[bitcharmer]

Like most films directed by Dennis Villeneuve I found Dune to be a work of art and visual masterpiece. His recount of how they prepared the set and the scene for the Gom Jabar ritual just shows how commited he is and how much passion he puts into his work. Absolute delight to watch.

https://youtu.be/GoAA0sYkLI0

[technobabbler]

It was really beautiful but the pacing was horrible for modern attention spams. I loved the movie, but only because I read way too many of the books and played all the games and watched every Dune before it. My partner had no idea what was going on and fell asleep 1/3 of the way through... even though she is normally a movie completionist.

That dude had a certain style, cinematic intellectualism with beautiful cinematography. It's definitely not for everyone. Dune is that unique blend of world building, political intrigue, religious exploration, coming of age, and a tiny bit of action. Hard to get all of that in one movie, and the trailers made it seem more Star Wars than Blade Runner.

It's the sort of movie to watch when you're seeking quiet contemplation, not popcorn pulp...

[thorin]

I can't stand the Avengers/Marvel style of pacing and switch off immediately with the constant CGI and fighting scene.

I was completely gripped with the new Dune but God help her if she tries to watch Lawrence of Arabia, Tarkovsky (e.g. Stalker), or 2001. For me it works, I appreciate others might not like it but I thought the style was great.

[criddell]

If somebody is going in expecting a space western like Star Wars or Star Trek, then I agree with you about the pacing. I think the movie moved along beautifully.

I didn't expect to like it because I didn't really like the book. For me, this is one of the few times where I think the movie is better than the book.

[gunshai]

I hear this criticism a fair amount. I felt the polar opposite. I felt like Dune was made for me. I really enjoy that engrossing feeling of scale(both visually and aurally) that I am constantly bombarded by.

I am glad that a film like that can even be made these days given that I think you're right about modern attention spans.

[saltminer]

> Hard to get all of that in one movie, and the trailers made it seem more Star Wars than Blade Runner.

This is because directors usually don't have anything to do with the trailers (in fact, it's typically outsourced to companies who specialize in making them). Trailers tend to reflect what the studio execs want people to think the movie is about, which trends towards "what gets the most people to buy tickets?"

Sadly, I don't think this will ever change.

I did enjoy the movie, though. Villeneuve really did the book justice, and I cannot wait for part two.

[Tenoke]

>It was really beautiful but the pacing was horrible for modern attention spams.

It's also pretty horrible from past audiences' point of view given that they'd expect to see more than a prologue in a 155m film. Villenueve makes truly beautiful movies but it comes at a cost.

[hef19898]

David Lynchs version of it is vastly underrated, Villeneuve's Dune is so much better so! Really looking forward to part two!

[mhh__]

Lynch-dune is mostly good, but Villeneuve's is so much better in a beautifully indescribable way that only cinema can really do.

Villeneuve has been dreaming of making his Dune since he was a boy and it shows. ignoring the visuals, the tone is just so much more ominous and alien than Lynch's. One thing that really dates old movies versus their modern counterparts (of sorts) is the sound design. Dune's sounds are absolutely fantastic.

[Fricken]

Dennis Villeneuve has been watching David Lynch's Dune since he was a boy, and it shows. Villeneuve lifted dozens of shots directly from Lynch's version, and relied on the same key scenes as the 1984 Dune. I started out impressed by all the homages to Lynch's Dune, but beyond a certain threshold "homage" becomes "ripoff".

In Lynch's the Harkonen's were brutal. In Villeneuve's Dune Gurney had to explain to us that they were brutal, because no actual brutality made it to screen. Baron Harkonen was lower energy than Jeb Bush.

Villeneuve basically just took Lynch's Dune and drained the colour out of both the imagery and the performances.

The biggest criticism of Lynch's Dune us that it doesn't make any sense, and I still totally lost the plot 2/3 of the way through the new Dune as well.

[Tycho]

They are based on a book. They adapted the key scenes from the book.

Also Lynch’s Dune descends into farcical whimsy, it’s not a good movie, although it has some good costume and set design.

[robocat]

Why Modern Movies Suck - The Soft Reboot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyU63LJV3AE

Not entirely relevant, but mentions many of the same issues, although presumably there is more about how investors drive some of the outcomes.

[skywal_l]

> Dune's sounds are absolutely fantastic.

Really? I can't understand a word they're muttering.

[mhh__]

You're either deaf or unlucky. The copy of Dune I have on my hard drive sounds fine on headphones, speaker, phone, crap TV.

Also sound design != Mixing dialogue.

[technobabbler]

A lot of theaters have awful mixes that make dialog harder to hear. Think there was an article about that recently.

