Film Dune

Thought it was pretty good.

Not really sure why people are going on like it’s all ‘set up’ and no payoff. They covered almost half of the book and even that felt slightly rushed. A lot happened. There’s not much more they could do in one film.
 
They've done an absolute piss poor job of promoting this. I was looking forward to seeing it and if it wasn't for this thread cropping up I'd have no idea it had even been released.
 
Went to see this yesterday. Thought it was decent, but not exactly great (and I am Villeneuve's biggest fan).

In terms of visuals and sound, it was excellent and very enjoyable, but I thought the structure wasn't great. It was very apparent that is was only the first half of a story, which means the ending was somewhat anti-climactic. Also, it felt a little long at times and the visions/flash-forwards were overdone slightly. It struck me that the content would have been better suited for a HBO-style mini-series. I thought the world-building was generally done quite well, so you can follow the story as a newcomer to the universe. You are still left with a lot of questions though. Like why can the bad guy hover? Why are they using swords and knives, when they clearly have very advanced technology? What is the empire, and what are their motives?

It got me interested in the universe, though, so I am seriously considering picking up the book to see how the story ends.
 
Ish said:
How many movies are the planning on?
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Depends how well this one does. If it flops then there will be no more. If it's a monster hit then they could have five sequels/prequels given the source material.

The story from the original book is planned to be told in this film and one sequel though, that's my understanding.
 
duffer said:
Depends how well this one does. If it flops then there will be no more. If it's a monster hit then they could have five sequels/prequels given the source material.

The story from the original book is planned to be told in this film and one sequel though, that's my understanding.
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Thanks duffer. Yeah, I hope they do at least one more to (somewhat) finish off this storyline at least.
 
Solius said:
Not really sure why people are going on like it’s all ‘set up’ and no payoff. They covered almost half of the book and even that felt slightly rushed. A lot happened. There’s not much more they could do in one film.
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Reading user comments about the movie has me convinced that a decent number of people don't really know what "a thing happening" is.
 
Solius said:
Not really sure why people are going on like it’s all ‘set up’ and no payoff. They covered almost half of the book and even that felt slightly rushed. A lot happened. There’s not much more they could do in one film.
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The "payoff" typically comes in the final third of a book, though? It makes complete sense that there's not a lot of payoff when the film only covers less than half a book. But that is also the problem with turning books into films. You might be forced to deviate from a structure that is proven to work.

I feel that we spent 2.5 hours just setting up the pieces, without actually explaining all that much. We get a brief explanation of the universe(the empire, two of the families/clans, a weird religion and the "sand people"). We know that the sand planet has important minerals and that travelling by foot is challenge because of the worms. We know that the main character is learning "mind control"(some connection to that weird religion). And we know why he and his mothers ends up with the sand people. That's about it?

The final battle wasn't that interesting or rewarding either. The father character isn't very fleshed out, nor is the doctor, the messenger/diplomat or that strong soldier. I just didn't care about any of them.
 
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Framing it as 'payoff' makes it sound like the bulk of any story is just something you have to endure on the way to getting a reward. And stories aren't setup and payoff. The middle of the story is the rising action and that's where most things actually happen. The rising action of this two-part story begins a little over an hour into the movie.
 
watched it last night. Boring. main character young lad was shite. Nice visuals though.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Framing it as 'payoff' makes it sound like the bulk of any story is just something you have to endure on the way to getting a reward.
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Of course the journey can(and should) also be enjoyable. Like I said in another post: had this been a TV series, then I'd have no issue.

Films are different because you have to wait a full year(often more) until the continuation. I also think(and this might be a weird opinion) that a film should work well as a standalone and/or have high re-watchability. The LOTR films are all highly re-watchable and fans will watch them at random, without finishing the whole trilogy. Somehow I don't think that Dune fans will keep re-watching this film many years from now.
 
OleBoiii said:
The "payoff" typically comes in the final third of a book, though? It makes complete sense that there's not a lot of payoff when the film only covers less than half a book. But that is also the problem with turning books into films. You might be forced to deviate from a structure that is proven to work.

I feel that we spent 2.5 hours just setting up the pieces, without actually explaining all that much. We get a brief explanation of the universe(the empire, two of the families/clans, a weird religion and the "sand people"). We know that the sand planet has important minerals and that travelling by foot is challenge because of the worms. We know that the main character is learning "mind control"(some connection to that weird religion). And we know why he and his mothers ends up with the sand people. That's about it?

