I, for one, prefer Lynch's Dune to Villeneuve's. I was very hyped for the latter and left the theater disappointed.
You see, Villeneuve's Dune has a great cast, insanely great cinematography and sets, but it is also very sterile, devoid of life and has very unimaginative directing. Some scenes were direct adaptations from the book, like Gom Jabbar scene, Shadout Mapes scene, and were very confusing for people who didn't read the book. (why does that sand woman shout when Jessica says a certain word?). Paul's awakening is very bland, too. His mentats were useless. De Vries was just a sad freak who stood nearby and then died. Hawat was in three scenes where he had any lines, and in two of which he counted expenses, and offered his resignation in the third. If I didn't read the book I'd assume he's some kind of accountant.
On the other hand, Lynch's Dune also has a great cast, great music, great sets, and it also has the all-important dream-like mystic feel to it, which is completely absent in the new adaptation. Sure, it has a lot of script problems, which mostly boil down to far too short runtime, as moviegoers in 1984 weren't ready for 2 part movies, so it had to cram the second part of the book in the final 20 minutes or so. Had it been two movies, it would have been much better.
One big improvement in Villeneuve's adaptation is Momoa's Idaho, who basically saved the movie for me. Lynch's Idaho was very bland and died far too easily and non-consequentally. Other than his scenes, if I ever want to see some scene from Dune on Youtube, it'll be Lynch's (except "the Guild doesn't take your orders", if you know what I mean).
Gotta strong disagree, I love Lynch, and the costumes and setting. But the script is just bad in that film, in addition to long montages of poorly edited “combat” ruining the second half, the first half is full of random stuff.
I think my many objections are perfectly summed up by this one example. In the books, the “weirding way” is space kung fu. In the movie, it’s a random sonic weapon where for some reason if you shout Maudib at it, it fires. So, the line from the books where Paul is lamenting “my name has become a killing word” changes from a poetic lament to a _literal_ instruction to his army. Queue a ridiculous montage of people shouting over and over with lasers.
Denis’ adaptation captured the dread of the scene, the aesthetics of the fremen, and the religious furvor of it all. It feels solemn and full of portent in the way the books did, because it follows them slavishly, only making small changes to compress multiple characters or omit less important parts. I couldn’t have asked for a better adaptation as a fan of the books.
I do think there’s a major challenge in adapting Dune, which is that Paul’s arc is just starting at the end. The narrative tension doesn’t let up until three books later. If you’ve only got one movie guaranteed, morphing it into a more-traditional hero’s journey isn’t the worst way to solve that rather large problem.
I’m curious how Villeneuve’s going to deal with that.
I also agree with one of the parents that Villevenue’s was sterile, however the book itself is kind of sterile — as lots of SF of the era was. The world building is incredible, and Villevenue captures all that well in the sets, costumes, and such. However, characters and dialog are not a strength of that book in my opinion.
I love the book though, and I enjoyed Villevenue’s adaptation because it was exactly how I visualized the book when I first read it. However, having such a direct adaptation means you inherit the flaws as well — in this case some dryness and the pacing issue that you mentioned.
I do not agree that sterile sci-fi was anymore common in 1965 then any other time period. Books like George R. Stewarts earth abides came out ten years before. PKD wrote the man in the high castle, martian time slip, do androids dream of electric sheep, and the three stigmata of Palmer eldritch, Ursula k le guin wrote the left hand of darkness a couple years after, like this list goes on and on. Yes there's trash like anything a.e. van vogt wrote but there's always trash.
Also I think dune is purposefully written in a particular way because one of the themes of the book is the disposableness of life and this is what the fremen oppose.
I think DV was very clever in making Dune (2021) feel more like Leto I's story for a large portion of the film. Though we ramp into Paul's, we get a very satisfying focus on Leto. Of course, if you hadn't read the book you'd not have a clue about the bullfight motifs and probably not enjoy that arc at all.
I watched the recent movies before reading the book and I disagree. The Shadout Mapes scene had more than enough context clues to understand. Thufir Hawat is very clearly a trusted advisor, and for the purposes of the story that’s really all that matters. The “humans computer” is also there in context clues, but even if you didn’t catch it, it doesn’t detract from the movie at all. This seems like something that if you were actively _looking_ for a deep explanation of mentats, of course you would notice it’s missing… but if you didn’t know mentats were a thing, then the movie’s portrayal of Hawat is great.
Paul’s awakening is definitely different in the movie, but I think it’s because in the movie they spread it out (ie there’s a larger emphasis on Paul’s spice trip when saving the crawler). Still, having not read the book at the time I first saw the movie, I didn’t think it was “bland” at all and still made for great storytelling to me.
> dream-like mystic feel to it, which is completely absent in the new adaptation
Man, I can’t disagree harder with this. One of the best things about the new movie to me is that the entire thing has an aura of intrigue and mysticism that left me just wanting more more more.
The problem with mentats is deeper, as they are integral in the traitor subplot, which forms the main intrigue part of the first half of the book and pays off in the second half.
In new adaptation Yueh's betrayal came out of the left field without real explanation, wasn't shown how it was motivated, suspicions of everyone vs Jessica and Leto's trust in her are all dropped, and on top of it all Yueh's death was very anticlimactic compared to the old movie.
And also, Paul's awakening was my favourite scene in Lynch's Dune, and it was a letdown in Villeneuve's.
Yueh isn’t a mentat and his betrayal is unrelated to mentats. He’s suk, but even this is not integral in understanding that he was a trusted part of House Atreides and then betrayed them. The rest really isn’t needed to further the plot.
Movie adaptations will never be able to be as detailed as books. People that first read a book and then watch the movie will almost always notice there are things that are missing, and if those missing things are something the watcher was really attached to, they will be disappointed. But for people who haven’t read the book, as long as the missing things don’t create large plot holes or confusion, it’s fine. I think Dune does a fantastic job of striking the balance of detail while still telling a cohesive and fascinating story. Stuff like mentats and suk doctors are really fascinating and it’s unfortunate that movies don’t have the time available to expand on them, but the movie is able to stand alone without it.
> Yueh isn’t a mentat and his betrayal is unrelated to mentats.
Thank you, CO! :-D
But I didn't mean that he's mentat, just that Atreides and Harkonnen mentats main activity was related to the traitor plot, which was rather faithfully done in Lynch's version, and was all but omitted in Villeneuve's. The tiny detail that the Baron personally killed Yueh, thus removing the last bit of importance from DeVries before his death, is the final offence to his character.
I personally found DeVries character to be completely unforgettable in the book and there was nothing specifically he did that couldn’t have been replaced by something else, so I suppose that’s part of why I don’t think mostly omitting him from the recent movie is that much of a detraction.
I guess you wanted to say forgettable, but just to expand on that:
I recently read the book and I couldn’t even remember the character now and had to look up who was meant. Maybe that is more a testament to how bad I am at remembering stuff I read in books than how important the character is but there you go.
The more Brad Dourif shines then. Not only he carries a vital piece of exposition, he is quite striking in his small role and leaves a lasting impression. Compare this to that poor creature who sadly dies having done absolutely nothing.
Villeneuve leans so heavily into "show, don't tell" that the movie becomes a long trailer. It has lots of visual exposition, but no character experiences an arc or development. So much rich lore is passed by on the wayside, and no work is done to connect the dots between the plot points. Elements as essential as character motivations are nowhere to be found.
I understand wanting to keep exposition to a minimal, but there's a way to craft and weave it into the rhythm and pace of a story.
The reason Yueh's betrayal doesn't sting is because no effort is put into developing him or his relationships. The fall of House Atreides is rather dull, action fluff. The Spice, the Spacing Guild, the Mentats, and the Bene Gesserit are passed over for more CG and more action scenes. The flash-forward dream sequences of Paul are sloppy and don't do the forthcoming plot ramifications justice. The Harkonnens are turned into cartoons, and their one act of supreme cruelty is handled entirely off-camera.
I dearly love the books, but you shouldn't have to read the books to appreciate the film. It should stand on its own legs, and Villeneuve totally misses on that shot. He delivered incoherent action dreck. It's visually appealing, but it's practically a GPU advertisement.
I can't entirely hate on Villeneuve, though. Blade Runner 2049 is a masterpiece.
I didn't find it to be incoherent at all, but I had read the book over a decade ago and had seen the previous adaptations. In some sense, maybe I was the ideal audience, because I knew the outline of the story going in but either didn't notice or didn't care when things were left out. Given the success of the film both financially and critically though, I have to imagine that a lot of people who hadn't read the book still understood and enjoyed it.
The reaction to Dune is similar to the reaction to Oppenheimer. I'm a huge fan of Christopher Nolan. A common criticism I see of him, which echoes what you are saying here, is that his characters lack motivation and are one-dimensional. I actually don't disagree. For me, film isn't primarily about character or plot like literature is. It's about creating a mood using pictures and sound. The best parts of Oppenheimer weren't the details of characters' personal lives or the Manhattan project or the senate hearings, they were the sweeping montages of beautiful images, music, and snippets of dialogue that came together to create a feeling of fear and awe appropriate for the subject matter. I feel the same way about Villeneuve's Dune. It might not be faithful to the intricate story of the book, but I think it nails the dark, vast, mystical quality that inhabiting the Dune universe ought to feel like.
You mention Blade Runner 2049. For my money, Villeneuve's true masterpiece is Arrival. It's not only great science fiction but also has a surprising amount of emotional depth, which sci-fi usually lacks.
It does kinda feel like a movie directed by the Director of Photography and not a story teller. But we know Denis has been scouting locations for a decade or more. Makes me wonder if his director of photography enjoyed the experience or felt like puppet with someone’s hand up his backside the entire time.
> I dearly love the books, but you shouldn't have to read the books to appreciate the film. It should stand on its own legs, and Villeneuve totally misses on that shot.
This is the part I completely disagree with. I don’t think you need to read the books at all to understand or love Villeneuaves Dune. I hadn’t read the book at the time of seeing it, and I loved it. And then after I read the book I love the movie even more.
