I don't understand all the love for Dune. I read it, it was ok, and that was it. 3 underwhelming film adaptations is more than enough.
Special effects don't make a movie anymore. What matters is plot (and music). For example, "Colossus the Forbin Project" is very good. Some other very good scifi movies:
. Invaders from Mars
. Flash Gordon (1980)
. Terminator
. Star Wars IV
. Alien
Never heard of "Colossus the Forbin Project". Read about the plot in wikipedia and it does seem interesting. I know what I'll be watching tonight!
Enjoy!
It came out the same time as 2001, and was eclipsed and forgotten.
Best line: "5 years of Caltech in 5 minutes!"
Colossus, although released in 1969, is particularly relevant today.
Alien(s) - FTFY ;)
There’s so much good dialog in Aliens that I’m always amazed was written in the mid 80s and would play just as well if it were new today (mostly spoken by Hudson): “Game over, man!”, “yeah, but it’s a dry heat”, “ Somebody said "alien" she thought they said ‘illegal alien’ and signed up!”
Aliens is more of a vanilla monster movie than scifi. I don't recall any science in it, other than the setting.
Alien was based on a short story in "Voyage of the Space Beagle", though the implementation of it was fresh. The discovery and exploration of the alien's life cycle was good scifi.
Science fiction doesn’t imply science being in it.
>fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.
Aliens isn't much more than NYC with monsters in the sewers, with a different backdrop. It was ok and I didn't feel like it was a waste of time, but that's about it.
I definitely expect more from scifi to be scifi.
I don't recall any science in it
Can't agree with you there. I think even Cameron would be the first to say that Aliens is primarily a thrill ride. But it is also objectively true that at least two hard scifi elements provide the scaffolding for the events of the movie.
Two of the most central themes of the movie were fairly hard sci-fi... although admittedly one of them was nearly entirely deleted from the theatrical cut.
One: What would a person experience after decades of hibernation? In many ways the film revolves around or is set in motion by Ripley's extended cryosleep after Alien. She is now alone in a strange world where her skills are no longer relevant or current. This primes her for manipulation by Burke. She has also missed out on her deceased daughter's entire life, which primes her to think of Newt as a surrogate daughter and protect her with a mother's ferocity. (Unfortunately, the exposition about her daughter was removed from the theatrical cut. Huge miss.)
Two: How would mankind react to alien contact? Would we treat it with ontological reverence or would it be business as usual for warmongering corporations? The second half of the movie is set in motion by Burke doing the latter on behalf of Weyland-Yutani.
The terraforming stuff.... yeah I agree it's just a setting.
Agreed, the dialog had some good laughs. When Paxton asks Gomez "did anyone ever think you were a man?" and she replied "no, did anyone think that of you?" A comeback worthy of Winston Churchill.
I don't know if that bit of dialogue was in the original script, but it is pretty much the story of how the actress Jenette Goldstein went to audition for the movie - she thought it would be about immigrants (she was one herself, an American in the UK).
I enjoy Aliens—it's the bigger, more over-the-top production of the two.
But I prefer Alien for its intimacy and slowly growing horror. John Hurt's character's arc stunned me as a child, and is still one of my favorite turns of storytelling. I love the set design and overall tone of the movie. It's a different space mood than other space movies. And it nails that feeling of being hunted on a spaceship (so far as I would know).
I think character development matters a hell of a lot more than plot.
> I don't understand all the love for Dune. I read it, it was ok, and that was it. 3 underwhelming film adaptations is more than enough.
It's the Count of Monte Cristo meets Star Wars, with great world building, pretty good plot and characters and a lot of interesting philosophy, sociology, strategy and tactics. What's not to love?
The scifi miniseries was decent. The 1984 one was...barely Dune, though I enjoyed it. The current one is the first really good adaptation IMO, I don't think it's overrepresented at all.
1984 Dune was enjoyable as a bonkers Lynch movie, less so as a Dune adaptation.
I actually credit the 1984 Dune with turning me on to Lynch.
1984 Dune was also kinda legit decent for the first 40 minutes or so. It gets pretty bad after Paul meets Chani.
Kinda strange considering its movie that turned him away from making big movies. He hates the final version, was not allowed to the cutting room and the studio basically tried to make very different much more pop shorter vision with material Lynch shot.
I think there are still rumors about him having/making directors cut that could happen. That would surely be very dofferent movie.
1984 Dune captured the strangeness of that universe in a way the modern version does not.
Just watched Colossus yesterday. Quite enjoyable.
It’s a cargo cult. Dune itself is pretty standard sci-fi. The sequels are where it goes from good to great. People deify the first one because they think that’s where the great reputation comes from, not understanding that the really interesting stuff is in the later books. I mean, the giant worm-man, the endless clones experiencing existential dread, and the trans stuff all come after book 2 and really after book 3.
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I've only read the series once, >20 years ago, but I thought the opposite. To me it started out good but ended weird and stupid (I admit I remember almost no details though, so can only give the impression I'm left with). I've read other books I thought much better than any of them though.
I couldn't make it after the second book, Dune Messiah. But I enjoyed the games, especially the RTS, the miniseries and the recent movie which is quite good.
If you've read only the first book, you've only read the prelude to what people love.
However, considering what you recommend, I doubt it would be something you'd enjoy.
I do have all the books, but never started reading the sequels.
Not GP, but I think I made it to about 20 pages into the third book before giving up. I actually enjoyed the first book, but it just got more ponderous as it went on. And this was around the same time I read the Foundation series by Asimov, so I didn't necessarily need at pot-boiler.
