Dune to be directed by Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049)

Denis Villeneuve Explains Why Dune Had to Be Filmed in the Real World

 

hey thx for the link, good article

I am glad they are stretching it into 2 films; it is too much story for a single movie

and at least Villeneuve has read & is familiar with the book, unlike Jodorowsky.

and it seems he will incorporate some of the science/biology stuff into the movie too

 

Thufir is in there. You'll see him holding a parasol.

 

“Dune 2020 — Script Analysis” by Arnold Khan https://link.medium.com/Pj4HObeOO9

Contains vague spoilers, where the film will potentially finish, etc. Enter at your own risk...

 

Jeez, nitpicking much?! Duncan should look like Man-at-Arms from He-Man? That's not how he's described in the book!

And relax - the entire litany against fear will be in the film. Do you want the trailer to run twice its current length?

Regarding Oscar Isaac's age. Jurgen Prochnow was 42 when he played the Duke in Lynch's Dune. Sure, the character is depicted as slightly older in the book. Isaac looks fine. As does Chalamet - AND Zendaya...

And the word crusade is mentioned in the book. Who knows - jihad could still end up in the film.

The Reverend Mother's look seems to resemble the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. I reckon the veil is there to describe the spider web appearance?

What are you going to complain about next - that Liet-Kynes is a woman? Still, you're entitled to your opinion, mate.

 

Until I saw the trailer I was interested in seeing this. Not saying that I won't go. But, a little disappointed in what was in the trailer. I really liked Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. I hope the movie turns out better than the trailer as it seemed to be very generic looking. Not sure if this is studio intervention due to budget or what. But, nothing looked unique or interesting about the trailer that I saw. Hoping for better.

 

I wasn’t impressed by the trailer either.
Maybe it will be good.

 

Don't put that on me - my post was my reactions - I didn't have THAT reaction.

But what I saw looked drab to me. And Zendeya looked water fat - as Jennifer Lawrence looked fat-fat in The Hunger Games. But hey - they aren't really documentaries are they?

And let's face it , Man-At-Arms worked for me because of how old *I* was when I read Dune - it was supposed to be a fun remark.

And as long as it's religious murdering - I'm fine with jihad or crusade - just that I didn't care for the sequels that came out after Frank Hebert died - so I don't like the crusade word with respect to Dune.

It'll get my $8-$25 dollars - don't worry - it's already won.

 

LOL, no hard feelings, mate. Dunno if I'm even going to start reading the Brian/Kevin stuff even though I did buy Sandworms and Paul of Dune for cheap. Sad that Frank never got to finish that last book. That being said - I bloody hope George RR Martin finishes Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring...

 

I'm usually the harsh critic around here and I'm stunned by the reaction.

We are talking about a book that is considered to be unadaptable into a movie and people are complaining about it looking "generic". I'm happy about a serious attempt with the possibility of future installments.

I'm a little more optimistic now than I was a month ago.

And the thopters look great.

 

Now after watching the trailer, I absolutely agree with some posters here that this version looks absolutely boring and generic. Shame really. A movie like Dune should look bright, opulent and vast IMO, not dreary and one-note-color dark, think Lawrence of Arabia meets Apocalypse Now - not Blade Runner meets a-thousand-other-too-dark-wannabe-scifi-movies.

See also those Asimov "Foundation" trailers from Apple TV - dreadful

 

Same here. Still going to see it for sure but not much in that trailer stood out to me.

 

I think the march toward digital perfectionism and the inclination to delay many decisions until post production, where details can be worried to death, has taken a lot of the guts out of movies, hence the generic look not just of Dune but of a lot of big budget projects (and smaller ones too). The unimaginative color grading of a lot of movies doesn't help either.

Chalamet is miscast too, but he'll pull in the fangirls, so having him as Paul is likely as much financial strategy as anything.

 

I always imagined Stilgar (and all the Fremen) as an Arab. Not a pretty Omar Sharif Arab either.

And the Atreides as Greeks...

 

I'm not really digging what I've seen, but of course I'll go check it out at the movies as I love the book series (only the ones written by Frank Herbert, and not the ones done by his son and the other cat).

 

Funny, it seems like a lot here want a Technicolor film pallet.

Paul and his emo hair had me laughing. Y'know he's 15 when the book starts right. And there's a reason why he's a better fighter than many of the Fremen. Just makes me wonder how many of you know the books.

And Zendaya being too fat? Really?

Use of Eclipse in the trailer....for all you Dune experts, where did he get the name Muad'dib?

Modern and stark it looks to me, and yes dark. Dune and its sequels are dark books that deal with dark themes. Very adult. I think the real sets will make this film look like a spectacle visually when all is said and done.

