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> Even better than the first film The first part left me quite underwhelmed, tbh. Maybe I had too high expectations given the director, but while the visuals a
by jamager 3y ago
> Even better than the first film
The first part left me quite underwhelmed, tbh. Maybe I had too high expectations given the director, but while the visuals are amazing, the characterization of some characters (like lady Jessica or Thufir Hawat) are very far from how the books depicts them, and I don't think is an interpretation thing.
I understand that Dune is too big of a masterpiece for a simple 2 part movie (it should be a 6-8 session series at least), but I think for instance that the graphic novels do a way better job of conveying the essentials.
I'll watch this anyways, I am still a Dune fan.
- kramerger 3y agoReally? I was very impressed with Rebecca Ferguson as lady Jessica. The first 10 minutes was worthy of an Oscar.
- reactordev 3y agoFor that 6-8 part series, you’re looking for the SyFy Channels version that was done early 2000s. Fantastic. Frank Herbert’s Dune. Had William Hurt in it.
- richie_adler 3y agoHurt was the worst part of it. I swear, I still cringe when I remember his unemotional delivery of "Desert. Power." Damn he was bad.
- reactordev 3y agolol, never said he was good, only that he was in it. He lended that hollywood stamp and then just trailered his performance.
- khazhoux 3y agoThat series was such a treat. Highly recommended!!
- snapcaster 3y agonever heard about this before! thanks for the tip will check this out
- bilbo0s 3y agoJust wanted to say, it's easily the best interpretation of Dune I've ever seen. So much so that I find myself wishing I had not seen it. It makes the current Dune interpretation movies look downright juvenile. Watch the current movies first, then go back and watch Sci Fi's interpretation. If you don't, you'll be extremely disappointed in the current movies.
- electric_mayhem 3y agoAgreed that the SciFi channel miniseries of Dune is top notch. There’s also a Children of Dune miniseries with the same cast. Catch is when I wanted to watch it last these couldn’t be streamed anywhere legally. So I bought them on dvd from fleabay.
- reactordev 3y agoChildren of Dune was on the same level. Both were, by far, the pinnacle of Sci-fi (Syfy) channel during their glory days. Stargate is cool, Farscape is too, BSG is my all time favorite, but this - this was BSG before they had the budget. This enabled them to do BSG. They knocked it out of the park. Twice.
- electric_mayhem 3y agoTangentially related, their maxiseries Taken was also excellent. Difficult to learn it even existed given that an action movie franchise which used the same name pretty much crowds it out of search results It’s another one I ended up getting on dvd.
- reactordev 3y agoWith Dakota Fanning, Anton Yelchin (RIP)... yeah, it was a good series too but was a little too conspiracy centric I think. Still, the production quality was like Netflix before Netflix. Kind of surreal from a 3rd rate cable production channel.
- 7thaccount 3y agoAlso easily my favorite. I saw the first episode the night it came out (before I read the book) and remember being blown away. I've liked the other versions too, but not nearly as much.
- exe34 3y agoThe first film was half a reboot.
- stronglikedan 3y ago> the characterization of some characters... are very far from how the books depicts them But that's how it always is, because the target audience for the movie is much wider than the target audience for the book, so characters always get the "screen treatment" to make them more palatable to a wider audience.
- jamager 3y agoNah, SicFi is so mainstream that that is not a valid argument anymore. Plus, they clearly made it for fans. It is barely comprehensible without having read the original.
- khazhoux 3y agoWhich graphic novels?
- jamager 3y agoAdaptation from Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson, illustrated by Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín. Highly recommend.
- hyggetrold 3y ago> I understand that Dune is too big of a masterpiece for a simple 2 part movie (it should be a 6-8 session series at least) I am a massive Dune fan as well and share this sentiment. Same for Lord of the Rings. On some level those books are simply unadaptable if the goal is to be totally true to the original text. For myself, I am always happy to see adaptations since it will always lead someone to the books who would otherwise not have been exposed to them. And if some folks don't like the books and only enjoy the movies, that's fine too. Better to have any exposure than none. :)
- hamandcheese 3y agoThe LOTR movies are masterpieces in their own right, IMO. I can't say the same for Dune (part 1, at least).
- wiseowise 3y ago> I can't say the same for Dune (part 1, at least). Not as an adaptation, but more of an extension.
- nullindividual 3y agoTo be fair, the audience for movies and books simply aren't the same. If you tried to fully faithfully adapt LotR, you'd have Alex Jones proclaiming the frogs got to Tom Bombadil and turned him into a dirty liberal hippie. It would just be too confusing/weird for on-screen. I'd watch it on repeat until I turned into that skeleton waiting meme.
- skywhopper 3y agoI do think it's inevitable that a film adaptation will let down any major fan of the original book. There's simply a barrier between media that cannot be reconciled, certainly not for any story as complex and expansive as Dune. (Sounds like this movie is at least three parts, for what it's worth.)
- mcphage 3y ago> I do think it's inevitable that a film adaptation will let down any major fan of the original book. There's simply a barrier between media that cannot be reconciled, certainly not for any story as complex and expansive as Dune. I don't think this is true. I agree that they are different media, and any adaptation will inherently be an adaptation. But that shouldn't lead to disappointment. You can appreciate both for their differences, as long as they each succeed in their own approach.
- reddit_clone 3y agoNot to mention so much internal dialog. Hard to translate into film.
- cykros 3y agoThis is why doing Messiah is going to be such a challenge, even moreso than the first book. 80's SFX almost lend themselves to handling internal monologue BETTER than modern effects, as the idea was just to signal a suspension of disbelief, rather than to go for the hyper-realism that modern effects evoke. We'll see.
