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Dune: Part Two – First Look

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Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#51

Post by zoltar »

tweezy wrote: post #11
no_wizard wrote: post #2

A fair question I have, I think, is are these new Dune movies any good? I always felt it would be best as a limited series so there was more time to expand on the characters / story / world and that movie runtimes - even though they're getting longer - just aren't a good medium for complex stories like this that rely on heavy background and backstory HBO paved the way for high value high production series, seems like…

I've found a barbell shape to the response. People either seem to really like or hate it. Not too many people I know that are in the middle. I will say I'm one of the people that really like it. I'm a big fan of the first Dune book and I think it does a great job of being true to the story. It's visually stunning and the score is perfect. My only gripe (and it's a big one) is that the cut the dinner scene. I don't un…

I'm with you mostly on the "really like" side. Sound all the way around is excellent. Little details like the horn blowing dust when they disembark from the ships on Arrakis are great. Salusa Secundus in the rain was great. The overall visual style is great. Casting was mostly great.

I just wish some of the sets were a bit more dense. The room for the Gom Jabbar scene, the Bene Gesserit walking back to the ship, cone of silence scene, and especially the palace fight on the stairs. Kinda gave my Sky Captain vibes.

I also don't like cutting the tension between Jessica and Thufir, although if Thufir doesn't end up under the Baron I guess I get it.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#52

Post by dsr_ »

stevenwoo wrote: post #48
viraptor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comment seems like 3 independent thoughts. In my opinion: yes the first part was great, yes it could cover more details as a series, yes a HBO style high value production would be cool to see. The possibility of having something better does not make this movie bad. If you can go into it accepting that: not everything will be covered, the book has lots of internal thoughts and little action which doesn't work wel…

HBO started production on a prequel, Dune: the Sisterhood, based on the Brian Hebert books, I haven't read them, only read the first six by Frank Hebert, but just based on the twist in book five, the origin story of the Bene Gesserit could be bonkers.

The problem is that Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson have turned out 20ish volumes of bad fanfic.

(I have nothing against good fanfic.)

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#53

Post by _ph_ »

no_wizard wrote: post #2

A fair question I have, I think, is are these new Dune movies any good? I always felt it would be best as a limited series so there was more time to expand on the characters / story / world and that movie runtimes - even though they're getting longer - just aren't a good medium for complex stories like this that rely on heavy background and backstory HBO paved the way for high value high production series, seems like…

I would strongly say: yes. I was very skeptic, I am a big fan of the book and actually liked the first movie. All newer productions ever failed to excite me - until the new movie. That in my eyes is really well made. Looking forward to the second part!

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#54

Post by arethuza »

viraptor wrote: post #49
carapace wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems as good an opening as any... No. (the first one, haven't seen the second) This "Dune" is not good. It's pretty, but stupid. For one thing, just one little thing, what's the Baron's guy's name? Not the Feyd-Ruatha/Raban amalgam. The mentat. No one says Piter's name!? If you haven't read the book you wouldn't know WhoTF that character is. - - - - I could go on and on, but what I really want to say, what I wa…

> Don't change the dialog That would be one weird movie given how much the characters in Dune think about things rather than talk about them. There are important conversations of course, but... there would be a lot of "Paul thinking about the future" voiceover.

Weren't those internal monologues one of the weaknesses of the Lynch movie?

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#55

Post by yamtaddle »

viraptor wrote: post #49
carapace wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems as good an opening as any... No. (the first one, haven't seen the second) This "Dune" is not good. It's pretty, but stupid. For one thing, just one little thing, what's the Baron's guy's name? Not the Feyd-Ruatha/Raban amalgam. The mentat. No one says Piter's name!? If you haven't read the book you wouldn't know WhoTF that character is. - - - - I could go on and on, but what I really want to say, what I wa…

> Don't change the dialog That would be one weird movie given how much the characters in Dune think about things rather than talk about them. There are important conversations of course, but... there would be a lot of "Paul thinking about the future" voiceover.

Exactly, Dune is practically unfilmable without heavy adaptation. There's a bunch of that inner-thought voiceover stuff in David Lynch's Dune, but still only a tiny fraction as much as is in the book, and it's frankly really damn goofy (full disclosure: I'm waiting to see how Part II turns out before I decide whether this version, or the Alan Smithee cut of 1984 Dune, is the one I'd be more excited about if someone proposed a re-watch—I love that glorious mess)

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#56

Post by throw0101a »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #14
dmreedy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the one we've seen so far had to pick and choose which pieces of the broader tangle of themes to engage with, by necessity of the constraints of the medium. But it did a very, very good job taking a movie-formattable slice out of the thing and presenting it with the honesty and scope of the source material. > HBO paved the way for high value high production series, HBO also paved the way to the superficializa…

Other than turning Paul into a crusader, what did they really leave out of the book? The dinner scene, and some of the more minor Leto scheming was all I could remember. Did they have the Jessica finding the conservatory scene? I can’t remember…

> Did they have the Jessica finding the conservatory scene?

