A thread about the Denis Villeneuve-helmed reboot of DUNE

oh duh lol oops

also: Stephen McKinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat is such great casting, he is such a wonderful expressive actor & does so much w very little

watching pt II with my large cut-out of sting-as-feyd angrily stood beside me

lol

is it bad that i already want to see the extended version that i assume exists?

it's pugs all the the way down

also: Stephen McKinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat is such great casting, he is such a wonderful expressive actor & does so much w very little

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 23 October 2021 17:48 (twenty-eight minutes ago) link

Agree 100%. I really liked him in devs

Yeah wish there was more of him. Think it's pretty smart to set up the film for a non-book audience where you just figure both Gurney and Thufir are dead and gone for now, since that's pretty much what Paul and Jessica are figuring, though again with no Feyd-Rautha and all I'm not sure *if* Thufir's story will be told.

in the book thufir just becomes shaddam's adviser, no? i mean he's around for a while still but he doesn't really *do* anything else?

as for halleck:

i dremt a whole extra act in which gurney halleck organised a soc dem political movement in arrakeen, whose themetune was "we built this city on rock n roll"

― mark s, Saturday, 23 October 2021 11:10 (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

queue massive bagpipe solo

They left out Thufir's suspicions of Jessica (which Gunnery comes to share) and Piotr's spice addiction.

the other day someone posted it's a movie about a planet made out of cocaine.

there was actually surprisingly little up-close spice-related action or even conversation

in the book thufir just becomes shaddam's adviser, no?

No he ends up with the Harkonnens and conspires with Feyd-Rautha to work towards undermining the Baron and vice-versa, kinda. Essentially he's trying to work out a long term revenge.

But as jbn notes, a big plot element in the book neither Lynch nor Villeneuve (so far) have run with is the fact that the Atreides know there IS a traitor within the ranks but don't guess it's Yueh, due to his imperial conditioning (mentioned in Lynch, not in the new one), and suspicions re the Bene Gesserit combined with misdirection on the part of the Harkonnens et al means Jessica takes the blame after the fact, with both Gurney and Thufir thinking this for most of the rest of the book. Arguably there's still a way that Villeneuve could bring all this back in a second movie, especially since there's a great scene between Gurney and Jessica about this towards the end of the book.

SUK medical conditioning more like medical conditioning that SUKS

in the Lynch Dune the hunter-seeker was a much more manageable size, it's so small in this one it's just not playing fair.

I watched this at home and enjoyed shouting out lines to the screen with no shame.

I also did not know that imax movies cost 25 bucks, goddamn.

I have no allegiance to the source material, which I may have read once as a kid, but I liked this fine, with some reservations. Obviously George Lucas borrowed a ton from "Dune," but this was like Villeneuve took his "faster, more intense!" maxim and flipped it on its head. "Slower! More solemn!"

Speaking of Villeneuve (who seems to be the king of hard sci-fi updates of existing properties that demand a pretty deep understanding of the material), did he really orchestrate this epic spectacle with only the *potential* of a sequel? I thought making more than one movie at a time was the way people do franchises these days.

using the movie as an excuse to post this glorious old classic meme

It’s opening week. Shout out to my favorite Dune meme. pic.twitter.com/DHLhOI0L1G

— Kaitlin Pike (@kcpike) October 23, 2021

nevertheless

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCblWK8WYAA5lOQ?format=jpg&name=small

Can't wait for DUNE 2: THE CLONES OF DUNCAN FUNKENSTEIN

dune movies rankings go lynch, dune 2 pc game intro movie, late 90s sy fy channel, this two hour whooooompfest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tC32ZIYXlE

really enjoyed this, wish i wouldn’t have to wait three years for part two

i’ve never read the book and have only seen lynch’s dune

zimmer score was crazy good

casting was also excellent, momoa as duncan idaho!!!

i did not think i would like this or even finish it tbh but alas i did, its pretty sick

This might be the first movie shot at 24fps but written at 60fps.

