Tantalizing teaser for Dune: Prophecy promises plenty of political intrigue

"Our hands are poised on the levers of power but yet our grasp on it is still fragile."

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[Rockchurch]

I enjoy watching the high drama of religious zealots battling over the arcane and intricate machinations of their ideologies.

So I'm honestly looking forward to the next several years of weirdo Dune cultists chewing their tripes out over how this incarnation is an unadulteratedly evil affront to their very core.

 

[Rockchurch]

Ugh. I can't stand anymore ''Dune''.

Villeneuve already thrashed his opportunity (imagine making 2 movies about a 180 page book, STILL missing about 40 % of the content, AND snorting so much coke that your second movie has characters flying and full of facial tattoos - while the first movie was a bland & uninspired affair, the second one spat so much in the face of the books, I couldn't watch more than 5 minutes).

LotR's Rings of Power was bad, I can't even imagine how shit this will be.

I honestly didn't know anybody disliked Villeneuve's Dune movies.

I mean really, I've never heard this before. This is a really fresh take!

Especially intriguing are the specific criticisms about how the cinematic work for a modern wide audience differs from the novel from a half-century ago which largely appealed to a very narrow slice of humanity, and which featured writing of notably low visual descriptiveness and evocativeness. These thoughts are both new and highly useful to the wide audience when critiquing an adaptation.

I'm glad you shared these novel thoughts. Too bad there aren't any other places we could read more of exactly this sort and level of intelligent critique. I mean I know we'll never get the level of discussion on such a rare take where you could find it slathered over every single mention of Villeneuve's Dune on the internet, but if you hear of even one more post with these sorts of insights, please share!

 

[Rockchurch]

While my language is probably not as colorful as that guy strife's, I too have a bit of a dislike for Villeneuve's Dune movies. Well, dislike is too strong a word. I've seen both in IMAX, I bought both of them on DVD/Blu-ray, I watched both multiple times; I do like them. But I don't love them either, which is a bit unexpected since I do love the books (by which I mean the ones written by Frank Herbert).

It's weird, since clearly lots and lots of people do love the movies, both people familiar with the books and total newcomers to the Dune universe. And it's weird because people often specifically love things about it that for me are minus points. I guess that probably it means I'm the weird one.

FWIW, I'll try to give some examples of things that rub me the wrong way.

In the first movie, we get a view of Arrakeen. It looks completely dead! I know that people on Dune live mostly at night, and IIRC it's alluded to (at least in the movies) that the people of Arrakeen live mostly underground. But even then, you'd except some signs that this a city that people really live in.

Also in the first movie we see Paul talking to the men who's tending to the palm trees. The men tells Paul he shouldn't stay outside too long, because it's too hot for him. It's good he says that, because we as viewers would never know: Paul has his uniform on, from the looks of it made for the Caladan weather. He doesn't sweet, he squints his eyes maybe just a little bit, in general doesn't show any sign that he's suffering from the heat. Show that it's hot, don't just tell us!

Villeneuve doesn't like dialog, so there isn't much dialog in the movies; the dialog we do get, is often IMHO not very well written. I feel some more, well written, dialog could help a lot in telling the story.

In the second movie, I feel we get this conflict between Jessica and Paul, and between believers and non-believers among the Fremen, that's largely unneeded and almost feels like cheap entertainment.

A number of plot points and scenes are left out, IMHO unnecessarily (people sometimes says that the 2000 mini series was able to include them because it had the advantage of a longer running time, but the Villeneuve movies have about the same total running time as the mini series).

BUT

Clearly Dennis Villeneuve has managed to create movies that lots and lots of people love, so despite my personal misgivings, I have to say: job wel done!

Well thought out... mostly. Not that you need to have rational reasons to not like something, and not that I'm trying to sway your opinion on the movie, but...

I will point out a couple things that objectively don't seem like all that good critique... either becuase they are consistent in the film-world or simply are a critique about what was omitted from an adaptation.


1. Arrakeen appearing dead. Seems pretty consistent with the world. Natives spend all their time indoors unless they're begging for water or have a menial job that forces them outdoors. Doubly so during what is most definitely "shit feels like it's about to go down" territory for the city (which is of the time we see Arrakeen during the films).

2. Paul doesn't seem to suffer the heat. First off, you don't really sweat in the desert. Well, not like you're looking for. Maybe if you've got a special hat that keeps moisture around you, but not normally. You can feel individual bursts of cool on your forehead as sweat comes out your pores, but you never see sweat. Source: Been in Vegas, wearing a suit much like Paul's during 115F heat. It's definitely doable for short periods (as it appeared he did in the early-ish morning in that scene). And I was a just tech-guy schlook, not the bene geserit wunderkind.

3. Bad dialog. I truly didn't notice any bad dialog. But I suppose that is a subjective feel, so can't be faulted as a critique. There is a lot of exposition to get through to tell the fairly epic tale, so maybe some of it was clunky? I don't remember it that way, I'd love to hear some examples.

4. Paul/Jessica (aka Believer/Doubter) tension was unecessary. Nah, I'm going to flat-out disagree with this. That was literally the entire premise of the 2nd movie's adaptation. Fair to say you didn't like it, but critiquing a film's subject matter isn't actually a critique of the film.

And that leads right into the key issue I had with the other guy's regurgitated critique...

5. Plot points from the book were missing when other adaptations included them. First off, you can't really use running time to compare what a movie can include (especially when comparing a 2-parter and 3-parter). But more importantly...

It is fairly pointless to critique an adaptation for differing from the source material.

Even if it were to fundamentally change a character or story arc, that isn't a knock against the film itself. EVEN if that change harms the story the FILM is trying to tell, the fact that it's different isn't actually a critique of the film. The critique of the film is that the film's story didn't work. Not that it differed. Key difference.

I mean fair you can not like that things were left out of the adaptation, but that's poor/unsophisticated critique of a film.

You're merely commenting on the artist's choice of subject matter and not the execution of the piece of art.

It's like saying Godfater should have included more information about how the movie studio head () was a pedophile. Anybody (brave/foolish enough) can feel free to say that masterpiece could have been even better if the artist chose a slightly differetn story to tell. But the fact it doesn't tell the story they want it to tell is not a knock against the film (even if it was based off a story that did tell that story).

These last two points of yours, are of the same category that I mocked in my previous comment. Ultimately they boil down to the artist's choice as to what story they want to tell, which is objectively poor critiqie of the story actually told.