The problem with the David Lynch version was it was so edited and short that key scenes were missing, making it confusing as heck to understand what was happeni

The problem with the David Lynch version was it was so edited and short that key scenes were missing, making it confusing as heck to understand what was happening and why if you hadn't read the book. But he kept the internal monologues. The problem with this newer version is it cuts the internal monologues, so much of the context, history, and character building is gone. But it keeps pretty much every scene. Unfortunately, that also results in a really long movie so you only get the first half of the story, but all the action is in the second half. This is all setup and no resolution. And I'm not sure how well it would work without having read the book, because I feel you do miss a lot when you don't have the worldbuilding, which is accomplished almost entirely by internal monologues in the book. It's quite beautiful, though. I expect part II will be a lot better, as Paul's journey with the Fremen is by far the most interesting part of the story, and they barely meet at the end of part I.