7 ms·

> Lynch would author the look of Dune. This is so true. The recent films and the spinoff series all look like his Dune.

colordrops 2y ago
Lynch Dune is so underrated. The creativity on display was immense. The new Dune movies have amazing craftsmanship but feel as if they were generated by AI, almost every move and visual predictable.
- comebyrrh 2y ago
  That’s such a great way to put it. Maybe I’ve just seen TOO many films, but there’s a modern homogeneity in big budget films that is installed as safety guardrails so that audiences aren’t too turned off. It’s visual predictable. I like that. Lynch said bollocks to that.
  - boogieknite 2y ago
    the entire sequence of scenes on Giedi Prime were far from visually predictable. Denis is a master and flexed it a number of times in Dune. i think a fair take is Dune 1 and 2 are doing more creatively than any other big budget blockbuster franchise has since Avatar 1
    - colordrops 2y ago
      Giedi Prime was the only sequence that held me transfixed during the movie. Funny, I was considering mentioning it as an exception with my first comment lest someone point it out.
    - comebyrrh 2y ago
      It was gladiator in black and white with the contrast cranked to 11. Take away the overexposure and … just like everything else the sci fi bad guys build in the last three decades of film. The Lynch Giedi Prime was terrifying. But that’s probably because I’ve been watching sci fi films for fifty years.
      - duped 2y ago
        I mean I'm fairly sure it's the first/only infrared shot on imax, which is neat and gives it that unique look.
      - guappa 2y ago
        If you read scifi from the 50s you'll find that there was no original idea in any scifi film.
        comebyrrh 2y ago
        Sigh. Asimov didn’t write EVERYTHING. He didn’t write about gender and politics like LeGuin He didn’t write about drug addicted Mars settlers like PKD. He didnt write about dimensional fragments and gravitation wave communication and laws of existence like Liu. Even the grandfather of it all HG Wells didn’t …. You trolled me and I fell for it. Damn.
        guappa 2y ago
        Sigh… there's more than one scifi writer. You've read ONE out of HUNDREDS! Wow you're so cultured and intellectual! > He didn’t write about drug addicted Mars settlers like PKD. Read the first stories on mars colonization, long before philip k dick. It's not a moral fault to not have read something. But perhaps don't go lecturing people who have? You don't see me going to china to lecture about chinese literature while I don't even speak chinese. Don't do that. It's sad.
    - thorin 2y ago
      Inception would be another one that springs to mind, I notice that came out the year after Avatar, although I think Inception probably took it's lead from the Matrix.
      - boogieknite 2y ago
        if i throw out the "franchise" qualifier then Nolan's a great example of visual novelty in big budget blockbusters. i enjoyed TENET more than anyone ive met
        thorin 2y ago
        I think Tenet could be enjoyable in the same way that Primer is enjoyable, but I found it unwatchable at the time I tried to watch it. I'm sure if I watched it at the right time I would like it.
  - mrandish 2y ago
    > there’s a modern homogeneity in big budget films A lot of that is due to the nature of studios milking franchise properties like the MCU or SW. Directors of big budget films are now often selected to be a caretaker of one franchise episode. They inherit a pre-existing style from the franchise while also having a bunch more 'input' (aka supervision) from an army of executive producers who work across more than one film and are focused on "don't fuck up the franchise." Another part of the modern decline in the diversity of cinematic looks is from the economics of streaming. Streamers like Netflix, Apple and Prime are focused on risk reduction by funding either "big name star" properties where the stars make more by being their own executive producers or "big name IP" properties with built-in audiences from books, games, etc. In neither instance is the director usually a central element in packaging the deal. The role of these directors is to be more of a journeymen shepherd like Marquand than a visionary like Lynch, Kubrick or Coppola. It's a worrying trend because many "bankable name" directors like Lynch whose name at the top of the movie poster could guarantee an audience are dying and not being replaced by new directors that have broad name recognition.
