The movie was everything I was hoping it to be. I have no reference to the books so I can only say what I saw.
The dune world once again sucked me in, like the first movie, I couldn’t believe how long it actually was, because I wasn’t paying attention, I just soaked up the emotions, pictures and music.
Now I see, why people have pointed out, that some parts where a bit rushed, but I also honor that I as a watcher was held to higher standards. It feels better that way, to understand time has passed, from the context, than breaking the flow.
I can’t wait to see the final part. If it’s anywhere near as good this dune movies will be forever in my all time favorites.
Just got back. It has been close to two decades since I read the books, but I will say that this is probably among the better adaptations I could imagine actually getting made. Focusing on Paul’s resistance to his “destiny” but his leaning into it once it was obvious no better path was presenting itself was well done., as was the theme of turning faith to selfish ends, and how it all ends up muddled in a stew of motives deserving varying degrees of sympathy.
The plot was obviously compressed, and while I feel that Chani’s feelings of betrayal were kind of amped up to the point where it was a weakness, I can see it as an early attempt to show us the consequences of Paul accepting the KH role. A bit clumsy, but thematically logical given what DV focused on. At the very least, the romance itself felt earned. Certain other aspects felt a bit rushed, as was inevitable maybe, but I did think it was a pretty decent curation and adaptation of the source material, and it’s a miracle the pacing and plot coherence were as good as they are. Sound and visuals were amazing and definitely capital-T “There” but without providing an excuse for bad storytelling.
On a couple of lighter notes: First, I think DV with these movies has mastered the art of finding the precise minimum, neither more nor (and this is critical) less, of humor and humanity to keep a movie from feeling like a joyless slog. Second, not to body shame a movie star, but everything that made Austin Butler feel “off” to me as a casting choice in Elvis and Masters of the Air worked perfectly as Feyd Rautha. He still sort of looks like a carnival caricature drawing of 1980s Val Kilmer, but those features complemented the Harkonnen makeup in exactly the right way. As a piece of production design, Austin Butler is unimpeachable, LOL.
There was so much good stuff artistically in this movie!
The changes to the story worked really well, IMO, towards updating it for modern cynical sensibilities:
I loved Zendaya’s portrayal of Chani and her girl friend calling out Paul and Jessica’s colonialist bullshit.
Jessica’s “strange” behavior as a pregnant woman. I agree with others that having Jessica speak for Alia worked better than having a child actor like Lynch’s version.
Stilgar’s parody of religious fanaticism was hilarious!
Visually, making the worm riding look like some kind of extreme sport worked well
The Giedi Prime black and white/infrared sequences were brilliant, although seeing the Baron and Feyd in regular flesh tones afterwards felt strange.
The Atreides nuke missiles flying across the sky felt apocalyptic
The Sardukar ranks were notably not as rigidly disciplined as we saw in the first film.
Unlike others, I thought that Christopher Walken’s emperor was good. Age decrepit on the verge of doddering, but with dark intelligent thoughts behind his sullen face. The only problem with casting Walken was that he’s too recognizable.
The one part I didn’t like was the climactic dagger fight. I would have liked to see the action better choreographed and coordinated with camera angles to make the sequence of thrusts and parries clearer. I also would have liked to see contrasting fighting styles between whatever Feyd does, and Paul’s classical Atreides training mixed with Fremen savagery. I’m still not sure how Paul’s knife wound up in Feyd at the end.
I also noticed unlike other adaptations, they didn’t do the weirding modules, the Atreides-developed sonic weapons that give the Fremen some kind of combat advantage. But I didn’t miss them.
That said, it is screaming out for a longer Director’s Cut. I know Villeneuve has said he won’t release one, but if there was a film in the past five years that has more or less demanded one, it’s this movie.
Yeah, when I say “director’s cut” what I really mean is a LoTR-style extended version which includes all the additional scenes that had to be cut to fit within the confines of a theatrical release.
In the case of Dune Two, I’d argue this would actually resolve a lot of pacing issues instead of introducing them. Many parts of this movie felt overly rushed.
