Dune Part 2 is (one of) the best Sci-Fi i ever watched.
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Personally I don't think that film is the realm of big Sci-Fi epics like Dune, set in universes so distant from our own. This is partly because movies can't convey the entirety of a written work, not even through the visual language of film. It's also because I'm fairly convinced that moviegoers and critics are completely fucking retarded.
More artsy films like 2001 work because they're art films first and sci-fi second. The artsiness means critics are allowed to like it without feeling embarrassed that they're watching a plebian space movie. Plus the setting of 2001 isn't that dissimilar from our own, so simple-minded movie consoomers don't feel disconnected from the film's premise.
Fantasy doesn't seem to have this problem for some reason. I can only assume because when the setting is "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" or Middle-Earth, that allows people to subconsciously suspend their disbelief. But when you have something like Dune which is ostensibly set in our galaxy many years into the future, our reptile brain goes "wait, but that's reality, hol up, this doesn't look like reality".
Anyway, pardon my autism, but this has been nagging me for a while now.
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- Feb 24, 2019
I completely missed giving out Null's Love reaction stickers cause I was in the theater for three hours watching this movie and I'm very disappointed.
Movie was still good though.
Movie was still good though.
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- Sep 1, 2022
Disagree completely.
I mostly liked Part One. The changes from the source material were either inconsequential or understandable given the constraints of making an adaptation, and never felt at odds with the tone, themes or world of Dune.
Part Two's changes to the source material were larger, both in scope and in impact, and totally muddy the tone, themes and world of Dune. Chani's character is completely ruined, and it seemed pretty obvious to me what motivated it. They wanted to give modern audiences who might be uncomfortable with the things the Dune series sets out to say an escape hatch, a character they could identify with and use to leave the theater feeling fundamentally unchallenged.
Chani has no arc in the movie. She starts a girl boss in Part One, and ends a girl boss in Part Two. The only thing she learns is she was wrong to trust white colonizer-savior Paul, even though he is literally in-universe a Godlike being. Chani of the book totally believes in Paul, accepts that he will have to marry the empress, accepts her role as concubine and bares Paul's children after reconciling with Jessica. This is resonant with the themes of fate and prophecy, as Paul's path mirrors that of his father Leto, who also never could marry the woman he loved.
Instead, Chani is the one person on fucking Arrakis who refuses to acknowledge Paul's divinity (besides Paul himself, for some reason, despite literally being a God) and the one person who ends up not believing in him. This also indicates the very weird anti-religion themes of the film. The source material had a very cynical and realist view of religion, but Part Two practically indulged in full-on fedora tipping at many points.
There are a lot of other issues with the movie, and they aren't just changes from the source material. The fucking thing is nearly 3 hours long and it still felt rushed. Pacing is all over the place. The second half in particular is a big mess. This obviously needed to be either a miniseries or a trilogy. Bullfights are a key element of the plot of the source material, and there are three major ones: Paul vs Jamis, Feyd vs the slaves, and Paul vs Feyd. Each should have been a climax of separate movies.
Despite all this, I didn't completely hate it. There was a lot about it to like, in particular Feyd was very good. But I feel that if this series keeps going it is going to rapidly devolve into Disney-eque slop, and Part Two is already halfway there.
I mostly liked Part One. The changes from the source material were either inconsequential or understandable given the constraints of making an adaptation, and never felt at odds with the tone, themes or world of Dune.
Part Two's changes to the source material were larger, both in scope and in impact, and totally muddy the tone, themes and world of Dune. Chani's character is completely ruined, and it seemed pretty obvious to me what motivated it. They wanted to give modern audiences who might be uncomfortable with the things the Dune series sets out to say an escape hatch, a character they could identify with and use to leave the theater feeling fundamentally unchallenged.
Chani has no arc in the movie. She starts a girl boss in Part One, and ends a girl boss in Part Two. The only thing she learns is she was wrong to trust white colonizer-savior Paul, even though he is literally in-universe a Godlike being. Chani of the book totally believes in Paul, accepts that he will have to marry the empress, accepts her role as concubine and bares Paul's children after reconciling with Jessica. This is resonant with the themes of fate and prophecy, as Paul's path mirrors that of his father Leto, who also never could marry the woman he loved.
Instead, Chani is the one person on fucking Arrakis who refuses to acknowledge Paul's divinity (besides Paul himself, for some reason, despite literally being a God) and the one person who ends up not believing in him. This also indicates the very weird anti-religion themes of the film. The source material had a very cynical and realist view of religion, but Part Two practically indulged in full-on fedora tipping at many points.
There are a lot of other issues with the movie, and they aren't just changes from the source material. The fucking thing is nearly 3 hours long and it still felt rushed. Pacing is all over the place. The second half in particular is a big mess. This obviously needed to be either a miniseries or a trilogy. Bullfights are a key element of the plot of the source material, and there are three major ones: Paul vs Jamis, Feyd vs the slaves, and Paul vs Feyd. Each should have been a climax of separate movies.
Despite all this, I didn't completely hate it. There was a lot about it to like, in particular Feyd was very good. But I feel that if this series keeps going it is going to rapidly devolve into Disney-eque slop, and Part Two is already halfway there.
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This subject is so controversial it needs to be DMZed.
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- Oct 21, 2019
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- Apr 19, 2021
Is Dune even really scifi? People call Star Wars scifi but it's really fantasy with scifi elements that are used essentially as a macguffin. I'd say the same is with Dune. I find it more of a story of political intrigue set in space where spice is the macguffin. The selective breeding and genetic engineering stuff isn't really all that different from the stuff of old monarchies. You see this right away in the Dune 1984 where a solid 10+ minutes of exposition is given to set the political stage at the very begining of the movie.
