[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).

[hef19898]

Sand surface =/= ambient temperature, with all the research that went into Dune, I think Herbert was aware of that

[SeanLuke]

[sigh]. You could have just googled this, but from the Appendix:

> He found that in the wide belt contained by the 70-degree lines, north and south, temperatures for thousands of years hadn't gone outside the 254-332 degrees (absolute) range

That's -2 F to 137 F in the arctic circle.

> Kynes and his people turned their attention from these great relationships and focused now on micro-ecology. First, the climate: the sand surface often reached temperatures of 344° to 350° (absolute). A foot below ground it might be 55° cooler; a foot above ground, 25° cooler.

That's 114 to 125 degrees Fahrenheit for "a foot above ground".

So once again, yes, very hot.