Fantastic adaptation. Finished God Emperor earlier this month and had a blast with this. I think most of the changes were good to remove the campy nature of Alia going full on demon baby.
So many beautiful shots, and it felt amazing to see the first sandworm scene for Paul look exactly like I expected it to.
Mostly OK but largely underwhelming after how good first part was. My main gripe is that some of the changes were just baffling and some boil down to having Zendaya more prominent role for the sake of it. Spoilers ahead.
The good:
Jessica change after becoming reverend mother, her ruthless abuse of believers and complete disregard of social norms when talking to Alia was top tier,
Showing the division between believers and sceptics among Fremen,
Skipping Leto the Elder,
Skipping Jessica/Gourney drama,
The meh:
Feyd Rautha while acted well was just Jared Leto Joker,
Stilgar going full moron,
Giedi Prime color palette was annoying,
Paul changing water of life was almost glossed over and had to make room for Chani giving her tear to bring Paul back,
Correct me if I’m wrong here but book Paul wasn’t fully aware of the consequences of going on revenge path before becoming KH and it’s the opposite in the movie which is going to make Messiah part even weirder,
The wtf:
Chani drama at the end is extremely bad writing. It doesn’t stand the test of “would two adult people who talk to each other do that?”. It’s unnecessary too since Chani could be similarily displeased with instrumental use of Fremen but the acting makes it obvious this is about marrying Irulan (who’s the tragic story here, not Chani ffs),
There’s no Spacing Guild in the last scenes, therefore there is noone to explain how big of a deal to prescience Kwizatz Haderach is,
The end where Landsraad rejects Paul ascendancy and everyone immediately hops on spaceships to do battle. Like get some rest, maybe have a drink and orgy, I don’t know.
yeah, Chani shit was completely unnecessary, especially in a world where official concubines do exist, loved Feyd Rautha though, generally it’s more chaotic than first movie, also looks like some content was compressed in time, which is annoying, Paul left me unimpressed, like all this macho-ing after drinking the juice, aside from this he’s just walking, where? why? pure chaos
I agree that leaving Chani’s reaction open to interpretation as jealousy instead of anger at Paul’s manipulation of the Fremen is bad, but I liked Chani’s arc otherwise. And I wonder if they’re setting it up for Paul’s transition to the Prophet in Messiah to be a reunion with Chani.
Chani drama at the end is extremely bad writing. It doesn’t stand the test of “would two adult people who talk to each other do that?”. It’s unnecessary too since Chani could be similarily displeased with instrumental use of Fremen but the acting makes it obvious this is about marrying Irulan (who’s the tragic story here, not Chani ffs),
I think it makes more sense in the books (if i remember correctly)
Book spoilersThe movie shortens the timeframe Paul and Jessica spend with the Fremen from multiple years down to months. Probably due to wanting to keep Paul’s sister Alia as an unborn child, rather than having to cast a child actor to play this difficult role. And maybe to also keep the stroy a bit simpler, since the second part already has a lot going on. This also means that Paul’s and Chani’s first child Leto doesn’t exist. Who in the book gets killed by an attack on the sietch (and Alia gets taken hostage by the emperor). Imagine losing your child and then your husband goes on marrying the daugther of the person in a way responsible for your childs murder.
All good points that I wouldn’t have an issue with as changes to the original if movie script followed through with that premise. To add to your argument - in Villeneuve’s version Chani has no relationship with Jessica who’s a concubine and could introduce her to space royals / feudalism. They also removed mentions of how brutal Fremen social norms are - there is no mention of wife of Jamis that Paul had to take in (as well as their child, and another child that Jamis got in the same way Paul did).
Even with all this setup it is made clear to the viewer that Paul is aware that Chani will have trouble understanding marrying Irulan. This could be resolved by having a talk beforehand. For some reason Paul decides to deliver these news to Chani in some smug power trip.
