Not to get off topic because I haven’t seen the new one, but how do you folks rate the TV miniseries “Frank Herbert’s Dune?” I just watched it a month ago and I liked it better than the Lynch movie, which has a great cast and some charm but is essentially a messy Crap.

I never read the books so yeah, poser here.

I'm going to check that out. Thanks for the tip, ErikG. I love the Lynch film, but it's objectively a mess.

Workmanlike.

The Lynch film falls flat in places, but it’s a work of art. Villeneuve’s is a competent piece of workmanship.

Specific good stuff: incorporating Paul’s visions, the fight with Jamis, the attempt to have at least one iconic shot when the Baron floats - they went for a phallic symbol thing with his capes draping to the floor. Not bad, but not executed very strikingly. Jason Momoa doesn’t deliver his awful “let’s fight like demons” line from the preview. The ornithopters are well-realized.

The bad: a lot of the casting. Momoa isn’t quite as awful as I expected, but he’s still not an actor and does a bad job. The expensive effects mostly look bland. The throat singing Sardaukar are very silly indeed, and iirc, Salusa Secundus is supposed to be a dry place, but it’s soaking wet in this Dune. Rabban looks like Zippy the Pinhead. The Baron is just a flabby Irish dude, whereas before he was a heart-plug-pulling sadist, and in the book he’s a pederast. Piter is as underused in this one as Duncan was in the Lynch one, and Piter is a way more interesting character at this stage. A lot of the classic scenes from the Lynch one are treated as throwaways, I guess because they knew they couldn’t compete? The animal test and the “join her” one with Yueh, for example, are turned into really minor moments.

It seems like Villeneuve is holding out on showing the Emperor and Feyd until the second one. I hope he actually does something interesting with them.

The soundtrack is standard Hans Zimmer crap. I’m sure there’s a soft synth you can use to algorithmically generate stuff in his style by now.

Edit: oh and the worm mouths look like big alien buttholes now instead of big alien vulvas. That’s not good or bad, just something I noticed.

New movie was great. Thought all the actors were pretty good. Easily the best big budget Hollywood tentpole I've seen in ages. Refreshing to see something at that scale that wasn't a Star Wars or a Marvel.

Will try and see it at an IMAX screen, but went to a friend's house and saw it on their bigass 4k TV.

I've never read the books, so don't care about how it captured whatever from the books, and I think Lynch's DUNE is his worst or 2nd worst film. Some beautiful visuals but doesn't work AT ALL.

NC, can't wait for Part Two (better get greenlit!).

biscuitdough wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:53 pm.

The soundtrack is standard Hans Zimmer crap. .

I hated the soundtrack so much. We actually paused it to talk about how terrible it was. Rather have fucking Toto

I've only read a tiny bit of the first book a while ago. Didn't find myself super pulled in by the story here, but there are things which could develop into interesting things.

Was expecting a real slow burner, actually found it a little too actioney.

Zendaya has an arresting presence. Stellan was okay I guess? Always find him a bit lacking in register, at least in his English-speaking roles.

I generally don't like Hans Zimmer with an exception or two (i.e. Pirates). Don't remember much of the music here. Didn't hate it at least.

I liked it. Some strong performances, and I think not covering the entire book made it more cohesive than the Lynch version. The soundtrack had the typical ululating horseshit for a Hollywood epic.

Spoilers, yall. (And sorry I wrote so much. You don't have to read it.)

About the Lynch Dune:

I like it a whole lot. I recently saw the three hour fan cut on YouTube that FM krev mentioned up thread. I love all the bizarre stuff, the pug, the wacked out lil girl dancing through the flames of ruin to the voices of the ages she can only hear. You know the classics. The scene where the navigator meets with the emperor is just amazing. That set work, costuming, and props are really special. In general, the costumes and sets look fantastic. Each environment had some great details. There was cool mosaic designs all around in places the camera doesn't even spend much time on. And the costumes all looked very good and distinct among the factions. Love the funky shields.

But that thing got chopped to shit and I can't keep up with what cut is which, I've seen something like four of them. Each cut makes a difference as to how it plays out. Also, the weirding modules are lame.

New Dune:

I like it a whole lot. But everything I like about it gets handicap points from it only being Part 1. I get what people are saying about how it feels more generic. The old one was a really idiosyncratic work from a very different era of production. It would almost seem slavish for the new one to either recreate those unique features or even attempt something entirely revolutionary style-wise. And yet, I am disappointed that it did not go further in the latter direction. I often enjoy a failed or flawed experiment over a well polished iteration.

And yet, this was still good, and I felt good watching it. I actually think it is smarter and more detailed than people are giving it credit for.

It doesn't have have all the inner monologues (which I don't mind as much as many do) so the movie cannot be as explicit. However, there are many little moments that communicate a lot without using much dialog. I think the the scenes with Leto and Jessica are very effective. There's a shot where they just touch each other for a moment and you can just see that there are years and years of connection between them.

There's not much of Leto (really, there's never much Leto and I always want more) and Paul but it was also effective. I like how Paul doesn't really know what he is getting into. I love how Paul takes a moment to touch a body of water one last time. The whole deal with the Atreides bull is fantastic. We hear about Leto's father, then we see the giant head of a bull being either crated or uncrated (can't remember which). There's a shot of either Leto or Paul taking a moment to look at the small fighter and bull statuette. Finally, as Leto is seated before the Barron, we can see the head mounted high on the wall above Leto like Damocles' sword. I thought it was very well executed, beautifully shot and not heavy handed.

