[jariel]

My very first thought when they were doing this remake was literally that word.

There are times when words change for PC reasons, but this isn't one of them. 'Jihad' is a very potent word in the modern lexicon and it would just be unnecessarily out of bounds to use it. It would have the wrong context and be a huge distraction.

'Crusade' is fine, and not 'unPC' because it has Christian connotations, so few care, and creatively perfectly fine ... but I feel is actually a little hypocritical in a sense to use it, in lieu of 'Jihad'. But it's a hard word to replace.

Already, the culture wars are starting, with industry people on Twitter indicating this is a 'move about Middle Eastern culture with no Middle Eastern Actors' type thing, comparisons to 'God's of Egypt' - when of course, this is definitely not a movie about 'the Middle East' rather, that's only one of many cultural artifacts borrowed for the setting.

As for the trailer:

The music is absolutely terrible, it's going to ruin the film for me.

Otherwise, it looks 'contemporary' i.e. it will be 'good' but not 'timeless'. David Lynch's version was a 'flawed masterpiece' - the characters really embodied the 'realpolitik baroque noir' of the book. David Lynch used a lot of serious actors with stage backgrounds, who could also evoke and embody the very cold 'old world' callousness of the nobility. Jason Momoa does not.

In the trailer there are just too many standard Hollywood, familiar faces, Timothy Chatalet feels like a 'regular gen Z kid', relatable, but doesn't have the 'weight of the soul' on his mind.

The aesthetic is 'of the Villeneuve style' but it's definitely not exciting or novel, I feel Villeneuve & Co. have 'operationalized' their schtick and it lacks enthusiasm.

If we can judge from the trailer it will be 'passable' for most fans and regular people, but it won't be great at all.

I predict this will be about as good as his Blade Runner remake.

I am disappointed because there is huge opportunity for creative expansion - instead of 'standard remake for 2020' they could have actually tried some art.

[stevekemp]

> The music is absolutely terrible, it's going to ruin the film for me.

Music can be very polarizing, but once I recognized the Pink Floyd I thought it was a perfect track for the trailer.

[solipsism]

"flawed masterpiece"? Even David Lynch himself hates his Dune. This (God) emperor has no clothes.

[jariel]

The fact that people are still watching this movie 35 years later implies there is something very good about it.

Lynch distanced himself publicly from it, because it was an economic disaster bad on many levels, but I'll bet $100 that with some afterthought, people can recognize what is 'good' about it.

It's a genre defining feature, almost entirely unto it's own, the creative design was 'otherworldly' to the point it probably has not been matched in SciFi ever. Baron Harkonen's scene where he murders of his aid ... the scene where Paul sends his ultra-creepy sister Alia in, alone to 'face the emperor' and she murders Baron ... the representation of the Gild Navigators - just so well done.

Almost everyone but possibly Feyd (ie Sting) and maybe Duncan Idaho, maybe the Padishah Emperor was perfectly cast.

Lynch bit off more than he could chew, and there were too many characters in too little time.

You know when a creative representation just 'feels so right it's right'? For example with the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy? Frodo, Gandalf, the Elves - it was 'perfect' - it seemed to 'everyone' that 'this is right'.

I feel the creative direction with Lynch's Dune was that. Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam from Lynch? I think this image is etched into our minds as 'exactly what she is like'. Our comparisons in the future will be in reference to her.

There was a very interesting version by Jorodowsky that looked really fun, however, I feel it was way too corny, and would have ended up more like Barbarella [1].

For those interested: Jurodovsky's Dune [2].

