- Aug 24, 2011
- 28,529
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Recently re-watched the first movie and have 10x more appreciation for it. I've seen it a few times already but having now seen part 2 twice, part 1 is a lot more enthralling.
From someone who hasn't read the books and has only seen Villenueve's films, I'm not sure getting any more weird would translate to a huge audience. There's already so much to keep track of and learn.
So I actually saw the movie. Liked it but I kind of want to go into some of my thoughts as a guy who loves the books, likes the Lynch version, and wanted to drill down on what this hits and misses with the source material (on it's own merits the movie is great, but as an adaptation there are some stuff which I would call missed opportunities or just decisions that I kind of wish went the other way).
So I think DV's Dune is... afraid? unwilling? isn't interested in? the absolute batshit weirdness of the Dune saga. It's a series where the son of a prescient emperor decides to become a gigantic, nigh-immortal worm to guide humanity into the future. It's a series where the ultimate main character is a guy who dies off screen in the first book but keeps coming back as a clone who continues to die in more and more interesting ways over thousands of years, and defeats the plots of the Bene Gesserit (or their eventual offshoot) by being really good at sex. Despite playing with *some* weirdness, DV's Dune feels way too normal.
Okay he made Geidi Prime and the Harkonnens stylized in interesting ways, and I think he played really well with the visuals of the film. And I don't hate his solution to Alia. But the spice - so central to the books - feels like it could be replaced with unobtanium pretty easily. The lack of the Spacing Guild at the end, using their limited ability to see the future and realize how bent over the barrel Paul had them makes me sad. The lack of digging into just how f***ing weird Mentats are (and that Paul was trained as a Mentat). And the lack of the weirding way.
DV's movie is really good, and it's a consistent vision and honestly getting that budget probably depended on making some trade offs on the weird shit. But I love the weird shit. The weird shit is the best part of Lynch's incredibly flawed adaptation. Honestly the best part of the Dune series is describing the batshit plot to other people when they ask what it's about. And a lot of that is missing and it makes me a little sad.
From someone who hasn't read the books and has only seen Villenueve's films, I'm not sure getting any more weird would translate to a huge audience. There's already so much to keep track of and learn.