Yeah, i think in general the change in time frame throws off all kind of things and while keeping Alia as an unborn embryo works quite well, some other parts suffer. I also would have liked to see Jamis wife/children, since that could have given even more emotional impact than the more general mourning sequence we got. But i can also understand that this would have added yet another story line to an already full movie.
Interestingly enough i recently watched the old Dune movie as comparison and was suprised that out of the slightly above 2h run time they spend 1,5h to reach the point where Dune Part I ends.
Never looked into it but it looked like Lynch planned for a much longer film and had to cut production short, hence much more exposition up until that point.
I couldn’t agree more. The story feels rushed. The hero succeed in every attempt. There is a small internal struggle for him but it’s basically it. Therefore the enemy seems weak. You don’t feel any adversity for the hero.
“Paul was swell, I was cheering for him all the way!”
– Elric of Melniboné, probably
Don’t get me wrong, Dune is my absolute favourite book, I must have read the whole series ten times already, but heroes in that world are in short supply. The guy that comes closest for my money is Duncan Idaho, especially later in the series (God Emperor and beyond).
Just wow. One of the few movies that lived up to the hype and visually it is one of the most stunning films I have ever seen. The whole scene on Giedi Prime is otherworldly and sets the Harkonnens up as a malevolent force that is the complete opposite of the Atreides we see in the first film.
Only complaint is that while the first part was 99% faithful to the book, part two drops to about 90% and also cuts out what I think are pivotal scenes in the book. Still it was never going to be easy to choose what to drop without turning it into a 4 hour movie and overall it all works incredibly well.
I was just reading about that Geidi Prime scene, I just assumed it was digitally altered to get the look, but apparently the whole thing was shot using infra red.
I saw it on the fan-first premier on the 25th. I also posted this in the Dune community, but here’s my review:
Amazing adaptation of the second half of the book. As expected, the cinematography, set design, and music are all beautiful. I was skeptical when Denis said a large focus of the film would be the love story, but was pleasantly surprised they were able to pull off a believable romance between Paul and Chani while trying to fit everything else in this huge story. Stilgar was amazing. The Giedi Prime scenes were gorgeous. I think they also pulled of Alia well, which is understandable since it’s kinda hard to have a child character like in the books translated into film without making it cartoonish.
Now for my (minor) criticisms:
We all know how dense the book is, and even with only half the book remaining for this film and almost 3 hours, certain parts still felt rushed; which is understandable because there is only so much you can cram into a movie.
For example, the time Paul and Jessica spent in Sietch Tabr felt so quick, without having a reference/barometer to let audiences know how long it took for them to turn the Fremen to their side and Paul and Chani’s relationship to develop. This took years in the book, and book readers will obviously know that, but I feel like non-readers will complain how “fast” it happened. It also doesn’t help that since they cut child Alia in this version, this means all the events in the film happened in less than 9 months, which is pretty short for someone to integrate into a planet’s native population, train in their ways, and rise up as a messianic figure for an entire planet.
The final big battle also felt rushed. I know it was generally glossed over in the book, but it would have been great if the film took a few more minutes to show some battles before Paul reaches the emperor. Gurney and Rabban’s fight scene should’ve also been a little longer, given Gurney had to emphasize the scar Rabban gave him, which was kinda implying there was a big fight scene ahead.
While I love Christopher Walken, the emperor in this film had barely anything to work with such that you could’ve cast any other decent actor and it wouldn’t have mattered. I was hoping for something special from Walken’s portrayal given how unique of an actor he is.
All that being said, it was an amazing film and I was pretty satisfied. It needed 30 more minutes to flesh out the events more, but I understand you can’t make a 3.5 hour movie without making general audiences bored. Now on to Messiah to complete a trilogy!
Also want to point out that Walken did the music video for Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice, whose lyrics were partially inspired by Dune, aswell as other sci-fi franchises
As a non book reader I had a similar take. The first movie felt slower with all the beats, this one felt like it was trying to accomplish a speed run. It felt like characters were just teleporting around with how quickly we were moving between locations. Overall it was visually stunning, but given how much was crammed in here I kind of wish there had been a way to add some of this into the first movie.
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