"Dune 2021 - the new movie" Topic

As a great fan of Frank Herbert's Dune, and also disappointed with aspects of both the David Lynch version in the 1980s and the Sci-Fi Channel versions of 2000 and 2003, I have to say I approached the new film with some high hopes.

Those hopes have not been disappointed. Certain people are missing – Feyd-Rautha, Princess Irulan and the Emperor Shaddam IV are all absent from this part but what we are left with is a clear and concise re-telling of the story with some stunning visuals. Modern CGI has finally caught up with the saga in a way that neither of the other movies could achieve.

In particular the new film finally gets the 'thopters' (ornithopters) right. They now function like the dragon flies suggested in the books, multiple wings which fold back on landing.

I cannot fault the casting (although I tried) and I am greatly looking forward to part 2. The current movie ends when Paul and his mother have just joined the Fremen and Paul has killed his first man. It is to be assumed that the new movie will open with Paul giving his water (crying) for the dead man and thus earning further Fremen respect.

I am giving it a cautious five stars. ***** .

BTW: comparison footage is here:
YouTube link
('thopter comparisons at the end)

Barry

I have no idea why I have never read the novel or watched the film.

It's always been on my to do list and now that the new stuff is out, I think I ought to read the damn thing.

I hope that it's as good as everyone says.
If it's great, I'll give the new version a shot, out of a thirst for more.

Princess Ireland was merely a copy of Anna Comnena. She really didn't have all that much to do.

When I saw the David Lynch version, the movie theatre handed out mimeographed Dramatis Personnae to help those easily confused. Many of the characters were simply thrown in to appease outraged readers who would miss their favorite character.
Many times with no explanation of just who or what they were.
"Hi. I'm the Shadout Mapes. Stick your hand in the box. It's a Gom Jabbar. Ok. You're human. Have a nice day." Huh! No explanation in the movie.

As for Timothee Whatshisname. He just looks someone who was kicked out of a Boy Band for moping.

Oh. Is there sand worm surfing, like in Flash Gordon?

Looks too much like Dune Twilight for me. Is this supposed to be a teen date flick? And yes I have read the novels and seen all the other Dune productions.

I'll see it at the second run theater for $1 USD or HBOMax for free.

At this point it's unconfirmed if there will even be a part two! Warner execs initially agreed to it, but there's a lot of speculation that they're waiting to see the response to this first part before committing fully to this. I think it's going to happen, but you never know.

When is part 2 due for release?

Well, I hope they announce part 2 soon as I'm not going to waste my time to see only half of it.

Strange reasoning, but very Hollywood. I can think of a number of decent movies that were announced to be part of a series, that never got the rest of the book or script.

Hard to believe they wouldn't have filmed a big chunk of part 2 concurrently with part 1 to save money. That's the standard now days for 2 part movies.

Grumble. Princess IRULAN.
Damn autocorrect.
I wasn't trying to be "funny", like that clown Skip Bayless.

I watched it a few days ago, not a new (i.e., faithful) version of the book, but a remake of the '84 movie, with some of the same flaws and a sickly looking Emo kid character.

However, the CGI was quite good, the characters were well played & believable and the Emo kid DID start to look like a young Adult (i.e., Man) by the end, so it has that going for it.

Dunno, the Expanded '84 version has some heart and soul at it's core, this one has dramatic scope and stance.

We shall see…

@all
Interesting comments.

Yes, I would also guess that some part 2 material has already been shot and that only the sequences requiring the actors and new dialogue remain to be filmed. The producers' caution is understandable given that Dune has always been viewed as a bit of an un-filmable 'poison chalice'. I am glad they did not attempt a one-part movie.

As for young Paul Atreides, previous criticism of the 2000/2003 version was that Alec Newman was aged 26 in the first part and was thus too old to be a teenaged Paul. The new film gets the age thing about right.

@ John The OFM:
There is a very brief teaser of a man riding a sand worm at the end. But Liet/Kynes is also killed while trying to summon a worm to ride, she was carrying the hooks but gets shot before the worm arrives. The worm then swallows her and her two assassins.

Barry

Just found this:
YouTube link

Barry

Paul is 15 at the start of the novel, IIRC, so, yeah, he would indeed be a teenager. (I think the character is also based on Alexander the Great, who fought in battle under Phillip at the age of 16…)

Haven't seen this yet, but reviews are in the main positive. Lynch's version (1984) sucked. I know there are fans, but there are fans of the Star Wars prequels and sequels, which says more about geeks than it does the movies. We can lie to ourselves about crappy films and crappy books because we so much want them to be good and embraced by the rest of the world that we wind up insisting that they are good while the rest of the world (even the ones who like Sci-Fi and Fantasy and Historical Epics) say they are crap. Sometimes the rest of the world is right.