    - Fricken 2y ago
      As it turns out, having just one blockbuster sci-fi franchise wherein Anya Taylor Joy fights Milk Boys in the sand is not enough for the 21st century. Villeneuve needed an Anya Taylor Joy Milk Boy sand fight sci-fi blockbuster he could call his own.
    - guappa 2y ago
      > "don't fuck up the franchise." Were they asleep while filming the more recent star wars films?
      - ghaff 2y ago
        For me the nadir was the prequel series although I also think The Phantom Menace poisoned the well for the other two which weren't terrible. The more recent films have been a mixed bag with them generally being better the further they are from the original story arc. For me at least, there's also a certain fatigue factor. While I like The Mandalorian and Rogue One, I'm pretty much done with the franchise. See also Star Trek and MCU. That said, I know that there are a lot of fans who will take pretty much anything you throw out even if they like to belly-ache about it.
- zeristor 2y ago
  The lengths they went to to mate in the landing of the Duke on Arrakis. They used a football stadium in Mexico, in order to get enough distance. The mind boggles as to what they did without CG. I believe the film run aground on the special effects for the worms, it just goes to show that critics will feast on the weak points. I utterly relished the scene with the Emperor meeting the navigator; Mr PlansWithinPlans. Is there enough film to make the purported mini-series of Lynch’s Dune, I take it there was only the film.
  - palmotea 2y ago
    > The lengths they went to to mate in the landing of the Duke on Arrakis. > They used a football stadium in Mexico, in order to get enough distance. The mind boggles as to what they did without CG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQG_Gt6-xpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQG_Gt6-xpE
    - araes 2y ago
      Ever notice how much it looks like Lucas directly took the Dune 1984 imagery of the landing on Arrakis and turned it into the Trade Federation landing on Naboo? [1] Above Documentary, 1:23: https://youtu.be/pQG_Gt6-xpE?si=KZx9K1l1pZERaJ-R&t=83 https://youtu.be/pQG_Gt6-xpE?si=KZx9K1l1pZERaJ-R&t=83 [2] Trade Federation Craft Landing, 0:25: https://youtu.be/UD8tounIou4?si=-eCg60AvEr0eo3qa&t=25 https://youtu.be/UD8tounIou4?si=-eCg60AvEr0eo3qa&t=25
- zeristor 2y ago
  At what point with AI transformers could we generate different versions of films: I’m thinking about a Carry On version of Dune, of Star Wars, The Matrix, Fight Club. I guess at some point some AI might generate these just for fun for itself, or maybe it’ll be smart enough not to bother.
  - basch 2y ago
    First it’ll be animation upscaling. Using the current season of The Simpson, South Park, Toy Story 4 along with the first season or movie as a controlnet. Then will come applying an aesthetic like Star Wars or Mad Max to an extinct movie.
- Barrin92 2y ago
  >The new Dune movies have amazing craftsmanship but feel as if they were generated by AI Except for Arrival which owes a lot of its humanism to Ted Chiang's source material that's something that I've noticed about Villeneuve's work. Technically well made but there's something inhuman and cold about how he writes characters and scenes, as if they're surgically made. I think it really stands out too if you watch the old and new Blade Runner back to back.
  - colordrops 2y ago
    I see the same cold and surgical nature to Christopher Nolan films. They all seem the same to me.
    - keyringlight 2y ago
      What I sense with the Nolan films that I've watched is that he packs a lot into the runtime, even accounting for how they generally are long films to start with. He has to be very efficient with how he uses the time, every shot and dialogue carries some information that is useful in some way, there's little spare space or idling. In a way I wonder if it's a bit deliberate to overwhelm the view a little on the first viewing so they can't take it all in and analyze as they go so late revelations have the impact they do, if it was spaced out as a TV series the writing would need to adjust.
- nabla9 2y ago
  Lynch hated Dune. Lynch's name is removed from the credits of the original cut (replaced with Alan Smithee) because it's so embarrassing. It's still a Lynch movie, so it's interesting to watch. I would not call it underrated. The tempo of the movie is completely off, and no cut has been able to fix that. The characters and scenes just run trough the story. Lynch wanted Salvador Dali to design the set. Instead he had to reuses the set from the Conan the Destroyer (Richard Fleischer, 1984). He didn't even get the music he wanted and that's big part of his movies.
