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

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Turnaround, Jan 7, 2017.

  1. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I like how this scene pretty accurately reflected the book as it's a very important scene. In the book, Paul's internal dialogue is that he has to reconcile with his visions before he can mourn the death of Leto. I think the film did a great job with that and it's one of the reasons I like this 2021 adaptation more than any of the others.
     
  2. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    I watched David Lynch’s “Dune” again. As far as a piece of pure magic CINEMA —. David Lynch wins. The creativity of his images far exceed those of Denis Villeneuve’s - whose images are pretty, gauzy, and wind swept. Lynch’s images are more clever and inventive and surreal. He doesn’t try to make us relate to the normality of Dune’s world to make us feel closer to our characters - he chose to make it as “foreign” experience as any filmmaker could. I chose Lynch’s film as better cinema and Villeneuves as a better “movie.” I also watched “Jodorowosky’s Dune” - what a waste it wasn’t made! It might have awful, but the cast he assembled!! And the art!!
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2021
  3. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    It's slowly dawning on me that my complaint isn't really with Villeneuve's Dune but also Christopher Nolan and modern sci-fi in general. This Indian reviewer nails it:

    The rigid framework of this form of cinema seems to have propelled the now-accepted notion that the grandeur cannot be communicated through the vibrancy of direction, but only through the metrics of scale. These new directors might, once in a while, use cheerful colours in the backdrops of their characters. But their predisposition to minimalism in an emotional sense is telling for what it also regularly papers over – the inability to connect on a human level.

    Denis Villeneuve's Dune is another in a long range of films that have simply sucked the soul and joy out of sci-fi-Entertainment News , Firstpost
     
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  4. MrCJF

    MrCJF Best served with coffee and cake.

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    I've never seen the Lynch Dune. I shoudl try and watch it before I see the new one, just for completion. I must read the book again, too.
     
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  5. Turnaround

    Turnaround Senior Member Thread Starter

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    There's a lot of good sci-fi movies out there which aren't big budget spectacles, and have a lot of emotional drama and punch. Some quick examples from last 10 years that come to my mind are Alex Garland's Ex Machina and Annihilation, or Spike Jones' Her. I'm a big fan of time-travel movies, so in that category you have movies that mess with your brain but have good emotional content: Rian Johnson's Looper, or the Spierig brothers' Predesination (really recommend the latter). With CGI now, even low budget films can look pretty good these days.

    Villeneuve and Nolan are working in the big budget world of Hollywood, so you're going to get something grand in scale with those type of directors. And there is a place for seeing spectacle and what $100+ million dollars can do visually, that you're not going to get reading a book or from TV. Also, we're talking about a movie adaptation of Dune: I expect to some friggin' big sandworms and crazy-looking space navigators (hopefully that will be in part 2!).
     
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  6. aroney

    aroney Who really gives a...?

    You may want to track down down the Spice Diver fan edit for Lynch's Dune too...
     
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  7. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I thought there was plenty of emotion in Dune. The joy wasn't at all sucked out. There were moments that exceeded anything I saw in Lynch's film by a wide margin, such as the conversation between Paul and his father near the beginning when Paul expresses doubt that he can step into his father's shoes as the leader of house Atreides. Oscar Isaac's delivery when he says that even if that's the case and Paul shrinks from leadership, "you'll be all I ever needed you to be--my son." Even my kid commented on the kindness of this exchange.

    Similarly, the exchange much later, when Paul and his mother are trying to deal with his hallucinations as he's exposed to spice in the tent...he lashes out at her that he made her a freak with the Bene Gesserit teachings, and both my kid and I nearly jumped out of our seats at the ferociousness of his delivery. Plenty of other scenes had emotion. Some scenes worked better than others. When Josh Brolin delivers his line about the Harkonnens being brutal, it doesn't work as well. But overall, I thought there was plenty of soul.

    It wasn't like the early days of CGI, when stories and actors seemed to adjust to the effects. With Villeneuve, you always get the proper way, where the CGI is managed to enhance the story and acting.
     
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  8. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Hey weren't the navigators in like space suits?!? When the Imperial Herald or whatever that guy was come to House Atreides? The Guild Navigators are supposed to be in tanks...maybe the suits were the human reps?

    I'd like to see movies made of some of the Brian Herbert/Kevin J Anderson Dune prequels, I really like those. Better than Herbert's own Dune novels after the first, boy some of those were a tough confusing slog. I think I have obliterated God Emperor out of my mind. Or maybe I've been ingesting too much spice!

    Glad this is just part one though. Too much to cram into one film. I'll have to see David Lynch's Director's Cut sometime-isn't it like 6 hours? What happens if you play the movie synchronized to Wagner's Ring music?
     
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  9. Briskit

    Briskit “I don’t know karate, but I know ka-razy!”

    Location:
    St Kilda
    Rewatched Ex Machina recently - top notch cinema.
    I think that was the first movie I saw where Oscar Isaac actually had a decent script to work with. Totally changed my opinion of him.
     
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  10. MrCJF

    MrCJF Best served with coffee and cake.

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    It makes the 6 hr Dune cut feel like a half hour sitcom.
     
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  11. marmalade166

    marmalade166 Sous les pavés, la plage!

    Location:
    Aberdeen, Scotland
    Wow, i thought i was the only one with this opinion
     
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  12. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    That they should make Dune prequel movies? Or that the prequels are better books than Herbert's own sequels?
     
