Dune 2021

[charleski]

I don't think these constitute flaws

Herbert’s aim was to show the dangers of the “Great Man” theory of history: both Wellington and Napoleon were dangerous monsters. And at the time it was easy to view the “White Saviour” messiah trope as just a variant on that with no particular significance of its own: five years later A Man Called Horse went on to pull in a respectable box office. The dominant mores of Western culture are significantly different now, but we also have a better understanding of how such cultural myths work.

 

[charleski]

Herbert was very careful in describing Fremen culture as different instead of barbarian

I first read Dune in my early teens. But even back then the element I found most disturbing was Herbert’s ‘noble savage’ take on the Fremen. He was hardly a nuanced scholar of the Middle East, and his fantasy Arab culture was little more then a prop. Luckily we only see shadows of it in the later books.

 

[sarumbear]

Again and again I find I'm lonely or among very few who really likes the Lynch version.

Now, if there are some cineasts among you, you might find this piece of cinematographic history fascinating. Lynch's version really started before he took over. He wasn't even in the picture. It was a project that a much, much liked, almost cultish director Alejandro Jodorowsky wanted to make and he picked non other than HR Giger to do the props. The project stopped only after a lot of artifacts were made and some money already went into it. It needed to be finished as they believed they will save some money that was invested.

This is why I simply loved the design and although I see many people hate this version it left a deep impact on visuals of later adaptations. (In fact, people who really love Lynch, hate this movie and people who don't care for Lynch often like this Dune)

Personally, I was even satisfied with how Sting played his role (otherwise I'm not a big fan). The Baron (Kenneth McMillan), Duke Leto (Mr. Prochnow), Linda Hunt, Leonardo Cimino Paul L. Smith...

Must have seen it for a thousand times. There's a documentary on this version.

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) ⭐ 8.0 | Documentary

1h 30m | PG-13

www.imdb.com

You are indeed lonely as even Lynch didn't liked it. So much so that he removed his credit from the film!

 

[mhardy6647]

... "The duke was tall, olive-skinned.", which leaves at least some place for questions.

I've got to say, "olive-skinned" is one of those (once) oh-so-common descriptors in books that always sort of puzzled me. Are those folks green or dark purple?

 

[Deleted member 21219]

I've got to say, "olive-skinned" is one of those (once) oh-so-common descriptors in books that always sort of puzzled me. Are those folks green or dark purple?

They're green while they're young, but become dark purple when they get older. Jim

 

[mhardy6647]

^^^ I just LOLd.
In fact, I guffawed.
There hasn't been much to guffaw about in the real world lately, so that's a good development.

 

[amirm]

I love science fiction but even after multiple viewing, I still couldn't figure out which end was up in the Lynch version. We watched the 2021 the day it came out on HBO Max. It was a far better version and I finally understood the story! Still, as science fiction movies go, it was about average in story and entertainment value. As noted, the ending was abrupt and bizarre. If they want to make a miniseries, they should do the back to back.

FYI Warner execs say they plan to make the follow up and won't penalize the producers for the low income of this installment given the environment and give away broadcast on HBO Max. Apparently they are also compensating their top talent for all the movies as if streaming options were not available (in the same window).

 

[preload]

Rather than watch it in the theater myself, I'm going to download the bootleg version, where someone took their cell phone into the movie theater and recorded the whole thing. I'll then be able to watch it on my 15" monitor and Sony earbuds at home - it'll be just like the real thing.

I mean people here are auditioning and comparing $20k loudspeakers through binaural mic recordings - same thing, right?

 

[LightninBoy]

I've been waiting for this one. I've read the entire series in high school and reread a few books of the original series over the years. I read a few of the books written by Frank's son, but they are more pulp fiction.

In preparation for this movie, I reread the first two books. My 17yo son also caught the bug and read most of the series before getting bogged down in "Heretics of Dune". Can't say I blame him. But we were both anxiously waiting for DV's Dune.

My son and I also watched the Lynch's Dune on Friday before watching the new one. I had watched it in high school (after reading the first couple books) and remember not liking it. Somehow over the years it had morphed into my mind as "flawed, but heart was in the right place", but the rewatch proved that wrong. Lynch's Dune is total trash. Maybe he went in with good intentions, but you could tell Lynch had given up. There's a scene where a lead character charges into battle with a pug in his arms. There's a scene where someone is told to milk a cat. They make up a secret weapon that is activate by "the voice". Its so stupid. It all comes off like a 1950's sci fi movie, but in color.

Anyways, the new movie is great. It has it flaws, but the heart is *definitely* in the right place. The love for the source material is evident in every shot. I have some nerdy nitpicks; mostly missed details that fill in the cracks of the Dune universe that make it feel more believable. But they gave enough to understand this story.

I wondered how the whole "the one" concept would go over with modern audiences. Its such a tired cliché now that I cringed every time it was said in this Dune. One thing, however, that makes the Dune "messiah" different from the many copycats that came after, is that Paul was "engineered" as a part of a breeding program. And the religious "prophecies" were all planted as part of a huge campaign to manipulate humanity. The movie really tried to drive that home and I hope audiences catch the irony.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Rather than watch it in the theater myself, I'm going to download the bootleg version, where someone took their cell phone into the movie theater and recorded the whole thing. I'll then be able to watch it on my 15" monitor and Sony earbuds at home - it'll be just like the real thing.

I mean people here are auditioning and comparing $20k loudspeakers through binaural mic recordings - same thing, right?

The good thing is more and more cell phones have image stabilization or at least minimize the movement. So those phoned in booklegs look better than ever. If they frame the screen well you'll even get close to 2k or 4k resolution. Plus those mics on cell phones are surprisingly good above 200 hz so you'll hear it like an audience is watching it with you.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I love science fiction but even after multiple viewing, I still couldn't figure out which end was up in the Lynch version. We watched the 2021 the day it came out on HBO Max. It was a far better version and I finally understood the story! Still, as science fiction movies go, it was about average in story and entertainment value. As noted, the ending was abrupt and bizarre. If they want to make a miniseries, they should do the back to back.