This is the thing, the people here that complain that you need to have read the book to understand the movie are dune fans. On the other hand there are people like you and my partner who I watched the movie with, who understood and loved the movie without having read the book.
I think it's usually much harder to please fans of a book, because they all will find different parts of the book important and something will be omitted, e.g. see the discussions about Tom Bombadil in LOTR.
One thing I noticed: the movie is very careful to lay out how the betrayal of House Atreides actually works. Every other time I’ve watched a version with someone I’ve ended up needing to explain who the heck the Sardukar are.
Forget the books for a moment. The film is a brainless action film.
Most of the criticisms I made are film criticisms that could be levied against any bad or middling movie.
- The film is a vacuum for intricacy and coherence.
- The characters are one-dimensional, unchanging, and don't matter.
- The stakes might be huge, but they carry no emotional weight. Like most superhero films these days.
These are deficiencies in storytelling.
If we contrast Lynch's Dune with Villeneuve's, we might find similar analogies in contrasting "Jurassic Park" versus "Jurassic World", Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" versus Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit", or "Independence Day" versus whatever the hell "Independence Day 2" was.
Each of these latter films promised more, but they turned out to be empty and soulless. More box checking than composition, more visual spectacle than substance. The same is true of Villeneuve's Dune as a film.
I don't need a film adaptation to be faithful. I just need it to be a good movie. I'd be totally fine if the film made a wild departure from its source material, so long as it used that liberty to deliver something impressive. That would honestly mean more to me than a fully "by the books" rendition.
I liked the new one fine, but I felt the same way. It was mostly just gawking at effects rather than story-intrigue for me, although I'm already familiar.
Spent more time thinking about the CGI than I did thinking about the plot, I think that might indicate something.
When I read the books I got a strong sense that Dune (the planet) was like a living entity.
This planet was the focal point for all political and economic machinations of the universe, yet it was a vast, mysterious and dangerous place. Humans were intruders.
Lynch's Dune had many wide shots that attempted to convey this, and when Paul was with the Fremen it felt as if he was truly removed from the rest of the human universe, and within the mysterious universe of the planet.
Villeneuve's Dune had amazing visuals yet too many scenes were tightly shot. To me this Dune felt claustrophobic, not vast. and when Paul was with the Fremen it didn't feel so removed from reach of the Empire.
I just rewatched the new Dune, and disagree with my previous assessment. I enjoyed the movie a lot more the second time around.
Perhaps I had preconceived notions the first time (I did watch Lynch's version immediately prior). Perhaps also as others have mentioned I didn't catch all the dialogue as it is quieter than the score in many sections, this time I had the subtitles on.
The cinematography is great, there are way more wide context shots than I remembered. I also felt the magic was there and there is a dreamlike quality during Paul's spice vision scenes. I'm honestly not sure why I didn't enjoy it the first time.
If you are like I was and ambivalent about the sequel, maybe give this movie another go. I've changed my mind and now looking forward to seeing part 2.
I got more frustrated with it on a second watch, about how shallow the characters and their relationships were, and about how the blandness and faded colour choices of a lot of the visuals seemed like a deliberate reaction against the richness and almost pantomime nature of the Lynch version.
I came away thinking they got the ornithopters right but little else.
That still rings true to me, the interpersonal relationships are lacking emotion.. It's as if all human relations and events are being told from a Bene Gesserit perspective, and perhaps this was intentional.
If intentional then it would be a good character arc for Paul to reject this in the second movie.. and then become dispassionate in his own way again in the third
I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make, but it seems like the kind of exaggerated intentionally-missing-the-point outrage that conservatives parody leftists for (I say that as a leftist, just to be clear).
Blade Runner has always been about how replicants are people treated as slaves. Rachel having given birth in BR2049 is a big deal not because it means she's finally a person unlike all the other replicant women, but because it means replicants have the potential to control their own destiny, instead of being reliant on humans to make more of them.
The film was extremely explicit about that, to the point of beating you over the head with it. I'm not sure how you could have possibly interpreted it in the way you did, unless you view everything through the lens of "how can I be outraged about this."
EDIT: the comment I responded to originally said something like "Blade Runner 2049? The movie where personhood for women is defined as being capable of giving birth?"
You're dismissing rich and wonderful art to clutch artificial pearls. That wasn't the point of the film at all, and if you truly feel that way, then I feel sorry for you.
I feel the same. I went to see Villeneuve's Dune in the theater - the first time I'd been to a movie theater since the equally underwhelming Valerian - and it was... fine, I suppose. I was really disappointed by the washed-out color schemes permeating every shot. It made Arrakis look more like Antarctica to me than the Sahara. The only thing I recall being truly wowed by were the awesome Mass Effect Reaper-like sound effects that accompanied some of the drop ships, but those were more menacing in, well, Mass Effect.
All that said, I do think the visuals of Lynch's Dune have had longer to enter the public imagination. Cryo's Dune game took a lot of visual and musical cues from that movie, and even Westwood's Dune 2 felt like it drew mostly from the Lynch version. For me as a teenager, those became the iconic representations of the Dune universe, and it's hard for me to imagine it looking any different. Perhaps in 20 years people who grow up with the Villeneuve version will feel the same way about it.
Yes, those games! Dune 1 directly uses a lot of movie imagery, down to Kyle MacLachlan's look, and it is also a very unusual hybrid of an adventure and strategy games, I struggle to name any other game that is like it.
I replayed it a few years ago, and it holds up really well.
I still think about the sunsets in that game. Simply flying through the dunes in an ornithopter felt like the most epic adventure. It's such a miss that the Villeneuve movie made everything so white, on a planet with no condensation or cloud cover, where dust storms are a major plot point. Perhaps there is some science-y reason why it could happen that a desert planet would be all white, but it's so bizarre to me that a director would voluntarily choose that washed-out palette when at least to a layperson it seems intuitive that deserts not just on Earth but Mars too tint cloudless skies in glorious technicolor.
You're right there aren't really many - if any - other games like Cryo's Dune. Perhaps the closest experience I had recently was Sable, which is an open world style game where you explore a Moebius-inspired world with several distinct and beautiful ecologies. It's mostly just a slice of life walking sim without any conflict or political intrigue, but visually and emotionally it captures some of that epicness that I look for in Dune adaptations and other Dune-like space operas.
I can't say I disagree with any of the facts of what you say (and yet, perhaps because I don't remember Lynch's dune very well, I prefer Villeneuve's)
I felt Villeneuve effectively conveyed the dread of the inexorable emperor crushing house Atreides. We go because of duty, and we make the best of it even when our predecessor left us nothing we would need to be successful
The mentats are computers because computers are banned, and while they were my favorite characters in the books (who doesn't want to be a super smart spice addict?),I felt they were conveyed fairly if dully
Finally, the cinematography, the use of light and effects, even though ornithopters were more bees than birds it all really worked for me. Perhaps more as a place to inhabit than a story, though
Regarding mentats, in Lynch's Dune, we had Brad Dourif as DeVries, who stole every scene he was in, and Hawat, with his own very memorable character arc, improved by that very disturbing heart plug subplot and a cat.
>I felt Villeneuve effectively conveyed the dread of the inexorable emperor crushing house Atreides. We go because of duty, and we make the best of it even when our predecessor left us nothing we would need to be successful
I kind of hated the battle scenes, though. I didn't like any of the sardukar fighting scenes, or how the ships exploded etc. I don't remember the book well enough to know if it matched how it was described, but for visual mediums like movies instead of books it felt very fake.
Agreed about the mentats, and the ornrithopters. The cinematography has a lot of style but I'm honestly not sure if this particular style is to the movie's benefit or not. I can imagine it having looked a lot of different ways.
Overall the pacing of the movie felt...boring.
I'll watch the sequel but I'm not hoping for award winning movies at this point.
> I didn't like any of the sardukar fighting scenes, or how the ships exploded
I thought the ship explosion effect was brilliant and realistic in terms of how it would actually work if energy shields were a thing in real life. Just like how the slow blade penetrates a personal shield, the slow missile penetrates the ship’s shield. The movie shows this effect and the consequences. Once the missile gets past the shield, it explodes and the explosion is initially contained by the shield. However, the explosion spreads internally and it takes a second to take out the shield generator, at which point the explosion is no longer contained.
Just as an energy shield contains external explosions to the outside, it would also have the same effect on the inside for the brief moment the shield generator still operates.
Btw I always felt that laser on shield == nuclear explosion idea was rather bad, as it has immense exploitable military potential which somehow wasn't utilized at all in the books. I understand that it was made to explain why they suddenly fight with knives and swords instead of projectiles and lasers, and while the explanation works for projectiles, the laser explanation fails.
>I thought the ship explosion effect was brilliant and realistic
I just thought it was boring. All of the battle scenes were boring. The most accomplished warriors in the known universe were there and their tactics were to line up and then run at each other.
Same here. Even though the "new" Dune has a lot of good VFX, I found it boring to watch, and that was only Part I. Before watching "new", I watched Lynch's to have something to compare to. I vastly prefer Lynch's Dune. It wasn't boring. He managed to cram the whole story in less than 2h30 and in (to me) coherent and understandable way. Although the movie did demand all of my attention and weaving of threads in my mind while watching. Lynch still wins, hands down, not the least because of the atmosphere.
> [Lynch] managed to cram the whole story in less than 2h30 and in (to me) coherent and understandable way.
I don't think you can make a coherent and understandable movie-Dune without using voice-over character thoughts. You need the footnotes.
It's a tricky device, because it's so easy to overuse, but Lynch mostly limits himself to where it's really needed. AND makes it play better with his trademark dreamlike mood.
Villeneuve's Dune is what you get without this -- I hope everyone read the books! Which on one hand, respect your audience. But on the other, most people haven't read the books.
