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

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

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. 

I’ll honesty take the last few superhero movies over Argyll, it was that bad. The marketing was also manipulative by suggesting that Cavill and Dua Lipa would be major characters in the movie (they were in it for 10 seconds), instead we got Bryce Dallas Howard trying to do action scenes she’s clearly inappropriate for….yeah it was turd and I’ll never get back those 2 hours at the theatre.The plot was completely nonsensical too. This was all style and zero substance.
 

Also the effects looked like made for tv compared to any scene in Dune. I’m honestly baffled it cost 200 Million. Atleast Madame Web looks cheap and was actually cheaply made. This one is just baffling to me.

 

For some reason Hollywood loves The Rock and are willing to pay him bags of money, so his films are always overinflated budget wise, relative to how they look. Probably explains Red Notice.

Edited March 5 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

36 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

For some reason Hollywood loves The Rock and are willing to pay him bags of money, so his films are always overinflated budget wise, relative to how they look. Probably explains Red Notice.

It was reported that Gadot and Johnson both got $20 million. Reynolds was likely up there as well. And supposedly the reshoots were substantial as well. 

Still, until the day comes when ticket price is indexed to production budget, it's nothing more than mildly interesting trivia. 

I dunno, I'd just like to Cavill get a win these days. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Today I'm going to watch it in the local IMAX. 3rd time.

I watched the first one 6 times in cinema and enjoyed it every time.

I also rewatched it regularly at home.

Don't expect me to be objective. :p

Blu-ray is pre-ordered.

 

Edited March 5 by Luzifer's right hand

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

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.

 

 

The rest of your post I think is a matter of taste, but when you mention it I do think these are direct failures of the adaptation for non-readers. I dunno that everyone would feel them as strongly as you, but there is definitely stuff left unexplained here. 

Basically the answer to the first one is 'they know there are people there, they just don't realise how many'. It's a genuine important part of the theme really- the Harkonnens were just so uninterested in the people they were exploiting, they dismissed them. The 'Oh shit there's millions of them'  moment is quite prominent in the book, but there just wasn't one here.

I would say the 'just land there from space' thing is pretty easily handwavable- where would you land a spaceship that it wouldn't immediately get eaten by a sandworm. 

 

The other part would have been even easier to fix because it would have taken all of three lines of dialogue to explain that using atomics on people is their society's greatest taboo (after maybe using computers). 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Basically the answer to the first one is 'they know there are people there, they just don't realise how many'. It's a genuine important part of the theme really- the Harkonnens were just so uninterested in the people they were exploiting, they dismissed them. The 'Oh shit there's millions of them'  moment is quite prominent in the book, but there just wasn't one here.

It's also politically taboo to use nukes against another house. Paul justifies this by claiming to have just blown up some rocks.

I don't think it's that big a deal. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

@dbunting they shot them at the rocks because :

1) They wanted the emperor and his retinue alive

2) They destroyed the mountains to remove the protection the city had against winds and also to spur a sandstorm in the direction of the city so the Fremen and the worms could camouflage their attack amidst the chaos. The sardukar soldiers were also blinded by it.

Shooting at ships and other parts of the fortress that were potentially shielded could’ve also caused more harm to both sides than any good.

Both of these reasons were clearly mentioned in the film by Paul,not sure what the issue is here…

 

Your other points about Feyd are understandable but I’ll just say one thing - the movie changed his character and made him much more psychotic and terrifying than he was presented in the books. In them he’s just a playboy who tries to cheat in the final fight against Paul and only gets Dune as a post because the baron is sexually attracted to him (yeah books are a lot weirder), so him dying the same way in the books is easier to digest than the movie.

Edited March 5 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Kalbear]

The first movie mentions that the harkoonnen thought the south was uninhabitable and there were maybe 50k fremen in total. 

Another key thing left out that bugs me is why there aren't satellites over the south and why not ships land there - it is because the fremen bribe the spacing guild to explicitly disallow both things. I wish they had put something small like that in.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

The first movie mentions that the harkoonnen thought the south was uninhabitable and there were maybe 50k fremen in total. 

Another key thing left out that bugs me is why there aren't satellites over the south and why not ships land there - it is because the fremen bribe the spacing guild to explicitly disallow both things. I wish they had put something small like that in.

I wish Denis would do what Cameron is planning with Avatar and release an extended mini series version of these films but he hates the idea of extended or even deleted scenes apparently.