FYI Warner execs say they plan to make the follow up and won't penalize the producers for the low income of this installment given the environment and give away broadcast on HBO Max. Apparently they are also compensating their top talent for all the movies as if streaming options were not available (in the same window).

The series on SciFi was actually better than Lynch's movie. Low bar of comparison I know.

I do wish they had done this as a series of 8 episodes or even a couple seasons worth. This current movie is by someone who loves and respects the books and it shows. But the ending is too disjointed for us to have to wait until next year or longer. A one week wait wouldn't be so bad.

OTOH, they did the Foundation as a series and in my opinion have totally effed it up halfway thru the 2nd episode. After that whatever it is isn't Foundation. Plus despite a gorgeous well produced group of episodes the story line is not very good or entertaining.

 

[killdozzer]

Herbert’s aim was to show the dangers of the “Great Man” theory of history: both Wellington and Napoleon were dangerous monsters. And at the time it was easy to view the “White Saviour” messiah trope as just a variant on that with no particular significance of its own: five years later A Man Called Horse went on to pull in a respectable box office. The dominant mores of Western culture are significantly different now, but we also have a better understanding of how such cultural myths work.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you for the most part. And as I said earlier, Avatar is a rather new example of "white man...", but long after Mr. Herbert. What I meant was that showing a white messiah is not a flaw of someone's work. It's merely showing of that trope.

 

[symphara]

I am amazed by some of the posts here. I read Dune many times and the race of the individuals has never entered my mind until reading white this and white that. In fact, the only physical description I think was worth of notice was that the spice would eventually turn the user's eyes fully blue, sclera included.

If Frank Herbert were a black man from Zimbabwe and all the characters were thus implicitly or even explicitly black, would that matter? Wouldn't the story be the exact same?

 

[MZKM]

Just saw it in Dolby Cinema.

As some have reported, dialogue can be hard to hear at times, but other than that I thought it was pretty good, though I didn’t know it was a Part 1.

Some things I had to research after the fact, as while it’s slightly mentioned, some things arsn fully explained. Such as why they use knives to fight when they have laser guns; very early in the training scene they state something about slow and steady, the knives can be pushed thru the shield. When Oscar Issac’s character is assassinated for instance, the fast moving poison dart is almost held frozen in the shield. I guess one can think of the shields as Oobleck:

.
The CGI was amazing, the scale of everything (especially on a large format screen) was well done. The only thing that looked bad was when they showed the vision of him fighting in the suit (shown in trailers), it suffered from the “floating head effect”.

 

[Gorgonzola]

The Dune series is unquestionably some of the greatest SF ever written. But we don't gain anything by trying to gloss over its more questionable elements, and I think one of the real strengths of Villeneuve's film is precisely that he doesn't attempt to shy away from them. In the later books it becomes plain that

Spoiler

Paul Atreides is a drug-addled psychopath who ends up destroying everything he touches.

But in Dune, the first novel, there can be no question that he's the Great White Saviour, the prophesied messiah come to liberate the Fremen. The character is an expanded version of Lawrence of Arabia. This is the central flaw that runs through the entire moral structure, especially in the earlier books.

Herbert certainly argued that the flaw was deliberate. But there's simply no point in pretending that the flaw isn't there. All these arguments that attempt to explain it away are not only facile, they're ripping out the core of the entire work. Dune is a masterpiece with massive flaws, you can argue that the flaws are the whole point, but you can't pretend they don't exist.

Villeneuve's film works by embracing the flaws, particularly the whole Great White Saviour meets Beautiful Native Girl trope.

I think this is more or less nonsense. Sensibility has changed a lot since Dune, the novel, was written. Does anyone question Tolkien's all-white good-guy middle earth where Orcs and Haradrim are black? Not really: it is merely the sensibility or rather the insensibility of the era the LoTR was written and most people understand this. The same is true in case of Herbert's Dune novels.

Dune 2021 of course makes various gender and race equity concessions. A black female Liet Kynes is perfectly reasonable. On the other hand a multi-racial, Black-White Fremen population, as portrayed, is demographically ridiculous. If the Fremen founders, hundreds or thousands of years earlier and consisted of multiple racial groups, the relatively small Fremen population would have evolved to be entirely mix race, (like the 'Pardos' of Brazil).

 

[Gorgonzola]

Herbert’s aim was to show the dangers of the “Great Man” theory of history: both Wellington and Napoleon were dangerous monsters. And at the time it was easy to view the “White Saviour” messiah trope as just a variant on that with no particular significance of its own: five years later A Man Called Horse went on to pull in a respectable box office. The dominant mores of Western culture are significantly different now, but we also have a better understanding of how such cultural myths work.

It might be tempting to say that but it's not really clear. If you have read, Children of Dune, you'll see Paul's son, Leto, lives on for millennia as "God Emperor". One may construe the Herbert that great-man control was preferable to disorder and the power-seeking machinations of so many mortal men & women

 

[Ron Texas]

Does anyone find it strange that in a world with interstellar travel soldiers fight with armor and swords?

 

[LightninBoy]

That's one of those details I talked about. A laser hitting a shield equals nuclear explosion. Normal projectiles don't penetrate shields.

 

[Ron Texas]

That's one of those details I talked about. A laser hitting a shield equals nuclear explosion. Normal projectiles don't penetrate shields.

How about a net which wraps around and strangles its target?

 

[somebodyelse]

How about a net which wraps around and strangles its target?

Have you been watching Alien vs. Predator?