PS: Wtf Lady Jessica in Villeneuve Pt I? She's got enough mettle to defy the Reverend Mother and bear a male child, but then all that strength disappears? I get it... setting up for contrast with Fremen Jessica, but hamfisted. :(
Several women have told me they thought Lady Jessica was a strong female character in Dune pt 1 after I complained that she was more abject/emotional than in the book. It felt like we had watched a different movie, but it sounds like I'm just wrong.
My wife hates when media codes feminine as weak, as in pointedly avoiding ever displaying a strong female character being upset. Her perception is that a lot of media (and usually pieces trying to be extra-feminist) communicate “women can be strong… if they get more masculine” rather than “feminine can be strong”.
That may be the kind of thing you’re seeing: not everyone may see “she privately struggles with difficult emotional experiences, and doesn’t bottle that up, but perseveres and kicks ass anyway” as weakness.
I broadly agree with that sentiment and have often struggled with that same concept in media. However in the books, Jessica not only heavily portrays lots of traits typically considered feminine, but her stoicism is one of them. Dune is a hard book to adapt; so much of the characterisation happens via internal monologues that are necessary to contextualise a lack of externalised reaction (everyone is putting on airs the whole time, basically.) But Jessica's Bene Gesserit emotional control is a clear parallel with the way women are often forced to sublimate emotion in every facet of society in order to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts. I re-read the first three books a few weeks ago and was absolutely dumbstruck by how Herbert's Bene Gesserit and Jessica as well could've been an artefact from this decade, not six decades ago. It's still a salient representation of gender roles half a century later. I liked the most recent Dune just fine, and I adore Rebecca Ferguson is just about everything, but this change to her character really bothered me for that.
"But on the other, most people haven't read the books."
People still enjoyed it, though.
I read the books after the movie and yes, there is so much more to the whole world, but apperently other people enjoyed it without further context and are eager for part 2 so apparently the movie worked for them as well.
As someone that works in, and enjoys the visual arts field, I think they both have their place. Lynch's Dune is the one I would watch on a random weekday night -- there's a warmth to it that the new one lacks. As you said, there's something sterile about the new one (though maybe it's just the lack of film grain...)
But Villeneuve's is the version I would pay to see in 70mm IMAX. It is a feast for the eyes, and not every movie has to be something deeper.
To me, they're in an odd balance between Lynch's version, and the Villeneuve version. The visuals were much better, but because it was broadcast, were mostly experienced on TV's that couldn't do them justice -- but at the same time, they also weren't good enough for cinema anymore. And in a similar vein, unlike the Lynch version, they followed the books much more closely, which to me made them lose some of that warm fuzziness charm. I also can't say that the acting was particularly memorable to me, which is to say that nothing stood out as so bad as to be memorable, but I can also barely remember who was in it.
And as far as the sequel, Children of Dune goes, that year BSG blew it out of the water for me.
Spicediver's version is the best ... if you can find it.
The steel box / director's cut is the 2nd best. Lastly is the theatrical version which is the worst for the average person but pretty good if you have read the book once or twice.
There's another version: the one that played on SciFi channel with significantly more cuts (to make room for more commercials).
That's actually my favorite version. A lot of dialogue is cut, and it ends up better for it. It's more of a "mood" than anything else, and even though it's more of a dream than a story, it makes more sense than most of Lynch's work; your mind effectively fills in the gaps, whether you've read the books or not. I haven't seen the fan edit though.
I have a version that has an Alan Smithee directorial credit with the narrated pre history. I believe it is a Japanese laserdisc bootleg version that I got. That's my personal favorite.
Lynch’s Dune is up there with Apocalypse Now as my favorite movie. It got the feel of Dune correct, even if it made weird changes, and inspired me to start reading sci fi (I think I first saw the movie on TV in the late 80s, and would watch it whenever broadcast).
As a Dune enjoyer in pretty much all it forms these two movies occupy two different categories for me.
One one hand the Lynch adaption is the campy and fun movie I like to watch with my friends with a few beers, not pay a whole lot of attention to but laugh and have a good time.
The Villeneuve version however is something I want to watch in 70mm IMAX, feel the soundtrack in my bones and be left in awe at the visuals/cinematography. I don't want to talk, just watch.
Good review, I really didn't care for the new Dune, or even Villeneuve's Blade Runner film and I'm not sure why exactly cause both are universally praised it seems. I don't know if I'm just being an old fogey or what but both films are competently made with top notch special effects but missing the souls of their source material.
Sterile and devoid of life would be probably where I'd start like you do but I'm waiting for someone with a better understanding of the art form to really dig into why these films don't really work despite having insane production values and great mise en scene.
I liked Blade Runner 2047. It too feels sterile, but in that movie it works because it is true to the lore: all natural life has died out and the few remaining species are extreme luxuries that only the most wealthy people can afford. An owl in original movie is artificial, and it too is very pricey.
> It too feels sterile, but in that movie it works because it is true to the lore: all natural life has died out and the few remaining species are extreme luxuries that only the most wealthy people can afford.
As opposed to Arrakis, a place so dry where shedding tears because someone died is considered as incredibly unusual and highly esteemed, if wasteful.
I didn't like Arrival, but loved the original Blade Runner (and Dune). I was afraid to have my love for BR destroyed, so I only watched 2049 to see if I I could trust him with Dune, as well.
I actually thought it was quite good, FAR better than I anticipated. Whereas Dune 1 was fine (not amazing), and could have used some of 2049's balance of brutal inhumanity with a little... verve I guess you could say.
But it's also fundamentally about humanity and what it means to be human. Rachel or Batty's arc in the original compared to K's arc is much more compelling and alive for illustration. K's journey is about solving a puzzlebox really.
Idk it just was pretty and had good plotting, but left me with nothing after it ended.
>I'm not sure why exactly cause both are universally praised it seems
because Villeneuve was basically one of the front runners of the "intangible sludge"[1] aesthetic as someone dubbed it. Everything he makes has the same cold, color-drained feel to it (looking at the trailer for the next part, literally), and it's a style that a majority of film and TV makers has bought into now. What stood out about Lynch's version was just how psychedelic it was, which the book was too, and it's completely lost in the new adaption. I'd even go farther than 'sterile', Villeneuve's movies are straight up inhuman. With the exception of Arrival, which I think owes most of its core to Ted Chiang's story, none of the movies Villeneuve has made evoke any kind of connection, between characters or to the audience.
I just recently rewatched the new Dune and it has it's own special vibe. Certainly knowing the book helps to understand many things and this is true that the power of mentats was clearly not explained at all and this is unfortunate, but a director has to choose on what to focus. To be honest, he doesn't really focus on guild too - Lunch has a really fine scene that demonstrates the power of the guild and Villeneuve is completely missing something like this.
Still I love the new Dune and I love Lynch Dune too, especially the fan made extended cuts that are extremely brilliant.
Lunch's Dune has too much theater and fairy-tale vibe for my taste.
The scene with rain really tells it all. "And Paul was proclaimed Kwisatz Haderach, summoned the rain, and they lived happily ever after". That's not sci-fi...
It's a drug-fueled, vision or dream which to me makes it great. Neither movie has any qualities I like in scifi. Neither plays through interesting what-if scenarios and their impact on society. Blade Runner, Ex Machina or Primer are great examples of that.
Same here, it felt very dull and bland. I'm not sure why people get excited over the big latest movies like that, just because it's a new version of Dune. In 10 years nobody will remember it.
I also wish Kyle McLaughlin could have played Leto Atreides. Maybe because I don't like Oscar Isaac, he always looks like a thug to me, but I'd have loved that connection to the previous movie.
Funny I agree with you on everything but the Momoa part. With the exception of Game of Thrones, he always plays himself. He basically always comes off as a marvel character. I thought he and Chalamet were miscast.
Momoa was in a different movie entirely. They could have pulled it off - had there been any character that was a tonal middle-ground between him and EVERYONE ELSE it would have gone a long way to making the movie feel more dynamic and alive, less as a series of rote set-pieces.
On the other hand in the books Idaho appeared as so much of an outlier to every other person that "in a different movie entirely" seems weirdly fitting. You could even put Momoa in the Lynch version and it would seem accurate to the point of parody. The actual Idaho of the Lynch movie on the other hand, so unmemorable Lynch might have just written out the character entirely. The explanation given in the article (deliberately toned down to make the ghola version even bigger in part two) is an interesting excuse.
I'll defend Momoa as a choice, I think he fits the role perfectly and the exception of Game of Thrones shows he could have done something different with it.
Chalamet I agree was miscast, but I would go further because I thought Zendaya's performance was unfortunately terrible.
> On the other hand, Lynch's Dune also has a great cast, great music, great sets, and it also has the all-important dream-like mystic feel to it, which is completely absent in the new adaptation.
Im glad someone else is happy to say it out loud: Lynch's Dune is art. I love the book and know some people are beyond sore at how Lynch's Dune isn't "faithful" to the letter of the text. The real faith is paid to the spirit of the work and I really appreciate we have it.
Villeneuve's is the best since, and there have been other attempts between.
I would have loved to see what Jodorowsky would have done because he was also a "spiritual" film maker. Both his likely approach and Lynch's do a great job at, judging from what I understand of the later books, bringing out the mystical aspect of the work that envelops everything but is hidden at the same time. The event to event happens in Dune can be explained in mundane ways: issues amongst the royal houses, trade disputes, natives, resource extraction -- Lynch's Dune uses what's practical to amplify the role of the supernatural.
I'd be just as interested in a spiritually skeptic Dune, where the mysticism is downplayed or revealed as all smoke and mirrors.
> You see, Villeneuve's Dune has a great cast, insanely great cinematography and sets, but it is also very sterile, devoid of life and has very unimaginative directing
The problem with Villeneuve's adaptation is that it does not tell a story. If you haven't read the book, you have a hard time understanding what this is all about.
After Villeneuve had repeatedly blown my expectations out of the water. He turned my favorite short story that I thought was unfilmable into the fabulous Arrival created a worthy sequel to the groundbreaking Blade Runner. So I was extremely excited about him making a new version of Dunrle given that Lynch's Dune is one of my favorites movies. Yet, I somehow didn't feel it. I thought it was that I didn't like the actors nearly as much and that I was so used to the music from the Lynch's version. I think you hit the nail on the head though by calling out the lack of dreamlike qualities. To me that was always what I loved about the movie (and other Lynch movies). I can see that others might prefer it without that, but to me that's what made the movie. Without it it's just yet another space opera which I think of as a derogatory term.