[dbunting]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

I would say the 'just land there from space' thing is pretty easily handwavable- where would you land a spaceship that it wouldn't immediately get eaten by a sandworm. 

 

How do you land them anywhere and not get eaten? Also, who says they have to land. The battle scene clearly showed the ship was in the air while firing upon the mountain temple.

 

[dbunting]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

@dbunting they shot them at the rocks because :

1) They wanted the emperor and his retinue alive

2) They destroyed the mountains to remove the protection the city had against winds and also to spur a sandstorm in the direction of the city so the Fremen and the worms could camouflage their attack amidst the chaos. The sardukar soldiers were also blinded by it.

Shooting at ships and other parts of the fortress that were potentially shielded could’ve also caused more harm to both sides than any good.

Both of these reasons were clearly mentioned in the film by Paul,not sure what the issue is here…

 

Your other points about Feyd are understandable but I’ll just say one thing - the movie changed his character and made him much more psychotic and terrifying than he was presented in the books. In them he’s just a playboy who tries to cheat in the final fight against Paul and only gets Dune as a post because the baron is sexually attracted to him (yeah books are a lot weirder), so him dying the same way in the books is easier to digest than the movie.

1. Ok, that made enough sense

2. Somewhat reasonable and yes it was mentioned but if you don't know using the nukes on people is forbidden then it makes zero sense.

The convenient shield thing again. Man those shields are great and useless. Much like shields in all sci fi I guess.

 

Remember, I am not invested in this at all. I'm just giving an opinion as an outsider who watched the movie.

Edited March 5 by dbunting
Clarity

[Luzifer's right hand]

Well to be honest the setting only makes slightly more sense if all the book explanations for the tech are including.

The idea that factions that refuse to use WMDs would keep control of an interstellar empire is ridiculous. Even if you assume that the empire could deny factions willing to use WMDs access to interstellar travel planetary factions willing to use them would take control of most planets over time.

Edit: the shield/laser interaction is something that should never be mentioned. Only makes sense in a setting in which oppressed people are too stupid for terrorism.

I enjoyed the books too but it's a setting that only makes sense with weird internal logic not some hard SF tale that makes sense if you take it apart.

Edited March 5 by Luzifer's right hand

[polishgenius]

12 minutes ago, dbunting said:

How do you land them anywhere and not get eaten?

 

The north is rocky, the south isn't. That's another thing they could have spelled out I suppose but at the same time, I feel like the movie makes pretty clear that 'open sand is dangerous, rocks mean safety' in regards to worms without saying it.
 

[dbunting]

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

The north is rocky, the south isn't. That's another thing they could have spelled out I suppose but at the same time, I feel like the movie makes pretty clear that 'open sand is dangerous, rocks mean safety' in regards to worms without saying it.
 

No, I get that but there are  hundreds or thousands of miles of open sand dunes shown in the mid and north and yet they land ships there. 

Hey I have tons of experience with under ground desert worms and avoiding them by using rocks and vibrations, I've watched a couple of the Tremors movies! I assume the graboids in Tremors were a pretty direct rip off of Dune.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I wish Denis would do what Cameron is planning with Avatar and release an extended mini series version of these films but he hates the idea of extended or even deleted scenes apparently.

Which is a bit odd, because that's basically exactly what he did with Blade Runner - having multiple small in-continuity shorts that fleshed out things that weren't mentioned in the movie but affected the movie. 

I don't know that he'd be willing to do that because this was his baby in a way that Blade Runner was not, and he would have to have a lot more creative control. Maybe he feels like he doesn't need to because the books do exist - but that's also a bit tougher because the books and the movies do diverge reasonably too. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Havent read the books, but it seemed to me Paul wasnt inclined to use the nukes against other houses as much as use them as negotiation for a peaceful ascendancy, kind of the whole point of not killing the Emperor and proposing his daughters betrothal. He wanted to avoid a large scale conflict if possible.

The reply of his ascendancy not being accepted really sets up the table for large scale jihad/conflict in the next chapter.

Personally I thought when his proposal was spurned I thought he should have buried that blade in Walkens skull, ditched the daughter and rode off with Zendaya right then and there.

The way the movie played it out, half the people i've talked with now think Zendaya is going to not only raise her own army, but also turn it against Paul, she is now feeling like the scorned Freman.