  13. marmalade166

    marmalade166 Sous les pavés, la plage!

    Location:
    Aberdeen, Scotland
    Both, unlike most (or so it seems anyway) I like back stories, plus despite the first book being one of my favourite books of any genre I just couldn't get on with the following novels, felt as though FH disappeared up his rear end and it all got incredibly convoluted
     
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  14. MrCJF

    MrCJF Best served with coffee and cake.

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Feel the same about the sequels so never read the prequels.
     
  15. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
  16. Turnaround

    Turnaround Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    -
    I'm beginning to think that @twicks is secretly the biggest Dune movie fan in this thread. I really liked the movie, but even I've stopped thinking about it very much. Whereas he's still digging past the mainstream news outlets, getting into self-published vanity blogs, to dig up deeply hidden think pieces on this movie.

    You can come out of the closet! :laugh:
     
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  17. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    The boring truth: I follow a lot of movie bloggers.
     
  18. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I loved the movie. I admired the austerity of it. Despite the length, it felt like all the fat had been trimmed off. It had the weight and tone of an historical epic, despite being set in the future. There wasn't any cartoonish melodrama, overdone histrionics or crowd-pleasing crescendos to distract from the verisimilitude of the situations.

    As giant as the scope was, there was incredible subtlety in the performances and the storytelling. I felt like I was able to understand everything I needed to about this universe and the characters without it needing to be explained to me multiple times or with explicit, expository dialogue. The secrets the movie keeps never seemed like audience manipulation, but just a way for us to identify with the perspective of the main character. All the actors, especially Chalamet and Ferguson, found the perfect subdued, authentic tone for their performances. The visual style is stark, bleak and effective, with no overuse of editing to create gratuitous excitement. The sandworms are eerie, otherworldly, frightening, awe-inspiring and make a dramatic impact that lives up to their billing. The music is hypnotic, atmospheric, strikingly atonal and poetic in its marriage to the imagery.

    I felt like Blade Runner 2049 was an indulgence in style that didn't have a real story to give it meaning and purpose. Dune has no such problem. This film is a genuine modern science-fiction masterpiece that deserves to be a major Oscar contender.

    Better than NTTD, absolutely. One thing NTTD lacks is great writing on any level. I could hardly tell you whether Tenet or Dune was better. They both are at the top of the heap of recent sci-fi films for me. It feels like we're in a golden age for this genre. All of the worries of modern big-budget movies being dumbed down for the lowest common denominator evaporate when you watch those two films. Tenet has some more conventional story beats in it than Dune, but it also has more originality, partly because Dune has been ripped off since 1965. Both are brilliant and should not be missed by anyone who wants a unique, powerful and challenging movie experience.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2021
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  19. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    In my opinion, if a movie isn't worth it if there won't be a second movie, then it doesn't deserve to have a second movie. Yes, it's worth it.

    I think they ended it at a perfect spot. It's not the kind of cliffhanger where you're left waiting to see the ending. It's a cliffhanger where you get the ending and then a preview of the next film's beginning. Obviously there are many plot threads that aren't resolved yet, but you still feel like you got a complete chapter of a continuing adventure here. It felt like a properly done comic book, where the subplots run through many issues but each issue still gives you its own complete story.
     
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  20. marmalade166

    marmalade166 Sous les pavés, la plage!

    Location:
    Aberdeen, Scotland
    Really good video about Hans Zimmer's score for Dune

     
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  21. enro99

    enro99 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I’d definitely say Dune is his masterpiece.


     
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  22. Turnaround

    Turnaround Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    -
    I hope Dune comes back to IMAX. On the upcoming IMAX schedule, there's four weeks between Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Spider-man: No Way Home, then Matrix 4 comes out shortly after Spider-man. (I don't think West Side Story is getting IMAX; it comes out one week before Spider-Man.)

    Especially if Eternals is going to pack in the IMAX, Dune could be a good seat filler in between the new releases. In New York City, the (real) IMAX screenings were very full up to the end of Dune's run on IMAX, even if the regular screenings were not.
     
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  23. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Wish I’d seen DUNE now than going to see ETERNALS…. That’ll teach me. :)
     
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  24. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    I think Arrival is better than Dune. It's far more emotionally affecting, for me at least.

    Having now seen Dune twice, the second time on the big screen, I've thought about it enough that I can discuss what I think could have been improved:

    - less Zimmer -- just too loud too often
    - a little more humor -- particularly in the beginning, this would have helped humanize everyone; the joke from Duncan about Paul putting on muscle was much appreciated
    - needed to be weirder -- Lynch's film wins in this category; I had hoped they would go back to some of the Giger drawings from the 70s for inspiration in this regard. The scene introducing the Sardaukar troops nodded in this direction but there could have been more
    - the early scenes could have been extended a bit to introduce the characters and relationships a little more (but not much); while I like how we're left to figure out what's going on as it happens, I found myself wondering what about five to ten minutes more in this section might have done for the film

    Having said all this, none of it reduces my enjoyment of the film, aside from the volume of Zimmer's music. This is mostly nitpicky, "what if" rumination. I still like it and look forward to part 2.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2021
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  25. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    It’s crazy stupid what they spend money on. They had to hire the worlds largest transport plane because they built full size Roto copters and they had to figure out how to fly them over to the desert. I mean think about that. Just to shoot a movie?
     

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