Dune - dir. Denis Villeneuve

[platinumsage]

The ending was a bit for no confirmed sequel. It's not like LOTR where they could just finish abruptly because everyone knew there would be another installment in exactly a year's time.

 

[Reno]

The ending was a bit for no confirmed sequel. It's not like LOTR where they could just finish abruptly because everyone knew there would be another installment in exactly a year's time.

What's doubly annoying if the second film doesn't happen, is that the first half of the book was actually covered pretty well by the Lynch movie. It's after that, that his film becomes incoherent because it has to cover so much in such a short time.

In terms of box office so far it's not looking too good, though I'm not sure how much money the the HBO Max release will add. None of the blockbusters released during the pandemic have made anywhere near what they would have made before and Dune is more arty and less commercial than most of these films.

 

[Crispy]

Currently performing better than the studio expected, and they're using streaming numbers as well as box office to decide on the sequel, not to mention the anticipation that future installments 2+ years down the line are likely to do much better business in cinemas.

Box Office: ‘Dune’ Voyaging to a $33 Million-Plus Opening Weekend

Warner Bros. and Legendary's "Dune" will top the domestic box office. Denis Villeneuve's epic is targeting a $39.1 million opening weekend.

variety.com

WarnerMedia Leadership on ‘Dune: Part 2,’ Discovery Merger Progress and Why ‘Ted Lasso’ Isn’t on HBO Max

WarnerMedia's Jason Kilar, Ann Sarnoff and Andy Forssell discuss HBO Max's growth, a potential sequel to 'Dune' and the Discovery merger.

variety.com

Though earnings are on the brain, Variety’s conversation with the WarnerMedia leadership also came on the eve of “Dune” – Denis Villenueve’s sci-fi epic that has many industry observers watching closely for box office and streaming performance.

The opening title of the movie proclaims that the project is “Dune Part 1,” and Villenueve’ previously told Variety that he’s optimistic he will get to shoot a sequel to Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. But is the WarnerMedia team ready to officially announce the green light for part 2?

“I’m not breaking news today,” Sarnoff said. But the team is more than happy with the $130 million the film has grossed internationally. Kilar pointed out enthusiastically that the film has yet to open in North America, China, or the U.K.

“We’re really, really happy with where we’re at 14 days in,” he said. Sarnoff did illuminate what factors will determine whether a sequel eventually gets the go-ahead.

“The story in itself sets up for a sequel. The production is so amazing and the storytelling is so compelling that it’s not going to be judged on box office alone,” Sarnoff said, explaining that the green light will be based on “the entirety of what ‘Dune’ can do for the company, including HBO Max.” She also noted that the box office has not fully recovered from the pandemic, which is changing the way the studio is assessing the future box office potential of its movies.

“We’re not doing our ultimates in green lights the way we used to,” Sarnoff said. “You have to kind of consider the circumstance that we’re in now, and project to a more normal circumstance.”

For the record, a “Dune: The Sisterhood,” a prequel series based on the Bene Gesserit, was ordered straight to series at HBO Max in 2019, with onetime showrunner Jon Spaihts exiting that role to focus on the writing the script for the second of the “Dune” movies. Diane Ademu-John has taken over as showrunner.

 

[Reno]

Currently performing better than the studio expected, and they're using streaming numbers as well as box office to decide on the sequel, not to mention the anticipation that future installments 2+ years down the line are likely to do much better business in cinemas.

Box Office: ‘Dune’ Voyaging to a $33 Million-Plus Opening Weekend

Warner Bros. and Legendary's "Dune" will top the domestic box office. Denis Villeneuve's epic is targeting a $39.1 million opening weekend.

variety.com

WarnerMedia Leadership on ‘Dune: Part 2,’ Discovery Merger Progress and Why ‘Ted Lasso’ Isn’t on HBO Max

WarnerMedia's Jason Kilar, Ann Sarnoff and Andy Forssell discuss HBO Max's growth, a potential sequel to 'Dune' and the Discovery merger.

variety.com

Studios often claim they are happy when a film underperforms while its still on release. 33 million in the opening weekend for a film like this is pretty low, the crummy and relatively low budget Halloween Kills made over 50 million in its first weekend and that was also simultaneously released for streaming. But yes, it depends on what the streaming numbers add, just as long as its enough to get part 2 made.

