Dune

[Ubik]

Pretty excited for this. I think Villeneuve has done some good work in the past, I especially enjoyed The Arrival. I disliked Blade Runner II: Electric Boogaloo, but more for the script than the direction. It definitely looked and felt the part, but I struggled to care about any one character or indeed the convoluted mess of a plot.

Genuinely intrigued to see Dune. I'm a massive fan of the Frank Herbert novels (don't get me started on the Brian Herbert books...). I even have a soft spot for the cut to ribbons Lynch film.

Will see it upon release in the UK.

[hypatia]

That's how I tended to feel about it all, too. Although I don't know much of the director's work, Arrival was great and the Blade Runner sequel just didn't really go anywhere, but that's not the director's fault. I've heard a lot of buzz about what a great director he is. And Lynch's film had problems, but it had some good acting so it wasn't a complete loss of time.

And by only covering about half of the first book there should be time for development/

[Recoil]

I can't wait for this version of Dune. While there's reason to be skeptical about it, from everything I've seen and read, this may be an excellent "Part 1" movie. I'm hoping for the best, and will catch it on HBOMax as soon as it drops.

[KoshFan]

The difficulty of a "Part 1" movie is that you can't tell if it really did its job or not until you've seen and judged Part 2.

[Recoil]

Originally Posted by KoshFan

The difficulty of a "Part 1" movie is that you can't tell if it really did its job or not until you've seen and judged Part 2.

Normally I'd agree, but when it's based on a well-circulated book, and had a prior movie and TV mini-series versions of said book, I think it will be easier to judge if you have read/seen any of those.

[Springer]

The last part1/part 2 film I saw was 'It', and Chapter 1 worked because it stood perfectly well on its own – if they'd never made Chapter 2, it wouldn't really have changed how much of a success Chapter 1 was. I'm not sure how they'll split Dune's story up, but I think if part 1 is made to stand on its own, at least to some degree, it will be better received.

Seems an awful lot of money to spend on making a movie if it isn't going to have some sense of conclusion, given there's no guarantee yet that part 2 will be made!

[KoshFan]

I will also admit that it's one of my own rules that "no ending is better than a bad ending," so I partially withdraw my earlier semi-objection. (How's that for hedging my bets?)

[Recoil]

I watched Dune on Saturday, and came away really enjoying it. I think they did an excellent job making it feel big, epic, and also explaining things to the viewer a lot better than the David Lynch version. It felt like all the roles were cast really well, and the visuals, of course, were outstanding.


I think it did a really good job of adapting the source material, but making it more accessible and easier to follow for the non-hardcore fans. I always felt like the Dune novels weren't really a long, planned story, but that each were more like "thought experiments" or "thought exercises" in different settings, where the characters were very loosely tied to what went on in previous novels. The original book was really by far the best one and even that was clunky at times. I do feel this movie did a good job at smoothing out the rough parts.



It looks like it did really well at the Box Office (for the Pandemic) so I'd hope/expect that we get to see Part 2 in a couple of years.

[Markas]

Out of curiosity, where does the story stop?

[Recoil]

Originally Posted by Markas

Out of curiosity, where does the story stop?

I assume it's as safe to post spoilers about a book that has been out for a few decades, and a movie adaptation that is also almost 30 years old...


It stops when Paul and Lady Jessica are left for dead in the desert, and they find the Fremen and are being taken back to their dwellings.


It felt like a fairly natural pause/breaking point.