  - lordfrito 2y ago
    > Instead he had to reuses the set from the Conan the Destroyer My understanding is that Conan reused Dune sets, not the other way round. The Dune sets were extremely intricate and expensive, and are definitely one of the few highlights of the film. > He didn't even get the music he wanted and that's big part of his movies. Not sure how Toto ended up doing the music for that film. That film was an absolute mess.
    - reginald78 2y ago
      The Toto soundtrack is an atrocious fit, completely bizarre choice given the tone.
  - throaway89 2y ago
    Lynch hated Dune because DeLaurentis meddled with it so hard (Jodorowsky famously said they only way Lynch could have made a movie so bad, is if the producers ruined it).
  - philistine 2y ago
    You got most of your facts mixed up. Lynch's name proudly sits on top of the theatrical cut, the only cut he supervised. Alan Smithee is used for all other cuts, since he supervised none of those and refuses, as is his right, not to be credited for a cut he didn't watch himself.
- lores 2y ago
  For me the best film of recent years is Hundreds of Beavers - not because it will revolutionise cinema or human thought, but because it was clearly made by people who love what they are doing and had nothing to lose but a tiny budget, so went absolutely hogswild on the creativity. It fills me with joy.
- ghaff 2y ago
  There is an argument to be made that the new movies are better visually than they are as a complete package. That was certainly my reaction the first time through #1. I now am inclined to think that's not really fair and I do think they're clearly the best entries in the Dune movie list.
- macspoofing 2y ago
  >Lynch Dune is so underrated. I don't know ... I think it's 'properly rated'. The movie is deeply flawed but it has stayed in public consciousness and is (fondly) remembered. The first half is pretty good. The second half is a total mess and makes the entire plot, characterization and pacing unsalvageable. The visual art style is generally great, but there are some glaring misses.
  - throaway89 2y ago
    It's a mess, but it feels alien, which is what you want with sci-fi and especially Dune.
- xtiansimon 2y ago
  I’m a big fan of Lynch’s Dune. Have you seen the Spicediver fan edit? That’s quite fun, too. (It was hanging out on YT for the longest time, but the Villeneuve Dune sort of muscled it off the platform.)
NegatioN 2y ago
And Lynch's Dune looks like it does, probably in no small part due to Jodorowsky, Giger and Mobius. I recommend everyone interested in Dune to take a look at Jodorowsky's Dune [0], the documentary which explains how they did the preproduction of Dune, and pitched it to the studios. All the deals eventually fell through, but the pitch decks circulated all the studios for years afterwards, and inspired countless other movie makers. The best things about the new Dune installments imo is the art, but all, or most of it feels like copy pasted ideas from what came before them. CGI is a huge asset to actually get it working though. 0: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1935156 https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1935156
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  Mœbius probably has the greatest influence to obscurity ratio of any artist I can think of - his fingerprints are on so, so many things - and irony of ironies Jodorowsky’s Dune was probably one of the greatest catapults for further promulgating his aesthetic into the mainstream through the vessel of Giger. I doubt Giger would have been Giger without their collaboration on Dune. The unmade movie penetrates the popular psyche. I remember finding Metal Hurlant and The Incal at a vide grenier in France as a kid, well before the days of the web, and just being blown away by the visions of this guy - only years later did I realise that I wasn’t alone in that sentiment. He’s the unseen foundation on which so much has been built. A creator’s creator, if you like.
  - bazoom42 2y ago
    Also worth mentioning the comic story “A Long Tomorrow” by Moebius which was an inspiration for the visuals in Blade Runner.
  - djmips 2y ago
    I recently found out that Mœbius was a huge influence on Hayao Miyazaki that is particularly evident in his Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
  - Fricken 2y ago
    The most relevant artists aren't those best regarded by popular audiences or critics, but the ones that do the most to inspire and influence other artists. Both Moebius and Lynch are huge in that regard.