 

[seventh bullet]

Watched it at home and enjoyed it a lot. Will pop out to see it on a big screen next week. Visual highlights include the Atreides journey to Arrakis and the sandworm attacks.

Spoiler

Also enjoyable was the brief Sardaukar planet scene with the gruff officer and newly minted soldiers taking part in some kind of blood ritual with Mongolian-style throat singing. The death of Liet-Kynes, taking Sardaukar troops with her into the gaping mouth of a worm, was also well done.

 

[bemused]

Watched it, loved it. Shame they didn't back to back film the second part.

 

[Crispy]

Watched it, loved it. Shame they didn't back to back film the second part.

Villeneuve wanted to, but the studio wouldn't take the risk. In retrospect he's glad he didn't, as filming was exhausting enough with just one film.
As per:
Nolan interviewing Villeneuve at the Director's Guild. Questions from a director to a director, so lots of great stories about how the film came to be.

 

[pogofish]

I thought science fiction was where everything included is possible from a scientific viewpoint although the technology may not yet exist to realise it and science fantasy is any old nonsense with added dragons and wizards?

Eta (My most controversial post ever on Urban...)

Also, with Dune, you have a large amount of historical allegory thrown-in to the mix, which IMO tips it much further into the fantasy realm than any other.

Remember the background to the time Dune was written. Saudi Arabia was still America's exotic new best friend in the Middle East and the romantic tale of Ibn Saud, the handsome young prince in the desert, escaping with his family (incl his mother) and being sheltered by, then winning over the fiercely independent Bedouin, before uniting the other tribes and driving out the double-dealing Imperial (Ottoman) lackeys who had usurped the peninsula to form a tough but honourable new state, played right into the US narrative of the time - Which made justifying an alliance far easier than with the more corrupt and in all ways more problematic regime of the real post WW2 Saudi.

I have a download and I am daring myself not to watch it - I think really should go and see this in the cinema proper..?

 

[Crispy]

If you see one film on a big screen during a pandemic, see this one

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Just seen it, loved it. Only real criticism* is The Voice. Totally wrong. I imagined it as seductive rather than barking, indeed I haven’t read the book in some time but that’s also how I remember it being described. Obviously wrong enough to post about it before going to bed

*other than the cannon issue of the Fremen’s depiction now feeling culturally appropriative, but I’m not sure quite how much they could do about that

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Just seen it, loved it. Only real criticism* is The Voice. Totally wrong. I imagined it as seductive rather than barking, indeed I haven’t read the book in some time but that’s also how I remember it being described. Obviously wrong enough to post about it before going to bed

*other than the cannon issue of the Fremen’s depiction now feeling culturally appropriative, but I’m not sure quite how much they could do about that

I felt the first use of it at the breakfast table worked the best. It felt unusual and a medley of voices.

The other uses felt more growly

I though at first they were trying to make it so the voice sounds like the person it';s being used on. SO when paul uses it on jessica it sounds a bit like her but when he uses it on the troops itsa more like them. Not sure about how the hand box lady sounded. Perhaps that was meant to sound like paul. will have to rewatch at some time.


either way it was a bit naff but I think it must be bloody difficult to do.

 

[Reno]

Talking of hand box lady, I thought it was a bit of a shame to cast Charlotte Rampling and then to cover her up with a heavy face veil so you couldn't see her.

 

[8ball]

Well, that was bonkers!

 

[pogofish]

Just treating myself to a nice fried breakfast before going in to the cinema - my resolve held last night!

 

[pogofish]

Thoroughly enjoyed that! Even with the truncation of the outlying parts of the story to keep things on track, it moved along pretty well and some of the casting choices that concerned me to begin with didn't seem too far wrong after all.

 

[Gramsci]

As I've now read Dune and started on Dune Messiah ( due to Crispy) perhaps I will see these films differently.

I watched Lynch version last night on Arrow DVD. He tries to do the book in one film. But puts in some stuff from second book. The Navigator in the tank.

The Steam punk costume and design are great. The Harkonnen vllians are a bit over the top. What he does get right is the weirdness of this culture. Watching his film version on back of reading the novel and I thought yes this future culture is insane. On that level Lynch film does get it right

Not sure that Herbert meant this but this novel is a Sci fi dystopia.

On that I think the Lynch film had a point.

In the film it does visualise well the Jihad.

