DUNE - WB/Legendary/Villeneuve

[AndyDursin]

Regardless I will go see the film and maybe try to read the book again before seeing it in order to refresh my memory. I am not positive but I think this movie is a part one of two films that are coming out which will tell the whole story of the first book of the DUNE series. I may be wrong on that though.

I think that's the plan but they are not making the 2nd movie until they see the receipts for this, which is what some fans are worried about. Could be shades of CHILDREN OF DUNE which Lynch was writing before the 1984 movie opened, disappointed at the box-office, and then DeLaurentiis pulled the plug on the sequel.

[AndyDursin]

My lord, this is some of the worst garbage I've ever heard by Zimmer. 100% Cliche City, like a self-parody.

[AndyDursin]

Not exactly a ringing endorsement from the LA Times:

Until the movie slams to an abrupt, unsatisfying halt halfway through the events of Herbert’s novel, there’s pleasure in watching this particular game of thrones play out, though perhaps more pleasure than depth or meaning. To call this “Dune” a remarkably lucid work is to praise it with very faint damnation. Perhaps reluctant to alienate the novices in the audience, Villeneuve has ironed out many of the novel’s convolutions, to the likely benefit of comprehension but at the expense of some rich, imaginative excess. Herbert’s more memorable flights of linguistic fancy, like “gom jabbar” and “Kwisatz Haderach,” are spoken once, with a faint air of embarrassed obligation, and seldom mentioned again. A more significant casualty is the book’s layered interiority, its skill at turning unspoken perceptions and motives into drama; the writers have managed this material without mastering it.

Lynch’s compromised version was similarly stymied and more clotted with exposition. But it also had the courage of its demented convictions, as well as a fearless commitment to feverish, pustular imagery that makes Villeneuve’s pristine filmmaking seem almost timid by comparison. Not for the first time, his craft seems to exist mainly for its own sake; it’s the hallmark of a filmmaker who’s more logistician than thinker, more technician than artist. As a visual and visceral experience, “Dune” is undeniably transporting. As a spectacle for the mind and heart, it never quite leaves Earth behind.

And perhaps that’s as it should be, at least at this early stage. With any luck, there will be more to see and much more to think about in “Dune: Part Two,” the completion of which will depend to some degree on this first movie’s fortunes. Will “Dune” conjure enough coin — the spice of the Hollywood realm — to see itself through to completion? I suspect it might, in part because I doubt Villeneuve, a filmmaker more dependable than he is interesting, has it in him to add to “Dune’s” string of memorably catastrophic failures. Dust has long been his truest cinematic habitat, and to dust may he return.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... nk-herbert

[AndyDursin]

I can't believe they pulled a Bakshi LORD OF THE RINGS and this movie literally stops cold 1/2 through the first book. Every review is critical of it, that it never really gets going and then just ends. Who decided this was a good way to go? Likely there isn't going to be another one, which instantly makes me not want to waste my time with half a movie.

[AndyDursin]

Bagpipes!

[AndyDursin]

DUNE 2: BAGPIPE BUGALOO coming October 2023:

https://deadline.com/2021/10/dune-seque ... 234862383/

[mkaroly]

I saw DUNE (Part One) the other day. When I see it again on DVD I reserve the right to change my mind (lol). However...I think this is the best attempt so far to capture the breadth and depth of the book. The colors are very muted throughout the film (though the color of blood is not) even though the visuals are great, and I was pleasantly surprised with how the characters come across in the film. My biggest fears about how the Lady Jessica would be presented came to naught...I actually liked her character as written for the film. Dare I say it, but I am happy with this presentation so far with one exception: Hans Zimmer's noise is just plain awful - again, I have no idea how this dude got in the industry in the first place, but what an amazing piece of garbage the "music" is in this film. Horrendous. The film is long - make no.mistake about it - but that is a good thing since the whole of DUNE cannot be presented in a 2 to 3 hour movie.

I am not going to grade it as of yet; I would like to see it again and read the book again (I have not been reading the DUNE series over the course of my lifetime). But, I will say that I feel the film honors the source material, something I was afriad it would not do in the name of modern agendas. I am hopeful that Part Two will include my favorite scene in the whole book, but we shall see.

[Paul MacLean]

Hans Zimmer's noise is just plain awful - again, I have no idea how this dude got in the industry in the first place...

Because of brilliant, sublime high art like this...

[AndyDursin]

Took me three viewings to finish this across my initial HBO Max attempt from October, which I abandoned, and then the Warner 4K UHD, where I started over from scratch but still required a couple of nights to plow through.

My initial feelings are the Lynch movie is about a million times more exciting to look at and listen to, from a pure cinematic perspective. And the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series is also more entertaining and renders its story more intriguingly, if you want an adaptation that's more leisurely and developed.

Review coming later, but I have to say I was disappointed.