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Dune - dir. Denis Villeneuve

I had a momentary feeling of relative manliness when I noticed even Jason Momoa needs to remove a glove by pulling at each fingertip first.

Maybe a props person had told him to stop ripping the fragile gloves they had just sewn, in which case I would like to thank the props department.
 
stdP said:
<derail from the thread>

Wasn't this patently obvious from the first time you read the novel...? Most of the problem I had with Herbert (and Heinlein whom I found to be in a similar vein) was that both I found their political outlook to be overtly fascist (something that wasn't helped by what I thought was leaden and humourless prose).

I'm not intending this disrespectfully, it was just such a strong feeling when I first read it that I assumed most people here would have felt the same way. I always saw Dune as throwing the western imperialism of Lawrence of Arabia and a bunch of other literature in to that wonderful "we're definitely not an evil empire!" blender of post-war optimism that the USA possessed.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is a derail. Previous poster has also mentioned how Dune was affected by the politics of the time. pogofish post 458

I now remember trying to read the novel years ago and giving it up. I was more into Moorcock. Then later China Mieville, Le Guin, Paul McAuley, Banks among others.

Had a go at reading Dune and finished it this time. Sometimes when reading I think one must just go with the flow and reflect later.

This is a political novel. He sets up a whole society. I think your correct on that generation of US Sci Fi writers. An exception would be Delaney.

What I am interested in is how Villeneuve will interpret the second half which is Paul's rise to power as God/ Emperor. Funnily enough in first novel the excerpts from Princess Irulan histories basically tell reader what is going to happen.

The bloody Jihad is only referenced in novel at second hand. In Dune Messiah as well

Villeneuve has directed what could be seen as dystopias- Sicario, Incendies. Modern day one's.

I kind of hope he builds on the Dune novels to make them relevant to present day. Which would link it to his earlier work. The world Herbert created is a dystopia. Even if he didn't mean it exactly that way.

Im actually enjoying reading Dune Messiah. Paul is longer the pretty boy underdog. Rebellion is in the air.
 
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So, after seeing Villeneuve's Dune this afternoon I'm confident in saying I was... whelmed by it. It had many good bits, and several great bits, but seldom few bits that I found genuinely awe-inspiring in the way that I thought Dune should be. Perhaps it trod too familiar a path? I'm not quite sure yet. I'm not trying to say it's a bad film; it very definitely isn't and I was happy to see it knowing the second part was already in the works, there's just things missing from it that I hoped would be there.

Firstly - the production design, something I've already mentioned in this thread as one of the things I most loved about the Lynch adaptation. This film just isn't as good. Villeneuve's predilection for chunky 80's-inflected utilitarianism were well suited for the designs on Arrakis itself but I really felt that after 10,000 years of Empire, the mechanics and architecture of Atreides and Harkonnen and the Spacing Guild and everything else deserved a little bit more variety than we saw. The film denies us the presence of the Emperor and their family (at a guess because they didn't know if the second half was going to be made) so hopefully they'll dare something a little more outre for the next installment.

It's a shame, because much of the Arrakis production design was rather brilliantly realised. I especially liked the old Imperial outpost, full of parched encyclopaedias and millennia-old sandblasted concrete. I'm just sad I don't think I saw enough of it.

There was less exposition of the Emperor's/Harkkonen's plan to oust Atredies than even in the Lynch version. I felt is deserved at least a little more attention than it got - I felt it would have worked so much better if the viewers were aware this was the sort of thing that was habitually planned over decades of feuds (as well as the knowledge that the navigators were in on it also), but it was treated in a rather offhanded fashion.

Gurney, for too much of the film, was just too damned grumpy and with all the charisma of a deflated whoopee cushion - give me Patrick Stewart and his pug o'war any day. I could cope with him being grumpy prior to the departure from Caladan, but I don't remember him being so permanently stony-faced. Wasn't he meant to be the musician and the poet as well as the military mastermind? Instead he just seemed like he'd kept snagging a bollock in his flies.

Further on that... maybe because it's the affection I have for the Lynch version, but I really felt this film was in need of slightly more ham. Was Kenneth Williams' Baron completely OTT? Yes, of course. But I'd have given my back teeth to see anything half as entertaining or as existentially terrifying from the villains this time, and a petulant Rabban was about as close as we got. Despite his resplendently creepy make-up and demeanour, Skaarsgard sadly felt rather milquetoast - I just felt he's not been given much to get his teeth in to.