Lynch Dune is so underrated. The creativity on display was immense. The new Dune movies have amazing craftsmanship but feel as if they were generated by AI, almost every move and visual predictable.

comebyrrh 2y ago
That’s such a great way to put it. Maybe I’ve just seen TOO many films, but there’s a modern homogeneity in big budget films that is installed as safety guardrails so that audiences aren’t too turned off. It’s visual predictable. I like that. Lynch said bollocks to that.
- boogieknite 2y ago
  the entire sequence of scenes on Giedi Prime were far from visually predictable. Denis is a master and flexed it a number of times in Dune. i think a fair take is Dune 1 and 2 are doing more creatively than any other big budget blockbuster franchise has since Avatar 1
  - colordrops 2y ago
    Giedi Prime was the only sequence that held me transfixed during the movie. Funny, I was considering mentioning it as an exception with my first comment lest someone point it out.
  - comebyrrh 2y ago
    It was gladiator in black and white with the contrast cranked to 11. Take away the overexposure and … just like everything else the sci fi bad guys build in the last three decades of film. The Lynch Giedi Prime was terrifying. But that’s probably because I’ve been watching sci fi films for fifty years.
    - duped 2y ago
      I mean I'm fairly sure it's the first/only infrared shot on imax, which is neat and gives it that unique look.
    - guappa 2y ago
      If you read scifi from the 50s you'll find that there was no original idea in any scifi film.
      - comebyrrh 2y ago
        Sigh. Asimov didn’t write EVERYTHING. He didn’t write about gender and politics like LeGuin He didn’t write about drug addicted Mars settlers like PKD. He didnt write about dimensional fragments and gravitation wave communication and laws of existence like Liu. Even the grandfather of it all HG Wells didn’t …. You trolled me and I fell for it. Damn.
        guappa 2y ago
        Sigh… there's more than one scifi writer. You've read ONE out of HUNDREDS! Wow you're so cultured and intellectual! > He didn’t write about drug addicted Mars settlers like PKD. Read the first stories on mars colonization, long before philip k dick. It's not a moral fault to not have read something. But perhaps don't go lecturing people who have? You don't see me going to china to lecture about chinese literature while I don't even speak chinese. Don't do that. It's sad.
  - thorin 2y ago
    Inception would be another one that springs to mind, I notice that came out the year after Avatar, although I think Inception probably took it's lead from the Matrix.
    - boogieknite 2y ago
      if i throw out the "franchise" qualifier then Nolan's a great example of visual novelty in big budget blockbusters. i enjoyed TENET more than anyone ive met
      - thorin 2y ago
        I think Tenet could be enjoyable in the same way that Primer is enjoyable, but I found it unwatchable at the time I tried to watch it. I'm sure if I watched it at the right time I would like it.
- mrandish 2y ago
  > there’s a modern homogeneity in big budget films A lot of that is due to the nature of studios milking franchise properties like the MCU or SW. Directors of big budget films are now often selected to be a caretaker of one franchise episode. They inherit a pre-existing style from the franchise while also having a bunch more 'input' (aka supervision) from an army of executive producers who work across more than one film and are focused on "don't fuck up the franchise." Another part of the modern decline in the diversity of cinematic looks is from the economics of streaming. Streamers like Netflix, Apple and Prime are focused on risk reduction by funding either "big name star" properties where the stars make more by being their own executive producers or "big name IP" properties with built-in audiences from books, games, etc. In neither instance is the director usually a central element in packaging the deal. The role of these directors is to be more of a journeymen shepherd like Marquand than a visionary like Lynch, Kubrick or Coppola. It's a worrying trend because many "bankable name" directors like Lynch whose name at the top of the movie poster could guarantee an audience are dying and not being replaced by new directors that have broad name recognition.
  - Fricken 2y ago
    As it turns out, having just one blockbuster sci-fi franchise wherein Anya Taylor Joy fights Milk Boys in the sand is not enough for the 21st century. Villeneuve needed an Anya Taylor Joy Milk Boy sand fight sci-fi blockbuster he could call his own.
