Dune part 2: the spoilers must flow (Spoilers for the movies)

[Kalbear]

The first topic is well past 400 posts and it's good to mark the topic as being able to be spoilers or not. Note that spoilers for the movies should be fine and open here, but if you're going to talk about major plot points past the movies please mark them accordingly. 

On this being a masterpiece: I absolutely think it is. That doesn't mean there are no flaws but it is a technically amazing, visually stunning, emotive movie. It is deep, it is serious, it is creative, and it is full of great acting and visualizations. It's also quite cinematically inventive; in particular the sequence on Giedi Prime where they filmed the whole thing in infrared is something that I don't think we've ever really seen, and made it pop in a way that pure black and white do not. 

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's also quite cinematically inventive; in particular the sequence on Giedi Prime where they filmed the whole thing in infrared is something that I don't think we've ever really seen, and made it pop in a way that pure black and white do not. 

I was really unsure of this sequence when I saw it in the trailers. Black and white for the sake of it seemed a bit pretentious.

But then there is the shot of the Baron moving into the light.. and I went ‘ooooh’.  Great scene.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Look pal, All I'm saying is no one went to Godzilla vs. Kong to listen to Alexander Skarsgård yodel about some hollow earth mambo jambo. They went to see giant-monkey-giant-lizard smashy smashy. Is that so bad?

And I'm really not a fan of Casablanca. Look, I get it. Exotic locale, Nazis, Bogart mumbling his lines; yeah, box office gold. Maybe the problem is that film's been around so long that it's been strip mined of all its pop cultural references.

Maybe if I saw it without having any prior awareness of it I would have liked it better. I dunno. It left me flat.

These were my initial comments from the previous thread that I had under a spoiler tag.

Quote

On balance, I liked the movie a lot and there were scenes I absolutely loved. It's definitely a much bigger film than part 1. But man, if Part 1 was like, an 8 or 9/10, Part 2 scores considerably lower for me. I don't know where.

I liked the way the film opened but the editing in the first hour was really scatter shot. It improves from then on but not much. And where the first film was really efficient with exposition and dialogue (to a fault in some cases) this one went way overboard. Quite a bit of it was clunky as hell. There were one or two scenes (off the top of my head) that would have benefited greatly from removing the dialogue altogether.

Part 1 flowed whereas Part 2 kind of lurched from one moment to the next.   

Rebecca Ferguson was great. I loved the films take on the character. I'm not sure I like Walken as the emperor. Anyone who has a bad thing to say about Florence Pugh can meet me on the beach with a blade at dawn.

To be clear, this is not a negative review, you bastards. 

On the editing/pacing: It's entirely possible that's just a limitation in me. It's entirely probable that I'll shift on this during rewatches. As it was, the rhythm of the thing didn't suit me and it affected my enjoyment of the film. I didn't have the same experience leaving the theater as when I saw part 1.  

Regarding the dialogue, I shall not yield. This film would have benefited greatly from the economy of the first film. There were scenes where the dialogue should have been pared down or eliminated altogether and the film would have benefitted. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

28 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

... they filmed the whole thing in infrared...

Ad Astra did something similar for the moon chase sequence.

 

[TheLastWolf]

The film was mighty fine but felt cold for a desert movie, needed to breathe more life. 

And Feyd Rautha Butler wasn't worth shit neither in the books nor in his expanded role in the films. Milking known faces for all they're worth is alright but if it was someone like Bill Skarsgard with real menace in the eyes, that'd have been something. Plus it's his daddy as the uncle so resemblance and shit. 

Stellan would have made a perfect Judge Holden if only someone had the coconuts to adapt Blood Meridian sooner.

Edited March 4 by TheLastWolf

[DireWolfSpirit]

If one couldnt enjoy this movie I'd recommend maybe just giving up on seeing movies.

Movies arent for everybody.

[Corvinus85]

I mentioned this before in my spoiler review, but I wish they would have shown the intersection of a laser with a shield. The movie had a lot of show don't tell moments, but they skipped this one. I wonder if people who haven't read the books are wondering why so many people are using las guns (and there way more this time than in Part 1) but at the same time they still fight more often with swords and knives.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

8 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I mentioned this before in my spoiler review, but I wish they would have shown the intersection of a laser with a shield...

...and it could have included the line, "Welcome... to flavor town."

