I didn’t know whether to title this “Atheist Nerd Christmas” or “HEY I’M GOING TO SEE DUNE TONIGHT!”.
Don’t tell me if the movie is bad. I’m going to try to approach it with no preconceptions.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
– Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Enjoy the movie.
I’ve been leery of the movies. I first read the book when it was serialized in Analog.
A friend of mine who saw it says it is beautiful on the order of Blade Runner and he predicts there will be 6 movies. Wow! He’s an insider at Warner Bros, so I give his assessment some weight. He’s also a Blade Runner fan, so for him to say that is a big thing.
I loved it! Enjoy!
Unless it has Sting wearing sci-fi Speedos I’ll pass.
Looking forward to reading your impressions later on :) Personally, I enjoyed it quite a lot, despite some minor grievances (which partially stem from the source material).
I liked it. Alot.
I watched Dune the other day. I have a feeling that Frank Herbert would be reasonably happy with this treatment of his book. Villeneuve, I think, stayed faithful to the spirit of the book. One negative review I read complained that it was too slow-paced. No, it wasn’t, it was just right. Jebus wept, Dune is not Star Wars!
No need to fear! It was awesome!
I’ve seen it.
My first impression was 4/5. The movie is completely gorgeous (costumes, sets, props, cinematography) in a manner worthy of the big screen. Anyone wavering while considering whether to see it at home or on the big screen should choose the big screen. (If you’re not wavering, I’m not invalidating your reasons for strongly choosing one or the other, but the visual experience is enough to tip a balanced scale.)
Other than that, I’ll wait for a thread where spoilers are appropriate save to say that Jessica disappointed me.
Yes. Jessica was a bit of a weakling. Maybe she’ll harden-up in the sequelz.
Huh. According to Wikipedia:
Interesting how they cranked her up, amongst other “improvements” over the actual source material, yet still she seems weak to viewers.
Ah well.
Crip Dyke:
Heh. For anyone who has actually read the original book (the source material), any “spoiler” entails a deviation from it.
(Ah well)
Agree with the comments so far. Visually stunning, but frequently dark so movie theater probably better for viewing. Poor, weak Lady Jessica until she is fighting. Really, really impressed with their ornithopers (though scenes in the sand storm seemed to be cut up and put out of sequence). No weirding modules, yay! Some secondary character development get short changed,
dorght:
OK, something’s gone very wrong there.
In the book, she’s formidable — dreadful, even. And fighting is the least of her skills; she’s masterful at psychological and psychosocial manipulation and overt manipulation (the voice, and has total body control (Prana Findu) including otherwise autonomic functions, amongst other abilities. She has mastery of the
The whole point is that the Bene Gesserit are subtle and long-term planners, no less than formidable fighters. When they do physical stuff, they use the “witching way”.
So, if the movie viewers perceive her as weak, though she has been supposedly “improved” by being assigned as a warrior (quite contrary to the source text, where subtlety is key), the moviemaker got it wrongity-wrong-wrong.
Ah well.
[ack, bad editing. Anyway, my point is clear, I think]
I didn’t think Jessica was portrayed as weak at all! One might have that impression if you’ve been conditioned to think protagonists in movies have to be good at punching.
Wrong.
We saw it on Saturday evening. Liked the movie, hated the audience. We were dead center in the 3rd row (reserved seats). The entire 2nd row and part of the first were taken up by a group of kids, maybe 12ish years old or thereabouts, who were clearly more interested in hanging with their friends than anything on the screen. Constantly going to each others’ seats and talking, play-hitting like friends will do, using their cell phones. groups of three or four getting up and heading outs for a few minutes. Completely ignoring the movie that was playing. Someone yelled at them to shut up at one point, and ushers warned them a couple times.
About 2 hours into it I realized the disruptions had ended and I saw the entire group had left.
Went to see last Friday in an (almost) brand new theater. It was set to open just before COVID hit in early 2020. It has those soft fully reclining seats with a little flip-away snack tray and drink holder. Not sure how many seats in total but only 20 of them were filled.
Visually stunning. Magnificent spaceships, ‘thopters like giant metal dragonflies, fantastic costumes. The sound was also pretty good. When the ‘thopters were geating ready to take off it felt like the padding in my seat was filled with a non-Newtonian fluid.
The casting was good. This Paul Atreides played by Timothee Chalamet is way better than Kyle McClachlan IMO. I too was underwhelmed by the performance of their choice for Lady Jessica. Rebecca Fergusson has nothing on Francesca Annis. Feyd Rautha, played by Sting in the DeLaurentis production, has yet to appear.
Obviously my perception of the movie is colored by having seen the 1983 DeLaurentis production many times over the years. I read the first two books in my late teens to early twenties before I saw the early version of the movie. Back then I thought it was kinda cheesy but over the decades I have grown to appreciate it for what it was and what it tried to do. I feel the similarly about this new version. I look forward to the yet to be greenlighted Part Two of this version.