We had a good time at DUNE (or, as the poster calls it, DUNC) last night. It was excellent! It’s true to the original story for the most part, and the special effects were impressive. It’s a movie where you can just sit back and enjoy the slow build with occasional bursts of action, and the plot overall is not stupid.
One matter of taste: this is not a superhero movie. No slam-bam non-stop overpowered people smashing buildings and chins. It really is all slow imagery: space ships don’t swoop with blasters blazing, immense geometric shapes float down to the planet and drift onto plains of sand. It’s a thing. If you don’t appreciate the idea of taking your time in a movie, you may not have a good time. I was in the mood for it, so I found it pleasant and thoughtful.
On the other hand, it didn’t get very far into the plot before just…ending. It only got as far as Jessica and Paul fleeing the invasion of the Harkonnens to end up in Stilgar’s sietch. It’s been decades since I read the book, and what is that? About a third of the way in? I was just getting on a roll here when I had to go home. And it ends on such a downer moment! There has to be at least one more movie, maybe two, to bring it to its complex conclusion. It looks like an expensive movie, too, with a star-power cast and lots of fancy computer work (ooh, the ornithopters were amazing), so I’m going to have to tell you all that you’re required to go so it makes lots of money and bankrolls and brings me some resolution.
One minor complaint that isn’t so much about Dune as it is about this kind of drama in general. I attended with my wife, who has some hearing impairments, and in those quiet moments where they were talking, everyone tends to whisper at each other. It was annoying. Jessica and Paul are hiding in a tent deep in the desert, alone, talking about their situation and advancing a little exposition, and they are whispering for dramatic effect. You’re in the desert! Alone! Talk normally, as people do. I will say this for super-hero movies: they are very shouty. People emote loudly. It’s just that whenever a plot has some subtlety and thoughtful tension to it, the way they express it in Dune is by having the actors drop their voices into a low raspy register.
Don’t let that stop you, though! You must go see it so there’s a chance they’ll make the next episode in the story just for me!
I’ve always been a sci-fi fan, but Dune? yawn
Don’t know what it’s all about, and I can’t be arsed to find out. Glad you liked it though.
I haven’t seen it yet (on my list – moreso now with your review raising my hopes a bit). If I recall, any sort of sound in the desert risks bringing a worm. So maybe that’s why they were whispering? But otherwise, I’d agree – nobody within miles of you, no need to whisper!
Yeah? So just speak without rhythm. They’re white people, should be easy.
I knew you’d love it.
Haven’t been in a cinema for years. But I might go and actually watch this.
I watched it on HBO Max last night. Like your wife my hearing isn’t so great so I had the English subtitles on. That really helped a lot with some of the more subdued dialogue. I thought it was fairly faithful to the novel (which I read in 1969 while backpacking through Europe, so my memory of it isn’t that sharp.) I, too, was left hanging by the ending. No cliffhanger, that’s for sure. No Picard moment of “Fire!” and then waiting all summer for the continuation. I’ve read that a second movie is in the works. Don’t know when it will be released.
There are 48 chapters. Paul and Jessica meet Stilgar and Chani in Chapter 31.
I literally just woke up this morning wondering if we should break our 1.5 year movie theater hiatus to see Dune…as usual, PZ, you are au courant and providing all the necessary content.
your comment about the loud whisperers is worth a pause, as I have some hearing loss, too. Except for Alamo Drafthouse (which famously ejected disruptive people, although I don’t guess random whispering qualifies), I had largely stopped going to movies bc the crowds were so annoying.
your post also reminds me of the time, long ago, when we were watching Cats on Broadway (the musical, not some random kittehs, although that would have been fine, too), and right in the poignant, solemn, and utterly silent moment before Betty Buckley aka Grizabella is about to sing Memories, the couple next to me starts to chatter about, “OMG she’s going to sing Memories!” I think I hushed them, although these days I would probably be more tolerant.