Quote

I wonder if people who haven't read the books are wondering why so many people are using las guns (and there way more this time than in Part 1) but at the same time they still fight more often with swords and knives.

Excellent point. I think Keynes mentions the dangers of shields in the desert in the first film. Also ditching the shield generators during the harvester rescue in the first film because they were basically useless. So no shields in the desert is established. 

But the whole shields/lasers thing is unknown to non-book readers. 

[Jace, Extat]

I don't get to go 'till Saturday (70mm IMAX, though ) but can someone reassure me that Alia is not an adult in this film?

Somebody told me she's played by Anna Taylor-Joy and I'm left hoping that's only in Usul's visions and that she doesn't experience some freaky rapid-growth nonsense to get an adult in the role. That would be stupid.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

51 minutes ago, Jace, Extat said:

I don't get to go 'till Saturday (70mm IMAX, though ) but can someone reassure me that Alia is not an adult in this film?

Somebody told me she's played by Anna Taylor-Joy and I'm left hoping that's only in Usul's visions and that she doesn't experience some freaky rapid-growth nonsense to get an adult in the role. That would be stupid.

You might be on to something...

[Jace, Extat]

Tease.

[Corvinus85]

Ah internet, never change. Stilgar has become a meme.

 

[Heartofice]

5 hours ago, Jace, Extat said:

I don't get to go 'till Saturday (70mm IMAX, though ) but can someone reassure me that Alia is not an adult in this film?

Somebody told me she's played by Anna Taylor-Joy and I'm left hoping that's only in Usul's visions and that she doesn't experience some freaky rapid-growth nonsense to get an adult in the role. That would be stupid.

I think Alia is handled reasonably well in the movie, I’d imagine a non book reader might be a bit confused by it. It’s probably better than the creepy kid in Lynch’s version.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

I just found out today that Argyll had a budget of 10 Million more than Dune at 200 Mn USD…yet it looked 50 times cheaper when I saw it… What a difference the filmmaker can make man…

Edited March 5 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[dbunting]

I'm not a big Dune fan at all, never saw the other movie way back and never read a book so I am just not getting this.

Over all it was an ok movie. The scenes I enjoyed the most were on the other planet with the pale bald people, those scenes were cool as hell, the way it was filmed, the black sun etc. The introduction of this psycho killer and letting us know he will be unleashed was a hell of a set up. For me this was the best part of the movie.

Unfortunately the payoff sucks ass.  We get one scene where a ship is shooting at the rocks presumably at his command, and how the they just now find out they were under there btw? Then we get his fight scene where he dies. That's it. All that build up and he is killed basically the next time we see him? What an absolute waste.

This whole southern pole b.s. OMG we know they are down there but there are sandstorms in a ring around it protecting it so we will do nothing. You travel through space, IDK maybe land a ship from space there, bypassing the oh so horrible sand storms? Or fly over them? Man this plot hole killed me.

Another issue. They introduce these 92 atomic weapons that every great house has.  It appears in the last battle that they fired three of them. AT THE ROCKS.  Why not fire more and IDK maybe at the enemy forces, and ships and the fortress? Maybe you save thousands of your people who needlessly died in hand to hand combat.

All this said and I'll probably see the next one in theaters because I love big sci-fi action movies on large screens.

[Corvinus85]

46 minutes ago, dbunting said:

I'm not a big Dune fan at all, never saw the other movie way back and never read a book so I am just not getting this.

Over all it was an ok movie. The scenes I enjoyed the most were on the other planet with the pale bald people, those scenes were cool as hell, the way it was filmed, the black sun etc. The introduction of this psycho killer and letting us know he will be unleashed was a hell of a set up. For me this was the best part of the movie.

Unfortunately the payoff sucks ass.  We get one scene where a ship is shooting at the rocks presumably at his command, and how the they just now find out they were under there btw? Then we get his fight scene where he dies. That's it. All that build up and he is killed basically the next time we see him? What an absolute waste.

This whole southern pole b.s. OMG we know they are down there but there are sandstorms in a ring around it protecting it so we will do nothing. You travel through space, IDK maybe land a ship from space there, bypassing the oh so horrible sand storms? Or fly over them? Man this plot hole killed me.