[saiya-jin]

Old Dune is kind of trippy view that happened once and I can't imagine it happening ever again, not with that budget and quality actors. Its still most approachable of all of Lynch's work. I like it a lot for sort of nostalgic feeling for the 80s vision of the future like from some pulp comics.

New Dune is completely different beast, can't wait till second part comes. That universe is rich for other stories, tv series etc. which seems to be the direction all major studios are moving to.

[usrusr]

There are very different kinds of trippyness though. The Lynch version seems quite determined about avoiding that cheesy "bunch of swirling colors" brand of trippyness. Sequences like that exist, but they aren't the trippy bits. The trippy qualities are more between the lines. The TV serial... not so much, that one was more "oh, he's having a vision, switch on the mood light vfx!". Haven't seen the Villeneuve yet, which one would it be?

[mhh__]

I think Villeneuve might go more in the trippy direction with the next one.

If you compare (say) 2049 and dune you can tell that the latter has been made to hold the audiences hand a lot (blade runner didn't make it's money back). Now he's sold the concept I imagine he'll have more confidence/freedom with part 2.

[bena]

I think there's a better version of Dune somewhere between Lynch and Villeneuve.

Lynch didn't trust the audience enough. The wierding modules, the amount of voice-over, the limitations of the special effects of the time, etc. Also, the studio didn't fully trust the material, forcing Lynch to cram everything in one movie. The movie starts off well-ish enough. But after Paul and Jessica escape the Harkonnens, we just sort of yadda yadda years away and jump to Paul getting ready to attack Arrakeen. I think only the last 30 or so minutes is after the escape (excluding credits). Could be longer, but the jump is jarring. The movie moves at a decent clip otherwise. Set up with the emperor whinging about the Atreides, the Atreides getting ready to leave, the arrival, establishing the Atreides are not the Harkonnens, the coup, the escape, the time jump montage, the final attack.

Villeneuve's movie covers up to the escape and that's it. Villeneuve's film is 19 minutes longer. So Villeneuve basically had the opportunity to expand the beginning of the story by about an hour. He's going to be able to cover the same ground as the last 30 minutes of the Lynch movie with at least 2 hours.

The issue is that Villeneuve kind of wastes his time. We see Dr. Yueh. And that's really it. We never get even a mention of imperial conditioning or why it's shocking that it's Dr. Yueh that betrays the Atreides. Piter is seen, but I don't think ever named. We don't meet Feyd at all in the movie. We get way more backstory about a bull's head than we do any character.

If we had more of Lynch's development and Villeneuve's aesthetic, we'd have a near perfect version of the film.

[hef19898]

Absolutely! Villeneuve caught the Dune-universe as I pictured it in my head incredibly well, from visuals over story telling to sound. And it showed just how alien and dangerous / harsh Arrakis is.

I'm just a tad worried about Feyd-Rautha so, Sting was just brilliant in that role!

[mhh__]

Arrakis is alien but it's depicted as relatively friendly in the dream-sequences. They used sounds of waves crashing on beaches, which makes a lot of sense as to the Fremen it is their home.

My only gripe is that Arrakis doesn't feel hot enough, but I also don't really care.

[ableal]

The Mongolian Gobi desert seems to top out at 27C - https://www.amicusmongolia.com/climate-average-monthly-tempe...

(Low of -33C, harsh)

[SeanLuke]

Sure, but in the novel, Arrakis really is hot. In the Appendix, it's stated that the sand surface reached 76.85 Celsius (170.33 F).

[toyg]

I don't think it's been underrated, in critics' circles, for 15-20 years or so by now. Since the tales about its production, and the related art, have fully emerged, it has been widely re-evaluated - also because Lynch has gone on to become a bit of a sacred cow after Twin Peaks and his later work.

[thathndude]

Twin Peaks was one of my Covid binges. So trippy.

[toyg]

The original series set the bar for thriller tv series from then on - both on the good elements (always one more secret, one more cliffhanger; living on the edge of fantasy) and the bad (making up stuff as they go along; disappointing finale; unceremoniously cut).

I have only watched a couple of episodes of series 3 but by now I've seen enough Lynch to dread his output, narratively speaking.

[usrbinbash]

> vastly underrated

Sorry but no, it really really isn't.

Just a few highlights:

* Why would soldiers sent to fight on a Desert-Planet wear black, vulcanised, full body rubber Hazmat suits?

* What on Earth is a "Wyrding Module" supposed to be?

* What exactly is achieved by charging into battle while holding a pug on ones arm?

* It says "Ornithopter" in the books, implying something vaguely animal-shaped, not a hovering metal box.

* Why do communication devices in the far future resemble telephones from the early 1900s?