Having said that, again, I haven't seen this film, but I'm planning to. I think the trailers look good, and I think Paul looks the age he's supposed to look. And yes, there IS a "teen" romance in the novel, because the two lovers are teens. (So were Romeo and Juliet; being teens doesn't make a romance story bad. Sure, most are, but then most adult romance stories are schlock, too. Tune into Lifetime for their "original" movies some time. If you think a teen romance movies is bad, wait till you've seen warmed over Hallmark Christmas films made for middle-age audiences…)

The problem with Dune is that it simply may not be accessible to most non-SF (non-geek) audiences. The Bene Gesserit are weird, the messianic stuff is weird, the Spice is weird, the psychic powers thing is weird, the Mentats are weird, the formalized rules of intrigue and assassination and House warfare ("canly") are weird, the Fremen are weird, the whole dang thing is just weird. It's great, it's a fascinating novel, but it's two shades off of a drug dream at times, and sometime it needs all those words to lock what's going on into a thread of reality. Can a film pull that off? So far it hasn't. But I'm hoping the third time is indeed the proverbial charm.

I watched it last night. It was a remake and followed the first one quite close. Except it was only HALF OF A MOVIE! With parts of the 2nd half thrown in as Paul's "visions." I don't know what they paid that Zendaya girl but, what ever it was, it was way too much.

After the orginial movie,,,I want those three hours of my life back.

Just won't be the same without boils on faces exploding mid scene.

I couldn't force myself to sit through the earlier versions.

@Ryan Zulu – as someone who put off reading Dune for…decades… it is, IMHO. one of the finest SF stories ever told. The first 4 books by Herbert are masterful.

I still have a couple to read, and I'm less interested in the "written by someone other than Frank Herbert" novels – should I read them as well does anyone think?.

I stopped after the third book, but I was in middle school and not really ready for what came after Dune (probably not ready for Dune, either, really, though I read at a very high level).

I too stopped after the third book. I read the first one only because it was award winning and recommended. I read the following two, more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. Had I liked them, I would have continued.
Let's face it. Too many really good science fiction stories are great. And then, sequel-itis sets in. I don't blame the authors, after all there are bills to pay.
I could make a list of sci-fi books that would have been fine, had they stopped when they did. But if I did, that would be stepping on too many tails. Let's assume that I include Dune in that category.
Not every story needs a sequel. Stepping away from sci-fi, I really cannot understand why so many people were assuming that "The Queen's Gambit" would get a sequel or two. Why? The story was told. Anything following it would have cheapened the characters.

See Tim Powers for a "fantasy" author who does very few sequels. Almost every story is radically different from the others in terms of type of fantasy. Compare "The Drawing of the Dark" with "On Stranger Tides" with "Declare!"
Does Kim Philby have anything to do with Blackbeard or the Siege of Vienna?

Saw it last night. Big Screen and Theater sound enhance the film. I thought it ranks up there with LotR in the "they got things right' department.

EPIC Scale effect.

If you have read the book (or plan on reading it) I think it is worth seeing.

I may go again this weekend

Saw it today and I agree that relative to the book, they got it right.

Part of getting it right was following the book closely and as with LOTR, that does entail added movies so YMMV if stopping half way is a problem but otherwise, for me it is Dune done right.

Very impressed.
Calling it a remake/reboot is utter gibberish, it's a new adaptation. Is every single version of Hamlet or Macbeth since the first staging a remake/reboot?

At 2.5 hours I think the stopping point they chose was quite reasonable.

I finished watching DUNE, the latest version. It was good, but not great. The characters I thought fit with actors whom portrayed them except Paul, the special effects were good, but there was something better about the old movie from 84.

I couldn't accept the new version of Paul, he is a skinny kid who you could almost see through, I mean the Holy Ghost has more meat on his bones then this kid does.

The Harkonnens looked good and so did Beast Rabban, who was much better than the one from 84, where all he did was look crazy and laugh.

I'm not too taken with the sword and dagger nonsense, I miss the gun play of the first movie and of course the depiction of the body shields in the first movie as well.

You get everything in the first movie, the new one I guess will be several movies.

All I can say is the new movie is good but not 1984 great, besides how can anyone beat out Sting as Feyd Rautha.

20th Maine I don't recommend the novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. I gave up on them when I realised that I didn't care about what happened any more.

I agree with others that after Dune and may be Dune Messiah to stop reading – I found them very dull even though I persisted with another few after that.

I haven't seen the movie but will probably watch it when it gets streamed on Netflix or Amazon. (not sure who will get the rights)

Can someone who has never read the first book watch this new film and understand what is going on?