  - guappa 2y ago
    > "don't fuck up the franchise." Were they asleep while filming the more recent star wars films?
    - ghaff 2y ago
      For me the nadir was the prequel series although I also think The Phantom Menace poisoned the well for the other two which weren't terrible. The more recent films have been a mixed bag with them generally being better the further they are from the original story arc. For me at least, there's also a certain fatigue factor. While I like The Mandalorian and Rogue One, I'm pretty much done with the franchise. See also Star Trek and MCU. That said, I know that there are a lot of fans who will take pretty much anything you throw out even if they like to belly-ache about it.
zeristor 2y ago
The lengths they went to to mate in the landing of the Duke on Arrakis. They used a football stadium in Mexico, in order to get enough distance. The mind boggles as to what they did without CG. I believe the film run aground on the special effects for the worms, it just goes to show that critics will feast on the weak points. I utterly relished the scene with the Emperor meeting the navigator; Mr PlansWithinPlans. Is there enough film to make the purported mini-series of Lynch’s Dune, I take it there was only the film.
- palmotea 2y ago
  > The lengths they went to to mate in the landing of the Duke on Arrakis. > They used a football stadium in Mexico, in order to get enough distance. The mind boggles as to what they did without CG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQG_Gt6-xpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQG_Gt6-xpE
  - araes 2y ago
    Ever notice how much it looks like Lucas directly took the Dune 1984 imagery of the landing on Arrakis and turned it into the Trade Federation landing on Naboo? [1] Above Documentary, 1:23: https://youtu.be/pQG_Gt6-xpE?si=KZx9K1l1pZERaJ-R&t=83 https://youtu.be/pQG_Gt6-xpE?si=KZx9K1l1pZERaJ-R&t=83 [2] Trade Federation Craft Landing, 0:25: https://youtu.be/UD8tounIou4?si=-eCg60AvEr0eo3qa&t=25 https://youtu.be/UD8tounIou4?si=-eCg60AvEr0eo3qa&t=25
zeristor 2y ago
At what point with AI transformers could we generate different versions of films: I’m thinking about a Carry On version of Dune, of Star Wars, The Matrix, Fight Club. I guess at some point some AI might generate these just for fun for itself, or maybe it’ll be smart enough not to bother.
- basch 2y ago
  First it’ll be animation upscaling. Using the current season of The Simpson, South Park, Toy Story 4 along with the first season or movie as a controlnet. Then will come applying an aesthetic like Star Wars or Mad Max to an extinct movie.
Barrin92 2y ago
>The new Dune movies have amazing craftsmanship but feel as if they were generated by AI Except for Arrival which owes a lot of its humanism to Ted Chiang's source material that's something that I've noticed about Villeneuve's work. Technically well made but there's something inhuman and cold about how he writes characters and scenes, as if they're surgically made. I think it really stands out too if you watch the old and new Blade Runner back to back.
- colordrops 2y ago
  I see the same cold and surgical nature to Christopher Nolan films. They all seem the same to me.
  - keyringlight 2y ago
    What I sense with the Nolan films that I've watched is that he packs a lot into the runtime, even accounting for how they generally are long films to start with. He has to be very efficient with how he uses the time, every shot and dialogue carries some information that is useful in some way, there's little spare space or idling. In a way I wonder if it's a bit deliberate to overwhelm the view a little on the first viewing so they can't take it all in and analyze as they go so late revelations have the impact they do, if it was spaced out as a TV series the writing would need to adjust.
nabla9 2y ago
Lynch hated Dune. Lynch's name is removed from the credits of the original cut (replaced with Alan Smithee) because it's so embarrassing. It's still a Lynch movie, so it's interesting to watch. I would not call it underrated. The tempo of the movie is completely off, and no cut has been able to fix that. The characters and scenes just run trough the story. Lynch wanted Salvador Dali to design the set. Instead he had to reuses the set from the Conan the Destroyer (Richard Fleischer, 1984). He didn't even get the music he wanted and that's big part of his movies.