Like I said I need a second viewing to more finalize my impressions for the last quarter of this movie.

Still I dont get how you watch this and not enjoy it, the audience love from this area has been a wide range from young to old and between aged movie goers.

[Werthead]

30 minutes ago, dbunting said:

No, I get that but there are  hundreds or thousands of miles of open sand dunes shown in the mid and north and yet they land ships there. 

Hey I have tons of experience with under ground desert worms and avoiding them by using rocks and vibrations, I've watched a couple of the Tremors movies! I assume the graboids in Tremors were a pretty direct rip off of Dune.

They land ships at the spaceports, of which there are two, one in Arrakeen and one in Carthag. There are also some alleged "secret" landing locations on rocky outcroppings where smugglers land.

Landing a starship or even a big shuttle dropping from a Highliner onto the open desert, anywhere, is a massive no-no. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Does the Spacing Guild exist in the Villenue Dune Universe?  The Highliners look more like stargates than starships.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Does the Spacing Guild exist in the Villenue Dune Universe?  The Highliners look more like stargates than starships.

Guild Navigators exist, so yeah. 

[Kalbear]

28 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Havent read the books, but it seemed to me Paul wasnt inclined to use the nukes against other houses as much as use them as negotiation for a peaceful ascendancy, kind of the whole point of not killing the Emperor and proposing his daughters betrothal. He wanted to avoid a large scale conflict if possible.

Nah. Both in the movie and the book he knows that his ascendancy will be anything but peaceful. He is threatening the use of the nukes (in the movie) knowing that the response will be what it is, because he can entirely see the future here. He knows exactly what will happen with this course of action. 

Presumably if he didn't threaten with the nukes something else would happen; probably an invasion of Arrakis itself. 

28 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Personally I thought when his proposal was spurned I thought he should have buried that blade in Walkens skull, ditched the daughter and rode off with Zendaya right then and there.

The way the movie played it out, half the people i've talked with now think Zendaya is going to not only raise her own army, but also turn it against Paul, she is now feeling like the scorned Freman.

I'm more and more inclined to agree. An interesting parallel from the first and the second movie - in the first movie there's a sequence where we see Paul going full-on ninja against Sardukar stabbing all sorts of people and wearing these really cool-ass modern stillsuits. In Dune 2 we see Chani do the exact same sequence of moves and poses against the Sardukar in her battle. Chani starts the story of Dune by asking as the Harkonnen leave who will oppress the Fremen next, with a great jumpshot of Paul in the very next shot. 

There are a bunch of differences between the book and the movie that make me think this may be going...well, into a very different place than the books. Spoilers for the next books follow.

Spoiler

Chani not being pregnant or in love with Paul (she drops her blue ribbon, the signifier in Fremen of love) is one, but the biggest one is that Paul does not tell Irulan that she will be his bride but he will never father children of her and that Chani will be his consort is a huge deal to me. To me, this is Paul knowingly choosing the path where Chani actively opposes him and potentially ends him. Obviously that would be a very different story! And presumably that would also mean no Leto, no Golden Path, nothing like that. Paul telling Chani over and over how he is being set up as the messiah but he isn't one - and then choosing that path and pissing her off so much - is another sign of this conscious pushing of her. 

I could see her being the ultimate user of the Stone Burners against Paul, for instance. 

I think, conceptually, I really love it. I like Chani both being used this way and having a lot more action in the story, I like Paul fighting in some way against his fate and the long prophecy, I like them illustrating this is just another means of oppression of the Fremen...but it goes on trackless ground if they go this way, and I can see a lot of purists getting real pissed off. It could also be really shitty! It's not like Dune Messiah was a particular masterpiece anyway, but diverting significantly and doing his own thing may not be great. 

And, of course, doing it that way pretty much kills any other stories down the road - at least ones based on the novels. 

 

[polishgenius]

There's a moment in the book - just after he discovers Jessica is the Baron's daughter- where he sees a branch in the timeline. One of the branches is the jihad, and he spends most of the book trying to avoid it before falling to it; but the other is seemingly worse ("the thought of that timeline and what lay along it sickened him"). 

The difference between them is marked out by, in the other, "he confronted an evil old Baron and said 'hello grandfather".   

Which happens in the film. 

So yes, Villeneuve appears to be deliberately making the movies an alternate timeline.