What i'd really want is a tv series that looks like Villeneuve's Dune, with ornithopters, ships and all, and has a soul of Lynch's Dune, and is 10 episodes for the first book.
I recently rewatched Villeneuve's Dune in addition to reading the books for the first time (after being a long-time fan of Lynch's take) and I kept thinking a TV series is what it needs. It's hard to imagine it following on from Villeneuve's film given they've dropped so much from the books although I think it can be done. What would be incredible is a Rings of Power-style big budget TV adaptation which would make room for adapting the more fantastical stuff from the sequels as well.
I think sterile is a good description. I couldn't place it but that is exactly it: beautiful, expensive, but empty and with no life outside of the actors faces.
I agree. Lynch's Dune is a really, really rough cut gem, but it is a gem. The last half-hour is obviously rushed without the ability to make it a longer film. Honestly it needed at least another hour or more.
Villeneuve's adaptation so far has been really good, but it's a piece of keenly honed metal compared to Lynch's. Better engineered, but sterile, and missing the kind of messy beauty that I find in Lynch's adaptation.
The Dune books are really, really weird, and the social order they depict has all the ugliness of the historical precedents it apes. Lynch's weirdness captures that, and the "mystical" feel you talked about in a way that Villeneuve doesn't.
Incidentally I agree that Mamoa's Idaho is one of the highlights.
EDIT: On that tentative connection I finished with. I do also worry that in this era of film, Villeneuve's Dune will become somewhat Marvelised. But we'll just have to see.
It does disappoint me a little that at the end of the day, Villeneuve will be the canon adaptation. Just good enough, but unless something radically changes, not nearly so weird as it should be. But we'll see. First movie could just be the first stage of boiling frogs, who knows.
This is just kind of par for the course with Villeneuve; his Bladerunner was much the same. Absolutely stunning aesthetics, but the story kind of takes the back seat.
That said, while I agree with much of your points I still think it is an outstanding movie. I just don't think the movie form works for Dune, really, which is really based a lot on inner dialogue and philosophical meanderings.
as someone who struggled to get through the book as a kid and never saw Lynch's version, I really liked the new Dune as a spectacle, and I filled in some of the more confusing parts from plot summaries after i came home, but ultimately it did place Dune back on my "to read" list :) (and Lynch's Dune on my "to watch" after i read the book)
I'm totally with you. Watching the Villeneuve version and the hunter seeker scene, there was almost zero tension in the Villeneuve because you don't know what the probe can only see motion and you don't know it's slippery so the entire scene makes no sense.
Agree on the Gom Jabbar scene too. The Lynch one I got the torture. The Villeneuve one not so much.
Also, Yueh, he's just a random betrayer in the Villeneuve version where as he's supposed to be incorruptible, something that's never covered.
Certainly, the Villeneuve version benefits from CGI. It's nice, I've watched it 3~4 times, it's growing on me, and I'm looking forward to the 2nd half.
But I have a soft place in my heart for the Lynch version
I found both disappointing. They kind of had opposite prolems though.
Imo, the new movie was much better execution, but also is super generic removing much of what makes dune actually interesting. The lynch movie is in theory interesting but execution was poor, making it a drag.
Interesting that you'd find Villeneuve's Dune "devoid of life" ; I feel the opposite way. I don't even normally like Villeneuve's work ; found Arrival and Blade Runner a bit empty. But I found that with Dune, he finally hit the mark.
I've watched Blade Runner 2049 multiple times, mostly for the effects and some of the neat ideas. I still don't get it. The original makes some sense to me. 4 artificial "slaves" want more life than then 4 years their creators gave them. But what is the point of 2049? It just seems a bunch of random ideas to me. What's the Wallace Corp trying to do. Are the president and his henchperson on the same page? What is K's arc? Why does it matter about the daughter? Isn't he putting her in danger at the end? IIRC nothing happens to the Wallace Corp so she's still being hunted. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My gf and I both left Villeneuve's Dune early in theaters because it was so boring.
I watched it again later on streaming with it playing in the background and had a much better time. It was good towards the end. I think Part 2 will be much better.
> why does that sand woman shout when Jessica says a certain word?
This kind of thing is a “how much do you trust the audience?” thing. How literate are they in following a narrative? How much cultural or genre context are you relying on them to have? Sometimes phrased in certain circles as “respecting the audience”.
Specifically why might not be attainable, but there are conversations in a couple of scenes before that one, and some dialog after, that let one fill in the gaps on that reaction well enough.
You see, that particular scene of Mapes job interview is very important one in the book and I happened to remember it very well when whatching the movie. The book has a lot of Jessica's inner monologue, and then she makes a wild guess that happened to provoke a very strong reaction from Mapes.
The movie translated this scene verbatim, word for word, but omitting all the inner monologue. The chain of thought we were presented in the book is just dropped. No amount of attention to the narrative by the audience will help because the narrative is absent.
That's why I called the direction unimaginative: when you are adapting book material to movie form you are supposed to find ways to convey such literature elements like internal monologue using cinema language. Even voiceover is sometimes better than nothing.
> ome scenes were direct adaptations from the book, like Gom Jabbar scene, Shadout Mapes scene, and were very confusing for people who didn't read the book
Particularly if you can't hear the dialogue. During several scenes in the cinema, I had to tell my teenagers what they were saying. Subsequently downloaded and played an illegal copy on my PC so the girls could hear what was going on.
Finally someone mentions the unintelligible dialogue. I saw it with my sister and cousin in the theater, we couldn't understand maybe 40% of the dialogue. And yes, we're native American English speakers. Such a shame.
I watched the original Dune at the cinema at around eleven years old, was a fan of Star Wars, and I didn't understand anything coherent about the movie. Probably because I was a young child (or have comprehension issues, though). I remember it was boring, Sting there was weird. That is my memory. The new Dune enlightened me. Have not read the books myself.
If the latter books ever get made, which I highly doubt at this point, casting Momoa as one of the touchstone characters was not a bad idea, at least audience wise. Budget wise, might be a different story.
If memory serves he shows up again in book 3, not 2. They are thinner books. Could they pull off 1 movie for Children and Messiah?
I agree, how I was able to tell that Lynch’s is better was that, I could watch it without falling asleep. I tried multiple times to watch the new one but something about it kept me falling asleep
> I, for one, prefer Lynch's Dune to Villeneuve's. I was very hyped for the latter and left the theater disappointed.
I prefer neither. Lynch's is odd and silly while villeneuve's is just eye candy. Dune should be read. A movie simply isn't going to capture all the emotions, inner dialogues, intrigue, history, etc. I think it's impossible to make a good movie out of Dune without completely reimagining and rewriting it. Dune isn't like a detective story or a horror story where the ending or jump scares are the the payoff. Dune is the culmination of the entire journey. It's greatness lies in the details.
Try it. Read Dune and then watch Dune. Something is off. Something is missing. It's like the difference between a grape drink and a grape flavored juice. The latter is a poor imitation of the former.
The first line saying that Lynch’s Dune is a “misbegotten botch job” is based on the authors definition of success in art which is box office returns. And yet here we are discussing a film that turns 40 this year. And there the Wired author is selling ads on the back of David’s work and disabling my back button to grab mailing list signups.
To gain an understanding of David’s approach to art, which is deeply inspired by Robert Henri’s book “The Art Spirit”, it’s worth watching The Art Life (2016). David is a believer in the artist alone in the room with an infinite supply of coffee and cigarettes, creating new ideas with pure creative freedom and the removal of societal pressures. There’s no doubt that his art and all art and creativity is derived from experience and experiencing the art of others. But the point is that for original art to flourish, there comes a time for the artist to seclude themselves and create without market pressures, the influence of popular culture and daily distractions. Us devs can learn much from him.
So I think Lynch’s Dune is spectacular in its originality and bold creativity. And I think looking to box office returns as a measure of success misses the long term value of that kind of originality.
Exactly this. Lynch would be the first to say that his "Dune" is a failure. The movie is pretty much incomprehensible if you don't know the book. Famously, the first cut was 5 hours long, and he never had a plan how to get the runtime down. I mean, just watch the prologue with the woman talking for 90+ seconds
and tell me with a straight face that someone not knowing the book would be able to understand this. It's pure desperation. Don't get me wrong: it's beautifully shot, especially with the in&out-fading of the face, but it does not work to convey the setting of the story. It's simply too much information.
Quite famously, and also in this case, he refuses to even discuss it because this is a place in time he would rather not go to. It must have been traumatic for him. But this failure was a blessing in disguise, as he did this little movie "Blue Velvet" afterwards, and the rest is history. Lynch would not be where he is today without this failure. After "Elephant Man", he was destined to be the next Lucas, but instead, he pretty much defined a new genre.
There are multiple cuts, and the one I grew up with (I think a VHS recording from cable) instead has a longer introduction [0], with detailed exposition while panning over paintings of its world. Watching it at around 11yo, I found it comprehensible (if bizarre), and compelling, before reading the book years later.
I'll have to look again to see if this cut is finally available in any official capacity; I've only ever managed to find a stitched-together fan edit. It's flawed by any measure (many sets and effects that looked good on VHS don't hold up on HD), but I actually enjoy most of its creative license, and the longer cut mostly holds together IMO, in a way the theatrical doesn't.
Lynch hates the extended TV cut with a passion and had no control over it whatsoever. He even went so far as to demand that his credit being removed (he is credited as Alan Smithee/Judas Booth for director/writer). The prologue might make more sense in the TV edit, but I think the execution is pretty bad and ugly. As I've written, while the prologue from the theatrical edit might not make much sense, it's absolutely beautiful to watch.
