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Dune Spoiler Thread


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8 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

The Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva has spread superstitions, myths, and prophecies—like the Lisan al-Gaib on Arrakis—throughout the empire.

I know that, the movie doesn't quite say that yet, so I was trying to give a hint to someone that asked a question without spoiling it.  :D

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18 minutes ago, Guy Kilmore said:

Yeah, too bad the stuff written by Son and other dude ended up being kind of poo.

The really sad part is that it is bad fanfic.  Ironically, back in the early 90’s I read a Star Trek/Dune crossover fanfic that really did capture Frank Herbert’s tone and voice.  

So, clearly it can be done.  KJA just isn’t up to it.

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Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The really sad part is that it is bad fanfic.  Ironically, back in the early 90’s I read a Star Trek/Dune crossover fanfic that really did capture Frank Herbert’s tone and voice.  

So, clearly it can be done.  KJA just isn’t up to it.

That or they were interested in their own takes on these stories.

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5 hours ago, Ran said:

I haven't yet watched Dune. I've been remarking more on my perceptions of Villeneuve from the films I've seen. His turn to science fiction should by all rights be big hits with me, but so far Arrival and BR2049 left me disappointed to varying degrees, even as their merits and the strength of (most) of their performances (Jared Leto :ack:) are obvious. We'll see if Dune works better for me, but I'm afraid something about his approach to film making, however technically accomplished, just seems not to work for me. And I watch Terrence Malick films for fun.

 

Perhaps you would've enjoyed them more if the actors kept moving around nonstop instead of being still on the frame? the actors delivered some poetic philosophical voice-over instead of the camera lingering on some symbolic imagery? The sound design incorporated the sounds of nature (like birds chirping or water rushing) instead of artificial sounds? The cinematography made use of naturalistic light instead of Hollywood lighting techniques? Lubezki's constantly moving and whizzing hand-held camera instead of Deakins' technically concise dolley and crane shots? Frequent and rapid jump cuts instead linear editing?

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@Cashless Society

Deakins is a god in my book and thoroughly deserved his long-overdue Academy Award for BR2049. His work on 1917 was even better.

The film's gorgeous. Joe Walker and Denis Villeneuve's editing choices are more of a question to me, although acknowledging that Walker also edited the excellent Sicario, so in my mind it's some combination of Villeneuve's pacing choices, Villeneuve's approach to the SF genre in general, and huge budgets that I have been bouncing off of (so far). We'll see tomorrow with Dune.

 

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6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I will just agree to disagree then. The movie did not feel too long at all for me and I didn't lose interest at any point.

I watched with some book readers and some non-book readers, all of whom enjoyed the movie and thought the movie went by very quickly without dragging, so different people have very different ideas about whether it was too long or scene's were too long or whatever. It is probably my favorite book series, so I feel for what was left out or not portrayed as it could have been, but I am still very appreciative of what was accomplished.

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6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Sure I get everyone will watch it and take different things from it. I think there is a good movie in there but the way it’s written and cut means that I really struggled to feel involved with it or the characters.

Im not sure the length is the issue though, because there are plenty of long movies that work well. In terms of big blockbuster movies, fellowship of the ring is a bloody long movie, more so if you watch the extended editions. But the reason that works and Dune doesn’t is because it follows a pretty simple structure , with highs and lows, and with a building momentum to an end point.

It also works because of its relationships, and actually Dune doesn’t do a good job of establishing relationships between characters. The most important should be Jessica and Paul, but outside of some moments of her crying it’s hard to tell what that relationship is. There is a little chat between Paul and Duke Leto early on that gave me hope, but when Leto dies I felt nothing, Paul and Jessica also seemed less than bothered outside of a momentary shudder. 
 

It wasn’t a very human story, it was detached and robotic. Without that heart it’s hard to sustain such a long run time. Beautiful imagery isn’t enough.

As someone that liked the movie, my biggest issue was along these lines. I was able to feel the connections because I have read the book, but I think the meaningfulness of a lot of characters suffered from cramming half the book into less than 3 hours. The death of Leto, even though we are openly shown the Baron plotting it from the beginning of the book, should feel like the death of Ned Stark. The death of Liet after he finally buys into Paul is a huge blow. Duncan they did pretty well with, but Yueh and Gurney suffered big time in this one. I don't think any of that could have been solved  by doing the movie differently. The choice to stick with big screen film sealed that.

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I'd agree with that ^ I don't think any of the under served characters could have been resolved without being able to add a bunch more scenes and blowing out the run time. Speeding up the ones we got would detract from the desired tone (whether you like the tone is a different story) but only buy you though time for 2-3 extra scenes anyway. It might let you flesh out one extra character, or concept such as mentats, but it's not going to get you all of them.

5 hours ago, Relic said:

That's the problem with the internet, isn't it? Instead of bringing humanity closer it made us sick of one another. 

At risk of diving into a much larger tangent with a lot more potential to go off track... Yeah. It sucks. I refuse to give up on the ideals of what the internet was meant to be, and what it continues to be for niche things such as people like me finding each other and information, but the trend line is really REALLY bad at the moment.

