, which is why the planet is otherwise so dry. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

14 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.

I mean...that really seems to be a reductive retcon doesn't it (maybe just a pure retcon--if I'm remembering right)? Just a side question, Scot, I've heard their conclusion to the Dune series (Hunters of Dune) might not be terrible--what do you think? I've been on the fence a long time (Dune's one of my favorite books, and I love the series).

ETA: As I review the original version (I haven't read Dune in 10 years, and I'm getting ready to do a reread), it's like the literal opposite of what Herbert did? The Butlerian Jihad, as I'm remembering now, was not allowing machines to have AI which is why you have mentats, right?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

It’s interesting that in the film they make a big deal out of heat explicitly… but they make no explicit mention of the dryness.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I mean...that really seems to be a reductive retcon doesn't it? Just a side question, Scot, I've heard their conclusion to the Dune series (Hunters of Dune) might not be terrible--what do you think? I've been on the fence a long time (Dune's one of my favorite books, and I love the series).

I will not read it.  Frank Herbert wrote Dune.  It ended with Chapterhouse.  I read “House: Atredies” and “House: Harkonnen”.  They were bad fanfic written in the Dune Universe.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I will not read it.  Frank Herbert wrote Dune.  It ended with Chapterhouse.  I read “House: Atredies” and “House: Harkonnen”.  They were bad fanfic written in the Dune Universe.

I think you have the right answer. I don't need to read it either, lol.

[Denvek]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

On the attack on Arrakeen.  I looks like Atreides forces had nothing in the all in the air.  Why weren’t they at least flying a CAP?  It wouldn’t have stopped the attack but it could have slowed it.  If they were shot down… that would have warned Arrakeen of incoming hostiles.

I guess they were relying on the shield around the city, which the traitor turned off.

[Bael's Bastard]

4 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

I still enjoyed the movie, overall, but it was too long for nothing. It's obvious that Dune could have been a 3-hour full-feature film. There was no need to split it into 2 parts.

There's no way it could have been a 3 hour film. They didn't even succeed in fitting enough of the first half of the book in to make characters like Leto, Liet, Gurney, Yueh, and Thufir as meaningful as they are supposed to be. Fitting the entire book into a 3 hour movie is like that idea someone apparently pitched of doing a single ASOIAF movie about Dany and/or Jon. Might as well not do it. I enjoyed this for what it is, but the director sacrificed a lot of the characters and story because of his preference for the big screen, which many of us didn't watch it on anyway because of the pandemic.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, Denvek said:

I guess they were relying on the shield around the city, which the traitor turned off.

Still… no CAP?