Trailer for Villeneuve’s adaptation of “Dune” is out

Introversion

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Here’s Ars Technica staffers’ reaction to it.

TL;DR: Mixed, most of them didn’t like it.

Disclaimer: “Dune” the book is in my top 10 SF list. I loathed the David Lynch film version of it. (The Ars author declared it, “almost comically unwatchable” and I’d agree.)

Having watched the trailer, I’m... not optimistic. I’m mindful that trailers are often cut to get audiences in, but don’t accurately represent the tone of the actual film. So, it’s possible this “Dune” isn’t mostly a Baysplosions-fest interrupted by occasional martial-arts and monsters. I hope it’s not, but I suspect it might be.

Also, I know the source must be devilshly hard to adapt to a 2-3-hour film. Respect for adaptations that choose the mini-series route instead. Jeers for adaptations that throw away all of the nuance and complexities in favor of your own weird-ass vision, hello David. And, trepidation for adaptations that, like Villeneuve’s, opt to make multiple films because... adapting & editing is hard, I guess?
 

Maryn

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Sadly, I suspect it might be popular with people unfamiliar with the book. (Which I haven't read in a whole lot of years.) And plenty of people will see it because of Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, or Jason Momoa, or because they've enjoyed other Denis Villaneuve films.

Bottom line, as with all movies, it whether it brings in more than it cost to make and distribute.

Like you, I presume adaptation of a good novel must be devilishly difficult, because poor adaptations that completely miss why readers love the book are the norm, not the exception.

Maryn, who can name only a few good ones
 

Introversion

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Bottom line, as with all movies, it whether it brings in more than it cost to make and distribute.

Yeah, I do try to remind myself that it's not necessarily being made for fans of the book. Sigh.

I do hope Villeneuve's screenwriters at least avoid making egregiously pointless changes. I'm already side-eyeing the trailer's depiction of sandworms, with apparently fifty-foot-long teeth, when in the book they were the basis for making dagger blades from whole teeth, that were then regarded as deeply spiritual objects to have. Pretty sure a sandworm big enough to swallow vehicles whole would look just as bad-ass with relatively tiny teeth? But if he at least doesn't turn the Voice into Jedi techno-farce as Lynch did, I guess it's an improvement.
 

Maryn

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I have dim memories of renting the first adaptation and turning it off.
 

amergina

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I may be a minority, but I am looking forward to it. I'm curious to see how they'll adapt and change the story for the current times.

Now, I've read Dune several times, and a decent number of the sequels, etc. I also have a soft-spot for the Lynch movie, likely because I saw it when I was a tween. I also really enjoyed the Syfy channel's adaptations. (Those are comfort rewatches for me.)

I guess I don't expect it to hold fast to the source material because I've discovered over time that that way lies madness.
 

Cyia

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Dune would be better served by a serialized adaptation on Netflix, Hulu or the like. Or even a LotR-style multi-movie format. It's really too dense for a single film.

The sandworms look great, though!
 

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I’m looking forward to it. Denis Villeneuve is one of my favourite directors. His use of photography and small details is amazing and he is as far from bay-esque explosions as can be.
I’ve loved his two ventures into sci-fi: Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.
 

onesecondglance

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I did not love the trailer. It makes it look so... generic. Like, if I didn't already know about Dune I would assume it's just another by-the-numbers space opera: chosen hero, check, dynastic society, check, vague threats of impending war, check, giant monsters, check. Honestly, it comes across as "Game of Thrones in SPAAAAACE" and that is not actually as good as it sounds.

I really hope that the trailer is just cut badly. Villeneuve is a good director and definitely capable of doing a decent job.

Re: the Lynch version, it always struck me as a film edited so brutally that it no longer made sense. Like all the bits that would explain what the hell was happening were left on the cutting room floor. Now in the age of Wikipedia, I see that is what actually happened! So score one for pre-internet me.
 
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Introversion

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It’s out. Anyone here seen it? Looks like I can watch this on HBO Max at home, so will throw 2.5 hours at it this weekend.