FWIW, I took my teen, who literally knew nothing about it except that Timothee Chalamet was in it, and Zendaya was barely in it. But she said she liked it, understood (most of) it, and is looking forward to part two. Which, yeah, again, that just seems a weird strategy, to release this spectacular but spectacularly inert epic and make people wait so long for a sequel that may or may not but probably will but still maybe won't happen. Lord of the Rings movies were bam bam bam, one year after the next, and for all their aracane nerdery those movies were (by design) a lot more exciting and accessible than this one. Even this one's cliffhanger ending barely generates enough momentum to get it over the hump.

timothee chalamet called out zendaya for her relationship with tom tolland, and it’s peak bestie

BTW, is there a reason everyone uses swords and knives in this but not guns? Is that because of the body shields?

I think the lasers plus shield cause a nuclear reaction or something like that

"the slow blade penetrates the shield"

if you shoot a gun or whatever it just bounces off that shit, one thing i have learned about dune since watching it yesterday is if you have any questions you can just google them and theres a lot of info online because of the books, i read up about the politics which lead oscar isaacs people to the spice planet, was pretty good

the action set pieces in this movie were really well served by how much breathing room there was around them

xpost Yeah, I did google it, actually, but it didn't really explain why bullets wouldn't pierce the shields but blades would. Doesn't matter, of course, the body shields looked cool and it was nice to see a movie with no shooting in it for once.

Was I the only one that got such thick Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now" vibes from Stellan Skarsgård that I figured it was intentional? No idea why he'd refer to that, though, other than the character being bald and fat. It was the only thing that took me out of the movie, tbh.

the bullets dont penetrate the shield because theyre going too fast

The problem with the whole shield thing is, of course, that all the fight scenes looked like they were happening in slow motion, or like the actors were rehearsing them ("I'll go like this, then you duck down and go like this") before shooting the actual take. It was like a Robert Ashley version of a fight scene.

In "Dune," even the fighting is slow. I really liked the shots of those white-armored mercenaries just sort of floating to the ground.

made me wonder how Paul could possibly survive a fight without shields where fast swipes were suddenly very deadly. It goes against his whole style of combat

Good thing that one dude spent more time yelling at him than attacking!

Well, he was mad.

But yeah, not being versed in this stuff, how do the Freman fare so well against enemies with body shields that do best against fast attacks? Is it the special worm-tooth knives?

Was I the only one that got such thick Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now" vibes from Stellan Skarsgård that I figured it was intentional?

Nope, and indeed I know at least one person who immediately reacted to that first scene in particular where he draws his hand over his head as being a clear nod.

haha same thought

princess irulan turns up in a hawaiian shirt and festooned with cameras

or bandana and green jean-jacket, same thing

xxpost yep, Mr Veg said the same thing

So the question is: why? The characters have nothing in common, and a blatant pop-culture nod in the midst of an otherwise immersive, serious sci-fi film seems like something Villeneuve would have poo-pooed. "Great! Now that you've done that, let's try a take where you are not imitating Marlon Brando and are instead playing a different corpulent bad guy in a world where there is no Brando or 'Apocalypse Now.'"

is it really that upsetting

The year's most OK movie. I'm not enamored with Villeneuve; there's a lack of spontaneity to his compositions I can't get over, like he's photographing a space calendar.

otoh I wasn't bored, which given this project's history is big shit.

i love how good he is at HUGE BUILDINGS in space

his movies always have good scale & things feel like real places you could go to but also otherworldly

OK so the big question: Is the experience of seeing this on the big screen sufficiently bedazzling to justify the $80-plus it will cost for our whole family to go (probably more like $100 once you factor in popcorn etc), or should we content ourselves with watching on our 55-inch TV at home for free? ("Free" meaning we already pay for HBO Max.)

I'm leaning toward couch viewing but am open to persuasion.

The biggest plus for me was the scale and sound. Otherwise .... $80 is pretty steep. And the movie is pretty slow, so couch could be appealing.

is it really that upsetting

Yes.

i love how good he is at HUGE BUILDINGS in space

his movies always have good scale & things feel like real places you could go to but also otherworldly

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, October 24, 2021 9:36 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

this is the movie that confirmed for me: villanueve good (i adore blade runner 2049)