I previously mentioned being worried about another Hans Zimmer score du jour, and I think I was justified because it was too much of what I already expected - big, throbbing, predictably tribal beats and horn sections galore. But there were sections that were crying out for a more delicate orchestral treatment. Please, someone introduce Hans to a string quartet and a flautist. Maximalism's served him well for much of his career but I think he's strayed too far from portraying sensitivity. I'm hoping it's not just my ears, but the relentless thumps and swooshes frequently made some parts of the dialogue completely unintelligible.

The shield mechanics were portrayed much better in this film than in any other adaptation, and - fittingly for something so endemic - were done so with practically zero exposition. As... interesting as Lynch's depiction of duelling cardboard boxes was, I was happy to see it take a back seat to some good ol' fashioned swordplay mechanics. The fight scenes in this were understatedly brilliant.

The thing I was most disappointed about was the complete lack of "Hey, look, the Atreides aren't complete bastards like the Obviously Evil Harkonnen guys were!" episode that I feel was important to Paul and Jessica being accepted in to the Fremen tribes at all. It seemed that no sooner had Atreides unpacked their suitcases that they'd been betrayed and killed. As well as not giving us an idea of how much nicer to the natives they were than the Harkonnen, it also denied us a look at the customs and culture of the inhabitants of Arrakeen and the overall texture of the planet itself. Shadout Mapes barely got a look-in and there was precious little discussion of the ecology of the planet at all. I can understand Villeneuve maybe wanting to rush through this but so as not to get too bogged down in the way that some feel the first half of the Lynch film did, but I feel like we lose out on a lot of important cultural fabric in the process.

So, that's the relatively smaller potatoes that stdP didn't entirely get on with out of the way. I think it'd be a sin for anyone who's mildly curious to not see this film, and like any Villeneuve film since Sicario it really demands to be seen on the big screen.
 
stdP said:
So, after seeing Villeneuve's Dune this afternoon I'm confident in saying I was... whelmed by it. It had many good bits, and several great bits, but seldom few bits that I found genuinely awe-inspiring in the way that I thought Dune should be. Perhaps it trod too familiar a path? I'm not quite sure yet. I'm not trying to say it's a bad film; it very definitely isn't and I was happy to see it knowing the second part was already in the works, there's just things missing from it that I hoped would be there.

Firstly - the production design, something I've already mentioned in this thread as one of the things I most loved about the Lynch adaptation. This film just isn't as good. Villeneuve's predilection for chunky 80's-inflected utilitarianism were well suited for the designs on Arrakis itself but I really felt that after 10,000 years of Empire, the mechanics and architecture of Atreides and Harkonnen and the Spacing Guild and everything else deserved a little bit more variety than we saw. The film denies us the presence of the Emperor and their family (at a guess because they didn't know if the second half was going to be made) so hopefully they'll dare something a little more outre for the next installment.

It's a shame, because much of the Arrakis production design was rather brilliantly realised. I especially liked the old Imperial outpost, full of parched encyclopaedias and millennia-old sandblasted concrete. I'm just sad I don't think I saw enough of it.

There was less exposition of the Emperor's/Harkkonen's plan to oust Atredies than even in the Lynch version. I felt is deserved at least a little more attention than it got - I felt it would have worked so much better if the viewers were aware this was the sort of thing that was habitually planned over decades of feuds (as well as the knowledge that the navigators were in on it also), but it was treated in a rather offhanded fashion.

Gurney, for too much of the film, was just too damned grumpy and with all the charisma of a deflated whoopee cushion - give me Patrick Stewart and his pug o'war any day. I could cope with him being grumpy prior to the departure from Caladan, but I don't remember him being so permanently stony-faced. Wasn't he meant to be the musician and the poet as well as the military mastermind? Instead he just seemed like he'd kept snagging a bollock in his flies.

Further on that... maybe because it's the affection I have for the Lynch version, but I really felt this film was in need of slightly more ham. Was Kenneth Williams' Baron completely OTT? Yes, of course. But I'd have given my back teeth to see anything half as entertaining or as existentially terrifying from the villains this time, and a petulant Rabban was about as close as we got. Despite his resplendently creepy make-up and demeanour, Skaarsgard sadly felt rather milquetoast - I just felt he's not been given much to get his teeth in to.

I previously mentioned being worried about another Hans Zimmer score du jour, and I think I was justified because it was too much of what I already expected - big, throbbing, predictably tribal beats and horn sections galore. But there were sections that were crying out for a more delicate orchestral treatment. Please, someone introduce Hans to a string quartet and a flautist. Maximalism's served him well for much of his career but I think he's strayed too far from portraying sensitivity. I'm hoping it's not just my ears, but the relentless thumps and swooshes frequently made some parts of the dialogue completely unintelligible.

