Dune

Confirmed!

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Could be that they’ve been made into a Composite Character, much like what happened with the two good witches in the MGM Wizard of Oz. And like that instance, there’s great potential for narrative complications.

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Yes, of course it’s too long! This is the 21st Century, after all, and if you want those sweet sweet shiny awards, you need length as much as quality. Lots of brooding, thousand-yard stares to pad out the running time, like everything else these days. Likewise the desaturated colour palette; another guide to illustrious judging panels that this is a Terribly Serious Movie.

However, this really is damn good. The score and the general sound design really works with this movie. The mixture of physical and digital effects, of course, blows previous adaptations out of the water.

I am now imagining a time-travelling ideal cast, from this and David Lynch’s version.
Leto: Jurgen Prochnow - Oscar Isaac is just too young for the part.
Jessica - a tie, both are excellent.
Paul - close, but Chalumet edges it.
Duncan Idaho - always Richard Jordan, even though Jason Momoa does a good job.
Gurney Halleck - anyone but Patrick Stewart! As wrong a casting as you could imagine, despite his talent. However, Josh Brolin does reminds me of the Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert.
Reverend Mother Mohiam - both magnificently cold and calculating.
Thufir Hawat - Stephen Henderson.
The Baron - Stellan Skarsgard, by a mile.
Rabban - a tie, again. Two magnificent brutes who love their job.
Dr Kynes - Max von Sydow makes this an unfair contest.
Stilgar - again, too close to call.
Chani - I’m scared Sean Young will hunt me down and kill me if I don’t choose her.

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I just saw it today, and it is an amazing movie… but I think they mixed Hans Zimmer’s (wonderful) score too loud relative to the dialog. Still I loved it and can’t wait for a 4k blu-ray release (my pathetic internet can’t support 4k consistently.)

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An article about the unmade David Lynch sequel(s).
Warning: weird shiznit alert!

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I am bringing this thread back from the dead.
:coffin:
Eeeahhhh.

Anyway, I just got back from Dune, the second. And…wow!
:star_struck:

Just, wow. I am not going to call it perfect. As a HUGE fan of the book, I felt that some characters got a little shortchanged. But what worked, really worked. The Fremen are shown as a complex culture instead of “we are warriors.” They leaned big time into the religious angle. And the epicness. Oh, the epicness. I wish I had an Imax screen near me because this was some of the best desert porn I have ever seen.

And if you are wondering how it compares with the previous attempts. Well, the Lynch film really ripped some plots from the book to shreds, but made up for it with the plain weirdness and great effects. While the Mini-series is the most accurate of them all to the book. But this one, part 2, has by far the greatest worm ride in cinema history. That is a scene I will never get tired of rewatching over and over again. If only I had an Imax in my backyard. :cry:

I do feel that the ending felt a little rushed. Which is odd for a film over 2 and a half hours. But yeah, I want a little more at the end. No spoilers.

So worth it? Hell yeah. On the BIGGEST screen you can find.

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I’ve been told that it’s beautifully made, but they cut out a vitally important character from the movie and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why. I’ll explain below.

Alia is apparently there in a way but she’s not the way she’s supposed to be. She kills Harkonnen in the book. She is considered Abomination by the Bene Gesserit and that becomes reality later. She begins devoted to Paul but ends up killing him (or rather having him killed by her followers). Her character is central to the story and I’m wary of watching these two movies when it’s been changed so fundamentally. I’m a purist when it comes to movie adaptations of books and I can accept some changes but not huge plot changes, especially when they’re planning at least one more movie wherein Alia should be a central figure. And if they add her in later, they’ll have to do further rewriting to fix what they messed up.

Ok, I don’t know how to address spoilers for a story written back in the '60s. But since I am discussing a new release I guess I should be careful anyway.

Oh, Alia is very much in the movie. She is played by Anya Taylor-Joy (of Queens Gambit fame) and she is just part of the story in a different way. And yes, she does more than just a voice-over. Alia’s character clearly is meant to set up the next film. It’s a way to bring her into the story without having to work with a child actress I would guess. I largely approve of that, since often working with children is not worth the effort. (Though Timothy is probably the closest to an actual Paul we have seen so far.)

As a point, I found Alia’s role in the film really quite creepy. And given what happens next, that certainly is appropriate.

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I wasn’t sure if I should spoiler it simply because there’s another movie coming and I don’t know what’s going to be in that.

…but if Alia doesn’t kill Harkonnen in the movie, then, they’ve completely changed the end of the story. The Scifi miniseries did well with the girl they cast as Alia and they were able to keep to the storyline. As I said I’m a purist and I can’t accept that kind of fundamental change.

Roger Corman’s Dune - the essential production notes:

  1. 90 minutes runtime, tops.
  2. No, that’s the movie budget, not the catering budget.
  3. You can afford a exploding ornithopter or a topless Bene Gesserit, not both.
  4. Have you considered Dick Miller as Gurney Halleck?
  5. Shoot it in a country offering tax breaks, whether they have a desert or not.
  6. You have two weeks.
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In many, many ways they changed the story.

Just got back from watching it, I did not like the changes they made.

And one thing really bothered me.

They compressed many years of story into what? A few months? We’re supposed to believe everything that happens in the movie took place that quickly? There’s no child with Chani, and Alia isn’t even born by the end of the movie? How long was Jessica pregnant for?

I like the parts in this that they pulled from the book, but for such a long movie it seems like it was rushing to get to the next one.

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She’s not even born?? Man, that is a huge change. It was literally years that Paul was in the desert. If they didn’t want to give all the details, they could have done a montage. That would be okay. I don’t mind that kind of time compression, but wow. No.

Saw it yesterday and had fun, but I don’t understand what happens after a long sandworm ride. Do you have to walk all the way back?

FYI I haven’t been to a movie theater since COVID and the audience was actually really well behaved. I didn’t even see any phone screens

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The more I think about the movie the less I’m liking what they did.

Especially the changes to the interactions between the characters and how they changed some of the personalities as well. While watching it I was thinking things felt wrong but a day of reflecting on it has really made it feel wrong.

I’d make a list but I just need to stop thinking about it. I won’t be buying this on disc and probably won’t go see part 3. What a big change from part 1 that I thought was great.

Crazy to see 2030 floated as a release date. My favorite Frank Herbert novel was “The White Plague” and I think it would make a great movie