Ars Technica reviewed it. Having read that review, I’m expecting at best to not hate, not love it. A solid “eh” is probably what my 2.5 hours will buy me.
 

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If it weren't for baseball play-offs, I might see it this weekend, but as it is, I'll half-watch a game that drags itself to a minimum of four hours and features zero men worth watching because they're handsome, and goof around on my iPad instead.

Maryn, with a melodramatic sigh because she's so put-upon
 

litdawg

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I am obligated to see this with my eldest offspring because he read all of the Dune books when a lad, thanks to my endorsement of the first one. No matter how bad (or good) the film is, watching it will be my penance for him having endured God-Emperor of Dune.
 
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mschenk2016

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I can't believe all the negative comments here. I was expecting this thread to already have a few pages. All the reviews I've seen are calling it the next Star Wars or LOTR. Watched it last night and loved it. Gorgeous, great acting, and it stuck close to the book. I had to watch on HBO Max because there are no good theaters around here, and I still haven't gotten myself to go back anyway because of covid.
 
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CMBright

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I can't believe all the negative comments here. I was expecting this thread to already have a few pages. All the reviews I've seen are calling it the next Star Wars or LOTR. Watched it last night and loved it. Gorgeous, great acting, and it stuck close to the book. I had to watch on HBO Max because there are no good theaters around here, and I still haven't gotten myself to go back anyway because of covid.

As a professor once said of scientific studies, who's paying?

If the reviews are part of marketing to sell the movie or mini series, the group is going to cherry pick the most positive reviews or sections of reviews.

I haven't seen it, don't have HBO of any variety so I probably won't see it.
 

lizmonster

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In our household, I think I'm the most curious about it, as I'm one of the only people in existence who's both never read the book and not seen any of the earlier adaptations.

Villeneuve’s not my favorite director, though, so my expectations aren't set high.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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I watched it this morning on HBOMax. I quite liked it. I posted a fairly detailed discussion elseweb, which said:

For context I was a massive fan of Dune when I read it as a young teen. I also liked Dune Messiah, and I hated Children of Dune because Frank Herbert wrecked Alia. I read God-Emperor of Dune and thought it was okay. I read a couple of later books but gave up because they weren't really adding anything. I saw the David Lynch movie in theaters. It was incomprehensible if one had not read the books and annoying if one had. But its depiction of Alia was fun. I watched the SciFi Channel miniseries and found it annoying because the Paul in it was whiny. I hadn't planned to see this one immediately, but my elder daughter watched it two nights ago and liked it and figured I'd get more out of it since I was a lot more into it in the first place. I'm going to spoiler everything that follows.

First, the casting is first rate and quite diverse (Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho was great). Second, they didn't shy away from having a first part that while it had some action in it was largely set up. We got enough time with most of the characters to get a sense of them. The action and events were well presented. And I think it would be coherent for someone who had not read the book, which is impressive. Everyone seems to have worked out ways to play their characters effectively. They gender swapped Liet-Kynes which works fine. Everyone else has the same gender as in the books. They might have been able to swap one of Gurney Halleck or Thufir Hewitt so as to have more than a woman in Leto's court who wasn't his concubine. They played down the sexist and gender essentialist elements in the original text. So they don't talk about there being an essential Female and essential Male characteristic to the Bene Gessert and the Kwisatz Haderach. Also in the scene in the ornithopter where Paul and Jessica overpower the guards using the Voice, Jessica orders one guard to kill the others then himself rather than using Voice seductively to get them to fight over her.

In terms of the CGI and sets and so on, they did a very good job. The shield effects work well as do the lasguns. They mix in a number of languages. There are a lot of male bodies on display (especially Jason Momoa) but the women are mostly dressed in long robes and sometimes they wear veils. The Arab / Muslim roots of the Fremen are explicit in scenes, clothing, and scenery. I was worried that they might tone those down because Herbert drew explicitly on those for the holy war to follow. It does suffer from the white savior problem that's inherent in the book, but I'm not sure if you can do anything about that since the Atreides are explicitly descendants of Agamemnon. I'll definitely watch part two.