I realize it is only Part 1 of a multi-movie set, so I am not expecting the story to "wrap up" nicely.

But I tried to read the original novel and made it maybe 100 pages. Book of the month set. I donated the entire set to a local library back inthe day. Was just way too confusing for me.

Tried to watch the original movie, and walked out maybe half way through. I love sci-fi. That movie was a jumbled mess. Again, I had no idea what the plot was.

Even if you have never read LotR you can watch that first movie and you understand bad stuff is afoot, the ring is much more than it seems, and the mission is to destroy that ring. It moves along nicely from Point A to B to C and on down the line.

So … about this newest version. Can anyone tell me that the story is outlined in the first 20 minutes (something about a valuable spice) and the battles to obtain it, with various houses taking sides? Or will I be disappointed yet again?

I thought the book was pretty straight forward. It is a future 8000 years from now I believe. The reason guns are not used is explained, so that the use of daggers and swords makes sense. The form of government is laid out so you know the players, why "spice" has the ultimate power/value it does, as well as the breeding plan to foster and reinforce psi powers. No real challenge to a casual reader, other than keeping track of the names.

If you've never read the books, you'll be fine for the most part. They didn't quite nail the wider politics. Lynch's Dune tried to address those elements, but it just made the film exceedingly convoluted in parts. The TV adaptation probably got that part of the story the best, but keep im mind I've little positive to say about that version.

The story of Dune is straight forward, but the story telling by Herbert can be a tad laborious to get through.

Teenage kid, struggling with his three destinies:
1. Inheriting his fathers Dukedom, and the baggage that comes with it.
2. Potentially being the first male space wizard (only females to this point).
3. Being a messiah to a desert planet full of space arabs, and leading them in jihad across the galaxy.

For the first half of the book he's pretty conflicted about this, then he takes a bunch of hallucinogenics and is cool with all three.

I think that sums it up?

OK, McWong73, made me laugh. Excellent script for a lampoon version.

My wife is NOT a sci-fi person, and mostly hates the genre. She understood almost everything about the plot, except who the Benne Gesseret were.

And, *gasp* she LIKED it, and was asking when part 2 was going to be released.

Well, ,my 20-year old daughter just went to see it with her boyfriend. Her text back to me is as follows: "We just finished watching Dune. It was 2.5 hours and I still don't understand anything that happened."

She is a straight-A student in college, nursing program. She's super smart. No attention issues at all. She's never read the books. I told her to pay close attention, because from what I remembered there were way too many characters, special powers, and strange oddness to keep straight. I was hoping this version was better.

Sounds like it is still a hot mess. I will pass.

They did a way better job explaining the politics this time, i.e. they made the movie longer and two parts so they could take that time.

In my opinion having read the books is still recommended if you truly wanted to understand and increase enjoyment.

Second I think it would be even better if you have read the prequel the Butlerian Jihad to understand why things are the way they are in the Dune universe.

how can anyone beat out Sting as Feyd Rautha.

How about by actually being able to act?

except who the Bene Gesseret were

Answer: Psychic meddling nuns.

Really, the politics are fairly straightforward:

The galaxy (modern world) needs spice (oil) to power interstellar transport (planes, trains, ships and automobiles). The spice (oil) is only found on the planet Arrakis, AKA "Dune" (the Middle East). Whoever controls the spice mining (oil production) has an economic and political strongman's grip on the rest of the galaxy (modern world).
One house (greedy corporation/nation) currently dominates Dune (the Middle East), but is doing a bad job of it. Another house (enlightened corporation/nation) is asked to takeover, but it's a set up by the Emperor (President/Prime Minister/ Head of the United Nations) to undermine the popular and powerful Duke Atriedes (CEO of enlightened corporation/nation), and thus eliminate someone the people can rally around, and instead return their faith and loyalty back to the feckless Emperor (UN). And the other house Harkonnen (evil greedy corporation) is trying to convince the Emperor this plan will work while they try to seize the spice (oil) and the power for themselves.
Cue invasion, betrayal, assassination, etc..

Meanwhile the Bene Gesseret (Psychic Meddling Nuns, Female Pope) are manipulating everyone to get their hoped for Prophet AND be in control of all those idiot male politicians who can never do anything right.
And of course all the other houses (corporations/stockholders) and the Spacers Guild (Big Transportation Union/Monopoly) want to have as much power as they can AND get as much spice (oil) as they can.

And then you have the Fremen (local Bedouin tribes) on Dune who are waiting for their own Prophet to show up and lead them in a grand jihad to take control of Dune (the Middle East), and turn it into a watery paradise (Jamaica), where they can relax and be in power over everyone else (build Abu Dhabi).