> I'll have to look again to see if this cut is finally available in any official capacity;
I think you're talking about the three hour extended 'tv' edit? You can find that on DVD, or you could about 15 years ago.
It has a lot more in it, but it's not the most well produced piece. There's at least one "cut away for a reaction from Jessica" shot that's used in two places, for instance.
Lost Highway is comprehensible on non-linear terms, you can find some interpretations. This is incomprehensible because an actual linear plot was not well conveyed.
> for original art to flourish, there comes a time for the artist to seclude themselves and create without market pressures, the influence of popular culture and daily distractions. Us devs can learn much from him.
A few decades from now, I think Lynch's Dune will be looked upon more favorably than the recent films. They simply have more character and vastly more interesting set design, whereas the recent ones are visually indistinguishable from most other sci-fi films made at the same time.
Even with recency bias, do you think their scores will change much in 20+ years?
The recent one was so "indistinguishable" from recent sci-fi movies it won Best Original Score, Sound, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, and Visual Effects:
I said "a few decades from now" because I wanted to highlight the fact that the recent Dune movies are unremarkable and similar to other films made today, whereas the 80s Dune is fairly unique, even for the 80s. In other words: in 2050, Dune 2021 will be perceived as just another sci-fi film, whereas Dune 1984 will still be weird and unique.
As a side note: does anyone take RT or the Oscars seriously anymore? That whole line of argument isn't very compelling to me, but I guess it is for some.
And as a final comment: note that I didn't say Dune 1984 was an amazing film, I just said it would be looked at more favorably than the current films because of its uniqueness. This tends to happen to older films: the solid-but-boring ones get forgotten, while the weird-but-unique ones develop a cult following and get re-evaluated positively.
> In other words: in 2050, Dune 2021 will be perceived as just another sci-fi film, whereas Dune 1984 will still be weird and unique.
Just like The Room is "weird and unique"? :)
> As a side note: does anyone take RT or the Oscars seriously anymore? That whole line of argument isn't very compelling to me, but I guess it is for some.
How much would you agree or disagree with this 'ranking' of Lynch's works?
The Room is an extreme example because it’s mostly remembered for being so bad that it’s funny, but sure: it has had a thousand times more influence than the hundreds of competent but procedural thrillers that came out at the same time. It will still be watched in fifty years.
I don’t like that list at all and think it’s basically a list of how “traditional” the Lynch film is. I’d put Mulholland Drive first personally.
It’s using RT’s scoring, which tends to favor movies that are broadly likable over movies that are more willing to take risks that don’t connect with all of their audience.
A big-budget Hollywood blockbuster will have a high RT score even if it’s kinda bland. A filmmaker like Lynch will have a lower RT score, but the people who connect with his movies are more likely have a deeper experience than someone who connects with the blockbuster.
I can think of no memorable visuals despite having seen it on IMAX.
I can remember plenty of interesting visuals from the Lynch one despite thinking many other aspects of it were horrible, and having seen it in my room 4 years ago.
A few you didn't mention that stand out to me, just because it brings me joy:
- Jessica meeting Mohiam in the unrelenting rain of Caladan
- The first time a transport picks up a harvester
- Paul's vision of Jessica holding Alia
- Salusa Secondus...
- Sardaukar dropping into the research station, and the Fremen revealing themselves from the sand to attack
It’s hard for me to think of any one specific scene that is visually memorable, because _the entire movie_ is visually memorable to me. It’s easily one of the most visually and auditory impressive films I’ve seen in the past decade, whereas Lynch’s seemed like a low-budget SyFy film in comparison.
The new one is basically unfinished, it's a nice setup for part 2.
Of course you're right, somehow Lynch did more in less time, but also maybe (hopefully!) part1-2 together will be a valuable take on Dune.
I have one vivid memory from the Lynch one. The Baron's blood torture contraption seared into my mind about 25 years ago, and I have some half faded ones about the last attack, the Imperial palace, and ... that's it probably.
For me Dune was more about vibe, atmosphere, scale, grand space opera mindfuck than concreteness and still images.
These are all personal opinions, but I agree that the first Dune is a much more interesting movie than the newer one. Awards are much more about politics and trend engineering than anything else. It’s good when they are on your side but I bet I can find highly awarded movies that you hate.
Villeneuve’s Dune looks like what a very advanced moviemaking ChatGPT would do: technically flawless, completely soulless, and an absolute snore fest. Lynch’s Dune is flawed, but full of character, and excitingly weird. It’s not a superb movie but then again the comparison isn’t either.
Your ChatGPT comment is a perfect description of Villeneuve’s movies and I’ve thought similar things for a long time. There’s just something missing that prevents them from being great.
It’s a real shame, because he is technically brilliant. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the most beautifully shot/edited movies I’ve ever seen, but it just cannot reach me beyond the surface.
If you’re interested in seeing him put his skills to tell an actual impactful story, watch Incendies. By far his best movie.
Also Prisoners and Enemy were impactful imo (and Sicario of course). I feel like where Villeneuve fails in that respect, filmmakers such as Nicholas Winding Refn succeed— I just watched Drive for the first time (I know I know), and it was one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve had in probably 5 years. Even though the film had a bit of a distant, hands-off quality, one connected with the film and characters completely (a lot of that maybe had to do with Gosling’s impeccable performance, but I’m sure the director had something to do with it).
> About Gosling I’ll refrain from commenting as it can get ugly. :)
I think it's fair to say that any particular performance of Gosling may be good/er or bad/er, but his broad range is impressive: The Notebook, Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, Only God Forgives, The Big Short, The Nice Guys, La La Land, Barbie.
Also: Crazy, Stupid, Love and Drive came out in the same year.
He was outstanding in The Big Short, I'll give him that. And his casting in BR2049 was the perfect choice; all he had to do to act like a robot was to act as usual...
For me it's fan service, but there must be more to it that I'm missing. Apparently it made nearly half a billion dollars over a budget of 165 million, so it cannot be just hardcore sci-fi fans. Chances are it's simply not my cup of tea, or not the cup of tea of a few people who value other kinds of experience on movies. I have a cousin who loves the movie and he says that the cinema experience is amazing, the images and sounds and the whole thing kinda pulls you in. Maybe that's just it: technical quality.
While I agree, I'd say the merit to the new Dune film is as an excellent example of ambient film - think of it less as a film in which things must happen and more of the waves at the beach - calming and tranquil, mostly, an occasional freak wave to keep you on your toes.
(Yes, I think it was solidly average otherwise and arguably the most boring of Villeneuve's work if watched conventionally).
Oh the world and the characters in my head from when I read it are much more interesting. I will keep this in mind for when (if) I watch the 2nd one tho.
People tend to project their personal preferences with an aura of superiority to the unknown future when everyone will ascend to their level and reach enlightenment.
For what it's worth, I think he is most likely correct that 20 years from now, any discussion of Dune and its adaptations will call Lynch's version "inventive, but flawed" and Villeneuve's "drab and lifeless, aimed at movie-goers who had freshly aged out of Iron Man and wanted to feel like it". I can practically feel this article stare at me from the screen already, too. And it probably wants to provoke a little. If anyone still cares, that is.
The reception of Lynch's version will continue to be colored by his overall ouvre, and it's all just so much more interesting and charming for anyone who has to see and write about movies all week long.
Citation needed; the top X on IMDB has a mix of recent (2014's Interstellar) and older (1972's The Godfather) films in their top ranked films: https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/
Of course, rankings on any platform should be taken with a grain of salt; if you like the film you like it, can't argue with taste or personal preference. Ranking tries to apply an objective fact (a number, an expert's say-so) to an inherently subjective question (did you enjoy it).
I generally don't trust IMDB or RT scores, but I agree with your assessment. They Shoot Pictures Don't They [1] has always been my go to for critically acclaimed movies. Neither Dune film makes it to their top 1000 of all time. The new Dune is #430 in the 21st century, which isn't spectacular, but it's ranked above some movies that I would consider quite good.
I'm a huge fan of Lynch and enjoy the original Dune for what it is, but there has been plenty of time for the critical assessment of it to settle, and it doesn't look good.
The new dune is just better. Some people can’t get around that fact and I think it’s the same realm as retro computing. Sure it’s cool, it’s interesting, it’s fun, but it’s not better. I think they have the same “hobby” as retro computing but won’t admit it so to speak.
>They simply have more character and vastly more interesting set design
I feel the opposite. Lynch's Dune did its own thing with meandering and confused direction. Villenuve's Dune complements the book much better. It respects Herbert's intelligence and understands the world building decisions Herbert made. I'm betting that the book and Villeneuve's Dune will stand the test of time better.
It respects the source material too much. It serves the only function of being an acceptable, technically excellent version for two audiences: the purists, who care more about the book than about film as an art form; and the people who are interested in Dune because they heard about it but they will not sit down and read it.
It has nothing to say cinematographically, and it has nothing to add to the messages that were written into Dune 50 years ago.
Do you feel the same way about the Lord of the Rings films? The most common complaints about those are where it has strayed from the source material.
Dune isn't fully pure, either. It goes against the most frequent theme of the first book simply by 'shooting' scenes outside during the day. Caladan is much more fleshed out. It introduces new Bene Tleilax lore in the first film which is notable because Herbert himself didn't introduce them until there was a second book to write, omniscience to restrict and characters to resurrect. Looking at the trailers for the next film, Feyd Rautha is bald Elvis instead of a handsome Paul-like character and I'd be very surprised if all of the Baron's proclivities are retained.
I recently got to rewatch the first LOTR film in theaters, after not having seen it for maybe 8 years.
I was stunned at how well done it was visually, and how well handled the tension and pacing are throughout the whole thing. It was just an impeccable cinematic experience.
In contrast, there are many things to say about Lynch's version, but he didn't just play it safe. Although compared to the plans Jodorowski (original director) had for the movie, he was probably conservative :D
I'm with you, _pace_ the bulk of the other comments in this thread. My wife, knowing nothing whatsoever about _Dune_, saw the movie with me, and "got" every element of the complex political background - in the car ride home she asked questions and spun theories, all of which were dead-on. It's a masterpiece of adaptation, a beautiful film, and I don't get the "soul-less" critique at all. On the big screen, at least, it's alive as hell, and Paul's prophetic dreams are handled perfectly: confusing and suggestive and strange, without ever taking you out of the narrative.
