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DUNE (Part 1 Spoilers and News)


Corvinus85
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8.5/10 for me. Easily as good as Part 1 with significant chunks of the movie being way better than anything in Part 1, but some aspects where it falls short on. I was surprised by how many changes to the book this one had compared to Part 1, some good changes, others disappointing because of omissions. 

Visually the movie is stunning, it has a richer color palette than Part 1, a great soundtrack, the acting is top notch, and the scale of it borders on the frightening. I didn't really buy Walken as the Padishah Emperor, but Chalamet, Ferguson, Zendaya, and Bardem were excellent, and the rest were solid. The two movies together do make for the best Dune adaptation so far. 

What I liked

Spoiler

Giving Feyd-Rautha a bigger role in the Arrakis story was good. Austin Butler did well with the role, and the climactic fight with Paul felt earned, especially considering how the arena fight went. By the way, a nice continuity with Part 1 was that the Atreides fighter that wasn't drugged was a high ranking officer who we saw in Part 1 and had a couple of speaking lines.

Chani's story was interesting, too, and certainly a big departure from the book, but she had a much more powerful voice in this one. It may have gone a bit too over to the left field at the end, but it could easily lead to more good developments, too.

A lot of great, epic moments. I literally got chills both during the scene of Jessica's transformation and Alia's awakening, and during Paul's Kwizatz Haderach scene. But it may have been just the soundtrack giving me ASMR tingles. Either way, I liked those scenes. I liked that they weren't afraid to show weird visions and visuals.

The birth of a religion empowered by millions of zealots, yep well done. Frightening, and it may be that Chani's story was changed to be the eyes-and-ears of a skeptical modern audience. Also, the Fremen culture was well done.

Disappointments

Spoiler

Truth be told, the religious stuff was never my favorite part of the book, so I was disappointed that the Imperium politicking took a back seat. I had hoped for more. Because of this the ending with the emperor and the great houses feels a bit rushed. But that is a problem I believe all other adaptations had, too. Herbert sets up what and why things happen at the end well, none of the adaptations get it quite right.

The most jarring omission for me was the Spacing Guild. Villeneuve decided that for Part 2 the audience doesn't need to be reminded why the spice is the most important resource in the known universe, why the Emperor would involve himself directly in the war on Arrakis. 

A small nitpick - it would have been nice if we had gotten one scene of what happens when a las beam intersects with a shield. It really should have happened in Part 1, but there were plenty of opportunities here. 

And lastly, theater experience 5/10. Seats were comfy, sound was good, the audience was small, which allowed me to hear the two people who fell asleep, some guy who was snoring loudly, and a kid with their lighter snore just a few seats away. sigh

Edited by Corvinus85
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I adored this movie! Definitely envision rewatching this many times over the next few years, it’s an instant classic. The love story and Zendayas expanded rôle was handled really well, excellent music and visuals and Stilgar was my favourite character,perfect use of humour and warmth(and fantasticism)

 

My only gripe is the last third of this movie, specifically when the action kicks in with the emperor landing on Arrakis was a bit rushed. But to be fair ,it felt like that in the book as well. The ending has me hyped up for Dune Messiah !

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Also this movie beats the fuck out of the last 5 Star Wars movies and tv shows.

 

It’s also so immersive, you can see the difference between shooting with The Volume and an actual desert and the actors actually being there so clearly. I hope Netflix in particular learns from this,comparing this to that Avatar Show….

Edited by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II
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So yeah, some thoughts: 

 

Spoiler

Visually it's out of this world. Several moments that weren't just epic but Villeneuve really flexing his visual chops- the opening fight, the whole Feyd-Rautha introduction sequence. 

I agree that the final battle was a little abrupt - probably out of financial and pacing necessity tbh- but the sandworm moment was fantastic. Though as my brother noted they really should have left that out of the trailer. Ultimately focusing too much on the details of the battle would probably have distracted from the actual finale. 

On the other hand the final scene was, while not abrupt, truncated in some ways while others were expanded. I can see why- the book isn't really an action-led book, whereas the film ultimately is, and crunch-stopping that for a talky scene to end it would have felt weird. But it is a shame to miss all the back-and-forth in that scene, and the Bene Gesserit arc was sidelined there despite being brought to the fore more earlier in the film (movie emperor is much more of a patsy, barely seems to have his own agency at all). Like, they barely mention the Kwisatz Haderah at all- it's there but it never even comes up in the final scene. 

Also I do miss Alya. I suspect they thought it would have been hard to get an actual child actor to work. Actually keeping her in would have been easy- if Villeneuve had ended the first movie a few minutes later they could have time-jumped between the films. Though we would have lost the eclipse scene then, so swings and roundabouts I guess. 

And I do agree that it's a little weird that they barely mentioned spice and at the end there was no mention of the Spacer's Guild etc. They also never actually mentioned the Emperor's actual reason for attacking House Atreides. That's because they didn't focus nearly so much on the Sardaukar mythmaking so suddenly revealing that the Duke's soldiers were too good would have been weird, but it does remove the superb dramatic irony of that directly leading to, you know, Fremen power.

Enough kvetches though. Things I liked and loved:

For all that the  final battle was abrupt, the spice-gatherer attack was an incredible display of battle-based filmmaking, one using Dune's unique selling points to the max. 

Most of the changes to the narrative did work for me. The existence of Fremen sceptics and Chani's role among them was fantastic. Making her love Paul but hate his position made a much stronger story of their relationship. And while I don't usually love stories being made more morally clear, Dune wasn't meant to be ambiguous about Paul's villainy so making his turn to it so starkly obvious wasn't a problem. It's basically because the book is, narratively speaking, on his side all along, whereas the movie puts us on Chani's, so there's no question of who we're loyal to as viewers.