I'm not sure if one of us misunderstood "pot-boiler" but Dune is surely no popcorn entertainment. It felt ponderous because its author invests much time into the development of characters, philosophy and politics. It's not for everybody, but it surely is not a pot-boiler.
Strange choices.
ESB is in almost every way a much better film than Star Wars.
T2 much better than T1.
Aliens better than Alien.
I haven't seen the other two, bet I'll just assume they also have better sequels.
T2 much better than T1. Aliens better than Alien.
These are great sequels, but they are Hollywood action movies compared to their predecessors. I do prefer ESB, but Star Wars has better structure and a more satisfying ending, so it is close.
The best thing about ALien is that when it came out, you had no idea who the "hero" was in the crew. Tom Skerritt was the biggest star, had first billing, and was the white male captain. There was no expectation the someone else would be the hero and survivor.
Star Wars: I saw it the day after it was released. It was groundbreaking in every way. Nobody had seen anything like it before. It just blew everybody away. ESB just did not have the impact SW did.
T1 was very focused. Again, nobody had seen anything like it before. The terminator stayed true to form in its relentless purpose, summed up in Reese's little speech. T2 rehashed the same plot, adding an asperger sidekick robot for comic relief. (I thought Harlan Ellison was way off base claiming that T1 was stolen from him.)
You have terrible taste.
And you have to let everybody know just how bad you think Dune is, in the most snarky and belittling way possible. Seriously, every reply of yours on this entire topic is combative.
Have you considered what your agenda here is, and whether you’re participating in this discussion in good faith?
I read it, it was ok, and that was it.
There are some fun themes in there and I appreciate that it begins as a somewhat typical "hero's journey" tale and then turns that whole idea inside out. I like the intrigue and plotting and how various factions are always plotting several steps ahead.
But none of that is why I absolutely love Dune (the novel). For me it just has this vibe that I've never been able to explain.
Maybe that's why I like it: because I can't even figure out why I like it.
Anyway, that's all crazy subjective and I can easily see why many are not enchanted by it.
Oh, I forgot to add:
. The Man from Earth
No special effects, no action, just talk. A great movie.
Have you tried to show Flash Gordon to anyone?
It has not gone well for me. I think it's just our special little thing.
FG laid an egg when it first came out. Over time, FG seems to have gained quite a following and is now a classic.
The usual criticism is it's too over the top, too campy. But they miss the point - it was supposed to be over the top and campy.
The dialog is still funny after 40+ years:
Klytus: Bring me... the bore worms!
Princess Aura: No! Not the bore worms!
The movie is just crammed with gems like that. It should have won an Oscar for best screenplay.
It was supposed to be an acting vehicle for a football player. It's so camp.
But it also has Max von Sydow in it, and Brian Blessed is every bit as over the top as he is in season 1 of Black Adder.
It occupies much the same genre as Big Trouble in Little China and the Evil Dead movies. If you're looking for something deep, you're in the wrong place.
> It was supposed to be an acting vehicle for a football player.
The complete ridiculousness is Flash plays it deadpan straight with all the emotion of two by four, while everyone else goes berserk.
It's a turnabout from such things as a Groucho Marx movie, where Groucho has all the funny lines and everyone else plays it straight.
I'm not sure I understand why you find those lines particularly comedic. Campy? Most definitely. They also don't really work out of context, so I sat down and watched the actual scene and well... they're still not a particularly funny line, and I don't think the scene is meant to be funny. Are you suggesting that they're intentionally hamming it up? Honestly, I can't even tell if this point.
Wikipedia seems to support this theory as well:
"Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote the script. He later recalled:
Dino wanted to make Flash Gordon humorous. At the time, I thought that was a possible way to go, but, in hindsight, I realize it was a terrible mistake. We kept fiddling around with the script, trying to decide whether to be funny or realistic. That was a catastrophic thing to do, with so much money involved... I never thought the character of Flash in the script was particularly good. But there was no pressure to make it any better. Dino had a vision of a comic-strip character treated in a comic style. That was silly, because Flash Gordon was never intended to be funny. The entire film got way out of control."
It seems like the kind of show that would fit well in mystery science theater though. This is likely just one of those things that is more of a time capsule, or a period piece, it's likely very difficult for people who grew up watching this type of show to be able to objectively have an opinion about it without nostalgia creeping in.
Personally, I can't fathom thinking the 1980s Flash Gordon was a good movie while the 1980s Dune movie was not.
While Dune can certainly stand on its own as a great work, it's best appreciated as a critical response to the utopic techno-determinism of Asimov's Foundation series. The discourse between these two series contains some of the most interesting ideas ever penned in science fiction. I think you'd need to read at least the first three Foundation books and the first four Dune books to get a handle on it, but this is a good primer: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch05.html https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch05.html
Say what you will about the plot for the 2021 film, but you absolutely cannot argue that the music in it was bad.
All of those are popcorn. Even Alien - which is a jump scare creature feature expanded with some token politics and superb horror aesthetics. And Star Wars, which is a fantasy for ten year olds in space (according to George Lucas), but with ground-breaking special effects.
Dune - the book - is not popcorn. The series is probably the most brutally surgical examination of power, politics, religion, and economics ever to appear in print.
There are giant worms and weird drugs and such, but they're all metaphors.
If you're looking for the literary equivalent of CGI, that's very much not what it's about.