Time after time we're doing exactly the wrong things with it, to the point it's now fostering distressingly large conspiracy cults that have completely lost touch with reality, and even outside that it's spiking so many divisions between each other that the shared reality is breaking down even between less polarised groups. It's enough to inspire genuine nihilism if I let myself get hung up on it. And I didn't even mention whatever the fuck is going on with the people who have had their reasoning skills replaced with blockchain, I saw them pissed off at Steam for banning blockchain in games and I can't even understand what they think they're gaining but they're very enthusiastic about it.

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16 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

I always thought it was about humans throwing the shackles off of the humans who used AI tob control them.

However, having now lived in the Post Dune universe, the Butlerian Jihad was about throwing off Zuckerberg and Bezos and Murdoch etc., our actual AI controllers. Ha!

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I thought it was a gorgeous part 1 and not a very good self contained movie. 

There might have been places that were slow or could be cut, but it was also beautiful for it. At times it reminded me favorably of a nature documentary. 

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Yeah, thinking about the characteristics of groups of people, I think it was a bit of a mixed bag:

Done well: Sardaukar, Harkonnen, Atreides - we get a sense of the the cold-blooded nature of the former and the somewhat foolhardy virtues of the latter

Needed some more context: Mentats, Bene Gesserit (the latter are badass ninja nuns as mentioned before, but we dont see too much of that)

Unsure about: Fremen (I feel their mystique was adequately set up earlier in the movie, but when Paul and Jessica meet an actual group of Fremen the latter dont account too well for themselves, both Stilgar and Jamis are bested by the Atreides even though they are among the best the Fremen have to offer)

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45 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Yeah, thinking about the characteristics of groups of people, I think it was a bit of a mixed bag:

Done well: Sardaukar, Harkonnen, Atreides - we get a sense of the the cold-blooded nature of the former and the somewhat foolhardy virtues of the latter

Needed some more context: Mentats, Bene Gesserit (the latter are badass ninja nuns as mentioned before, but we dont see too much of that)

Unsure about: Fremen (I feel their mystique was adequately set up earlier in the movie, but when Paul and Jessica meet an actual group of Fremen the latter dont account too well for themselves, both Stilgar and Jamis are bested by the Atreides even though they are among the best the Fremen have to offer)

I would say the Stilgar and Jamis part is another failure of not explaining the Bene Gesserit abilities completely. Stilgar calls Jessica a weirding woman. There is no clear explanation of this prior to the scene, since Jessica primarily uses the Voice on the Harkonnen kidnappers, instead of any martial arts abilities. Paul was trained by Jessica, as well as Duncan and Gurney. Villeneuve chooses just the visual medium to explain how good Duncan is, while the book tells us he is among the best in the entire Imperium. But the movie does do a good job showing Fremen warriors vs Sardaukar where it's apparent that one on one the Fremen are better, but the Sardaukar had the numbers.

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Saw it, loved [most of] it.

I'd reread the book a couple months ago to prime myself up, so was a little disappointed with some of the cuts. The expo-heavy scene from the novel with the Baron, Piter, and Feyd [for instance] where Piter goes over the plan to bring the Atreides low... was a good choice to leave out. The exclusions however of a Yueh and Jessica then the Lady Fenring and Jessica scenes could've gone a long way toward explaining native resentment and build up toward Yueh's betrayal, I thought, but maybe those are on the cutting room floor somewhere and we'll get a director's cut down the road. 

The worst part, is it'll be at least three to four years before we get the conclusion [grumblegrowl]  

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12 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Saw it, loved [most of] it.

I'd reread the book a couple months ago to prime myself up, so was a little disappointed with some of the cuts. The expo-heavy scene from the novel with the Baron, Piter, and Feyd [for instance] where Piter goes over the plan to bring the Atreides low... was a good choice to leave out. The exclusions however of a Yueh and Jessica then the Lady Fenring and Jessica scenes could've gone a long way toward explaining native resentment and build up toward Yueh's betrayal, I thought, but maybe those are on the cutting room floor somewhere and we'll get a director's cut down the road. 

The worst part, is it'll be at least three to four years before we get the conclusion [grumblegrowl]  

Reportedly the sequel script is written and they've done a lot of preliminary work on it, and they have in mind which filming locations from the first movie to re-use. I also believe they kept some of the sets in storage. Villeneuve has a clear schedule and has said he can shoot next year, as most of the actors have, so I think it shooting in 2022 for a late 2023 release, two years from now, is reasonable.

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15 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

...maybe those are on the cutting room floor somewhere and we'll get a director's cut down the road. 

 

Thats my thinking as well.  A few scenes seemed incongruous (like the handmaiden selection) and I imagine they were fleshed out a bit more before the editors got their hands on it. 

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29 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

When did the Fremen fight the Sardaukar in the movie? The only confrontation I can think of is Liet-Kynes calling Shai-Halud when being outnumbered, maybe it was in one of the visions Paul had but that would be at most a fleeting glimpse.

In the sequence immediately before Kynes’ death, the Sardaukar fight Fremen guards before they reach Duncan.

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4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Reportedly the sequel script is written and they've done a lot of preliminary work on it, and they have in mind which filming locations from the first movie to re-use. I also believe they kept some of the sets in storage. Villeneuve has a clear schedule and has said he can shoot next year, as most of the actors have, so I think it shooting in 2022 for a late 2023 release, two years from now, is reasonable.

That reads like a lot of converging best case scenarios, Wert. I'd be comfortable putting a couple hundred on a least three years. Guess we'll see. 

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