- lordfrito 2y ago
  > Instead he had to reuses the set from the Conan the Destroyer My understanding is that Conan reused Dune sets, not the other way round. The Dune sets were extremely intricate and expensive, and are definitely one of the few highlights of the film. > He didn't even get the music he wanted and that's big part of his movies. Not sure how Toto ended up doing the music for that film. That film was an absolute mess.
  - reginald78 2y ago
    The Toto soundtrack is an atrocious fit, completely bizarre choice given the tone.
- throaway89 2y ago
  Lynch hated Dune because DeLaurentis meddled with it so hard (Jodorowsky famously said they only way Lynch could have made a movie so bad, is if the producers ruined it).
- philistine 2y ago
  You got most of your facts mixed up. Lynch's name proudly sits on top of the theatrical cut, the only cut he supervised. Alan Smithee is used for all other cuts, since he supervised none of those and refuses, as is his right, not to be credited for a cut he didn't watch himself.
lores 2y ago
For me the best film of recent years is Hundreds of Beavers - not because it will revolutionise cinema or human thought, but because it was clearly made by people who love what they are doing and had nothing to lose but a tiny budget, so went absolutely hogswild on the creativity. It fills me with joy.
ghaff 2y ago
There is an argument to be made that the new movies are better visually than they are as a complete package. That was certainly my reaction the first time through #1. I now am inclined to think that's not really fair and I do think they're clearly the best entries in the Dune movie list.
macspoofing 2y ago
>Lynch Dune is so underrated. I don't know ... I think it's 'properly rated'. The movie is deeply flawed but it has stayed in public consciousness and is (fondly) remembered. The first half is pretty good. The second half is a total mess and makes the entire plot, characterization and pacing unsalvageable. The visual art style is generally great, but there are some glaring misses.
- throaway89 2y ago
  It's a mess, but it feels alien, which is what you want with sci-fi and especially Dune.
xtiansimon 2y ago
I’m a big fan of Lynch’s Dune. Have you seen the Spicediver fan edit? That’s quite fun, too. (It was hanging out on YT for the longest time, but the Villeneuve Dune sort of muscled it off the platform.)

NegatioN 2y ago

And Lynch's Dune looks like it does, probably in no small part due to Jodorowsky, Giger and Mobius. I recommend everyone interested in Dune to take a look at Jodorowsky's Dune [0], the documentary which explains how they did the preproduction of Dune, and pitched it to the studios. All the deals eventually fell through, but the pitch decks circulated all the studios for years afterwards, and inspired countless other movie makers. The best things about the new Dune installments imo is the art, but all, or most of it feels like copy pasted ideas from what came before them. CGI is a huge asset to actually get it working though. 0: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1935156 https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1935156

madaxe_again 2y ago
Mœbius probably has the greatest influence to obscurity ratio of any artist I can think of - his fingerprints are on so, so many things - and irony of ironies Jodorowsky’s Dune was probably one of the greatest catapults for further promulgating his aesthetic into the mainstream through the vessel of Giger. I doubt Giger would have been Giger without their collaboration on Dune. The unmade movie penetrates the popular psyche. I remember finding Metal Hurlant and The Incal at a vide grenier in France as a kid, well before the days of the web, and just being blown away by the visions of this guy - only years later did I realise that I wasn’t alone in that sentiment. He’s the unseen foundation on which so much has been built. A creator’s creator, if you like.
- bazoom42 2y ago
  Also worth mentioning the comic story “A Long Tomorrow” by Moebius which was an inspiration for the visuals in Blade Runner.
- djmips 2y ago
  I recently found out that Mœbius was a huge influence on Hayao Miyazaki that is particularly evident in his Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
- Fricken 2y ago
  The most relevant artists aren't those best regarded by popular audiences or critics, but the ones that do the most to inspire and influence other artists. Both Moebius and Lynch are huge in that regard.