Has anybody watched DUNE?

I have watched it in theaters. It was unbelievable experience. Denis Villeneuve is a fcking genius. Cinematography, Sound, Editing, Acting.....everything was perfect.

The star cast was really good and each one did justice to their roles. Timothee Chalamet is a force of nature.

I highly recommend it.

Quote from mariaVSkpop

The technical aspects are out of this world, seriously. The cinematographer is the same guy who did Rogue one and is doing now the new Batman project, so the look is expected. And the cast is so, so great.

But the film has three important mistakes/shortcomings in terms of adapting Dune:

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1) the intrigue about who is the traitor in the atreides house is missing, it is what made the subplot resolution so impactful in the book since everyone suspects everybody and paranoia sets in, eating away the trust between family members. The whole "I am asking the Benne gesserit" would have been much, much stronger if it was clear that many in the Atreides house think Jessica is the traitor.

2) The dinner scene where we can witness the analytical prowess of Paul is missing, how he can, with only few indications and great deductive skills and character reading, reach a detailed analysis of a delicate situation and the involved dynamics (basically, the whole Paul has been trained as a mentat on the behest of his father and he had no idea about it subplot is missing, ouch).

3) Very little to nothing is mentioned in terms of Batlerian Jihad, the Orange Bible and the ban of thinking machines in the movie. They could have just added a tiny bit of Paul watching a presentation about a chapter in the bible or historical footage or something, more impactful world building and a nice introduction into possible prequel productions (even though the prequels and some sequels were written by Herbet's son and are not that good, who would say no to a huge and epic multi-season space opera series in HBO Max about humanity revolting against its machine overlords and gaining its freedom through a bloody and massive space war, were the existence of humanity itself is at stake, all because the machines killed an insignificant baby). Anyways, not touching upon the thinking machines ban creates an enormous gap in world building in the film and how spice is more than just helpful with space navigation. Maybe they will mention them in the sequel.
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From what I have been reading, Denis aims to make a complete Dune - Paul Atreides trilogy, including his fall in the dune messiah. That's great if he can make it happen, but hell, screw that! He should go straight to an adaptation of God emperor of Dune with Hugh jackman as Moneo, Jake Gylenhaal as the worm and Taylor Joy as Noree.

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I haven't completed reading Dune... But such a big story should be told in TV Series format... But Budget issues would have plagued it as well... So the tradeoff was worth it, I guess.

Quote from caratnotcarrot

i'm planning to watch it next week!!!! it's family friendly right??

Oh yeah.... Nothing too gory or anything...

Quote from mariaVSkpop

I am not sure about the budget thing, I mean there are technologies that can cut it down by a lot like the LED screens they use in the Mandalorian for example. But it wouldn't be cheap and I am not sure anyone in the calibre of Denis Villeneuve would be interested in doing a tv/streaming adaptation of Dune proper instead of a film adaptation. Usually streaming adaptations are given to hack frauds with industry connections and are massacred (David S. Goyer and Foundation comes to mind). It might be better for spins off like the Sisterhood series they are working on now, or possibly the Dune prequels to work as tv shows. But it is what HBO and Warner/Legendary decide. Nonetheless, it is a new Denis Villneuve project and it is one of my favorite book series, so no real complains from me, just a bit of nitpicking for fun.

It is not R rated and the violence is actually very tame, no gore etc, but there are a couple of moments who might bother some people with low tolerance to weird scifi creatures for example. The underlying themes though are very adult.

I was thinking about that too.... The current StageCraft technology is very limited in size.

Quote from redcurtain

I thought the movie was great, but I thought Chalamet was just fine, the tent scene in particular was cringey to me and I didn't buy it at all, but I would say 90% of the people I know who've seen it thought that scene was great so what do I know. I also wasn't crazy about the movie's version of Jessica, but overall I think the movies have the potential to surpass the book.

There are some things they cut out from the book so I am curious about how they can make certain elements work in part 2 given what they cut; but I trust Villeveneuve, he's definitely my favorite Hollywood director currently active or at least top two.

Hmm. Tent scene... I need to watch that again....

Quote from ChrisElune

The movie looked great, good CGI and everything. The only issue I have is that I found it kind of boring... I just don't think it's my kind of movie. I just watched it because of the hype, but I didn't have the amazing experience others seem to have. Very well made, just not my cup of tea.

Yeah... It's not big on action... It's more about building the whole world around characters and developing them...

Ending was also a little anticlimactic.

Quote from ellenote

I recently watched it at home, it was boring and the acting was good in some parts and bad in some other parts. Some times there delivery felt weird. The movie's design is amazing though, that's what I loved the most about it.

True.