The final battle wasn't that interesting or rewarding either. The father character isn't very fleshed out, nor is the doctor, the messenger/diplomat or that strong soldier. I just didn't care about any of them.
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Yeah like I said before it did feel rushed. Obviously was fine for me because I understand the lore a bit more but it might be confusing for anyone who hasn't.

I would've been better off as a trilogy or TV show. Still enjoyed it though.
 
I had high hopes. Will still see it, but perhaps not rushed. I was trying to arrange seeing it tonight, but too many hoops to jump through.
 
This won’t be a common sentiment I’m guessing, as in general the score was beautiful, but the music was so overwhelming it felt smothering. Like the story was a backdrop to enjoy the music and visuals, if that makes any sense.

And that feeds into my main criticism of the film, that there was just not enough time to let it breathe. I appreciate this was an extraordinary challenge to begin with though; it was not a poor effort. It is still well worth a watch, and definitely do it in the theatre unless you have a high quality home theatre setup.
 
I'm only 36 minutes in and I'm in awe. My opinion might be a bit biased since this was one of the first sci-fi books I read. I'm loving it so far.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Went to see this yesterday. Thought it was decent, but not exactly great (and I am Villeneuve's biggest fan).

In terms of visuals and sound, it was excellent and very enjoyable, but I thought the structure wasn't great. It was very apparent that is was only the first half of a story, which means the ending was somewhat anti-climactic. Also, it felt a little long at times and the visions/flash-forwards were overdone slightly. It struck me that the content would have been better suited for a HBO-style mini-series. I thought the world-building was generally done quite well, so you can follow the story as a newcomer to the universe. You are still left with a lot of questions though. Like why can the bad guy hover? Why are they using swords and knives, when they clearly have very advanced technology? What is the empire, and what are their motives?

It got me interested in the universe, though, so I am seriously considering picking up the book to see how the story ends.
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They didn't spell it out, but I thought it was pretty evident from the personal force fields changing colours. Though maybe that's only because I'm familiar with the concept from other films/TV shows.

I think the implication was that fast moving objects get blocked (turning the force fields red), while slow moving objects can pass through (turning the force field blue). So bullets and presumably energy weapons are useless.
 
Can't wait to watch it on IMAX next week! Just need to stop myself from watching it on HBO before that.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Cinema hall?

Green Knight has come to Amazon. Heard that's pretty good too.
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Watchibg at home as I always hate going to the cinema. There is always some cnut rustling sweets or talking or using their mobile. Plus emergency lights are far to bright these days.

I also have Green Knight to watch.
 
duffer said:
Depends how well this one does. If it flops then there will be no more. If it's a monster hit then they could have five sequels/prequels given the source material.

The story from the original book is planned to be told in this film and one sequel though, that's my understanding.
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WB have aparently eased the requirements and promised the director a sequel already after the change to go onto TV for his Dune was made. Even if it will greatly impact incomes unless its a huge flop its pretty much guaranteed. Zack Snyder on the other hand was aparently less happy going direct to TV and being fecked over twice on his justice league remake/recut.

Amarsdd said:
Can't wait to watch it on IMAX next week! Just need to stop myself from watching it on HBO before that.
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DONT give in , this movie is IMAX all the way.
 
Watched it yesterday in IMAX and it was a great experience. I kept thinking that if I hadn’t read the books I’d be completely lost though, I have a suspicion that it doesn’t work well as a stand-alone piece (especially considering the lack of a proper story that gets wrapped up at the end — it’s very much cut in the middle, like a cliffhanger episode), but it’s obviously impossible to check since I can’t just forget everything that I know about the universe for 2,5 hours at will.

But since I knew a lot, I thoroughly enjoyed it. What an incredible visual & audial spectacle. And Dune is one of the toughest things to translate to the media of cinema as we’ve seen over the years
 
Dante said:
They didn't spell it out, but I thought it was pretty evident from the personal force fields changing colours. Though maybe that's only because I'm familiar with the concept from other films/TV shows.

I think the implication was that fast moving objects get blocked (turning the force fields red), while slow moving objects can pass through (turning the force field blue). So bullets and presumably energy weapons are useless.
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Yeah, that makes sense, but they also had some kind of darts that would move slowly towards the body after hitting the shield. Anyway, it's only a minor point, but definitely something I wondered about during the movie.
 