I really wish there was more of this however. They use the doctor here and there, but it seemed thin. All of the Atreides inner circle were under used, I think, except Duncan, who got quite a bit more than with Lynch. And lament the lack of a space pug and I will feel you, but on what earth does a sci-fi director with any vision miss the opportunity to depict a space hurdy gurdy?!? Gurney, here, is very different from the old one, but still believable and feels true to the source. I like Jessica's extended role. I don't really have a problem with casting at all. I don't have much to say about it, but I tend not to bring in expectations based on actors. Nice that Paul seemed more fitting to the character's age and limited information at this point.

The Fremen were much more believable and distinct this time. Loved them, even (No Country For Old Men guy was fantastic).
The Harkonnens seemed like Harkonnens. Their characterizations were fine to great. But they suffer a bit from the one thing I think most of the film suffers, which is that all manner of eccentricity is toned way down. I'm okay that there's no cat milking. This is a different sort of movie. The Barron doesn't have to fly around like a goofball (though it would have been nice if he or rather his nephew did have some of those menacing glances showing a mentality gluttonous for depraved cruelty as with the boy with the flowers from the old film).

However, the universe felt a little less populated and diverse, even if Arrakis felt bigger and more real. I wish there had more sorts of folks going about tasks. (One fantastic exception to this is the spider creature, a Tleilaxu creation, I assume.)

Some of this is due to the absence of my favorite scene from the original, that between the Emperor and the Guild Navigator. That scene is filled with so much excellent visual interest and delivers a powerful feeling of just how alien this galaxy is (with technically no "aliens"). The sets, costumes, props, that amazing navigator design, tank and all, are just some of my favorite. I hope something like this appears in second part. That said, the ceremony between the Atreides and the Guild representatives was great. I loved the visual designs. The one Guild member in white had the best costume in the movie, and maybe my favorite visual all together. Folks have expressed nostalgia for the old Toto soundtrack, but in that shot I just wanted to hear, subdued in the mix, one long, distorted bong-rip-drone-note from a Sleep riff. Oh man, spaced out for a moment thinking about it. The Atreides looked awful sharp in that scene too! Oh, Space Papa Leto. So tragic.

The armor looked cool, but there should have been more variation between factions. Also, there needed to be more ornamentation. I know Arrakis is a barren world that favors brutal practicality, yet the Atreides are, as is brutally shown in little time, not yet fitted to the planet. Also, these are noble houses of the obscenely wealthy. You'd think even a more modest, popular Duke would have some cool shit on his armor. But the Sardaukar should have looked more different from the so-and-so and from the whose-its, and so on.

Generally, Caladan looked great in both movies, but in this one you get to see the planet in a good way. The wood carving motifs are once again well represented. I love how wood is very likely a luxury material, perhaps export, for the planet, seeing as it is a very water intensive resource. This is not only sharply contrasted on Dune, but also on the Harkonnen planet. Speaking of, I think the little we saw looked good. I like how the old movie did it too, but not so much all that green paint. As with all contemporary movies, I wish there was more detail and analog doo dads. The hunter-seeker was really cool. I think the practical brutalism of Arrakis was very fitting. It was very monochrome but this makes sense given the limited supply of materials on the planet (I don't know how old the city is supposed to be, significantly older than the Harkonnen occupation, I imagine). I suppose any luxury installments were mostly down due to the transition. Harsh planet, but it is a rich folk palace. The packed earth look was cool and made sense. I liked the flying things with their analog gauges. I really like the new sandworms with their whale teeth and weird sphincter mouths. Though those night time shots were really too dark for me to make much out. On paper I wouldn't think the glowing gullets would look good, but a nice orange glow would have looked good in that shot.

While it got a little action movie boom boom, I still think the escalating fall of House Atreides was my favorite part. It was surprisingly moving, epic, drenched with fate and tragedy, and beautifully composed. Some of this early stuff I could watch for another hour.

The music was pretty lame. Some good sound design here and there, but it really needed another musical voice from time to time.

I hope the next one is weirder and more psychedelic. If they go further, I'd love to see shit as it changes and becomes more populated. When Paul drinks the water of life, he better trip balls!

I enjoyed it. Seemed to hit the sweet spot between big, lumbering, popcorn movie, and thoughtful, philosophical film that just might land him a budget to finish the story.

I think what I appreciated about this, which is really a sci-fi/action film is the role that violence takes in this film vs. the typical Marvel or whatever action film with armies. It seems less emphasis placed on getting all jacked on adrenalin to watch your favorite guy really whoop ass and save the day. It had more of a sense of unavoidable, dreadful forces descending and shaping history, with focus on an elite few grappling with the few choices they have in navigating their circumstances. So actually *epic*, not the stupid way people recently overused the word.

Oh, and agreed the soundtrack is boilerplate suspense, synth filler.

I know we're supposed to go back out to the theaters, but my professional and domestic circumstances make that very difficult. Watching it at home it was the classic problem of almost inaudible dialog followed by booming sound effects coupled with crescendos in the score. I had to ride the volume on my TV the entire time. It's funny how dynamic range came back in style for movies- generally a good thing, but it can be a nuisance with home viewing.

losthighway wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:36 pm I know we're supposed to go back out to the theaters, but my professional and domestic circumstances make that very difficult. Watching it at home it was the classic problem of almost inaudible dialog followed by booming sound effects coupled with crescendos in the score. I had to ride the volume on my TV the entire time. It's funny how dynamic range came back in style for movies- generally a good thing, but it can be a nuisance with home viewing.

I watch current movies with the captions on. Even the widest TV will letterbox most major motion pictures, since the studio cabal decided they all need to be presented in a near 3:1 aspect ratio. There’s plenty of room for the subtitles inside those black bars.