Added to that, the north/south divide and Paul's fear of going south was a nice addition, a nice clear symbolic representation of his divided thoughts and his turmoil. It's one where you could have done it like in the book, where he's knowingly manipulative all along but cynical about it, but it'd have needed a lot of additional scenes of him talking it out. Doing it this way was a move that really worked from an understanding of the film's chosen focuses and style. 

'Take them to paradise' holy shit Denis that was cold.

Stilgar's depiction was genuinely heartbreaking to me. Funny as well, but that poor man. Bardem is brilliant.

 

Old news but the soundtrack holy shit.

 

 

 

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Quick question but was the nukes subplot a movie addition? I don’t remember it being in the books and i felt it stood apart from the rest of the narrative a bit although I understand the ultimate logic of it being there, to give the final battle more sense rather than just making the Fremen OP all the time.

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7 hours ago, sifth said:

I loved it. My only real complaint is I didn't like the very final scene. Should have just ended with the holly wart starting.

Spoiler

Chani looking at the camera?

It's similar as Jessica looking at the camera at the end of part 1.

I expected it and would have been surprised if the movie did not end that way.

It's a woman focused retelling of the tale. The director pretty much said that in interviews IIRC.

Edit:

Spoiler

Someone pointed out the me that in the book Paul rejects the path that has him say "Hello, grandfather!" and embracing the Harkonnen way.

The movie might the directors take on that path.

I have only read it once but that makes sense considering that the director is supposedly an avoid fan of the source material.

 

Edited by Luzifer's right hand
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Ohh, I do have one other minor complaint. They edited 

Spoiler

Thufir out of the movie.

Shame too, since I heard his actor filmed scenes for Part 2.

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2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Quick question but was the nukes subplot a movie addition? I don’t remember it being in the books and i felt it stood apart from the rest of the narrative a bit although I understand the ultimate logic of it being there, to give the final battle more sense rather than just making the Fremen OP all the time.

Yes they are, but the movie does just throw them in without much setup. As the book explains everyone has nukes, but also why no one uses them.

Spoiler

Paul threatening to use nukes against the spice fields is what causes the emperor and the great houses to get angry, while Paul using them just against the mountain and not directly against the emperor's troops is him being near the breaking of rules on use of atomics, but not quite crossing the line.

 

5 minutes ago, sifth said:

Ohh, I do have one other minor complaint. They edited 

  Hide contents

Thufir out of the movie.

Shame too, since I heard his actor filmed scenes for Part 2.

Spoiler

Another adaptation that shafts Thufir Hawat. Ah well. Part 1 didn't do much in explaining the nobility's use of mentats, so his absence in this one is understandable.

 

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the funny thing is they DO feature alot of mentats like the one that the Harkonnens keep using on Arrakis in that War Room so theyre clearly a part of this adaptation, but arent fleshed out for some reason. Hopefully part 3 corrects that - Mentats, more politics, space guild etc

I immediately feel like rewatching this film, havent felt that way about a film in a long time. 

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30 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I immediately feel like rewatching this film, havent felt that way about a film in a long time. 

Same. When we got home (we live two minutes walk from the cinema) my first response to 'so what did you think?' was: I need to see it again.

It was a relentless onslaught of story and action with no real quiet moments for you to process any of it. 

Bardem is PERFECT and I thought all the Alia bits were done well. 

As other's have said, I missed mentats, spice, the guild, a bit more of an active emperor role, and the other houses. It's a super busy film so a lot of stuff got pushed to the edges. 

The worms, the battle scenes and the fundamentlist story line overall (especially Chani's role) were all good. 

So how many films are planned? One more? Two more?

Even the OST for the second film is more coherent than the first one. :D

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IMAX tmrw. The original sequel books were inconsistent but still good overall. Then came the son's climax, ugh. I hope this series stops at God emperor or thereabouts.

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I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, till the very rushed end. And there's nothing earlier I'd seriously consider cutting, so they'd have had to make the movie longer. 

But that was an excellent adaptation, on the whole. There's a lot to quibble about, and I agree with several I read here, but

Quote

 

Spoiler

The changes to Chani's arc really brought this story together for me, dare I say it, even somewhat better than the books. The power of religion, and it's immense usefulness to imposing totalitarian order, is a theme that the series tackles very well, and I'm glad to see the movie centred that aspect. 

Definitely a movie I want to watch again. And the IMAX experience was truly worth it. 

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31 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Absolutely. By miles.

Am I the only one who thought this move was reeeeealy pushing the limits of PG-13? 

Ya it was a hard PG13 as it should be, almost wish he’d release an extended R cut on streaming someday but he’s against extended versions. 

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So after walking out of the movie 10 minutes in after making the mistake of trying to view it in 4Dx ( talked about it on the watched thread ), I went back and saw the full movie in a normal screen.

Very glad I did. Loved it. A true spectacle and a privilege to see a movie like this on the big screen. At a time when cinema seems a thing of the past, a movie like this gives the medium a purpose.

As someone who was quite cold on the first movie, which seemed to over explain everything and really seemed to end abruptly, I wasn’t anticipating this movie much. However I felt it was a big improvement on the first chapter.

I put a lot of that down to the performances of Bardem and Zendaya, who added something that I didn’t really get out of the book. The religious element is more central in this movie and I think that is to its benefit as really that is the core of the story.Bardem really personifies that faith and fanaticism.

I’ve read the book a couple of times, but I feel like I got a much better sense of the story here than with any other version. 
 

Funnily I saw the last 10 minutes of the Lynch version last night. Wow that is a terrible ending.

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