@1 Erlend Meyer
Agreed. It was one of my 50 page books. I could never get past 50 pages before tossing it aside. Tried twice. Never bothered again. Another was Lord of the Rings. The only good that ever came from it was Bored of the Rings.
It’s one of those books. I got sucked in by the ecology, stayed for the galactic politics.
31 chapters in? I guess there was a lot of world-building going on.
AstroLad @9: I feel the same about Terry Pratchett, and Iain Banks’ space opera books (though I really like his non-space stuff).
Re: hillaryrettig1 @ #8…
Before I met her, in the early 1960s my (future, at the time) wife once went to a showing of George Pal’s War of the Worlds in a small Berkeley “art” theater. The audience cheered wildly when the Martians were kicking US Army butt. When the lights came up at the end, rather than being surrounded by hippies as she had expected, she was surrounded by Hell’s Angels.
so if PZ liked it, better than even odds i won’t. saves me a covid-risking theater visit.
bringing a discussion from the previous thread here so as to keep spoilers out of that first thread.
It starts with me saying that Jessica was disappointingly weak, chigau agrees, and then PZ disagrees, saying:
Don’t think Jessica was weak?
In the book she is in control of herself at all times. In the movie she chants the Litany of Fear twice and each time she is quaking. She chants the litany to recover from her fear so that she can begin to act. This isn’t about a lack of punching. It’s about fear paralyzing her for long moments when that would never have happened to her in the book. In the book she chants while acting. In the movie she loses all ability to act. Also, she is the ONLY character that chants the Litany of Fear, when in the book Paul is chanting it quietly/silently during the first scene that Jessica chants it in the movie. Jessica allowing others to see her quaking with fear is something she would not have done, because it would have reduced her aura of command, which she actively cultivated over years. Image was immensely important to her and she would not have risked compromising hers. Punching! Hah. One on one physical combat was the least of her power, and yet in this movie it was shown as if it were the greatest. I’m not too conditioned to superhero punching power to appreciate Jessica. I’m all too aware that this “powerful” woman was made a “warrior princess” rather than a ruler that can command with silence. The fact that Jessica needs to move or speak at all to seem powerful in this movie is, in fact, the problem.
Also, read what John Morales wrote again:
In this version of the movie she engages in literally ZERO psychological and psychosocial manipulation. There’s demonstration early on that she has the voice, and there’s the use of the voice at one point much later, but in the book she commanded attention just by walking into a room. There was no need for any use of Voice. Nor does the movie show anything of her intelligence. She is not constantly predicting the behavior of the people around her through her knowledge of psychology and social dynamics. She doesn’t cut through the carefully crafted lies of the Harkonnens to shock Thufir back to rationality, an act that took not only her psychological skills, but also a facility with logic nearly on par with a mental (so that she could present the information in the form a mental would accept). She doesn’t even show up to the council of military advisors, as if she were irrelevant.
In short, she is multiple times overcome by her own fear… her training is enough for her to recover, but not to resist fear in the first place. She does not dominate scenes even without speaking a line. She isn’t an advisor to Leto. She isn’t a collaborator with the generals. She isn’t a target / opponent of Thufir. She is only a tutor to Paul, a mama bear protecting her son in a scary moment, and a desert warrior, and nothing else she does is done with a third the strength of the character from the books.
Now, it’s very possible that her command and incredible intellect will show up in Part2. Maybe it’s even a better “character arc” (as the actor suggested) because she starts out as afraid and socially inconsequential and ends up the master of social psychology with whom we are familiar. But there’s no question to me that Jessica is portrayed as vastly more weak in this first movie than she was in the first 30 chapters of the book.
Wuh… the title wasn’t always Dunc in reference to Duncan “Slam Dunc” Idaho? I’ve been reading it wrong all these years.
If the reviews are good and it’s still in theaters in December, I may go with my kids. My son will be back from his first term in college.