The shield mechanics were portrayed much better in this film than in any other adaptation, and - fittingly for something so endemic - were done so with practically zero exposition. As... interesting as Lynch's depiction of duelling cardboard boxes was, I was happy to see it take a back seat to some good ol' fashioned swordplay mechanics. The fight scenes in this were understatedly brilliant.

The thing I was most disappointed about was the complete lack of "Hey, look, the Atreides aren't complete bastards like the Obviously Evil Harkonnen guys were!" episode that I feel was important to Paul and Jessica being accepted in to the Fremen tribes at all. It seemed that no sooner had Atreides unpacked their suitcases that they'd been betrayed and killed. As well as not giving us an idea of how much nicer to the natives they were than the Harkonnen, it also denied us a look at the customs and culture of the inhabitants of Arrakeen and the overall texture of the planet itself. Shadout Mapes barely got a look-in and there was precious little discussion of the ecology of the planet at all. I can understand Villeneuve maybe wanting to rush through this but so as not to get too bogged down in the way that some feel the first half of the Lynch film did, but I feel like we lose out on a lot of important cultural fabric in the process.

So, that's the relatively smaller potatoes that stdP didn't entirely get on with out of the way. I think it'd be a sin for anyone who's mildly curious to not see this film, and like any Villeneuve film since Sicario it really demands to be seen on the big screen.
Click to expand...

Good Post.

On the ham. I actually think Villeneuve was closer to the novel. Frank Herbert saw this as serious story. No ham. So on this Villeneuve was right.

What Villeneuve left out of Harkonnen was sex and the in family feuds. The reason why Bene Gesserit could not breed with Count was that he wasn't interested in women. A criticism of film is that it is cleaned up version.

Starting on Dune Messiah and I'm hoping the second film covers second half of Dune and Dune Messiah.

Been reading more on Frank Herbert and he meant Dune Messiah to be critical of this kind of leader
 
Los Angeles Review of Books has several articles on Dune.

lareviewofbooks.org

Heresies of “Dune” | Los Angeles Review of Books

Are there any liberals on Arrakis? Daniel Immerwahr considers the backstory and political impact of Frank Herbert's "Dune."
lareviewofbooks.org lareviewofbooks.org

This includes Bio of Frank Herbert. Very American Sci fi writer. Grandparents were socialist. Set up commune. He grew up in the area. Got to know Native American people. Who taught him how to live off the land.

Unlike his socialist grandparents he became Republican. This was tempered by his interest in drugs, Zen Buddhism, personal knowledge and respect for native American people. He wrote the novel just before the LSD generation. The Hippy trippy aspects made him sought after public speaker.

So the Fremen are survalist people who don't depend on the state. Republican freedom lovers. As portrayed in film.

In film and book they are the one group who the Emperor hasn't been able to rule.
 
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Gramsci said:
On the ham. I actually think Villeneuve was closer to the novel. Frank Herbert saw this as serious story. No ham. So on this Villeneuve was right.

What Villeneuve left out of Harkonnen was sex and the in family feuds. The reason why Bene Gesserit could not breed with Count was that he wasn't interested in women. A criticism of film is that it is cleaned up version.
Click to expand...

Regardless of any value judgement on "rightness", my personal preference for this is definitely needing at least a hint of pastrami and a thin slice of gruyere. As I've alluded to, I don't really hold the book in any reverence and found it dour in too many places. Lynch's Baron I found an utter delight at how cartoonishly evil he and McMillan were prepared to take him, in a performance that's barely been equalled since. Comes down to personal preference I guess. :shrugs:

I'm assuming that the second half of Villeneuve's Dune might give us more in the way of the Harkonnen feuds (presumably they're going to introduce Feyd* in this manner), although I dare say they'll leave the sex out of it. Arguments about "is he just another gay/paedo baddie?" aside, I think the first part got a 12 cert, so I think there's little chance of an overtly sexual them developing in the next in order for them to keep the rating.

* Incidentally, I'm hoping for Robert Pattinson but he's probably past his boyish Sting phase by now
 
stdP said:
The thing I was most disappointed about was the complete lack of "Hey, look, the Atreides aren't complete bastards like the Obviously Evil Harkonnen guys were!" episode that I feel was important to Paul and Jessica being accepted in to the Fremen tribes at all. It seemed that no sooner had Atreides unpacked their suitcases that they'd been betrayed and killed.
Click to expand...
I think that was covered by Leto's meeting with Stilgar, and him saying that he wanted to form an alliance with the Fremen. The film seems to suggest that their acceptance by the Fremen was largely due to many Fremen already thinking Paul may be the Messiah, I can't remember if that was such a major factor in the book.
 
