I’m excited about the Dune remake

[Bergeron]

I enjoyed the movie last Friday, and I'll see it again with friends this upcoming Friday.

I liked it! I re-read the book up until the ending of the movie last night, just to solidify my understanding of the differences

I'm glad the movie exists, and my ultimate take is that if you want the best Dune experience, read the book. The size, scope, and epic nature of the book can make for a spectacle of a movie, and that's not bad. We study the original Greek plays by mainly reading them in English, which is quite different from seeing them acted live in Greek. The basic truths of humanity contained in those plays make them enjoyable to be read in English, but it's not the same experience as the "native-original format", which I don't think is a negative, but simply something unavoidable.

[RoyGBiv]

A friend said it was "cut and paste" from the last attempt, just fancier effects and different faces.
Well, it's the same story, so how faithful is Hollywood going to be to a mere book, anyhow?

I disagree. The new film has much more back story and is much more believable (relatively) as science possible instead of science fiction.

[VT1032]

I've never read the books or seen the older movie so I don't know how good or bad it was in relation to those, but as a standalone movie, I really liked it. It came across as a quality of movie that I haven't seen in a while and certainly not in the COVID era.

[Jim Watson]

As said, I will surely see the movie and will reread the book for a sense of proportion.

I do not consider any of the other books to be of comparable quality to the first, but the worst thing I saw in the whole series was the time Playboy excerpted 'God Emperor of Dune'. I read that and thought, gee, that sure closes out a lot of options, what is he going to do next? Turns out, the editors of Playboy in their wisdom had excerpted the CONCLUDING CHAPTERS of the book!
What Herbert did next was to jump 1500 years with a lot of handwavium.

There are thus far 22 novels and a number of shorter pieces, only six by Frank Herbert. What a franchise.

[hiro]

As said, I will surely see the movie and will reread the book for a sense of proportion.

I do not consider any of the other books to be of comparable quality to the first, but the worst thing I saw in the whole series was the time Playboy excerpted 'God Emperor of Dune'. I read that and thought, gee, that sure closes out a lot of options, what is he going to do next? Turns out, the editors of Playboy in their wisdom had excerpted the CONCLUDING CHAPTERS of the book!
What Herbert did next was to jump 1500 years with a lot of handwavium.

There are thus far 22 novels and a number of shorter pieces, only six by Frank Herbert. What a franchise.

You read an article in Playboy?

[Jim Watson]

Several.

A piece on armed home and property defense, summarized:
Bleeding Heart: "You think a stereo is worth somebody's life?"
Hardliner: "The SOB should make up his mind about that before he breaks in."

I learned a fact about IED's that proved useful in a project I was on.

[hiro]

The look was pretty good. Good cast. Slow, but still weak character development. Probably requires a series to do right. Grade = B

This is about where I'm at with it.

Granted I only watched it on an iPad but I liked the look and will watch it again to see what I missed!

The ornithopters were very cool, the shields likewise, as has been said, special effects have come a long way. I know from the books that the slow knife penetrates the shield, that bullets don't, but that detail was lost in this version which takes the reason out of bringing a knife to a gun fight. It's details like that that add to an understanding of the setting.

As a film, it needs to stand on it's own two feet, aside from the books, previous films and mini-series but I found it hard to separate it in my head. Its been a long time since I read the books, but I'm pretty familiar with the Lynch film. I find it amusing that Villeneuve has revisited two icons in my cinematographic history, Dune and Blade Runner and like the directors cut of the latter, done away with the voice over. Naff that they are, they do also fill a lot of gaps in the narrative that the book goes into a phenomenal amount of detail with (and I can't see any film being able to match and really, they shouldn't try).

I actually liked Blade Runner 2049, I think he added to the original but I'm not sure that apart from the gloss of the production he did that with Dune, tho, both Ridley Scott's and David Lynch's films suffered from poor writing/editing that made the story disjointed. I'm not sure that anyone holds "Do androids dream of electric sheep" in the same regard as Dune but Blade Runner was a step up from Phillip K Dick's book.

That the Villeneuve Dune will be 2 films (will there be a third?) doesn't worry me at all and I look forward to the next installment. I can't see how you could come close to the scope of the book in one film.

I seem to recall Herbert uses Jihad in the book to describe Muad'Dib's war. I'm curious to see how the next film uses the word and sets the context. Holy wars might be a subject Hollywood is coy of and some are far too easily butt hurt.

Perhaps the last X years of quality TV have spoiled me - I'm not good on chronology but I'd say the start was programs like The Wire where slow is good, characters were developed and believable and over time you saw how it was all woven together. I don't know that a book like Dune could be a mini-series with the production costs of this film and make any money. I'd have liked HBO/Villeneuve to have tried.

Feints within feints within feints...

[Bio]

This is about where I'm at with it.

Granted I only watched it on an iPad but I liked the look and will watch it again to see what I missed!

The ornithopters were very cool, the shields likewise, as has been said, special effects have come a long way. I know from the books that the slow knife penetrates the shield, that bullets don't, but that detail was lost in this version which takes the reason out of bringing a knife to a gun fight. It's details like that that add to an understanding of the setting.

As a film, it needs to stand on it's own two feet, aside from the books, previous films and mini-series but I found it hard to separate it in my head. Its been a long time since I read the books, but I'm pretty familiar with the Lynch film. I find it amusing that Villeneuve has revisited two icons in my cinematographic history, Dune and Blade Runner and like the directors cut of the latter, done away with the voice over. Naff that they are, they do also fill a lot of gaps in the narrative that the book goes into a phenomenal amount of detail with (and I can't see any film being able to match and really, they shouldn't try).

I actually liked Blade Runner 2049, I think he added to the original but I'm not sure that apart from the gloss of the production he did that with Dune, tho, both Ridley Scott's and David Lynch's films suffered from poor writing/editing that made the story disjointed. I'm not sure that anyone holds "Do androids dream of electric sheep" in the same regard as Dune but Blade Runner was a step up from Phillip K Dick's book.

That the Villeneuve Dune will be 2 films (will there be a third?) doesn't worry me at all and I look forward to the next installment. I can't see how you could come close to the scope of the book in one film.

I seem to recall Herbert uses Jihad in the book to describe Muad'Dib's war. I'm curious to see how the next film uses the word and sets the context. Holy wars might be a subject Hollywood is coy of and some are far too easily butt hurt.

Perhaps the last X years of quality TV have spoiled me - I'm not good on chronology but I'd say the start was programs like The Wire where slow is good, characters were developed and believable and over time you saw how it was all woven together. I don't know that a book like Dune could be a mini-series with the production costs of this film and make any money. I'd have liked HBO/Villeneuve to have tried.

Feints within feints within feints...

I think the term "holy war" was used in the recent movie. Probably a reasonable call.

[rob_s]

Watched it on HBO tonight. Was hoping to wait for a theater but didn’t seem to be in the cards anytime soon and I had three hours to kill.

I liked the “first” movie. Never read the book(s). Likely never will.

This one grew on me as it went on. I suspect that I would have liked it more in the theater without distractions and where the effects would have been more impressive.

Credits are rolling as I type this. I’m looking forward to the next one, but would t cry if it didn’t happen.

[Hot Sauce]

I know from the books that the slow knife penetrates the shield, that bullets don't, but that detail was lost in this version which takes the reason out of bringing a knife to a gun fight. It's details like that that add to an understanding of the setting.

I don't know why they didn't spend two sentences making that explicit, for the uninitiated that would be confusing.