A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

What was the point of getting a bunch of themselves killed fighting the spice harvester escorts hand to hand if they were just going to laser it from a safe distance anyway? And don't tell me it was to shoot down those dragonflycopters first... they could have done that a little further away from dudes with swords. Did they flick a shield switch off somewhere near the treads?

I didn't read the books so not sure what the narrative significance of Paul being quarter voldemort, but it feels like the story isn't delivering a very powerful narrative payoff if the main voldemort characters the audience knows are all swiftly killed off. It doesn't count just because he said "hey gramps" and "BTW we're cousins" directly beforehand (respectively). How could grandpa not know anyway? Plus he's dead now so the story from his point of view is I guess not too important. And cousin just thought it was neat and shrugged it off. Now he's dead too.

i believe the answer to the second question is that the story isn't finished yet and I think you will find out the significance of that later.

I could be wrong, but my memory of the book had Paul embracing his wrathful side after his son w Johnny was murdered by Harkonnens, and this son did not exist in Villeneuve’s film

xp

Yeah I figured, but at the moment it feels less impactful because from an audience perspective those particular characters are removed so the potential darth vader drama dynamic has to come from brand new characters, or some purely inherent race-based negative reason would have to be clarified, so without anything to latch onto yet I'm shrugging at this "huge reveal(?)".

In fact my biggest issue with the film despite having fun watching it was that I felt very little tension throughout.

it's kind of a silly thing but I kept waiting for Paul to yell "Muad'dib" and people exploding because of an action in an old BBS chat room that I visited in the 90s. only to find out this was very much only a thing in the David Lynch movie (which I haven't seen)

probably a good thing, that woulda gotten all of the Fedaykin killed in 5 minutes in real life...and probably Paul too.

ultimately I was able to follow almost everything in the movie but I tihnk it's time i start reading the books

time to bring back the weirding module (the only good module)

I'm probably going to read the books now that I have a better idea of what the fuck is supposed to be going on.

Speaking as someone who only knows the films and not the original source material, I took the Vader reveal to be a way for him to resolve this current portion of the story and set up the next. i.e., he is a bloodline to both Atreides and Harkonnen, and he is the leader of the Fremen, and he is the prophet foreseen by the Bene Jesuits, and he has agreed to take the hand of the Emperor's daughter in marriage. So by the end of the film he has come to be a Great Unifier of all parties we've come to know. But now he is poised to take on all the other houses in a great holy war, so yeah there is more to do.

My son and I have been talking about all the Star Wars-like beats in this film actually predate Star Wars--something that is a little hard for him to wrap his head around since he's lived with Star Wars since he was 4 and knows its mythos deeply. But about 2/3 into the film he leans over to me and says Paul isn't Luke, he's Annakin. Anyway he loved both parts of this film and wants to buy the book asap.

I haven't read the book since high school, so watching these movies has really reminded me how much Lucas just straight stole from it. (Yes, he cribbed from all over, but especially Dune.)

Also there was something relatively recent--maybe it was Book of Boba Fett?--where they were suddenly talking about "spice" as this valuable commodity.

How are the 70mm prints? Seeing it in said format next week.

I’m more partial to Villrneuve’s Quebec films, but he is extremely consistent

xpost -- Oh yes there was, and believe me, I noticed.

Saw my screening with 70mm -- perfectly fine, though there were a couple of reel changeover amusement moments where I think it was clear they didn't work with the format all that often. Will be catching IMAX next week.

Anyway, that's a headline.

https://gizmodo.com/dune-2-sandworm-dismount-denis-villeneuve-messiah-wb-1851306314

re: the anakin thing; i was remembering the awful scene in attack of the clones where he explains to padme how "we should just pick one guy to decide everything for everyone and follow him", and then just picturing him watching this and feeling mega jealous "SEE THIS IS WHAT I FUCKING MEANT"

they were suddenly talking about "spice" as this valuable commodity.