Son took me to the IMAX to see it last night....my favourite book of all time, my copy is over 40 years old and have been reading it all my life, son doesn't know it at all.....he loved it, it looks amazing and i thought it was fucking awesome ( cried a little bit at one point) casting was spot on imo....

brilliant job and waiting for part two is unbearable...
 
stdP said:
* Incidentally, I'm hoping for Robert Pattinson but he's probably past his boyish Sting phase by now
Click to expand...

having seen the first twenty minutes of (the absolutely appalling) The King, in which both Chalamet and Pattinson appear, I hope not
 
wrong Dune, but a friend draws my attention to this wild kids colouring book they released for the Lynch Dune.

dangerousminds.net

These odd ‘Dune’ coloring books adapted from the David Lynch film are ‘brilliantly disgusting’

The making and release of the 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s mega-successful sci-fi epic Dune, directed by of all people David Lynch, is one of those events that is so improbable, sometimes it feels like it can’t have happened. For a generation weaned on Star Wars and Alien, it may have...
dangerousminds.net dangerousminds.net
 
stdP said:
The shield mechanics were portrayed much better in this film than in any other adaptation, and - fittingly for something so endemic - were done so with practically zero exposition. As... interesting as Lynch's depiction of duelling cardboard boxes was, I was happy to see it take a back seat to some good ol' fashioned swordplay mechanics. The fight scenes in this were understatedly brilliant.
Click to expand...

I have a memory from the time that the shield scenes in the Lynch version were a maybe last minute addition? The production had gone-on for long enough to have been gazumped by bluescreen and was stuck with old-school matte box/model effects, so something had to be found to increase its appeal as these techniques were now seriously unfashionable amongst audiences after Star Wars had seriously upped the production values of all sci-fi - so they pulled the "Uses the very latest computer graphics" card to try and increase its audience appeal.
 
killer b said:
wrong Dune, but a friend draws my attention to this wild kids colouring book they released for the Lynch Dune.

dangerousminds.net

These odd ‘Dune’ coloring books adapted from the David Lynch film are ‘brilliantly disgusting’

The making and release of the 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s mega-successful sci-fi epic Dune, directed by of all people David Lynch, is one of those events that is so improbable, sometimes it feels like it can’t have happened. For a generation weaned on Star Wars and Alien, it may have...
dangerousminds.net dangerousminds.net
Click to expand...
I can't be the only one intrigued by what 'Paul's No-Bake Spice Cookies' taste like
 
www.geekwithcurves.com

The Dune Recipe for No-Bake Spice Cookies

dune, cookies, recipe, dune activity book, dune no-bake spice cookies, dune cookie recipe, dune recipe, david lynch's dune
www.geekwithcurves.com www.geekwithcurves.com
Dune%2Bspice%2Bcookies%2Brecipe%2B2-rotated.jpg
 
stdP said:
Firstly - the production design, something I've already mentioned in this thread as one of the things I most loved about the Lynch adaptation. This film just isn't as good. Villeneuve's predilection for chunky 80's-inflected utilitarianism were well suited for the designs on Arrakis itself but I really felt that after 10,000 years of Empire, the mechanics and architecture of Atreides and Harkonnen and the Spacing Guild and everything else deserved a little bit more variety than we saw. The film denies us the presence of the Emperor and their family (at a guess because they didn't know if the second half was going to be made) so hopefully they'll dare something a little more outre for the next installment.
Click to expand...

Again from the earlier films, particularly Jodorowsky version, the Harkonnen world was going to be very much an anthropomorphic nightmare out of Geiger's imagination. The sketches he produced for that got at least a homage in Prometheus, where the Alien Base had a very similar form to the Harkonnen palace/temple, which was essentially a huge form of the Baron. So maybe look to that film for an idea?

Another aside, was Ridley Scott not also signed to direct the Lynch movie, only resigning after putting-in at least a few months work to be replaced by Lynch?
 
Idaho said:
They are hiding from a universe that has previously persecuted, enslaved and tried to ethnically cleanse them.
Click to expand...

The Arabian Bedouin suffered considerable persecution and forced settlement under the Ottoman Empire, which was looking to solidify land ownership and taxes in all its dominions, so landless nomads had no place whatsoever. This forced many into Palestine, where the British drove them into poverty (the French in Egypt were little better), before turning to outright coercion into permanent settlements that were so alien to their culture that residents no longer even considered themselves Bedouin. Then post-1948, the Israelis became the prime oppressor/expeller.

Ibn Saud's support of their culture (which aligned with his wider alliance with Wahhabism) and allowing them their historic independence within the nascent Saudi Arabia was a very important step in his strategy and laid the foundations for the formation of the Ikwahn - the "holy" army that let him take the country.
 
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