Crip Dyke, #15:
Some (not all) of the things you’re talking about would take a substantial amount of time to develop on-screen.
If for instance “she commanded attention just by walking into a room” or could “dominate scenes even without speaking a line,” that might seem like the sort of thing that you could somehow just put into a moment with little or no setup … But it could be very awkward/gimmicky or may just be left totally unexplained. Of course, a person who’s already familiar with Dune might not have trouble reading that into the image without much additional help, but that probably wouldn’t work so well for a general audience.
Some other minor/supporting characters were also not as well developed as some people wanted, probably also for reasons of time/pacing, like Dr. Yueh for example. I was saying before (on some thread at Marcus’s blog) that I would’ve preferred a TV series, which could be quite a bit longer than two or three films, so that there wouldn’t be a need to make those kinds of cuts. Maybe they’ll come out with an extended/non-theatrical version with some of that in it.
In any case, I still get the impression that she’s better characterized than she was in the Lynch version, for example. I mean, that might not be saying very much, depending on who you ask, but … would you agree with that?
cr @17:
Perhaps they did, in
the Long Long Ago2000. I liked it, anyway. Not as visually compelling as Lynch’s film, but at least fairly faithful to the book. And the 2003 sequel had Alice Krige as Jessica. If anyone was born to play the role…Regarding Jessica, it might be worth noting that the Bene Gesserit are not supposed to attract attention, or “command a room”. They’re working behind the scenes, and supposed to keep low profiles.
Oh, I completely agree. Although I’m disappointed in the effects on her character, that doesn’t mean that I think it was a bad choice to, say, completely remove the Thufir vs. Jessica plot line. Yet it was in that plot line that she demonstrated so many of her socio/psychological skills.
I can be disappointed with how Jessica ends up without saying that it was wrong to cut out the plot lines that provided the most obvious opportunities to develop the qualities of the Jessica character that I missed.
The only real thing that I think they got “wrong” was having Jessica quaking in fear reciting the Litany of Fear. That’s just wrong. She can’t outwardly show fear, ever. The Litany is meant (at her level of skill) to be entirely silent, entirely within one’s own head, and to be used at the first hint of fear in order to prevent it so that control is never lost in the first place, not in order to regain control minutes after it was lost. That was truly annoying and made me miss (even more) the other opportunities for her to show her strength and skills.
She would never have shown overt fear in front of the Reverend Mother Helen, for instance. Yes, she feared for her son, but she wouldn’t show a break in her training before the person who was there judging not only her son but also her own actions and choices. Reciting the Litany outside the door came after showing obvious anxiety as she was bringing Paul before her, including in the RevMother’s presence.
…BUT… they chose to have no narrator, and unlike the book you can’t just tell the viewers, “Oh, and she was feeling fear but her control was so good she never showed it.” Without a narrator, either you show Jessica’s fear or, to the audience, there is no fear. Not having fear would have failed to communicate to the audience the importance of this moment, this test under the Gom Jabar.
I personally hate the choice and wish they could have established the drama in a different way, but from the point of a director trying to tell the story to an audience who (mostly) hasn’t read the book, was there any other reasonable way to both dispense with the narrator and give that scene the drama it deserved without Jessica being visibly afraid? I don’t know. Maybe the liberties you would have to take with the story (bringing Leto in on the secret, maybe? Or Thufir figuring out what’s going on? Having Thufir present or the Duke show fear and outrage might have done it) might be a much greater diversion from the plot to preserve Jessica’s characterization.
So, yes. Jessica was much weaker in the movie than the book, but also yes, as you say, demonstrating her strength would have required more screen time to develop and accurately portray. Would it be worth it to the average audience member? It’s worth it to me, but I’m not the average audience member. I’ve read the book 3 times and have a reasonable memory of it. I’m also a woman who cares about women characters in science fiction in a way that the average teen boy SciFi fan does not, and they’re very often the target audience of movies like this.