It's not even like the film is "slavish" to Herbert's narrative, either, like a few people have said. Having Kynes assassinated, rather than captured, removes a fun scene, but gives the audience a first hint of worm-riding, which is narratively useful.
My only regret, which I only arrived at after my third viewing, is that the actor playing Jamis should have played Stilgar, and Bardem should have played Jamis. I think Bardem is slightly mis-cast, but he's also enough of a name that the audience would have felt the same regret as Paul does at Jamis' death.
> It respects Herbert's intelligence and understands the world building decisions Herbert made.
I completely disagree, it does a few major plot points decently but the gender swap of Liet Kynes completely erases the point of that character as a parallel to Paul’s journey in relation to his determined destiny as outlined by the people before him. It completely wipes away any difference between the two invading armies as well they both come off as generic evil villains where in the book they have a purposeful lavishness and guadiness. Not to mention the entire obvious white washing of the entire jihad and Fremen who are clearly based off of Middle Eastern peoples.
The changes to Kynes and Hawat removed subplots to focus on the primary plot. They don't even mention Paul's mentat training.
I feel that removing the Arabic names from Fremen is to make it palatable for modern audiences. Herbert did respect Arabic cultures and (in my opinion) did not have an insulting representation of them. It is still a caricature of a people made by someone who is not of that people. We do give up some context, but we also avoid insult in our now-global world. I don't think there was any winning move here, but I think they gave it thought and made a careful decision.
No I think they took the easy way out because “modern” aka 1st world audiences are afraid of the word jihad. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if people weren’t proclaiming it to be an accurate depiction of the book when it clearly overwrites several big pieces of plot in favor of modern anxieties.
There are a lot more Arabic aspects of the Fremen in the books that didn't make it into the movie. They could have left those and removed the word Jihad but they went all the way.
Agreed. Dune is essentially an exploration of Middle Eastern cultures, in which a peek into is something that could benefit Hollywood and their audiences, especially in modern times.
I agree! I found the new Dune boring, nice looking but generic (a lot like e.g. any recent Ridley Scott movie) and the actors seemed bored too. It failed to communicate a sense of wonder at the strange world. I re-watched Lynch's version after the new one, and even though the story is the same, I cared about everything that happened. I can overlook other flaws in a movie if it's at least interesting. So I think you are right, not because Lynch's Dune was a masterpiece (it wasn't), but because the new one will be mostly forgotten in a decade or so.
Perhaps the new Dune was so appreciated because it ignores the recent trend of over-complicated story telling with time jumps and mystification, and instead just tells it straight. But that's a pretty low bar.
Also the cast of Lynch's version is better -- you had first rate actors like Kyle Mclachlan as Paul, Max von Sydow as Kynes, Patrick Stewart as Halleck (and yes, Sting as Feyd-Rautha, although that's maybe not a plus as Sting is a much better singer than he is an actor).
Jose Ferrer showing us how to de-cloak better than a dozen synchronized Romulan warbirds, Brad Dourif as the explanation of what happens when you twist a mentat, wee Alicia Witt as St. Alia of the Knife, and let's not forget Freddie Jones, a late British actor of a subtle versatility. The money men were really quite skeptical of hiring him on but after being shown some daillies, supposedly they apologized.
Lynch himself hates the movie, he had to make it due to contractual obligations. It does have a few cool moments, like the fight where they activate the barrier shields, but it's overall terrible.
There are some ridiculous changes to the story, and the end is so weird that it's funny, but the dialogues are so much better, the characters have substance. The scary ones are scary, the glorious ones are glorious. There is actual development in Leto. The whole world feels deep. Altogether, it feels like it was aimed at a more mature audience. The same audience that would also buy the books afterward if they didn't already read it.
New Dune however feels more like Young Adult Entertainment. It looks fantastic, but the rest doesn't really matter. I didn't feel anything for any of those characters. Some of the dialogues were really cringe worthy (the Hangar dialogue for example) I went there with someone who never read the books. They were confused also didn't bother with most of the characters or what has become of them.
I will go and see the second one though since it's Dune and I love Dune and this might also be the reason why this way of making movies works...the nerds still go in even if they complain and the "normal audience" gets something which won't be too challenging.
Not op, but I thought that the roles for Rabban and Feyd were absolutely ham-fisted acting in the Lynch version. Maybe there was a goal to communicate complex character elements in a highly condensed way, but it just comes across as clumsy to me.
Baron was fine if not better in the Lynch version.
Note that I watched the Lynch version in a theater in the 80s and recently rewatched it, and my feeling about the acting portrayal of these two characters was the almost exactly the same then and now — painful to watch.
I thought the new movies were absolutely awe inspiring. I bounced off the old movie pretty hard and thought it was some weird joke I hadn’t been invited in on.
> New Dune however feels more like Young Adult Entertainment.
Paul Atreides (the main character) is 15 years old in Dune.
Most people that read and revered Dune probably did so during their young adult years.
I say this as someone that loves the Herbert's works, but it is really apparent that the first Dune book originated from an ecological article, and mushrooms (of the psychedelic kind).
I feel very similarly - I will go and see the new one, because I love Dune.
But the last movie was.. sterile, dead. There was no warmth between the characters, little of interest in them. It was stark. I didn’t care for any of them and it didn’t seem much like they cared for each other.
The old Lynch movie isn’t a great film in that it doesn’t hold together well, and it’s not the best telling of Dune. But it has so much character, and it has characters, and they have meaningful interactions.
I worry that the money that has gone into the Villeneuve movies is the last time Dune will be able to attract that sort of funding, and the biggest budget telling of the story we will have is one in which the characters may as well be wax droids.
My hope lies on AI making it right in hopefully my lifetime. Or maybe it'll have to be me on some cracked AI because the copyright prevents the usual Hollywood AIs from making it ;)
I bought the dvd of the original Dune before having seen the movie. I’ve watched it a few times. I really wanted to like it. Something’s really off about it.
If you don’t already know dune the original movie is really hard. If you do know it there are some changes.
It really is of its time however. It’s a kind campy art piece that makes it hard to take seriously. Though Sting.
Great video. Thank you and yes, I agree it feels just like that. The unfortunate thing here is that this is a reboot. I guess it is this why those shallow characters hurt even more.
And yes, it is so gorgeous. It looks so breathtaking, but it feels hollow... I felt the same thing with the new Blade Runner. I really wanted to love that.
Jean Baudrillard would have something to say about all that.
Funny though that he brings up the new Dune somehow (hopefully?) positively, and there is even a fast shot of the new Blade Runner. I wonder if Dune makes the turn in the second part, but I doubt it since I haven't seen Villeneuve making it in any of his movies I've seen.
What I liked was "The Killer" vs. the whole John Wick thing. It was such a brilliant twist on the "revenge" trope. I doubt that I'll be able to watch another movie based upon this trope again. For me, it reached perfection with that.
One of the few uses of ever-improving "AI" bot generation of characters, faces, blending images, etc. I can imagine is the ability for fans to remix films and TV.
For example...
* to edit together the original BBC TV Hitch hikers' Guide to the Galaxy with the better SFX of the otherwise poor film.
* to create extra episodes or installments of beloved serials where the text exists but the actors are dead
* Or, in this instance, to mix Lynch's visuals and characters with Villeneuve's less scenery-chewing version which sticks closer to the text.
One could even imagine editing Villeneuve's Arrival to stick closer to the text of Ted Chiang's sublime "the Story of your Life", where the way the aliens write is pivotal to the story but the screenwriters didn't understand.
If I remember correctly (can't find the book), the novel describes the aliens writing as a intricate multi-level rectilinear ideogram where in order to start drawing the design, you needed to know the exact ending of the entire message.
Each ideogram was an entire complex reply. This implied that the aliens had a different sense of time.
Whereas the movie, the writing was a simpler circular design with slight filaments hanging off and no mention of the encapsulated message as a whole IIRC. The movie design reminded minded me of the Lucent Technologies logo [1] (worked for them a short while, back long ago).
I really liked the story and the movie but different media formats have different aims and constraints so it's hard to compare. I wish the movie industry would tackle more original content (like Arrival) rather than endless sequels.
Just one data-point, but I have only seen the _Arrival_ movie and perfectly understood that element of the aliens' writing system, and why it was important to their experience of time. I suspect that the circular design was chosen to be a better visual depiction (time as a closed loop, maybe?) of that idea.
In order to learn to write the aliens' script, the interpreter must learn what Douglas Adams called "defocussed temporal perception". To write the language you need to be able to see into the future. Learning the script teaches her to do this.
Seeing into the future she watches her own daughter die and there's nothing she can do to stop it.
The scriptwriters didn't understand any of this so they made the aliens spray-paint stencils on glass and inserted a terrible irrelevant subplot about stopping a war.
I have not read the novel, but I felt from the film that it was crystal clear that learning the alien writing system was what gave Amy Adams' character the knowledge her daughter would die.
And yet, when I think about Dune 2021, I feel like it lacks a lot of interesting context and explanation from the novel. But I know plenty of people who didn't read it and loved the film. I suspect DV takes more care to lay out the important details than I'm able to perceive knowing the book.
I don't think it's that they didn't understand. They movie just focuses on something different from the book. Where the book is highly conceptual and philosophical, the movie applies this in a very personal way. I walked away thinking about how every story ends in sadness and despair. Even though we can't see the future in this much detail, we all know how every human story ends. And yet, we engage with hope, and I think life is still worth living.
> They movie just focuses on something different from the book.
1. It's not a book. It's just a short story. It's only 16pp long or something.
2. The central point of the story is: brilliant linguist learns to write an alien script and it teaches her to see the future. That is the core plot in a sentence. The film loses that.
