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What did people think of the new Dune movie

Calrid

Active Member
I really liked it but Dune has long been considered to be unfilmable, esoteric and hard to understand. Your thoughts?
 
"He who controls the spice controls The Universe" Baron Harkonen. A euphamism of course for oil, and of course on Arrakis the value of water.
 
Outside of the fact that it has the advantage of having much better SFX than the previous version, I felt it to be overblown and way to emotionless. Even though David Lynch repudiates his version for many reasons, I consider it far superior to the current version.

I found Kyle MacLachlan to be a much better Paul Atreides than Timothée Chalamet. Couple that with the fact that the new Dune is only about two-thirds of the novel and ends in a silly place, for me, and I prefer What remains on screen of David Lynch's original vision. I guess my biggest problem with the newest version is the director. All the SF films of Denis Villeneuve are emotionless exercises that do not connect with me on anything but a purely visual level. He shines there (i.e. directing special effects sequences), but I do not think he actually draws the best from his actors.

Of course this is a purely subjective opinion. It isn't that it is a bad film, but if you are going to remake something then you best do something more than just add a bit of flash. It is overlong for covering a bit more than half a book and the climactic section of that cannot sustain a film as long as the first, although I somehow suspect that is going to happen. My take is that he has no sense of economic story telling, and the film suffers for that. There is quite a bit that could have been eliminated without harming the story.

The Lynch version might have been as long as the new one or even a bit longer if Lynch had final cut, but he did not. Even so, the 1984 version covers the whole book in less time than Part 1 of the latest Dune.

I would note that before I watched the new version I re-watched the old version, so my reaction is fresh, even though it is a deeply personal one. I found the new version disappointing and a bit tedious to sit through. Rather like reading the book if you are not in the right frame of mind. :p
 
The problem with that movie is that it is a remake. Does anyone remember New Coke? That was a remake. And it sucked. Remakes are always worse than the originals because remakes are just a copy.
 
The problem with that movie is that it is a remake. Does anyone remember New Coke? That was a remake. And it sucked. Remakes are always worse than the originals because remakes are just a copy.
From what I have heard the recent Dune movie is not a remake, just based on the same source material as the 1984 David Lynch film, similar to how the well regarded 2006 James Bond movie "Casino Royale" is not a remake of the 70's offshoot (generally considered to be terrible), but rather a different adaptation of the book.

I also disagree with you on remakes being inherently bad, as the director often puts their own spin on it which can make them more interesting. One example of this is "the Fly"; David Cronenberg's 80's version became such a classic that many people don't know it's a remake of a 50's film.
 
I also disagree with you on remakes being inherently bad, as the director often puts their own spin on it which can make them more interesting. One example of this is "the Fly"; David Cronenberg's 80's version became such a classic that many people don't know it's a remake of a 50's film.

Well, people like different things I guess, I have just still not seen a remake that was better. I don't think The Fly from 1986 is as good as the original from 1958.
 
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I appreciate the original dune far greater than the new adaptation.. albeit the special effects and CGI help frame the world and it’s universe in a more detail and better visuals.. I feel a lot of the atmosphere surrounding the original was lost, probably due to the different perspectives of the two directors.. but I was stuck on the novel and game for extended periods of time because of how the original enveloped me into it’s grip of the spice market and the ways of the emperor. Though I appreciate that it will hit a new margin of people and other generations, I don’t feel it was as empowered and well-depicted as the original. Which is sad because the original was actually supposed to be fleshed out into 3 movies but due to budget and directorial changes was minimized into the one and disregarded as executives presumed it would tank. By that regard, the remake already let me down by not entirely expanding on what was already told or portrayed.. to me, movies like John Carter have already done a good job in that trope, not befitting of the actual novel but fulfilling the ideals of the plot line and trope while still creating a relatively solid movie to enjoy by the audience.. and like others, I don’t believe many remakes and adaptations do all that well to supersede the originals.. that feeling may change come the additions to the new installation but for the moment I am left rather unsatisfied with the result.. though it does still make me want to play those games over again.. maybe it’s time to crack out an emulator.
 