I’m not saying I am able to make better decisions in crafting a movie than Villeneuve: I would be completely incompetent at making a movie. I just miss the strong Jessica and am pushing back against PZ’s notion that my disappointment is based on a desire to see her punch harder.
Ultimately I may agree, but I’m not willing to judge at this point. I think she’s going to have many more lines in the second movie than the first. The Lynch movie gave her the fierce strength that I remember (and value) from the books, and maintained the conflict with Thufir in which she demonstrated her intellect. This portrayal is very different, but not necessarily because the directors see the character very differently, but rather because the things that they removed from this adaptation of the book are different from the things they removed from Lynch’s adaptation, and the things removed from this one negatively affected Jessica’s screen time (compared to Lynch’s version). With relatively little screen time, and with what screen time she had including a scene that I hated for what it did to Jessica’s character (even as I admit that given the lack of narrator, it might have been the better choice for much of the audience), I’m just not ready to give my final word on how well I think she was characterized.
AstroLad @ #9:
That one gets briskier about 400 pages in. The second part and most of the third are reasonably action-packed.
But this was while she was alone, right? That’s not how she’s (outwardly) presenting herself to others.
I don’t know about that either. I don’t think there would be a good motivation for her to try to deceive them (if that’s possible) about how she feels about the danger to Paul. What would be the point of that? Could that have helped her in some kind of scheme to circumvent the test or to pass it or something? In the actual story, that’s not how things play out, so why make it seem otherwise?
Also, it’s obviously not easy for an audience to see her as a sympathetic character (basically decent, although also manipulative), if lots of emphasis were placed on her acting that way about her own son who is treated (by her) as more important than practically anything else.
Think of it as a chance to see a different and equally important part of her character (she’s his mother and does have strong emotions about him) rather than only the part that she’s a person with magic skilllz to show off. That’s not a bad thing, and I don’t consider that a “weakness.” Besides, you yourself say “yes, she feared for her son.” So, that somehow needs to be apparent at some level and at salient times in the story when it would be a sensible thing to focus on, or else it’s just not going to end up in the movie at all.
Beyond her own characterization, that’s also helping to tell the story, making such plot points coherent and meaningful to the audience. People need to get a sense that all is not well, that there really is something to worry about here, etc. Or else they may just fall asleep on you. You can do that to some extent with moody lighting, costumes, music, editing or all kinds of other stuff; but a character simply saying or doing something is just another option which is usually pretty effective and unambiguous.
Most of what you’re saying is a rehash of what I said. We agree, but I’m a little confused since you don’t seem to be aware that we agree.
compare me:
and you:
I acknowledge that there are story telling implications here. I am disappointed in her characterization as weaker than her character in the book, but that doesn’t mean I am not acknowledging other things that the director is juggling and that those might constitute quite valid reasons for changing her characterization. This all comes back to the choice not to have a narrator, and thus anything not demonstrated to the audience through on screen behavior and dialog simply does not exist for the average audience member.
Now, I don’t mind a narrator, but I don’t feel that one is necessary to tell a good story (or even to tell a good, complex story). My tolerance for narrators might be higher, actually, than some audience members and I do not hold the choice against Villeneuve, but certainly it’s valid to acknowledge how that affects characterization, yes?
Again, I’m not saying he’s a bad director because of these choices, or that his choices had no valid reasons motivating them, I’m just saying that Jessica is portrayed in this movie as a weaker character, with less of an aura of command and power, and with, if not less intellect, but with fewer intellectual accomplishments that an audience member can perceive, thus is going to come across as less intelligent to the average audience member.
These are facts. You can like them or not (I dislike them), but they are facts.
