This isn’t really a normal review. I won’t walk through the plot. Instead, I’ll give my impressions of the movie. Now, full disclosure, I’ve never read the Dune books. That alone is pretty remarkable considering they came out in the heyday of my science fiction reading career. I never could actually tell why I didn’t. Just something about the story didn’t click for some reason.
The first impression I have of this film is the high quality of the cinematography. The landscapes both desert and temperate are beautifully filmed. And the special effects of the colossal machines, space craft and the sand worms are wonderfully done. Of course, on the theater screen they’re even more impressive.
Next let’s look at the actors. There is a fairly large cast so there is a range of talent and not every character is given equal attention but the actors for the principal characters do a very fine job of making their parts memorable and entertaining.
The plot is something like the situation in feudal Japan where the emperor is in competition with his warlords and internecine struggle is a constant threat. But we clearly have House Atreides and the Fremen to root for and everyone else to hiss at. The battle scenes are impressive and the sword fights are well done and very entertaining.
Now I guess I’m supposed to like the Fremen as they’re the “good guys.” But honestly, I found them pretty unlikeable. I much preferred Atreides people (whatever they’re called). And also, the sisterhood that Paul Atreides’ mother is a member; the Bene Gesserit, I disliked them also. If I was running that universe, I’d have them rounded up and burned as witches. They’re very annoying.
Now of course, this first movie isn’t the full story. The second film is out there waiting for me to watch. So, I’ll leave this encapsulation of my impressions here.
I highly recommend this movie. This is good storytelling. The plot and characters are memorable and engaging. Two thumbs up. Bring on part two!
I watched the second movie. The ending didn’t match the book. I won’t elaborate further, but the movie, to me, couldn’t capture the depth of the book. I was disappointed in one way, but the special effects captured the harsh beauty I envisioned while reading the book.
Yes, the visuals have improved immeasurably over what we had in the “old days.” But it still has to be an interesting story. I’ll have to watch the sequel. Never having read the book I wonder if my view of it will be different from yours. Currently I’ll be happy if the emperor and the fat guy both get fried.
I’ve read the original book a couple of times but it is so intricate that a movie would have to be days long to capture all the nuance.
Yeah, film makers have to try to distill the story into a two hour window. If they’re talented they can create something that resembles the story. But it is a different thing for sure. Even look at the LOTR movies. The extended cut is something like nine hours of film. But compare that to half a million words.
Any thoughts on the 2021 version vs. the 1984 David Lynch Dune?
I only saw a small part of that version and it looked very strange. But I never read the book so maybe it corresponded to the text. That fat character was so odd looking in the old movie I thought it couldn’t be from the book.
The 1984 David Lynch Dune owes much to the failed early to mid 70’s Jodorowsky attempt. That version would have utterly mangled the ending (as did the Lynch version). Probably the closest to the book of the 3 filmed versions (Lynch, SciFi TV and the 2021 duology) is the 6 hour SciFi Tv miniseries. Special effects are weak, but it does hew closer to the story. Villeneuves 2021 version plays fast and loose with the timescale coming into the second part. As noted the second part of Villeneuve’s pair of films ends very differently than that implied in Herbert’s Dune… Read more »
Interesting. Well, at any rate there is much more in the way of effective special effects for the fantastic scenarios that these stories contain. That at least is an improvement over the course of my life as a fan.
I spent much of my 40 years of software development working on computer graphics from 1984 to about 2000. The jump in capabilities there was astounding. PIXAR’s Wally B (used to show off their PIXAR workstations) was several months of rendering on VAX 11/780 and 11/785s (that’s a pitiful 2 minutes image rendered at 24 Fps so 2880 separate images). By 2000 Special effects were becoming ubiquitous in films (e.g. 1997’s Titanic uses LOTS of blue/green screening with VFX rendered backgrounds). From 2000 to now is even more astounding. SciFi that would have essentially been unfilmable even in 2000 (example… Read more »
All that magic and they cheap out by using some stupid storyline based on the DEI messaging they’ve been pushing for the last few decades. What a waste. Well, things may finally be changing.