From what I have heard the recent Dune movie is not a remake, just based on the same source material as the 1984 David Lynch film,
That sounds suspiciously like the film maker taking umbrage at calling his film a remake. If it is not a remake then why does the script of Part one seem so familiar. If you do not want it to be called a remake then you should take steps to depart from the book in some fashion but the filmmakers hued so close to the first film, taking twice as long to get to the same point. So in that sense, maybe it is not a remake but just a badly edited and conceived film.

Watch the two films back to back and ignore the more elaborate visuals in the new version, then tell me it isn't a remake. Neither film follows the book exactly, but few adaptations from other material are terrific movies in their own right. The novel Dune and its sequels are most interested in other things besides the surrounding story, material that is difficult to represent on screen or would disrupt the flow of the film too much, this material is handled much better with a narrative voice-over at the start of the film. Much of the history in the new film is ignored or given minimal lip service.

If the new film had not stretched minimal story to almost its breaking point, I would have been much kinder in my assessment. It is too bad that Alejandro Jodorowsky's planned version lost its financing, way back when, given the talent involved. It could have been something memorable, but then we will never know.
 
The 1958 Fly is a classic, and a great "B" movie of it's time, but the 1986 is by far a superior film. Same goes with The Thing from Another World from 1951, which can't even compare to the absolutely brilliant John Carpenter's The Thing 1982 film. I have seen many remakes that are far superior to the originals over the years, however you are correct that a vast majority of remakes are pale comparisons. I feel the same way about most movie adaptations of books. It solely depends on if the people involved have any talent or not, and I think that is the main problem with this version of Dune.

Pre-2000's BBC used to make amazing adaptations of books. A great adaptation closely follows the source material and keeps the feel and spirit of that material. Although both The Fly and The Thing deviated greatly from the books, along with other classics like Blade Runner, they weren't claiming to be adaptations, which was supposedly one reason Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was renamed. The real problem is that most of these talentless script writers and directors decide to "improve" the source material and "place their stamp" on the scripts and still claim it to be a proper adaptation of the book. For this version of Dune, Paul is your average whiny emo idiot. That's a massive deviation right from the start, and it makes no sense whatsoever for the character or the material. The movie keeps going steadily downhill from there. I consider the David Lynch movie to be the best (I wish that Universal would give Lynch a free hand to re-edit all the filmed material to an unlimited length). I also think the SciFi Channel 2000 mini-series of Dune is a decent adaptation. Although both have their problems and some deviations, both keep the feel of the material, unlike this last movie. I think that a big budget, multi-seasonal TV series with a director like Luc Besson and someone with the skills of the pre-2000's BBC writers to adapt it would be the only way to give a Dune adaptation any justice.
 
I was planning on reading the book. Is it any good?

I read 5 of the Dune books and I have the same question.

My recollection of Dune is that it has a well-developed storyline told on a grandiose scale, but that it also has a lot of stuff that just felt like weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Like there are so many concepts of ways things could be different in the future that it barely fits in the book.

I also felt like all the sequel books had a lot of wandering around and waiting, with the entire plot packed into a single chapter toward the end of the book.

Here's why you can ignore me: There was a lot of stuff I didn't comprehend when I read it because my social/emotional intelligence was very underdeveloped*. There may be a lot of depth and meaning to the books that wooshed right over my head at the time. (*Here's a good illustration - I read the Twilight books with my wife. I thought the second book was boring and pointless because there was 90 pages of nothing but Bella repairing a motorcycle with Jacob. Then my wife said, "Do you see how Bella is falling in love with Jacob?" and I went, "Oooohhhh!" because, no, I didn't see that at all. Woosh.)

I thought the movie was very, very well done and I'm looking forward to the sequel. It has made me wonder if I would like the books if I reread them. I honestly don't know.
 
By the way you have so much adverts in this forum that it makes the site completely unnavigable. It's just a spam fest. why do you do that? It's horriblke and shameless. I can't even find a page to write on without some dick advert getting in the way. Sheez I don;t think I want to be on this site any more it;s wank fest of idiotic spam. Bye I wont be posting again.
 

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