I’m also free, by the way, with admitting that it’s possible that if they had reworked the story (for instance, as I suggested above, to insert Thufir into the sequence preceding the Gob Jabar test so that someone else can show the audience how big a deal the test is and what the stakes are for the characters) I might actually like the work as a whole less than I like this version. In adapting a novel as large and complex as this one, compromises are necessary. I dislike some of these compromises, but don’t mind others (ultimately in a movie of this length I don’t think that understanding why Yueh does what he does changes anything, so axing his backstory is completely fine, and axing the conflict between Thufir & Jessica is also fine with me, I simply don’t appreciate how that affects Jessica’s characterization). Given this, would I have really liked the movie as a whole better with a strong Jessica but with other necessary changes made to replace the work done by Jessica’s scenes in the current version? I can’t say. I can only see this version.
Finally, a minor clarifying point:
For me it’s not about deceiving the RevMom. She’s facing heavy scrutiny because she disobeyed the Bene Gesserit’s orders. Showing no fear communicates that she has not forsaken (or forgotten) her training, and clinging to the training shows that, despite disobeying an important order from her superiors, she hasn’t rejected the Bene Gesserit ways. In other words, acting like a composed, imperturbable Bene Gesserit rather than like Paul’s mother is another way of demonstrating that she is still at least as loyal to the Order as she is to Paul. Whether that’s true or not, when they are threatening your life and the life of your child, demonstrating loyalty to them is actually the wise thing to do.
Showing off her training then is not just about doing magic to show she’s a powerful magic doer: acting according to her training, and visibly, obviously so, reduces the risk of death to herself and her son.
Now, the average viewer isn’t going to get that point, but the fact that continued protection of the BGs is dependent on Jessica’s continued loyalty is absolutely part of the book. That’s why I say she wouldn’t show fear in front of RevMom. She desperately needs RevMom to believe she still embraces the BGs and their training.
Source material:
I am looking forward to seeing this too.
Meanwhile, over at McSweeneys…..
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/actually-sandworm-attacks-have-only-a-one-percent-death-rate
Interesting.
It supports my point that she’s desperate to have the RevMom believe she’s still loyal to the BGs, but undercuts my point that she would show no fear in her body (“fought down” suggests that visible signs such as outer trembling, uneven breathing and sweating palms already exist before this effort, though it’s at least plausible that such things were yet small enough signs that they would not be visible to most people, and therefore not be visible to an audience member at a movie seeing through a camera many feet away).
It’s obvious that the book allows Jessica’s physical symptoms because Herbert is using dialog to show her loyalty instead (“ ‘I am Bene Gesserit: I exist only to serve,’ ” Jessica quoted.)
John Varley spoiled things a bit for me in his third “Titan” novel, which drolly pointed out the preposterousness of the giant sandworms (they’d barely be able to move, even on the surface, much less burrow). But I like the novel anyway. The movie I’ll probably get around to seeing eventually; the David Lynch version from 1984 has been on cable recently, and it certainly had its flaws.
Sure. Sorry, I think we’re mostly on the same page, and maybe it’s just a matter of where we’re putting the emphasis. The parts I quoted (not the rest of #19) just sort of stuck out a bit to me — I just wouldn’t have put it that way — so it seemed like it was worth it to dive into that a little more.
To go back to some more from #19:
Understandable. I’m sure that training the Fremen and so on will mean more time to see what she’s really like (in this new interpretation, that is). Plenty more for her to do. I mean, that may not be about character growth either, so much as getting to the right moments for the audience to better understand the character.
Well, I admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. Since I brought it up…. I don’t remember any particular lines that projected “weakness,” but sometimes behavior and facial expressions didn’t seem all that fierce/domineering/etc. (much less unemotional or whatever). But of course, that’s not very specific, and my memory may just be playing tricks.
To have something concrete, here’s one clip. Note her reaction and general demeanor after Leto is killed, starting around 5:00 until the end of the clip at 7:01. Not saying I have a big problem with that…. Somebody needs to be feeling something at that point, and it’s definitely not Paul.