So it's not really all that complex. There are just a lot of weird names involved.

I did not like the casting at all.

The film was a better version of the 1984 version but not by much.

Surprisingly, most of the achievements were in cinematography, not in acting, not in the actual function of the story.

Zendaya, because everyone made such a big deal for some reason, yeah, I don't see how she is worth the money she was paid. No idea what the deal is here.

This film is overblown. It is solid. It was entertaining and I see no reason why people say "an impossible to make film a film of" category.

I think the split into 2 films was just stupid.

The soundtrack SUCKS. I'm sorry, that just sucked.

The Sardaukar – cool.

Disappointed in the castle takeover battle bunch of Atreides running to the flight line and explosions and….that was it. BORING.

Zendaya is the rare Disney kid who managed to stay out of rehab, and who didn't publicly self-destruct.

She deserves a special Academy Award for that, alone.

Dune 2 has got the green light…

YouTube link

Barry

This criticism of the film matches my feelings after a few days of contemplation.

link

I'm still positive about it overall, and tbh I've no idea how they could of delivered on what's mentioned in the above link, but it's a fair criticism.

Nice summary, Parzival!

Really, the politics are fairly straightforward:

The galaxy (modern world) needs spice (oil) to power interstellar transport (planes, trains, ships and automobiles). The spice (oil) is only found on the planet Arrakis, AKA "Dune" (the Middle East). Whoever controls the spice mining (oil production) has an economic and political strongman's grip on the rest of the galaxy (modern world).
One house (greedy corporation/nation) currently dominates Dune (the Middle East), but is doing a bad job of it. Another house (enlightened corporation/nation) is asked to takeover, but it's a set up by the Emperor (President/Prime Minister/ Head of the United Nations) to undermine the popular and powerful Duke Atriedes (CEO of enlightened corporation/nation), and thus eliminate someone the people can rally around, and instead return their faith and loyalty back to the feckless Emperor (UN). And the other house Harkonnen (evil greedy corporation) is trying to convince the Emperor this plan will work while they try to seize the spice (oil) and the power for themselves.
Cue invasion, betrayal, assassination, etc..

Meanwhile the Bene Gesseret (Psychic Meddling Nuns, Female Pope) are manipulating everyone to get their hoped for Prophet AND be in control of all those idiot male politicians who can never do anything right.
And of course all the other houses (corporations/stockholders) and the Spacers Guild (Big Transportation Union/Monopoly) want to have as much power as they can AND get as much spice (oil) as they can.

And then you have the Fremen (local Bedouin tribes) on Dune who are waiting for their own Prophet to show up and lead them in a grand jihad to take control of Dune (the Middle East), and turn it into a watery paradise (Jamaica), where they can relax and be in power over everyone else (build Abu Dhabi).

Actually we tend to place this version of our current world over top of the story (it does seem to fit), but Frank Herbert was supposedly inspired or more concerned about the ecological incursion of dunes along the beach and psychedelic mushrooms. The spice is a drug that allows the navigators to guide the ships without computers which are outlawed. It represents power, but I do not think Herbert had oil in mind.

That claim seems to be a huge stretch; I'd really need to see a source before I'd give that argument any credence at all. The real world political parallels in the late sixties when the novel was written are far more likely the source of the core politics than anything else. Certainly Herbert was tying into the rise of hallucinogenic drugs (like LSD), but I think saying the book is inspired by dune incursion at a beach and psychedelic mushrooms is a shaky at the best— especially when the oil politics fits so much better.

In any case, what I wrote was meant to be a place to hang one's understanding on, not a claim that's what Herbert intended either way.

While I agree that the oil argument fits really well on top of the story in hindsight, people that actually knew Herbert claim it was more about unintended consequences of messing with Nature and the dunes that were invading Florence Oregon where he moved to in 1957.

Keep in mind at the time he wrote this, the strife in the middle East was more about the founding of Israel and post WWII mess. Texas was the primary oil producer in Herbert's day and was into the 1970s. So while some may have seen and even predicted the oil wars of the 80's I don't think that was Herbert's message because it was not on his radar.

Pretty good article here:
link

I really enjoyed the movie. Everything about it, the look of it, the actors and the dialog. This is not a criticism but a personal observation. I am looking forward to a vastly expanded Directors cut of this film. I feel it rushed too quickly from action scene to action scene and slipped past a large number of nuisances. I understand why, action sells movies better and opens a film to a much wider audience. I hope they will release an expanded movie that goes into more depth like the first Dune movie, without swerving so sideways as to lose the intent and scope of the original story, as the first David Lynch/ De Laurentis film veered wildly off point.
In any event will love to see part two and followed by a LotRs style super extended, DVD set, afterward. :D