* What exactly was the point of bringing the late-stage navigator to the meeting in a room-sized spice-tank, when his subordinate did all the talking anyway?

[hef19898]

just speculating (usually set design isn't accounting for anything beyond "looks cool"):

- Hazmat suites can contain climate control, and the Tuareg wear dark clothing as well

- Wyrding Module: In Lynch's words: He didn't want Kung-Fu on sand dunes

- No idea what you mean, but charging into battle has since been proven to be viable tactic by the Avengers, so it has to work

- Ornithopter refers to the propulsion, like a bird, instead of a simple helicopter; I'd have to watch Lynch's Dune so to see how those actually look like in his film; Villeneuve nailed them pretty well

- Same reason why the first Enterprise under Archer used fancier screens than the ones under Kirk or Picard; IMHO Lynch borrowed a lot of his aesthetics from WW1, and the Dune universe is surprisingly low tech anyway

- The navigator: A wild guess, I always understood it as a way to show the importance of Spice and Arrakis to the Guild when they had to send one of their Navigators to talk directly to the Emperor instead of using proxies

[andrewflnr]

Re: charging into battle, I think the focus of the question was the pug.

[hef19898]

Ok, I take Lynch pug and raise you by a guy carrying a shield but no sidearm then. The charging into battoe after breaking formation is similar in both cases.

[andrewflnr]

If you're referring to something in the Villenueve Dune, I don't remember it in enough detail to know what you're talking about. And I only know the Lynch one from snippets and memes. :) I think I agree about breaking formation. Just once I'd like to see a movie that took battle formation seriously.

[SeanLuke]

The Lynch version deserved all the drubbing it received. Weirding modules, heart plugs, and rain on Arrakis: trampling all over the novel. The exposition by way of overdubbing was horrible too.

[thathndude]

Agreed 100%. Lynch’s Dune is his own, unique style, and it’s solid.

[blindmute]

Dune is not a good movie though, unfortunately. It's like 1/3 of a good movie. By any conception of storytelling, it doesn't constitute a story. As its own piece of media, without knowledge of the book, it doesn't stand as a coherent work. Compare it to something like Fellowship of the Ring which could be watched alone.

[rado]

It got progressively bad and by the end the director's touch was nowhere to be seen, just rushing to finish the story and blasting that overbearing Hans Zimmer score. Then the final line "This is only the beginning" came. Meanwhile, “Blade Runner”, “Arrival”, “Prisoners”, “Sicario” are all great.

[eganist]

That's a hot take. What didn't you like about it, specifically? Aside from the best score ever made by Hans Zimmer?

[tokai]

It has always weirded me out that Zimmer keeps getting jobs. His overly pathetic drone has always been like a parody soundtrack. But people plays it straight as if he is actually making something that adds to the movies. Dune was peak Zimmer so if you like him I guess it makes sense to call it his best. But to me it was him making fun of himself with a straightface and nobody calls him out on it.

[Tycho]

The score was actually quite thoughtful, attempting to use rhythm and harmony and vocal style that was fitting for the universe, ie. very far removed from our current styles.

[eganist]

Please give this a watch with an open mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93A1ryc-WW0

I promise it's worth your time. Being honest, I fell in love with the score before I even knew it was Zimmer's, and once I found out, my first thought was "of course."

To each their own, but if you want an idea of what went into the score, that video above is insightful.

[tokai]

I have seen it. Appreciate you sharing it though. Point is I don't buy his angle. To me it wasn't a fresh take on sounds of the future. It meshed bad with the movie and was a bunch of trite tropes like detached arabic-like wails and dry buzzers. Soundcloud is full of amateur electronic artists doing it better. But in the end its all taste, and I wouldn't call the movie (and soundtrack) bad. Just not anything near good. I'm kind of envious of you who like it.

[zuminator]

Would you mind a giving a few links of SoundCloud artists doing it better? I love weird atmospheric spacey music but it too often sounds derivative.

[magicalhippo]

While I loved the overall production, for me the choice of actors for several of the side characters actually made it feel like a more generic Hollywood action movie.

For me it had been better to pick less well-used actors than Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem etc. Just robbed it of some of the mystique I think.

[theshrike79]

You need big names if you want big bucks nowadays.

Unless you're a studio onto yourself, there's no way you can get $150M+ of funding for movie with only no-names as leads.

[magicalhippo]

Not saying they had to go no-name though, plenty of good known actors out there who hasn't been in a bunch of blockbuster movies recently etc.

But I get what you're saying. Sad, because it really detracted from the movie for me.

[theshrike79]

Mid-price movies disappeared when streaming became a thing.

We either get low-budget stuff (10-20 million), mostly horror. Or movies that are huge gigantic blockbusters that MUST succeed.