No.

Also: no confrontation scene between Jessica and Gurney.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#57

Post by Maursault »

arethuza wrote: post #47
Maursault wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won 6 Oscars, deservedly, though all technical, but should have won Best Picture, which went to CODA. CODA had a budget of $10M and a box office take of $1.9M, while Dune had a budget of $165M and a box office take of $402M, if that tells you anything. Chalamet should have won Best Actor, he did quite well, but he is too young. He'll get one later when he's older, undoubtedly. Best Actor went to Will Smith for Kin…

"but he is too young" He is currently 27 - which is a lot older than Paul is supposed to be?

Academy convention is to award older, more accomplished actors for previous work that was not awarded. Chalemet's age compared to Paul's is irrelevant. IRL, Chalemet is too young (compared to his competition in 2022) to be awarded an Oscar. Not technically, but in practice, Oscars are more like lifetime achievement awards. For example, Jamie Lee Curtis did not give an Oscar winning performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, but they had to give it to her for her lifetime achievement and the fact that they awarded Oscars to two other actors in the film. That movie was terrible, but Michelle Yeoh deserves an Oscar for lifetime achievement. Ke Huy Kuan, 51, was certainly adequate, but the roll was nothing special. Hong Chau, 41, should have gotten his Oscar for her work in The Whale, which was a notably amazing performance. Kuan got it because of his age, even if his lifetime achievement is limited. Someone decided Everything Everywhere would sweep the Oscars, and it had everything to do with Michelle Yeoh's and Jamie Lee Curtis' lifetime achievements. The Whale was a far better film with more difficult acting that was nailed. It was just too controversial. Frasier got the Oscar even though his supporting actor Chau out-acted him, and pretty much everyone in all other movies. Her performance there was one of the best I have ever seen, and I had never heard of her. She'll be back.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#58

Post by throw0101a »

stevenwoo wrote: post #48
viraptor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comment seems like 3 independent thoughts. In my opinion: yes the first part was great, yes it could cover more details as a series, yes a HBO style high value production would be cool to see. The possibility of having something better does not make this movie bad. If you can go into it accepting that: not everything will be covered, the book has lots of internal thoughts and little action which doesn't work wel…

HBO started production on a prequel, Dune: the Sisterhood, based on the Brian Hebert books, I haven't read them, only read the first six by Frank Hebert, but just based on the twist in book five, the origin story of the Bene Gesserit could be bonkers.

> HBO started production on a prequel, Dune: the Sisterhood, based on the Brian Hebert books

I read the first Brian Herbert book when it came out. Didn't bother with any since (life is too short).

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#59

Post by throw0101a »

dylan604 wrote: post #13
no_wizard wrote: post #2

A fair question I have, I think, is are these new Dune movies any good? I always felt it would be best as a limited series so there was more time to expand on the characters / story / world and that movie runtimes - even though they're getting longer - just aren't a good medium for complex stories like this that rely on heavy background and backstory HBO paved the way for high value high production series, seems like…

>that movie runtimes - even though they're getting longer - just aren't a good medium for complex stories like this that rely on heavy background and backstory Peter Jackson would disagree. If you can't get it done in a single "getting longer" movie runtime, just make it into 3. Harry Potter did it in 2, Twilight did it in 2, etc. So the precedent of using multiple movies is there.

> Peter Jackson would disagree. If you can't get it done in a single "getting longer" movie runtime, just make it into 3.

That's how we got The Hobbit series, which were getting a bit too thin/stretched IMHO. LoTR as three worked, maybe Hobbit as two could have been better (was a love triangle really needed?)

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#60

Post by arethuza »

Maursault wrote: post #57
arethuza wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but he is too young" He is currently 27 - which is a lot older than Paul is supposed to be?

Academy convention is to award older, more accomplished actors for previous work that was not awarded. Chalemet's age compared to Paul's is irrelevant. IRL, Chalemet is too young (compared to his competition in 2022) to be awarded an Oscar. Not technically, but in practice, Oscars are more like lifetime achievement awards. For example, Jamie Lee Curtis did not give an Oscar winning performance in Everything Everywher…

Apologies - I missed that you were talking about being too young to win an Oscar.
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