Dune (2021)


Well that was crap. They had the balls to even try and compare this to Star Wars and Lord of the fecking Rings. 2 and a half hours of build up to nothing. For book readers I’m sure they get what’s going on and all the back stories, but in the movie I was so lost of what was going on. The acting was ok, the main fella reminds me of Edward from twilight. Just a blank stare. Let’s just say I’d rather watch The last Jedi then this again. I didn’t care about the characters. The world building was fine. The acting was decent. The score was ok but it’s annoying when it’s ramped up when there nothing happening to justify the music. Plus I think It was just boring for most of the movie and I get it’s just part one, where it’s a set up. But the first half of Fellowship was slow but it’s still entertaining. Overall I’d give it a 4/10. Its a shame because I was looking forward to enjoying this.

The flashbacks to Zendeya every 20 mins with the score blasting like it’s epic was annoying as hell, killed the pace. We get it, she’s pretty. Stop doing it. And when they finally meet they barely speak. That skarsgard was hilarious when they tried to poison him and he’s there crouched into the fecking corner of the ceiling like he’s a spider . Batista was just there to stare and talk for a few mins, he was barely in the movie. Josh Brolin was wasted in this. It was really dragging in the 2nd half of the movie. Also the armour shield doesn’t make sense. How was it bouncing off hits most of the time and yet Jason was able to kill them off in one hit
 
Watched this on Thursday, great looking film and thought it did a good job at getting everything in place for the audience. Always hard to please the audience when you do half a book for one movie.

I thought it was decent without being blown away and can imagine the next movie being the one that has all the pay off. 7/10
 
Oh you know I'm suddenly reminded that there's an incredibly good audiobook version of Dune on Audible. Really recommend it (sounds better than the movie).

Edit - It's fleshed out like a radio play with different characters doing different parts.
 
AaronRedDevil said:
Dune (2021)


Well that was crap. They had the balls to even try and compare this to Star Wars and Lord of the fecking Rings. 2 and a half hours of build up to nothing. For book readers I’m sure they get what’s going on and all the back stories, but in the movie I was so lost of what was going on. The acting was ok, the main fella reminds me of Edward from twilight. Just a blank stare. Let’s just say I’d rather watch The last Jedi then this again. I didn’t care about the characters. The world building was fine. The acting was decent. The score was ok but it’s annoying when it’s ramped up when there nothing happening to justify the music. Plus I think It was just boring for most of the movie and I get it’s just part one, where it’s a set up. But the first half of Fellowship was slow but it’s still entertaining. Overall I’d give it a 4/10. Its a shame because I was looking forward to enjoying this.

The flashbacks to Zendeya every 20 mins with the score blasting like it’s epic was annoying as hell, killed the pace. We get it, she’s pretty. Stop doing it. And when they finally meet they barely speak. That skarsgard was hilarious when they tried to poison him and he’s there crouched into the fecking corner of the ceiling like he’s a spider . Batista was just there to stare and talk for a few mins, he was barely in the movie. Josh Brolin was wasted in this. It was really dragging in the 2nd half of the movie. Also the armour shield doesn’t make sense. How was it bouncing off hits most of the time and yet Jason was able to kill them off in one hit
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stick to your children's films then
 
Vidyoyo said:
Oh you know I'm suddenly reminded that there's an incredibly good audiobook version of Dune on Audible. Really recommend it (sounds better than the movie).

Edit - It's fleshed out like a radio play with different characters doing different parts.
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The audiobook/drama on audible is fantastic and well worth the price IMO
 
It seems that nobody likes this movie yet it’s at 8.3 on IMDB. Weird.
 
Donut said:
It seems that nobody likes this movie yet it’s at 8.3 on IMDB. Weird.
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Critics and people who read the books probably like it way more then people who went in blind. I had no idea what was going for the most part. But I was immersed in it. I was expecting an epic movie but for the scale of it all, it seemed only an ok movie. I'm hoping the next one picks up a bit more. And stop with the whispering. The main problem with me is the lack of context. So much to explain about why and who is anything. I think I might buy the book and see what happens for the next one. I want to give it another chance.
 
Donut said:
It seems that nobody likes this movie yet it’s at 8.3 on IMDB. Weird.
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Sci-fi, fantasy and superhero stuff usually has a large following that will rate movies highly. I think the scores also typically drop over time, as the movies gain a broader audience, but I may be wrong.
 
This movie reminds me of Interstellar in how it seems to be wildly overrated. I also noticed how most of the glowing reviews, particularly the ones that call it a masterpiece, tend to come from book readers and fans of the series.
 