TheHarbinger
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It's soft science fiction but still closer to pure science fiction than fantasy. The books are filled with ecological explanations for the planetary conditions on Arrakis. Massive history and lore of things like the war on learning machines. Often the novels will delve into the inner working of various futuristic technology. The movies are fantasy like Star Wars but not the novels.
Star Wars is almost at the level of dumb science fiction at this point. Where the more they explain the more ridiculous the world gets. Like mitichlorians and whills and the awful nonsense in George Lucas's head. It's like in the Alien franchise where they started adding explanation for the space jockey with Engineer and showing the origin of the Xenos and it just went to shit almost immediately.
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- Nov 9, 2023
I hope they can get Heath Ledger for part 3.
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- Nov 28, 2018
wtfNeedSignUp
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- Dec 17, 2019
I always wondered whether Mentats and Bene Gessrrit Voice was psychic in nature or just the edge of human capabilities once you advanced well enough into brain/emotional manipulation. Those two are really the biggest fantastical parts of the setting
ChampFantana
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The theme of fulfilling one's obligations to one's House also fell by the wayside thanks to Villenueve's changes to the story from the book.
Despite my quibbles with the way the movie departs from the novel, I will say that Villenueve absolutely NAILED many of my favorite moments across both halves of the story. Duncan fighting the Sardaukar and Paul riding the worm for the first time are two such examples. I saw Part 2 in IMAX that scene of Paul riding on The Great Shai-Hulud was AMAZING.
I really wish the director had explained over the course of Part 1 exactly who Duncan Idaho was and why he was easily the greatest swordsman in the Known Universe. The Sardaukar not being shown to be the Emperor's Elite equal to any 10 House Troops of the Landsraad was something that diminishes Duncan's heroism in his last stand. Duncan killing nearly two-dozen Sardaukar is a BIG DEAL in the novel, and he was a really cool character. The Sardaukar moving against the Atreides troops openly instead of disguised as Harkonnen warriors is also a change that I feel was unnecessary.
They REALLY did Chani dirty in the end of the movie, but what annoyed me more than her girlboss antics was Christopher Walken basically sleep-walking through his performance. I can't really blame him though, because he wasn't given much of anything to do in the first place. The complete absence of CHOAM, Mentats, and the Spacing Guild is incredibly baffling to me as well.
I think that while flawed, Villenueve's version gets enough things right to easily place his version of Lynch's.
Please forgive my autism. Dune is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi novels thanks to having read it back in high school many years ago.
Montalbane
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Mfw I fuck the dune 2 popcorn bucket.
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- Feb 5, 2021
I thought part 1 was meh so my expectations for part 2 were very low. I was extremely surprised at how great it was. I wouldn't put it above Oblivion or Alien but it really was very, very well done. Even Zendaya couldn't ruin it.
Christopher Walken was miscast, though. He has no gravitas, so there's no way I buy him as Shaddam IV.
Christopher Walken was miscast, though. He has no gravitas, so there's no way I buy him as Shaddam IV.
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- Sep 1, 2022
Mine too, which is why I actually think I'm going to grow to hate Villeneuve's Dune more over time as the spectacle wears off. It looked great and did some things well, but what it did wrong it did so wrong it basically insults the source material and shits all over what it set out to say. Feyd and the sandworm riding scene cannot save the movie from its flaws, because those flaws are fundamental. If it was just a clunky movie that remained faithful to the spirit of Dune, I'd be a lot more forgiving. But its like a zombie-Dune made to appeal to Star Wars fans who cannot consoom a film without having their assumptions about life affirmed, like RELIGION = BAD/DUMB, BROWN PEOPLE = GOOD and CHILDREN/FAMILIES = ICKY.
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- Nov 28, 2018
Agreed. I didn't feel the weight of a very powerful and jealous man, moved so far to extinguish the Atreides bloodline to protect his house. Someone like Charles Dance or maybe even Mark Strong could've been the Emperor? A bit short sighted on Denis' part to cast Walken just because he was in Lynch's version.
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- Feb 5, 2021
I actually think Andre Braugher could have pulled it off.
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- Jul 6, 2016
Basically how I felt about it too yeah. I explained my feeling to a friend as Chani is a really important character to Paul the character but not Dune the story. Giving her more time on screen just emphasizes that she really is just there to be a comfort/sounding board to Paul but doesn't really do anything outside of that role. I'm half-serious when I say I think Zedaya must be fucking half the creatives involved because them relying on her non-existent acting ability and screen presence and changing so much to be about her is baffling unless she's getting passed around. The other change that grinds my gears is condensing the timeline because it completely fucks St. Alia of the Knife's entire story arc and Paul getting sad and going to the south to become Muad'dib makes no sense when the Harkonnens kill Fremen randos Paul spends zero time with because he's off doing terrorism with the boys with vs. when they kill his newborn son.
Mentats are just savants trained with drugs and handwavy techniques that in the end isn't that much more fantastic then what real people do in real life. Voice is somewhat strained, but both prescience and the genetic memory are more science fantasy then fiction. But Frank wanted to tell a story about the trap of prescience so that kind of comes with the territory. Later books become a lot more fantastical like worm control, super speed, detecting through completely undetectable invisibility fields just because, etc.
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- Sep 2, 2023
I genuinely don't get the fascination for the story of 2001 A Space Odyssey, it strikes me as pretentious artsy existencial-wanking, vague enough to not really be a topic of discussion nor an inspiration for something IRL.