Just my take. I love the books and hope this pair of films and whatever may come after if we're so lucky stick closer to the books than other adaptations. I love the Lynch version because of SOME of its acting and the visual design. Lynch is a helluva filmmaker and it's a shame we'll likely never get his cut.

But I really hope this does well. I'm envisioning what they could do with the God Emperor.

 

Not to be contentious but Jodorowsky nails how I feel about this. I also love how he was vindicated by seeing the Lynch version - See? It IS impossible to make this movie! He's a nut but I love the guy...

Alejandro Jodorowsky is mixed on Dune trailer: "Industrial cinema is incompatible with auteur cinema"

 

Looks great.

 

Vacuous is how I'd describe Villeneuve's last work, the Blade Runner sequel. It looked visually great, I'm glad that they took a chance on funding some intelligent sci-fi, and I appreciate what it tried to do, but it didn't cut the mustard to me. It was way too long, painfully dull, and deals with the same themes as the original without the subtlety, grace, or a Rutger Hauer level performance. I'm worried that is going to be how this Dune movie comes out, sterile and boring. Hans Zimmer doing the score doesn't help either, since he deals in making "sound filler" rather than actual music. I can't remember almost anything he ever does as soon as I leave the theater. I think the only reason he's popular is because directors want a guy who'll just make the necessary music to fill out the sound field, not a guy who'll hog the attention away from how "clever" the director is with his visuals and storytelling by creating memorable themes and motifs. Toto's score was definitely pompous, but it was definitely memorable and I enjoy a lot of it. I'm afraid Hans will fall back on his usual ostinatos that build two a two-note melody (or no melody at all) and trademark horn bursts (as heard in the trailer). Dune deserves better than that, I think.

The Lynch film is a total mess, but as a bit of surreal spectacle, it's not the most excruciating you could choose to watch. If he had been given no run-time constraints, and final cut, I think his version would have been received a lot better. There's still some changes that he made (turning the Harkonnens into cartoon characters, the ultra clunky expository dialogue, stiff acting, awkward internal whisper narration, legendarily bad shield effects) that couldn't be fixed by a longer cut, but at least people may have been able to understand the plot, and the narration wouldn't have been necessary. A weak film by a total master, but considering what else he's given us it's easy to forgive him.

 

Well the clunky expository dialog and whisper narration were not DL's fault. That was all added when the film was taken away from him, so he says, and it washes because he is a master of 'What the hell is going on?!?!' cinema and, like Jodorowski, I think he realized such a plot heavy book was nearly impossible to film as a straight narrative. I've seen the fan super cut of excerpts with no expositional narrative and you can immediately get a vibe for what he was going for. More's the pity.

And the Harkonen's were cartoony but I loved them anyway. Such Beautiful sores my Baron!

 

Yeah, they're entertaining, if not particularly faithful to the ones in the book. Jodorowski admitted he wouldn't have been faithful to the book either, so I believe in taking any adaptation on its own terms.

I thought the internal whisper narration was always intended to be in the film, and that Virginia Madsen's narration was what was added against Lynch's original intention to clarify the story after it got chopped by an hour. A lot of the internal narration is straight out of the book. Since the shots linger on the actor's faces so long too (as to accommodate the time they're thinking internally), that seems to suggest it wasn't added in post. The fan edit did cut out most of it because the guy who made it thought it was unnecessary and clunky, not because it was closer to Lynch's original vision.

As for the clunky expository dialogue, I'm fairly certain that was in there too. I'm referring to scenes like when the

Spoiler

Emperor meets the Guild at the beginning of the film and plans to get rid of House Atreides.

Their conversation plays out like the scene in Spaceballs where Dark Helmet turns to the camera and asks, "everybody got that?" A lot of the dialogue between Paul, Thufir, Gurney, and Yueh in their first scene together is pretty heavy-handed and unnatural too.

 

Yeah I could be wrong in my assumptions definitely. My guess is the reason he doesn't go back and revisit the material is that he knows he never should have done it in the first place. At least we got Blue Velvet out of it.

 

I've read before that Universal asked David Lynch to do a director's cut, but that the amount of money he wanted to do so was more than they were willing to pay. Don't know how true it is. That was a while back though, I'm not sure he'd ever do anything with it now since he seems to be so embarrassed/disappointed with it. The most diplomatic I've heard him be about it recently was when he said he liked many scenes from it. Mostly he just repeats that it was a failure he doesn't like to talk about. Pity, I don't think it's that bad, and I'd love to see him go back to it for a longer cut.

 

I never read the books but this looks pretty good to me.

 

I'm glad that Jodorowsky's version of Dune never got made. Jodorowsky himself, was never going to be faithful with the source material implying rape and even having Paul's throat cut releasing his power on the universe?! Fulla is bonkers! And Salvador Dali's $100k a minute deal was sheer insanity, even though Jodorowsky planned on only filming him for around 5 minutes...