The mid-price stuff is gone. The ones that have enough budget to make a director's vision come true, but not so much that it brings in people from The Company suggesting their pet things to be added.

[kevinventullo]

Totally agree. Casting both Bardem and Brolin was particularly rough for me since my mind jumped immediately to No Country.

[rado]

Jason Momoa was 100% Jason Momoa. His (lack of) characterisation was so bad I stared at his scenes in disbelief.

[bena]

To be fair, Patrick Stewart was 100% Patrick Stewart when he played the role.

[jhbadger]

Although that's really only recognizable in hindsight. In 1984 Stewart was still a fairly obscure character actor who had minor parts in BBC shows like I, Claudius.

[rado]

The first half was about world building. It was atmospheric and interesting, however elusive. Right in the middle when the s** hit the fan, the film started sinking in the quicksand of plotting and by the end the director was MIA. The second half was so Hollywood I felt it was written by Kathleen Kennedy.

[theshrike79]

"the end the director's touch was nowhere to be seen"

...did we see the same movie? It's a Villeneuve piece through and through.

[carapace]

Dune is very very pretty, and there are some good performances in it, but over all I found it a terrible movie and a bad rendition of the source material. I think it's so visually and aurally overwhelming that folks don't notice how lousy it is.

For one thing, most of the characters are elided, they appear but they have so few lines and so little consequence that they might as well have been left out. Thufir Hawat especially was woefully neglected. Piter De Vries? No one even says his name! If you haven't read the book you wouldn't know who David Dastmalchian is supposed to be.

[sendfoods]

which other movie(s) by him can you recommend most?

[not_math]

Incendies is his first movie that got him a nomination at the Academy Awards. The budget is smaller than Dune and it's in French and Arabic, so the mass appeal isn't there, but it's well worth the watch. To quote Denis Villeneuve: "[it's] a modern story with a sort of Greek tragedy element".

The movie is filmed in Jordan and Montreal, which have a similar feel to Dune, and I would say that he probably took inspiration from his Incendies days to make Dune.

The movie is based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, who now works at the very prestigious théâtre national de la Colline as the director.

[mhh__]

Everything he's ever done is excellent, but work backwards from Dune.

[andy_ppp]

Bladerunner 2049 is amazing as is Arrival and Sicario.

[jstx1]

Bladerunner 2049 is so slow with such a bland uneventful story and I don't think that cinematography or visuals are enough to compensate for a weak story. I just found the whole thing incredibly boring.

To make a parallel between cinematography and special effects - I think at this point people are kind of dismissive of movies that emphasize special effects and there's this old George Lucas quote that "a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing". But swap "special effect" for "cinematography/visuals" and suddenly movies like Bladerunner 2049 are treated like they are masterpieces even though they hardly have any story to tell.

[toyg]

> Bladerunner 2049 is so slow with such a bland uneventful story

Well, it follows a similarly slow and relatively uneventful story in the original, so that's not really a critique. That's not really the point of BladeRunner, anyway - the point is the ambience, the worldbuilding, and the philosophical questions it raises, which 2049 provides in good amount. It will never have the same cultural impact that the original had, but it is an extremely respectful sequel with incredibly beautiful cinematography.

[MikusR]

By visuals you mean when it's teal or when it's orange?

[the_gipsy]

Not everything is a space opera (Lucas' is terrific!). 2048 has strong emotions stretched over a weak story. 1984's somehow had more story, but also quite slow paced.

Some of my favorite movies almost don't have a story at all, neither sfx.

[rado]

It's great. The rift between sentimentality and rationality holds the full spectrum of the human experience.

[sendfoods]

Sicario is his work?! Didn't know that, but liked it a lot.

[Apocalypse_666]

Arrival

[morganvachon]

This is one of the few movies of the last two decades that brought me to tears at the reveal towards the end. Once it hits you, you'll look back at the entire movie in a different mindset and it's emotionally jarring. It also helps not having read the source story.

[nindalf]

Consider editing your comment to not mention anything spoiler related. I feel the movie hits different if you’re not expecting anything.

Arrival is truly a masterpiece though. I won’t forget it as long as I live.

[rmnclmnt]

Don't know if you have but may I recommend reading the original novel from Ted Chiang named "Story of your life"? It's a bit different from the movie but still incredibly mind bending.

Also, any novel from the collection "Story of your life and others"[1] is worth reading and thinking about. Ted Chiang is an exceptional writer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Other...

[nindalf]

Thanks for the recommendation. I bought this book in December, will get to it soon.

[morganvachon]

Too late to edit now unfortunately. I had tried to word it so it wasn't spoilery, I guess I failed on that.

[foo_foo_can_do]

prisoners, incendies