What is lost is the interior monologue where Paul can foresee the Jihad but is trying and failing to avert it.

His veneration as a god is not something he is comfortable with in the books.

 

[ska invita]

What is lost is the interior monologue where Paul can foresee the Jihad but is trying and failing to avert it.

interior monologue always has to be sacrificed in book to film translations - its clunky to have a constant voice over of internal thoughts < could even be the biggest difference between books and films in general, not being able to hear internal thoughts

 

[platinumsage]

I watched the lastest Dune with someone who has not read the books, immediately followed by watching the first half of the 1984 movie. They said the Lynch film makes things a lot clearer - what Kwisatch Haderach means, the Bene Geserit scheming in relation to it, the plotting to kill Duke Leto etc, even the pain box.

 

[Gramsci]

I thought science fiction was where everything included is possible from a scientific viewpoint although the technology may not yet exist to realise it and science fantasy is any old nonsense with added dragons and wizards?

Eta (My most controversial post ever on Urban...)

I say roughly this is correct. Though its not always clear cut.

The Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny was attempt at a cross over. Astronauts marooned on a backward planet reinvent themselves as gods to survive on alien planet.

I'd also say their is section of Sci fi which deals with inner space. Ballard is prime example.

I include Dune in this category. I'd also suggest that this is Science fiction in that Frank Herbert was interested in Zen Buddhism for example. He is looking in the novel at possibility of humans evolving by training of minds, genetics and drug use to produce super humans. Buddhists for example can train their minds making them different from the average person.

So I wouldn't say this was fantasy. He is looking at possibility of a different sort of human development instead of AI. The path society has gone down is AI. Its interesting theme in the novel. Starts with the black box test at start of novel and in both the films. What makes humans different from animals.

 

[seventh bullet]

As I've now read Dune and started on Dune Messiah ( due to Crispy) perhaps I will see these films differently.

I watched Lynch version last night on Arrow DVD. He tries to do the book in one film. But puts in some stuff from second book. The Navigator in the tank.

Spoiler

In the new one, the imperial delegates who visit Caladan a few mins in for a formal ceremony that serves little purpose other than to demonstrate that the as yet unseen emperor is awesome, we have what I guess are to be future navigators in the early days of training, heads encased in big helmets, tripping out on spice gas.

 

[DaveCinzano]

 

[cybershot]

Saw it yesterday at IMAX screen and really enjoyed it. Hope the rest get made now!

 

[DotCommunist]

He is looking in the novel at possibility of humans evolving by training of minds, genetics and drug use to produce super humans

Collective unconscious is another of Herbert's recurring themes. In a collaborative trilogy unrelated to Dune (the voidship books with Bill Ransom) there's also focus on ecology and collective memory/unconscious. A cast out population of mystics and fighters who have learned to flow with the terrible power of the planet. In Dune its the idea of a collective memory down a genetic line, in The Jesus Incident/Lazarus Effect its the idea of a planetwide sentient kelp that can store and record human consciousness and memories. Dune is a desert, Pandora is a world sea.

 

[Brainaddict]

I've just been looking at Lynch's Dune again and was disappointed when I started watching the extended cut. Then I downloaded the original cut and realised that was the one I saw years ago on a big screen. I'm glad it was that version I saw first. It may be less comprehensible, but it has a lot less dreck in it.

 

[Idaho]

I've never seen the extended version. I had heard that it was a bit flabbby.

 

[Brainaddict]

I've never seen the extended version. I had heard that it was a bit flabbby.

It is. It also seems to be the one most commonly available for download for some reason.

 

[Crispy]

There are some interesting bits in it, but the 10 minute long narrated introduction really sets the tedious tone

 

[stdP]

I'm not sure which version of the Lynch one I've got (t'was a bluray I imported from germany) but unlike the rip I downloaded 20 years ago had a very "can see Lynch hating this" intro by Virginia Madsen, the BD version didn't. Can't remember which version I saw first but I never thought the Lynch version needed to explain half as much as it did :shrugs:

Cinema tickets have been booked for friday at my local Everyman (my mate didn't fancy central, plus we've got seats we know to be good) so I guess we'll see what happens then. I'll try and resist my urge to spit on the floor though.

 

[David Clapson]

I've never seen the extended version. I had heard that it was a bit flabbby.

It's an example of how not to edit. Terrible, amateurish, hopeless.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]