Attention to detail, things like military uniforms, weaponry, spice silos placed in rectangle order, ornitopter's flight pattern reminding of classic gliders. At some point Villeneuve needed dividing story into two parts to show everything and most of all, to avoid what George Lucas did in the end with creating countless special, extended, CGI deluxe added bullshit editions with restored scenes that didn't make to the final cut or whatever that frankenstein is called now.

Loved the cast in Lynch's Dune no matter the budget cuts, but this time it's good to have something complete and not rushed. Just steady pacing, building up to bigger picture with hope, it will show it's full potential when all books be filmed.

As things stand Villeneuve took bigger challenge than Blade Runner. It's gonna be easier to criticize him, but I'll wait with final judgement after 2nd part.
 
AaronRedDevil said:
Critics and people who read the books probably like it way more then people who went in blind. I had no idea what was going for the most part. But I was immersed in it. I was expecting an epic movie but for the scale of it all, it seemed only an ok movie. I'm hoping the next one picks up a bit more. And stop with the whispering. The main problem with me is the lack of context. So much to explain about why and who is anything. I think I might buy the book and see what happens for the next one. I want to give it another chance.
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Tbh the book is like that. It drops you in deep and cold and it's only about halfway through that it begins to make sense, by which point you're only just starting to understand all the faction rivalry and how that ties into Paul/Mua'dib and the Fremen. It opens on a diary entry of somebody you don't really learn much about until the end of the book... or maybe it's the second one.

This is not me saying you're wrong btw. It seems like a good reading based on how context-less those early passages of the book are. A film was always going to be tricky.
 
Watched it last night, and while I can see the issues with it. I loved it. The universe created here is outstanding. I cant stop thinking about it and Im thirsty for more. I can help but think this would have been better as a tv series alone the lines of game of thrones. It really did feel like I was watching season 1 of thrones being crammed into one episode.
 
I enjoyed the book and like a lot of Villeneuve's work but found it very dull. It's one of the most beige films I've seen, in terms of cinematography and being weirdly emotionally flat. It's like Dune made by someone who's only thought about how they want each scene to look. There's no substance IMO.

The characters weren't fleshed out at all, so the actors felt completely secondary to the spectacle.

God knows where the draw would be to watch part 2 for people experiencing the story for the first time. I can't imagine too many people would give a sh1t about any of the characters. It's just empty.

Really disappointed.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
This won’t be a common sentiment I’m guessing, as in general the score was beautiful, but the music was so overwhelming it felt smothering. Like the story was a backdrop to enjoy the music and visuals, if that makes any sense.

And that feeds into my main criticism of the film, that there was just not enough time to let it breathe. I appreciate this was an extraordinary challenge to begin with though; it was not a poor effort. It is still well worth a watch, and definitely do it in the theatre unless you have a high quality home theatre setup.
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Makes perfect sense. You're not the only one. A few pages back there's a tweet mentioning the same thing. And the below post is touching on it as well.

AaronRedDevil said:
Dune (2021)


Well that was crap. They had the balls to even try and compare this to Star Wars and Lord of the fecking Rings. 2 and a half hours of build up to nothing. For book readers I’m sure they get what’s going on and all the back stories, but in the movie I was so lost of what was going on. The acting was ok, the main fella reminds me of Edward from twilight. Just a blank stare. Let’s just say I’d rather watch The last Jedi then this again. I didn’t care about the characters. The world building was fine. The acting was decent. The score was ok but it’s annoying when it’s ramped up when there nothing happening to justify the music. Plus I think It was just boring for most of the movie and I get it’s just part one, where it’s a set up. But the first half of Fellowship was slow but it’s still entertaining. Overall I’d give it a 4/10. Its a shame because I was looking forward to enjoying this.

The flashbacks to Zendeya every 20 mins with the score blasting like it’s epic was annoying as hell, killed the pace. We get it, she’s pretty. Stop doing it. And when they finally meet they barely speak. That skarsgard was hilarious when they tried to poison him and he’s there crouched into the fecking corner of the ceiling like he’s a spider . Batista was just there to stare and talk for a few mins, he was barely in the movie. Josh Brolin was wasted in this. It was really dragging in the 2nd half of the movie. Also the armour shield doesn’t make sense. How was it bouncing off hits most of the time and yet Jason was able to kill them off in one hit
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I watched it in IMAX today and really enjoyed the movie, I didn’t know anything about Dune as I had never read the books and had zero background.

Visuals were stunning and the score was beautiful, I am looking forward to the second part. I didn’t find it too difficult to follow.
 
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