Another issue. They introduce these 92 atomic weapons that every great house has.  It appears in the last battle that they fired three of them. AT THE ROCKS.  Why not fire more and IDK maybe at the enemy forces, and ships and the fortress? Maybe you save thousands of your people who needlessly died in hand to hand combat.

All this said and I'll probably see the next one in theaters because I love big sci-fi action movies on large screens.

Yeah there are lore reasons for these issues discussed in the book which the movie fails to cover. It would have been nice if Villenueve would have made time to add more of the politics at play but it would have made the movie really long. In fact I think some of them should've made it in the first movie, like the existence of nuclear missiles.

Edited March 5 by Corvinus85

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

I'm not a big Dune fan at all, never saw the other movie way back and never read a book so I am just not getting this.

Over all it was an ok movie. The scenes I enjoyed the most were on the other planet with the pale bald people, those scenes were cool as hell, the way it was filmed, the black sun etc. The introduction of this psycho killer and letting us know he will be unleashed was a hell of a set up. For me this was the best part of the movie.

Unfortunately the payoff sucks ass.  We get one scene where a ship is shooting at the rocks presumably at his command, and how the they just now find out they were under there btw? Then we get his fight scene where he dies. That's it. All that build up and he is killed basically the next time we see him? What an absolute waste.

This whole southern pole b.s. OMG we know they are down there but there are sandstorms in a ring around it protecting it so we will do nothing. You travel through space, IDK maybe land a ship from space there, bypassing the oh so horrible sand storms? Or fly over them? Man this plot hole killed me.

Another issue. They introduce these 92 atomic weapons that every great house has.  It appears in the last battle that they fired three of them. AT THE ROCKS.  Why not fire more and IDK maybe at the enemy forces, and ships and the fortress? Maybe you save thousands of your people who needlessly died in hand to hand combat.

All this said and I'll probably see the next one in theaters because I love big sci-fi action movies on large screens.

Thanks, I do wonder what this movie would look like to someone who has never read the books and has little lore knowledge. Nothing you said above bothered me in the slightest, and I have to wonder why. Feyd Rautha dying was never even flagged in my mind because I knew it was going to happen. I think there is an element of the Dune story that mirrors a standard blockbuster plot, but doesn't really fit neatly into it, so when you don't get what you expected it can feel like a let down.

I saw this movie in the context of the books, the larger story and the following books, so I guess it changes my reaction to it.

[dbunting]

Can someone explain the whole can't user lasers or guns in the desert? I must've missed it in the first movie. As I was watching Part 2 I was like man wtf aren't they just shooting instead of going hand to hand? Then you have the helicopter things that are shooting and the ship that shoots the mountain over the Freman secret city, and it's confusing why some shoot and they clearly have the technology to do it but they don't do it more often????

[Corvinus85]

4 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Can someone explain the whole can't user lasers or guns in the desert? I must've missed it in the first movie. As I was watching Part 2 I was like man wtf aren't they just shooting instead of going hand to hand? Then you have the helicopter things that are shooting and the ship that shoots the mountain over the Freman secret city, and it's confusing why some shoot and they clearly have the technology to do it but they don't do it more often????

The laser thing is really more about the shields. If a laser hits a shield it produces a violent reaction that can explode a lot of ground, often killing the shooter too. In the deep desert people don't use shields, though, because of the worms, so why don't they use lasers and guns more? Well, it's because it's unpredictable when someone uses a shield and when they don't, and while shield can be spotted because they create a blur, it's hard to see them from a distance especially against the desert background. The Harkonnen do seem comfortable in using firearms against the Fremen though, as we see that team at the beginning of the movie were armed with las guns. The Fremen, OTOH, are less well armed.

The ship blasting the sietch happened in the book but the baron's line about good old fashioned artillery was an homage to how the Harkonnen destroyed a large part of the Atreides army in the book during their surprise attack.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

5 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I just found out today that Argyll had a budget of 10 Million more than Dune at 200 Mn USD…yet it looked 50 times cheaper when I saw it… What a difference the filmmaker can make man…

Wow, you really don’t like Argylle. The majority of critics agree with you but I saw Kermode’s review and he seemed to really enjoy it. I don’t always agree with him but when he goes against the consensus that piques my interest. 

I noted at the time that Red Notice had a budget substantially higher than Dune part 1. Put that down to reshoots and actors salaries.