Thanks for the conversation. Obviously my memory of the book (and the Lynch movie) is imperfect, judging by the bit John quoted as just one place, but this has actually pushed me to concretized what i would have enjoyed seeing, had it shown up in this version. (There was also a part in the movie when Duncan Idaho showed up and I thought, “Wasn’t he supposed have died by now?” Then the movie progressed another few minutes and I realized, “Oh, nope! That’s how the book happened. Here’s where his death is coming,” and sure enough it was there…but I had initially misremembered.)
As I have said before, though, the current movie is fantastically beautiful and a worthy interpretation. I think the conversation about Jessica has obscured that I love most of the Villeneuve movie, even when he departs from the books (for instance the scene in the Calladan graveyard). I’m looking forward to Part2.
There’s also supposed to be an HBO TV series focussing on the Bene Gesserit (“Dune: The Sisterhood”), and I’m all in on that one. Can’t wait for it to start. (Unfortunately a release date has yet to be announced, but I have seen multiple websites speculate that it should arrive in Apr to Jun next year, so … 6 to 9 months.
The setting of that show in the Dune timeline isn’t clear yet, but since they reference “The Padishah Emperor” (and not all emperors are Padishah emperors) I’m hoping a young Jessica will be one of the characters and RevMom Gaius Helen Mohiam will be central. Though perhaps Mohiam will rank below RevMom status, there are lots of RevMoms that aren’t at the pinnacle of the order, so I’m thinking that she would be a RevMom (or become one during the pilot) but not a senior one, so that they can use her rise through the Sisterhood as an opportunity to slowly expose more and more of the Bene Gesserit’s secrets.
I’ve always been intrigued by the BGs, so having a whole series about them is a dream come true.
The only times movie Jessica blubbered was when she thought one of her men was in danger. Otherwise total badass.
daved #26
I am irrationally fond of Varley’s Titan trilogy but I don’t think a criticism of sandworms coming from a guy who has a universe with sentient planets carries much water.
I think fighting with knives while wearing a stillsuit miles from the seitch is really dumb.
Speaking of “miles” why did they measure distance in kilometres and temperature in Fahrenheit?
chigau:
Because miles are units of distance, and degrees Fahrenheit are units of temperature.
(It would be silly to try to measure temperature in miles and distance in Fahrenheit, no?)
OK, I’ve seen a bunch of reviews now. General impression is that it’s pretty good, but the difficulty of hearing the dialogue keeps coming up.
So I will check it out, when it’s free-to-air or on Netflix (I have no other subscriptions).
(Also checked out reviews for Foundation, and alas, it sounds rather disappointing. Shame, I had hopes)
Poorly normalised audio in movies is such a bugbear of mine that I made an account just to say: Yes, good gracious especially in scifi or fantasy where all the names and words are made up I end up watching with subtitles!
I cannot even imagine how unbearable it would be for someone with a hearing imparement.
@34 inaudible dialogue is a problem I have with a lot of modern films/TV (and yes, I have surround sound). Really hope it’s not going to become a thing in cinemas too.
It is nice that once in a blue moon, a hollywood film treats a SF novel with the respect it deserves.
I seem to recall that the history that led to the film version of LOTR as well as Blade Runner 2 and Inception took many years.
The ordinary process of a quick film production for a quick buck do not work for any idea-driven ‘brittle’ sience fiction and fantasy.
.
As for galactic politics, the later Dune sequels were pretty blood-soaked with everyone a ruthless bastard. I could not root for any side.
@AstroLad #9: I never gave it a chance, there is a stink to it. It smells of ridiculous outfits and intrigues. Yak, yak, yak. Quack, quack, quack.
I watched it on TV and had to wear earbuds to hear the dialogue, but then the music was too loud. Had a headache when it was over. Yes, I could have read subtitles, but I want to hear spoken words spoken.
Erlend Meyer @38:
You talking about Frank Herbert, or Jane Austen?
I highly recommend seeing it in a real theater, in Dolby Cinema, if you’re into that sort of thing. It looked and sounded AMAZING. The time FLEW by.