Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dune: Part Two – First Look

vanityfair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 86 posts

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#71

Post by dmreedy »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #28
dmreedy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They left out pretty much the entirety of the Butlerian Jihad and Orange Catholicism as themes motivating the world. Mentats are barely discussed even though they are present. And yeah, no dinner scene, and no conservatory, as far as story telling beats

Oh yeah, I guess they did… I imagine they’ll have to expand on that a little bit more in the part 2 for the rest of Thufir’s story to make sense though. Now that I think about it they didn’t put much effort into Piter de Vries either.

Honestly I'm not even sure they're going to do more than unceremoniously kill Thufir off in the background. But it's possible that they took the first movie as a chance to explore Arrakis, and will take the second to explore the broader galaxy and its politics, players, and philosophies.

We still haven't met the Emperor or his Daughter, the Imperial Court (beyond an emissary. No dinner party means no Fenrig and Margot), the Guild (as political players) CHOAM? (I forget if it's even mentioned). All of these could be worked in (and it seems like they will be given we see casting of Irulan at the very least), but you can imagine a version of the story that is less concerned with the broader politicking than it is with the action on Arrakis.

They also fundamentally changed the nature of Kynes' death. So it is possible they are not even interested in (or, to be kinder, that they feel they don't have time for) the planetological lifecycle of the worms and the spice. That it will serve only as a mcguffin. But that's pure speculation.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#72

Post by carapace »

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.

Anime does it just fine. E.g. half of an Inuyasha episode is internal monologue, eh?

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#73

Post by xboxnolifes »

dylan604 wrote: post #69
poulpy123 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I know. However it was a failure from 40 years ago, the story deserved another try in this case

Failure?

Movies that box office for less than their budget are typically considered failures, yes.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#74

Post by antisthenes »

MikusR wrote: post #21
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…

No it is not. There was Sci-Fi channel miniseries Dune and Children of Dune. Those, despite the lower budget, are much better than than the movie.

I agree. I think these are the best interpretations of the book that I've seen.

However I've also done a complete 180 on the book itself. I think there are just too many holes in the logistics of the Dune world for me to keep up the suspension of disbelief as an adult.

Given that, I'm pretty neutral towards the movies as the book adaptations. I hope they don't take the source material too seriously actually, because the source is honestly not as captivating to me as an adult as it used to be as a teenager.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#75

Post by gaws »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #39

Really appreciated Villeneuve adding small scenes to the movie like the gardener watering the date palms and the ecology outpost. It rewards people who read the book and also helps people who are just watching the movie with understanding the world. Curious to see what other tid-bits from the book they will keep in part 2. Hopefully we can see some Fremen Sietches. On another note, I've always wanted to write a load…

> Really appreciated Villeneuve adding small scenes to the movie like the gardener watering the date palms and the ecology outpost. It rewards people who read the book and also helps people who are just watching the movie with understanding the world.

The biggest miss was Villeneuve not including Dr. Yueh's conversation with Lady Jessica that provides more context to why he did what he did.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#78

Post by mercutio2 »

MilStdJunkie wrote: post #67
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…

You're asking a movie question in a forum that's probably very resistant or even actively hostile to visual storytelling[0]. Weight answers accordingly. For my $.02, it's a great film . I loved it; we have a cheap IMAX in our city and I must have seen it there a dozen times, and then a few times at home later. Greig Fraser was a fine stand in for Deakins, which was a relief. I love the look of the Lynch film, expecte…

Well said, all!

I particularly appreciate hearing someone other than me point out that Dune is very much not the hero’s journey. The first book sure rhymes with it, with some odd dissonant notes if that’s all you’re expecting. I loved the Lynch movie, but it basically leaned into the hero’s journey on acid, so it worked (for my adolescent self) as a movie, but was clearly not something hewing to the point of the series.

I feel like this new take is much more likely to capture the ambiguity of operating at the scale of galactic civilization rapture and stasis. We’ll have to see the next film to know!

I am shocked every time I hear people be surprised that the dinner scene was removed. There’s no way to translate that scene to film in a way viewers could understand, and I don’t get why people feel it was so load bearing to the novel.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#79

Post by jemmyw »

dylan604 wrote: post #70
arethuza wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett?

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3875-i-feel-thin-sort-of-st... Tolkien apparently, although I definitely remember a similar Pratchett quote.

Re: Dune: Part Two – First Look

#80

Post by flopsamjetsam »

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…

I missed the conservatory scene. I know it could be covered in other ways, but I love the other-worldly feel of a lush, moisture-laden room, against the harsh dry dustiness of Arrakeen.
Post reply on HN