Don't get me wrong: I liked the film, as a modern SF film: i.e., brain damaged into mindlessness, but still quite pretty.
It's like a version of Hamlet in which he lives happy ever after, though. It is missing the point in the most profound possible way.
I just completely disagree with you. Watched the film and read the short story. The central premise absolutely comes through. I watched the film first, and understood it well. Love all of Ted Chiang's stuff, too.
It's funny though, I do feel a bit the same way about Dune. It's a Cliffs Notes of the book, and doesn't add anything new and thought provoking. Mindless but beautiful.
Still, I wouldn't say it missed the point. Just that it wasn't really necessary.
Fair enough! De gustibus non est disputandum after all.
I did say:
>> Don't get me wrong: I liked the film, as a modern SF film
I agree about Dune. If you know the book, it's a very pretty retelling. If you don't, it's a sort of weird summary with no signs of why so many people love it so much.
If we keep on praising uninteresting, soulless movies like Villeneuve’s Dune while shooting down more artistic (but weirder) views such as Lynch’s one, then I think we might end up with the opposite: human crews making films based GPT’s scripts.
The same thing happened with Society of the Snow: a technically beautiful movie with nothing to say other than being more “faithful” and using native actors. All that is appreciated but Alive was a flawed but much more exciting telling of the story.
About Arrival, another one of the soulless, empty outings by Villeneuve, it has 7.9 on IMDb and 94% on rotten tomatoes. Obviously, nobody really cares about the details (unfortunately).
If anyone is interested in the ridiculous amount of potential that Villeneuve threw away by becoming Hollywood’s generic sci-fi director, watch Incendies.
I really like the movie, but i think it did lose some of the soul of the short story.
The short story is essentially a story about grief using time travel as a metaphor but not actually having time travel in it. The movie has the character changing the past in a critical moment which kind of undermines the whole soul of the story imo.
To be clear, i still think arrival is a great movie, just rather different from the source material in terms of meaning and "soul"
I loved the movie Arrival and can't agree it is soulless. Don't get so focused on what it lacks from the short story that you don't see what it does have that the short story does not.
I haven't read the original text, I just couldn't find anything interesting about it. I understand that there is a plot twist which I should've become interested in, and apparently some of the characters are supposed to have some kind of emotional depth, but it just totally missed me.
Lynch's Dune is vibrant, transgressive and weird. Every detail is unsettling in the way only Lynch is. The scale invokes awe. Excited frisson and disgust overlap uncomfortably. The emotions evoked are grand and complex. It is a challenging film, a masterpiece.
Villeneuve's dune is an enjoyable film, it conforms to expectations, and easily lauded. As such it is somewhat anodyne and flat. It is only rich where it borrows from Lynch. The scale feels small like tilt-shift does.
So many of the negative comments about Villeneuve's Dune in this thread are astonishing to me, but I will just pick this one: surely scale is something that Villeneuve does so brilliantly! From Arrival, though Blade Runner 2049, to his Dune, he has an amazing ability to make things seem vast (space ships, buildings, cities...) - it's almost a trademark of his work, to me, so colour me baffled that you would single this out for criticism.
(For context, I read and enjoyed the Dune books as a child, I've seen the Lynch film several times and find it broadly comical, I love Twin Peaks, and I think Villeneuve is arguably one of the best mainstream directors working right now.)
I think the GP meant Lynch's world (universe) felt bigger, more mysterious. Like there were more things going on outside this story than could ever be told. Not that the physical size of things was too small. I think I agree a bit. But that universe is supposed to be small and claustrophobic I think? It is part of the lesson in the last few books. I liked the scifi miniseries the best but mostly for what came after the first book. Lynch's I liked when young, but even then I found the amount of internal narrative extremely irritating. The new one jas the problem of most every adaptation of a beloved and dense written work. It tries to serve existing fans and the casual viewer with the same movie. It does much better at that than anything but Jackson's lotr I think, but it is always hard.
I thought Lynch’s was corny and funny. But I do think we have hit an inflection point of big movie fatigue. Small scope movies are just way more fun and interesting right now.
Thinking about it less than a second: Prometheus. Drab colors, very neat and slick sets and costume designs. Heck even Interstellar. BR2049 although that's much more interesting in having all the neon, at least there's some color and some grit.
Well BR2049 was made by the same director and probably a lot of the same crew so I'd be surprised if it didn't look similar.
Prometheus and Interstellar look nothing like these movies though. The production design is completely different even though there might be similarities in the color grading.
I give you that the super washed out colors has been a very common aesthetic in the past 15 years or so but I wouldn't say all scifi movies adopt it. Some examples: District 9, Avatar 1 and 2, Inception, Tenet, Ex Machina, etc.
In contrast, Lynch's doesn't look anything like his other films.
Color grading is a huge part of what makes movies look like they do, but beside that there is a sterility and cleanliness, a monotony in how the images are handled.
> In contrast, Lynch's doesn't look anything like his other films.
Well because this was the only big budget film Lynch ever worked on and produced by none other than Dino De Laurentiis.
> beside that there is a sterility and cleanliness, a monotony in how the images are handled
Not sure what you're referring to. Maybe you're missing the analog feel of shooting in film? Dune 2021 was shot in digital (the newer digital Arri IMAX cameras) and Dune 1984 was shot in 35mm.
It's totally fine to not like digitally shot movies.
I didn't enjoy Lynch's Dune much as a Dune adaption, but I commend them for incredible creativity in the characters, costume, and sets. Most of the cast are not what I ever imagined in the books, but that does make it interesting and the characters are convincing.
"Scytale's friends are laughing and wildly rolling marbles under their hands as they watch Scytale sing through eighteen mouths in eighteen heads strung together with flesh that is like a flabby hose. The heads are singing all over the pink room. One man opens his mouth and a swarm of tiny people stream out singing accompaniment to Scytale. Another man releases a floating dog which explodes in mid-air causing everyone to get small and lost in the fibers of the beautiful carpet."
I thought the Giedi Prime scenes were pretty strange, but Lynch was apparently in a "hold my beer" mood.
Is a film only worth making if it stays accurate to the author’s vision?
The books exist and can still be read after films are made. The movie must stand on its own merits. If the filmmakers have their own vision that might make a better film.
Of course, there is no guarantee the film will be good, no matter what…
Most films based on books are made only to cash in on the name and preexisting audience of the book.
Consequently, most films based on a book are worse than the book.
Neither Dune film is an exception to this. I'd rather just read the book again than watch either film. And if you're someone who has never read the book, and indeed has no desire to read the book, then why do you even need a "Dune" film made for you?
What's truly sad about Hollywood is the complete lack of original film ideas.
Agreed. I think some of those films can be enjoyed on its own merits, but having read the book just makes it more difficult. One can't help but watch through the lens of the book.
It's a hard decision for those making a movie, you either push for your own vision and risk alienating book readers, or you are faithful and risk making something soulless and derivative.
Of course there are exceptions. But I think the majority of exceptions lies on directors adapting unknown books (like Hitchcock), or perhaps books with less-rabid fanbases.
It should at least be related. World War Z bears little resemblance to the book, to the point that basically the only thing they have in common use the name and the fact that they both have zombies in them.
Not to derail the thread, but I thought WWZ was such a missed (both artistic and commercial) opportunity, by not following the structure of the book. They could have made a whole anthology of stand-alone films, each detailing a different element of the world / apocalypse. There was more than enough material for an entire franchise, they just needed to aim a little lower with each film.
The movie we got was _blah_, but does have one of the most visceral moments I've seen in any zombie flick: the bit where Brad Pitt stands on the edge of the roof, counting down the seconds until he'll know whether he's been infected or not.
People are replying asking "Why call it Dune then? (If it does not have anything to do with the books)".
That wasn't what I was talking about – some imaginary filmatisation which has nothing to do with the book. I was talking about not staying true to the "author's vision". You can make a Dune movie in many ways. You can have the same characters, ornithopers and main events, while having a completely different vision for it.
Dune is also a book full of ideas. You can play up many different angles – ecological aspects, loyalty to leaders, political drama, religious fanaticism, etc. – while still being very much a Dune filmatisation. And a film maker can put their own spin on any of those, or bring up their own topics which makes sense to treat within the Dune framework.
Sure, for the money people, being a Dune filmatisation means people will see it because they know that Dune is a famous book (irrespective of weather they read it). But only die hards who have read the book (and have a very immature view of film as a medium) would judge it for how true it stays to the author's vision. The rest will be happy if it is a good movie.
Note also that Lynch's Dune influenced the later books!
Verhoeven's Starship Troopers was not Heinlein's vision, but it is a glorious and hilarious satire of Heinlein's vision. "Accuracy" was obviously not the point.
I love Verhoeven’s work (though haven’t seen it all).
Did you know that Robocop was an allegory for an American Christ?
Troopers is a wonderful pastiche. With half an analytical brain you see the anti-propaganda, anti-militarism, anti-jingoism, and general poking of fun at Heinlein’s ideas in what on the surface appears to be yet another brainless action movie.
Heinlein had very diverse ideas that he presented in his various works via very different POV characters. If you reduce his book to propaganda, militarism and jingoism, you likely don't see the bigger picture.
Speaking of epic scifi, when are we getting a Hyperion movie? I'm just re-reading it now and it would make for an amazing movie with todays special effects.
I read Hyperion recently and I think it would suffer from movie treatment. Like McCarthy’s The Road, so much of the horror in Hyperion comes from what is left to the imagination, like the terror of the shrike; and that which is internal to the characters, like the pain of the cross.
I doubt these could be translated effectively to a visual medium.
But other scenes, like the squishing of the literary agent between the floor and ceiling of a building that had been, up until that moment, supported but some kind of energy field, would be spectacular.
But more generally I completely agree with your comment. I also think the religious symbolism, like the cruciform parasite and the tree of pain, were a bit cheesy and overwrought in the writing, and would come across cheesy in a film, too.