The missing ingredient in everyone else's Dune is the acid! I would say to Villeneuve "Ok, now take what you have done, and remake it while you are on an acid trip". It's a psychedelic movie about transcendence, God, realpolitik etc.. Hardcore stuff.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella_(film) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune

[kinghtown]

I’m also a huge fan of Lynch’s Dune. Lynch, I would say, probably hates the movie because of memories of industry drama and studio pressure- more to do with having had a bad experience than the movie being actually terrible. It also almost killed his career in a way. I wonder if he had a desire to work on more big budget films in the mainstream like Spielberg throughout his career and perhaps Dune was the film which ended those dreams. Guy has like three of four legit towering masterpieces (not including twin Peaks)so his career was great despite things but I do wonder what kinds of movies he’d have ended up making if Dune was a success or if he never made Dune after The (very nearly perfect film) Elephant Man.

High concept sci-fi is consistent box office poison and while this new version of Dune looks good, and I want to see it, I don’t think it will set the world on fire. It seems to feel like YA fiction more than I’d like it to be and borrows heavily, stylistically, from Lynch’s Dune but doesn’t seem to have the same design impact as the original. The YA tone in the trailer for me feels like studio meddling. But we’ll see how good the actual movie is. Blade Runner 2 was a fine film but not quite a home run and I expect the same from Dune.

[jariel]

Totally agree, and your point about 'budget and studio' I think hits at this.

This is a 'remake' of the 'everyone is doing remakes' theme, and it's designed to make money first.

There's so much money at stake, it's hard to tell who is pushing for what and how and it's really 'something else' to ask a Director (+ team, remember, he has his own 'team' for every flick) to 'risk everything' on some high concept stuff.

So we get Lynch translated into Avengers with some modern styling and that's that.

I'm hoping that a Billionaire Herbert fan will give a project like this to someone willing to make a go of it and 'let them lose' - or - more practically - after this film is a success (and it probably will be) - we'll get the Netflix series for the remaining books, made in the UK by people who know what they are doing and at least it will be 'good TV'.

[kinghtown]

When Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney he was talking about using to money to produce medium to high budget genre films with deep fine art sensibilities with almost zero meddling which is almost never what we get from Hollywood. Unfortunately that was like ten years ago and Lucas is like totally removed from the cultural zeitgeist.

Deal makers need to be forbidden from creative decisions. One of the major studios should consider adopting a Blumhouse business model where new talent are given a very small budget to prove themselves with zero restrictions or meddling and if they can turn a profit on the Low stakes film then they are promoted to a new budget tier using the previous films profits to bankroll the next film. I truly believe the cream would rise to the top under this model and a new golden era of groundbreaking pictures would occur. Or not, we’ll never know until someone tries. I’m really hoping Blumhouse keeps going in this direction and take bigger risks.

There’s no reason why Dune couldn’t make a great movie, or any other SF book classic but it seems like once SFX and money enter the picture you get deal makers injecting weird love triangles, buddy sidekicks, Rihanna songs, whatever it takes to ruin everything. Hollywood is also super arrogant about how they have mastered storytelling so whenever they adapt something good, like let’s say the Sandman comics, they need to “fix” everything to make it really good.

[jariel]

I'm more cynical and believe that the amount of risk involved means a serious degree of risk aversion towards 'proven models' - which means boring or at best 'fun and chipper' but not 'great cinema' - like Avengers.

The 'lowest common denominator' on planet earth is actually significantly lower than merely just a US audience.

Stories have to be simple and stupid (think Transformers) in order to make a run in theaters.

They have to work across cultures.

Something like 'The Joker' can work - but that was relatively low budget - and still risky.

Avengers are basically the perfect format for today because they are fun characters, a big fanbase, and with some 'smart writing' all they need then is 'good production'. That's it. It doesn't have to be great.

Star Wars and Star Trek should fit this model but they screwed it up.

Dune and many other stories are just 'out of bounds' given the risk involved.

A lot of actors are lamenting this, and it's why we are only seeing 'remakes'. Comedies, RomComs - dying.

I think the only hope is Netflix, Disney+ etc..

Unless the theatre model changes.

[JKCalhoun]

Thought Alan Smithee directed that "Dune". ;-)

(Seriously, Lynch "Alan Smitheed" it ... at least on the Blu Ray I recently rented.)