Having watched a lot of Sideways videos lately (Sideways is a YouTube channel that dissects soundtracks from a music theory perspective). I paid more attention to the soundtrack than I usually do, and I realized that there was a missed opportunity. I think there should have been a leitmotif for water. There's a lot of water at the beginning before they leave Caladan (oceans, rain etc). And a bit more later on some other worlds. With a motif for water, there could have been poignant moments when it showed up on Dune and disturbing moments when they eventually get to dehydrating dead bodies for their water etc. Anyway, I would recommend the movie for anyone who liked the book and for people who haven't read it but are curious.
 
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Diana Hignutt

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I'm going to watch later, once the sun's glare is off the tv screen. Of the books, I loved Dune, liked The Dune Messiah, and disliked Children of Dune so much I didn't bother after that. In fact, I only ever read one more Herbert book after that, though I quite liked it, Soul Catcher.

Fun Fact: In 1979 after I read Dune, I wrote a screenplay for a Super8 adaptation my friends and I undertook, with glorious models, and a sandy area in South Jersey standing in for Arrakis. It was still better than Lynch's Dune. I quite liked Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, so I'm hopeful.
 

CMBright

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I gave up reading the series in the book where the protagonist started morphing into a sandworm himself. I like weird, that was past weird into what the...? territory.
 

onesecondglance

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I did not love the trailer. It makes it look so... generic. Like, if I didn't already know about Dune I would assume it's just another by-the-numbers space opera: chosen hero, check, dynastic society, check, vague threats of impending war, check, giant monsters, check. Honestly, it comes across as "Game of Thrones in SPAAAAACE" and that is not actually as good as it sounds.

I really hope that the trailer is just cut badly. Villeneuve is a good director and definitely capable of doing a decent job.

Re: the Lynch version, it always struck me as a film edited so brutally that it no longer made sense. Like all the bits that would explain what the hell was happening were left on the cutting room floor. Now in the age of Wikipedia, I see that is what actually happened! So score one for pre-internet me.

The trailer must have been bad - or I was just plain wrong - because I loved the movie.




MILD SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

It hews close to the book, which I liked but not all will. Visually it's gorgeous and the cinematography actually seems to serve the story, rather than just being pretty for the sake of it; the vastness and jarring scale of ships vs people is in keeping with the idea of the Fremen being a tiny nation stepped upon by these Imperial powers.

I have tiny niggles. The sound mix in our screening seemed a bit off: everything seemed to be trying to be louder than everything else, which is not as fun as Motorhead suggest. And the last half hour drags, although that was partly because I was trying to guess where they'd cut the story, since it's just "part 1". There's at least two spots that I thought were "the end", then it kept going, and for me the final finale is a bit small scale to feel satisfying after all the big epic stuff. My last and most major niggle is that they still haven't greenlit part 2! It would be a travesty not to have the second part. It's already a couple of years since they filmed pt1 and the younger actors are maturing fast. So I really hope they're pleased with the box office and get on with pt2.
 

Maryn

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Thank you all for clearly labeling your spoilers. Please instruct the rest of the internet on how it's done.

But geez, who watches a movie in the morning? Weirdo. ;)

Maryn, weird in a different way, no doubt
 

Introversion

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Okay, dinner is ready and we’re going in…
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Thank you all for clearly labeling your spoilers. Please instruct the rest of the internet on how it's done.

But geez, who watches a movie in the morning? Weirdo. ;)

Maryn, weird in a different way, no doubt
Insomniacs, which I am. Woke up at 2:30 AM. It‘s not a great time for doing stuff. Cable TV is good at those hours.
 
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PraiseRao

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I liked it. Though it should probably be seen on a large screen. I watched it on HBO Max. It felt epic, but long, and sort of only the beginning at the same time.
 
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