Considering how much of sci-fi is a reworking and rehashing of good old Terran colonialism and the Age of Exploration (and Exploitation), there's plenty of historical precedent for "spice" being a valuable commodity. Herbert was just dipping into the common pool of historical material.

https://x.com/humanoidhistory/status/1764552798882890201?s=46

Considering how much of sci-fi is a reworking and rehashing of good old Terran colonialism and the Age of Exploration (and Exploitation), there's plenty of historical precedent for "spice" being a valuable commodity. Herbert was just dipping into the common pool of historical material.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, March 4, 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Sure but when the term is used on a Star Wars TV show made in the 2020s that takes place on a desert planet, I think they're just ripping off Dune.

spice has been a thing in star wars forever! “what are we going to do! we’ll be sent to the spice mines of kessel” is said by c3po right before they evacuate the ship at the very beginning of the first star wars movie release

that is to say, they ripped that off dune from the drop

Depends on whether they're talking about Dune "spice" or black pepper, nutmeg and cloves.

in the star wars universe it was originally a drug but disney has gone back and forth on whether they’re going to change that

the only movie to visit kessel was Solo, where a mining operation was extracting something that could be used as fuel

so spice in Star Wars is either a psychoactive drug, or a fuel that facilitates travel through hyperspace. in Dune, spice is a psychoactive drug that facilitates travel through hyperspace.

Herbert was apparently a big psilocybin enthusiast, that must have been a significant influence on his writing to say the least.

that video of timothee chalamet and zendaya with the popcorn is one of the more sinister things ive seen recently so of course i added the annihilation music to it pic.twitter.com/URPsTfBRFx

— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 4, 2024

No cut scenes to be released it seems. And Tim Blake Nelson still can’t say who he was playing.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dune-2-deleted-scenes-1235842178/

is that because he might appear in the third one?

The article speculates as much, in re the character I was guessing he’d play.

this was interesting: https://reactormag.com/the-muslimness-of-dune-a-close-reading-of-appendix-ii-the-religion-of-dune/

I was just reading about the apparently (and I don't doubt it :( ) antisemitic inclusion of Actual Jews in the sixth book :o

That’s when I stopped reading the books, unclear why I didn’t stop after God Emperor Leto explains how lesbians grow out of it when they get pregnant

It's been forever since I read the last two books but Actual Jews do show up, though I honestly can't remember much about them as characters. I think one guy gave off '1930s Manhattan rabbi' vibes but that's about all I can recall.

Anyway I do like how I'm seeing a couple more pieces lately in the wake of the success going "There's a franchise for sure! But uh...are audiences going to really going to go with EVERYTHING coming up?"

HBO is doing a series as well, right? I think it's already done.

Yeah the series is in post-production now. I suspect if the Dune Messiah movie gets made, it will probably throw a bunch of people off the franchise, as the book did to me

Thought this movie did well with the material, but unsurprisingly had to rush through a bunch of stuff. So I probably still prefer the first movie overall, but I would watch a whole movie set on Giedi Prime

What is the HBO series? Is it offshoots of this story, or a different take on the same adaptation?

"Set 10,000 years before the events of the 1965 novel Dune, the series follows sisters Valya and Tula Harkonnen as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect known as the Bene Gesserit."

Ah ok. I don’t know my Dune literary universe very well - is that summary based on existing books or is it prestige fan fiction ?

idk it very well either but my understanding is that the vast majority of the dune series (that is everything written after frank died) is prestige fan fiction

The last few books read kinda like fanfic too tbh “Duncan Idaho is back!”

I read the series when I was probably too young and mostly remember of Heretics that “Duncan Idaho is back, and he fucks”

that's the plot m/l

lol

The most powerful of these forces are the Honored Matres, a violent society of women bred and trained for combat and the sexual control of men.

they currently owe brain rent to every gop male

saw this last night. i think i preferred the first? i'm trying to decide if it was because it was more faithful to the book, or because it had less plot to cover and was more able to dwell on the weird far-future cultural stuff that really makes the series special.

austin butler was fun. was trying to figure out what he reminded me of, and it turned out to be christian bale's performance in that 4th thor movie.

I saw a funny post from Paul F. Tompkins asking why these movies have all these fake Middle Eastern music cues, that they might as well be ragtime scores. And then I guess inevitably somebody replied with the trailer re-scored with ragtime.

has no one seen this yet?

oh i guess there was some opening weekend discussion that i gotta read

Saw it a few nights ago. As with the first, loved it compositionally, the vast spaces where intimate conversations happen. Didn't connect with it or care about it, but as a 2h45m oversized Taschen book never got bored. Thought Walken was retired, so was good to see him.

I enjoyed it but felt like it packed so much in that I need to see it again to really absorb it. My one gripe is that it didn't really give much explanation about what the water of life does to Paul and didn't show much about how his vision was altered and why that helps them. I really like the descriptions of his powers in the book and would have loved to see that translated onto the screen.