- GeekyBear 3y ago> The first part left me quite underwhelmed The books are chock full of the various character's internal dialog, and when you make the choice to leave that aspect out, there is quite a bit of richness missing. This version went the "show, don't tell" route. Visually, its amazing, but so much additional information from the book to help you understand the characters, the groups they belong to, and their motivations was left out. I think the Sci Fi channel Dune miniseries did the best job of putting across the full richness of the book, albeit with a made for TV budget.
- queuebert 3y agoThe Sci-Fi channel Children of Dune miniseries is highly underrated as well.
- hax0ron3 3y agoI don't know why so many people hate the whispery Lynch Dune voiceovers. I think they work great to convey both extra content and the mysterious, intrigue-laden mood of the book.
- GeekyBear 3y agoI love the Lynch version's sets, costumes, props, and art direction in general.
- magicalhippo 3y ago> This version went the "show, don't tell" route. While I agree it makes it difficult to understand motives, on the other hand I love that they don't over-explain stuff. So many movies ruined by not trusting the audience with half a brain.
- bee_rider 3y agoI didn’t see the first one but I’m under the impression that neither of the remakes feature Sting so I’m not sure why people are watching them.
- nullindividual 3y agoI was too young when it was released, but wasn't it Sting's diaper that got everyone into the theater?
- bee_rider 3y agoI dunno, I wasn’t born yet
- Crontab 3y ago> The first part left me quite underwhelmed, tbh. I get that. I felt the same was at first. But after watching it multiple times on HBOMax I have come to really appreciate the film. I think maybe my initial expectations were just too high.
- mFixman 3y agoI read the Dune books after seeing Part 1, and I was slightly disappointed at how _little_ characterisation most characters have. Most of them have no history or relationships outside of the ones present in the book and very broad "Paul's doctor came from the secret society of very good doctors". IMO Dune a good piece of literature, but the lackluster worldbuilding makes the Universe feel small and empty. Nothing interesting happened in the prior 10k years to anybody who's not a protagonist.
- avalys 3y agoFully agreed on this. The books give you no sensation of a galactic empire of trillions of people and all the complexity that would arise from it. The society has no more depth than a small European nation - a few corporations, a few universities, some guilds, an aristocracy, etc.
- hax0ron3 3y agoYeah, I don't remember Jessica being nearly as overtly emotional in the book as she is in Part 1. I enjoyed Part 1 while watching it, but somehow it's just not memorable to me. It's a much more faithful book adaptation than Lynch's Dune, but Lynch's Dune is full of moments that stick with me and has an iconic soundtrack. To be fair, I first saw Lynch's Dune when I was very young so that might explain part of why I find it so memorable. I dunno. To me Villenueve's Dune just kind of seems... flat, by-the-numbers, gray and dull. Weird thing is, I love Blade Runner: 2049 and I find it to be very memorable and vivid. But then, Villeneuve had a chance to make his own story with that one, which might explain the difference. Lynch's Dune is, I think, a significantly better movie than Villeneuve's, but it is so different from the book that I'm not even sure I am willing to call it an adaptation - and that might have made Lynch's job easier. For example, Lynch's Dune fully just goes with the classical "hero's journey" approach to Paul, with no hint of the devastation that he will be responsible for. It also goes full on into mysticism, which I enjoy, but which is quite different from the book's skeptical and cynical approach to spirituality. Nonetheless, it is a better movie just as a movie. I have not seen Villenueve's Part 2 yet, but I hope that it makes up for some of the things that I find dull about Part 1.
- at_a_remove 3y agoLynch understood what the problems of a direct adaptation would be. An example would be the Weirding Way. One would have to invent a martial art that both looked fresh on the screen (new, different) and was also simultaneously overwhelmingly powerful. This is perhaps nigh-insurmountable (I dunno, clone Bruce Lee, but also raise him with a lot of cinematography experience, then have him design another Jeet Kune Do which looked impressive through a lens). Lynch opted for the Weirding Modules, which still provided this surprise advantage against the Sardukar terror troops and tied back, thematically, to Paul being the fulfillment of prophecy. He understood that millennia of feudalism would make for a psychically claustrophobic atmosphere, that the avoidance of the thinking machines would necessarily birth the creation of humans who might have visibly different traits ("... the lips acquire stains ...") from the strain of being human computers. He understood that voiceovers were appropriate because, to survive in such an environment, you must constantly be thinking about what other minds are thinking, to remain steps ahead. Finally, Lynch understood that the dialogue must be larger than life. I heard a trailer for the recent one and I swear, some of the dialogue between Paul and Chiani sounded like Avengers-era quippy Whedon output.
- aqme28 3y agoI've probably seen Dune 1984 too many times to have an objective opinion, but I feel like the acting in Dune Part 1 is comparitively very very muted. All the characters (minus Duncan) seem bored the whole time, which is disappointing in relation to the bombastic Shakespearean performances in the Lynch film.
- Jtsummers 3y ago> All the characters (minus Duncan) seem bored the whole time This is how I've felt about most Villeneuve movies I've seen. The main (or at least major) characters look like they're walking knowingly, resignedly towards some destiny they can't control (Arrival at least this kind of makes sense, and Paul for parts of Dune) with an absurdly flat affect most of the time. It's like we're watching them watching themselves go through the motions of life without being able to direct or control it. Very pretty movies, interesting soundtracks, with strangely flat acting from people who can do much better.
- yaky 3y agoIMO the visuals were just... bland. Everyone wears grey and lives in dark grey dwellings. The color balance is so bad that Atreides flag that is green on Caladan becomes cyan on Dune. This greyness also ruined the supposedly-awesome scene with the worm where it was just a dark blob on a grey background. And it was unintentionally funny when the camera pans over a featureless grey desert, and someone says "you can tell the spice by the color of the sand".