Dune

Started to re-read Dune over the weekend. There's definitely a lot in there! More than I recall from... erm... twenty-plus years ago in my early teens?

(Curiously, I've heard the inverse of the Nixon line... that Nixon only did what everyone did, but he made everyone distrustful, even though everything had worked out before. Can't say I agree!)

As many of you might already know, part 2 is out there in cinemas by now. I watched them "almost together" (with a delay of 1 month). I had not read the books, but I did feel the need to read the Wikipedia article about "Dune" before going to see the movie.

Spoiler rating of my post: "spoilers all over it, beware".

Impressions:

- Wonderful movie. I like it.

- But the wannabe engineer in me hates the dragonfly ornithopters, and predicts frequent mechanical failure in addition to lower efficiency compared to rotary helicopters. But I get used to things quickly, so after a moment, they no longer bothered me.

- Interestingly, the spacing guild has been written out of movie, I couldn't catch a single glimpse of them. Probably to save time, but I'd have liked to see a rendering of those folks and their way of life. After all, they're the glue that holds the empire together.

- The bad guys are a bit shallow. I'd have liked the bad guys to have more complexity. In the real world, evil people also think they're doing good, or at least doing the necessary evil. The Harkonnens randomly slashing their pilots, concubines and generally people with short-range access to them... bah, I don't buy it.

- The emperor is a bit better in these terms. One can think why he does what he does and guess what rationalizations he is making.

- The Bene Gesserit are well written IMHO. They do both good and evil, and they have credible rationalizations for doing both, and sometimes it's hard to tell which one they're doing currently.

- The Fremen are interesting and enough is shown about the dynamics of their "conversion" to keep the process interesting. To keep one considering what they choose to believe because they desire to reach the outcome of the prophesies, and what is not their choice, but determined by their past and environment. I think it would have been more realistic if Chani hadn't been only person who never bought Paul being a messiah. A faction of the Fremen who realize they are going along with a historic long con (and realizing it will put them on a path to fanaticism - but also bring water and prosperity to their planet) would have been great to watch. But yep, it would have slowed the story down.

- The film made me remember T.E.Lawrence and re-scan his biography.

I read the first book just before I saw the first film, and it became my favourite novel of all time. Finished Dune Messiah before seeing Part 2, and it was a more difficult read, but it's rare that a book makes me think about things the way that Messiah did. Brilliant stuff, very deep, very textured, very thoughtful.

I thought Villeneuve's Part 1 was a masterpiece. Captured the first half of the book brilliantly. I was disappointed by Part 2. Maybe expectations were too high, and there's a lot of hype surrounding it. It wasn't just the changes to the story, but it felt less textured to me. The Fremen felt a bit too stereotypical rather than the complex people of muslim descent from the books. Chani's whininess grated - not once did she side with Paul, despite him making clear how much he was trying to avoid what the forces of fate had planned for him. How the movie ended did her no favours.

And I so missed Alia of the knife, I couldn't wait to see how Villeneuve would pull that off in the movie, and in the end he didn't and chickened out. I was so disappointed by that! And these are big changes he's made, since Alia, and Paul's relationship with Chani, are both pretty critical in Messiah.

I'm probably being too harsh. It looked good, certainly. The shot of the worms bursting through the shield wall was brilliant. It just felt to me that some of the essence of the book had been taken away. I guess I now know how fans of A Song of Ice and Fire felt about Game of Thrones (which I love).

@puzzle: to be fair, if I remember rightly the spacing guild are barely in the first book anyway, though it would have been cool to see them in the movie. One of the guild navigators has a big role in Messiah, so we should see them in the next film.

For a non-book reader, did you find the films made clear what the importance of spice was? I wasn't sure if the films were glossing over it too much and whether that would be confusing for viewers not familiar with the books. Similarly, that Paul's gambit - deposing the emperor, marrying Irulan, which he saw as the only path through the violence he feared would happen - actually failed as the jihad began anyway (doubly so in the film as he lost Chani too)? Paul doesn't win at the end - he loses, and so does everyone else, and I wasn't sure how well that came across in the film.

Sadly, I was not a blank sheet when I went to the cinema - I already knew that navigators needed spice to avoid losing their way in folded space, and that spice had no synthetic alternative, so civilization would collapse without it.

I did catch a glimpse of the likely appearance of a heighliner in orbit - but not the inner workings. Perhaps I wasn't attentive, but never was it told that such ships were neutral, and even enemy factions were expected to behave while sharing a ride, and that even fearsome warships were unlikely to be capable of interstellar travel on their own - only as cargo.

Thus, I was not paying full and proper attention. But it seemed like that subject was glossed over, and I took it upon myself to whisper the role of spice to someone together with whom I watched to movie... so I guess the story could have been clearer, otherwise I'd have watched and not whispered.

Regarding Alia, the baron and the aftermath of the battle - I think they decided it was too high on gore but had limited in value as a story element - and hard to pull off, as they would need a child actor capable of carrying the role. Also, as I understand - in the timeline where Alia poisons the baron, Leto is killed as an infant. Perhaps the filmmakers decided they need Leto II and thus preferred a different script.

Sort of unrelated... ...there were a few videos on line about the film which went into detail as to why Chani's character was "altered" and others were omitted. Interesting callback to the first Dune film which was heavy on narrated exposition and explanations.

LateArrival said:

Sort of unrelated... ...there were a few videos on line about the film which went into detail as to why Chani's character was "altered" and others were omitted. Interesting callback to the first Dune film which was heavy on narrated exposition and explanations.

Click to expand...

They always did say Dune was 'unfilmable' (despite this now being the third time it's been filmed). The Lynch version was, as you say, heavy on the narration and exposition, the Villeneuve version focused more on the emotional state of the characters than all the details of how the Dune universe worlds. I've never seen the Sci-Fi Channel version to see how they do it, but neither the 1984 version nor the new 2-parter really encapsulates everything about Dune.

I do wonder if the roles of Irulan and Chani are going to be swapped around if and when they film Messiah...

puzzle: Also, as I understand - in the timeline where Alia poisons the baron, Leto is killed as an infant. Perhaps the filmmakers decided they need Leto II and thus preferred a different script.

Click to expand...

Yeah, their first child is killed by the Sardaukar when Alia is captured. To be honest, it doesn't make much of a difference to the plot. The book takes place over a span of several years, since the film didn't have a time-jump I can understand why they left that bit out.