I really enjoyed reading Hyperion. I bought it in a second hand book store before a flight back from NZ to Europe. However, the crude writing of this particular passage stayed with me:
"Sissipriss Harris had been one of my first conquests as a satyr – and one of my most enthusiastic – a beautiful girl, long blond hair too soft to be real, a fresh-picked-peach complexion too virginal to dream of touching, a beauty too perfect to believe: precisely the sort that even the most timid male dreams of violating"
What is crude with that? Are you trying to project some type of moral by suggesting that a woman's features influence her perceived desirability? Or that traditional European features are suddenly no longer considered attractive to people of European descent (as the author was)? Or that people of one sex should not lust for people of the opposite sex? Or that sometimes lust as felt by young and healthy people could never be a purely physical drive?
I found it stark to imply that all men dream of violation. It just felt like a very out of place part of the book to me where perhaps the author's own biases came through instead of as an effort to describe a character.
Equally, of course, I'm aware that my reaction to this passage also says something about my own conditioning.
It's well understood that to read and enjoy most sci-fi out there you have to accept that women and sex will be written from the perspective of a 14 year old boy.
That degenerate asshole was a thin avatar of an author who twice decided it would be wise to introduce a child character & immediately talk about them having sex with another character by way of time-travel-shenanigans
You can't get stuck on such details. Even the Dune movie removed any references to "jihad", so I'm sure we can storyboard something fitting and modern for Hyperion.
I love the Hyperion books, but it would hurt me even more to see the depth butchered for a mediocre Hollywood audience in a cinema than it did with Dune.
A mini-series would be nice, but I feel that an animated series would be even better.
I often agree about the animated bit, for example I'd much rather see the Alastair Reynolds novels as an animated series. I just don't think any movie can do them justice.
But personally I thought the new Dune movie was really good, I can't wait for the 2nd part.
Macheneries of Empire is another one I feel would only work as anime, not just animated. A lot of things in that, like the description of Kujen's (literal) shadow as like a canvas of fluttering moths' wings (and a lot of other fashion-related descriptions), remind me a lot of Gankutsuou's visual effects.
I’m surprised that the Sci-fi Channels Dune Miniseries from 2000 hasn’t been mentioned yet. While not a pretty as Villeneuve’s Dune, it does have its own visual charm and is able to tell more story in its 4.5 hour run time. Plus 3 years later they did a Children of Dune miniseries that also covers Messiah’s story.
For me Villeneuve was Part one story drags along taking forever to get to the point. Then there is this 2.5 year wait to get a part 2 release; during which I read the first 3 FH Books, waited 18 months and read the other 3 books.
Agreed. I love the weirdness of the Lynch film, but it's not a great Dune adaptation. The SciFi miniseries has the lowest production quality (desert scenes shot in real deserts are a lot better looking than desert scenes shot on a very low budget soundstage), but it's the most faithful adaptation, covers the first three books, and still has its own weird Dune charm.
Villeneuve's Dune is sterile and devoid of charm or personality. I love Dune, and I was bored to tears watching that movie.
As a huge Dune fan, I’ve honestly tried giving Lynch’s Dune movie a fair shot multiple times. But everything just totally falls apart for me with the weirding modules.
I work with screenwriters on early stage film development in production capacity and this is sort of like looking at someone’s MVP prototype git commits or meeting notes.
You can glean a lot about what was going on at some point in time, but I wouldn’t project ideas that this was anything more than random quick notes. Directors, screenwriters, producers generate a huge output in the process.
Can some explain how it is possible that an official archive would have this document and never look at it? The missing script for a never-made movie should attract attention, but nobody cared until this one writer found it? Why?
I'm doing a master's in library science and archives, currently working a couple of internships processing archives. The answer is archives are big, complex, and time-consuming. One collection I work with is 131 cubic feet of records including papers, floppy disks, and photographic film. It's unprocessed, meaning the archivists haven't had a chance to arrange and describe it, which isn't a wonder considering the size of the collection — and that's only one of many in the backlog.
Even if a collection is processed, because of the volume of information in a given collection archivists typically don't typically describe every document. In a library you can catalogue every book, but that's not possible in an archive. And in an artist's papers, how can you know which document will be important to someone? How can you know what's artistically significant? The time it would take to research the background of every document (Was this script ever made? Is it interesting to anyone?) would be prohibitive.
Add into the mix that archives are chronically underfunded and archivists underpaid. This is coming from the unpaid intern who was asked to process a $33,000 acquisition last year. Fun times.
For comparison a regular French-door fridge is about 25 cu ft. So 131 cu ft is equivalent to about 5 fridges’ worth of materials. Not that one would store an archive inside fridges :)
> Official archives can mean a few boxes in the basement
This is very apt description. In this case it sounds like they have 91 boxes (78 Document boxes, 13 cartons of research files)
Not sure if they are in the basement but the record locations says: Aisle 9A -- Shelves 1-4
> and submissions aren't catalogued as thoroughly as you might be expecting
That is also true in this case. By the sounds of it Frank Herbert boxed up all his papers and donated them to the library. Later on family donated more as they found more.
There is a very high level inventory, such as “Container 7: Maps” Maps of what? Doesn’t say. How many? Doesn’t say. One has to go there physically to find out.
There is also a “Flat file drawer tbd” containing a “Dune Atlas”. Which to be honest sounds very intriquing. And a “Small document box A-204” with “personal items” which is decidedly less so.
I would say the best - or at least most imaginative and presumptuous - version of Dune is the one we didn't actually get: The version by Alejandro Jodorowsky, in the 1970s. It was a grandiose project involving many artists and themes which went on to inspire, or feature in, films and comics and sculpture for years later (including, among other things, Alien). There was a documentary about it several years back, here's the trailer for that:
Probably the -value- of F.Herbert Dune is high enough to survive a film transposition, givin an higher-than-mean Director (in theory), and in pratice all those read and love Herbert work will see his message and meanings behind a movie..
Lynch Dune is not bad seen today but the director is not 'fit' for SciFi IMHO, Villeneuve, decades after, seems mode inside the genre and capable to manage the matter and the modern SFX, it's Dune seems more close to the essential minimal trascendent adn vastness spirit of FH Dune. All IMHO.
Dune: The Alternative Edition Redux at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faHQA_0d9Mo is a fan's "fanedit" of Lynch's original Dune movie, about 2h50m I think. I found it enjoyable to watch.
"Dune Remix is as close to Lynch's vision as possible. Its authors even followed the original script and all the scenes are in this version now reassembled in the correct chronological order and originally intended. It is true that not all the scenes could be found because probably Dino de Laurentis didn't even let them film, but much of what is in the cut, according to Spicediver, was enough to restore the film practically in its entirety according to what was written and planned by Lynch decades ago, following the script from scene to scene as faithfully as possible."
Dune, the story of a society who botched the AI alignment problem.
Mostly because a dictator with too much power delegated it to a badly aligned AI.
So, what lesson do they take from this? That having a god-emperor with too much power is a bad idea? Nah. That computers are a bad idea. Then they have to breed biological computers to do the job of a flight management system.
Then, despite having the ability to do that kind of bioengineering, they can't even crank out "spice" synthetically.
Reading Dune was the first time I read the word 'jihad'.
I read that that Villeneuve's film omits the word entirely. On that basis I will not watch the film.
The word is such a strong one, it has resonance and implies history and culture and power and fury and an unstoppable force. It was a huge part of the original culture of the book, and for me was a window into religion and cultures outside of those I'd previously known.
Apparently using the word 'jihad' is verboten for some reason, and it's not even obscurity.
Lynch makes the mistake of liking Paul too much. He didn't think about his overall arc through the series. For all Villeneuve's many faults as a director and the way he handled the source material he's left it open that Chalamet's Paul could be both a "hero" and a monster on his way to redemption far easier than McLachlan's.
The idea for example that the "Nuremberg-esque" scenes to come are a callback to the one from Dune 1 is exciting.
I think he has the range. No one ever asked him for it. Maybe at that age he wasn't studied enough to, but the time a sequel came out, maybe. I do think the fault there is with Lynch not McLaughlin.
One of the reasons Lynch's Dune is so (more) memorable than Villeneuve's version is the audio, due to Brian Eno generally, and Toto who scored the soundtrack. It was inspiring, majestic, spiritual. The newer film does not reach such heights, and depths, IMHO.
PS - I watched the extended cut with the tacky animation at the beginning, which was probably quite a good thing to have as a prelude if you hadn't read the book before. I had read the book before though.
Learn more about the scoring of the soundtrack and hear some tunes at:
The parts I found the most insufferable about Villeneuve's Dune are two pieces of dialogue towards the end: At one point, Chalamet says "You good?" like an American teenager, and Jessica has some other similar exclamation I can't remember that feels completely out of place, like "This is crazy!". No idea how those made it into the movie.
You see, Villeneuve's Dune has a great cast, insanely great cinematography and sets, but it is also very sterile, devoid of life and has very unimaginative directing. Some scenes were direct adaptations from the book, like Gom Jabbar scene, Shadout Mapes scene, and were very confusing for people who didn't read the book. (why does that sand woman shout when Jessica says a certain word?). Paul's awakening is very bland, too. His mentats were useless. De Vries was just a sad freak who stood nearby and then died. Hawat was in three scenes where he had any lines, and in two of which he counted expenses, and offered his resignation in the third. If I didn't read the book I'd assume he's some kind of accountant.
On the other hand, Lynch's Dune also has a great cast, great music, great sets, and it also has the all-important dream-like mystic feel to it, which is completely absent in the new adaptation. Sure, it has a lot of script problems, which mostly boil down to far too short runtime, as moviegoers in 1984 weren't ready for 2 part movies, so it had to cram the second part of the book in the final 20 minutes or so. Had it been two movies, it would have been much better.
One big improvement in Villeneuve's adaptation is Momoa's Idaho, who basically saved the movie for me. Lynch's Idaho was very bland and died far too easily and non-consequentally. Other than his scenes, if I ever want to see some scene from Dune on Youtube, it'll be Lynch's (except "the Guild doesn't take your orders", if you know what I mean).