The thing about trying to adapt Dune is that Dune has become something of a white whale for filmmaking ever since the book’s release in 1965. Or maybe it’s a dead albatross? A ladder you walked beneath? Point is, it’s difficult and maybe a little cursed, but not because the story of Dune is actually hard to adapt—people just seem to think it is.
What I watched in the theater was definitely Dune (part one, as it says in the opening credits), so director Denis Villeneuve got that part right.
[Spoilers for Dune: Part One]
You know what is kinda hard? Reviewing Dune movies. I’ve done it before, and I’ll probably do it again, and they’re strange beasts to tackle in a critical sense. Everyone wants something different out of book-to-film adaptations. Some want them to hew as closely to the text as possible, some want to see what happens when people free themselves up a bit to find new themes and arcs. I want… both, which is unhelpful. Both with an overlarge side order of acknowledging that films cannot be books, and it’s weird when people want them to be. But I have a lot of thoughts about Dune movies. I appreciate all that is weird and wonderful about David Lynch’s version while still maintaining that it’s a pretty awful thing. I enjoyed the preciousness of how carefully the Sci-Fi miniseries tried to adapt the thing, even when it should have steered clear. I am perfectly content for the fact that we will never see Jodorowsky’s 12-hour marathon.
This version of Dune marks the first time that a director who loved the story Frank Herbert created was given a sizable budget and a decent amount of creative control over the project. Villeneuve has been making moody, sweeping SFF films for a while now, which made him an ideal choice to tackle a project of this scope. In that regard, he does not disappoint in the slightest: this film is beautiful. Freeze upon any number of frames in this movie and prepare to be awed. The marriage of the visuals with the film’s sound engineering is also a feat to behold. Making these aspects sync in any movie is often one of the most difficult aspects of the craft, the place where “flicks” can become “art” in the truest sense, and Dune achieves that. What’s more, it achieves it with the sort of effortlessness that makes the locations seem real and lived in. The film is immaculate in its design, and also very smart about utilizing specific elements to make the world stand out from other science fiction fare; ships modeled after living organisms; “shielded” fight choreography that requires slower and more precise attacks; organic movement embedded into technology. As a viewing experience, Dune is worth every frame.
Villeneuve stated in interviews that this is a film he’s wanted to make since childhood, and that love infuses every shot—but so does his love for cinema. Homages to Lawrence of Arabia (the historical account of which Dune is partly based upon) and Apocalypse Now can be found, but also ties to Lynch’s version of Dune and several pointed nods to French filmmaker Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element. These threads make clear that the film knows what narratives and histories it is drawing from, that it bears a certain responsibility in telling a story that falls into the framing of white savior tropes, or any indictment of these issues won’t come off.
Unfortunately, there are many places where those endeavors fall flat. It has been pointed out already that the film has cast no MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) or Indigenous actors in the roles of the Fremen we have seen thus far. This is a sizable oversight considering the Islamic roots of the Fremen as a group, and the peoples they are based upon within the novels (being the Blackfeet Nation, Bedouin, and San people specifically). Additionally, the film engages in colorism (intentionally or not) by killing two of the most prominent characters with dark skin. While Javier Bardem and Zendaya are both a credit to their roles—Stilgar and Chani, for the short time we see them—it smacks of suggesting that people of color are a monolithic group, or perhaps only using the most famous names available to the production.
The Baron Harkonnen is odiously played by Stellan Skargård, but all the eccentricities have been bled out of the character; aside from a Denethor-worthy feasting scene, he reads more like skulking monster of the depths. It’s possible that these changes were enacted to prevent any “queer-coding” of the character; in the books, the Baron’s homosexuality was explicitly tied to his depravity, and his propensity toward lyrical rhyming in dialogue could perhaps be misconstrued in that direction despite its Shakespearean function. Unfortunately, that leaves us with the one aspect of the character that remains unaltered and still tied to his moral vacancy—obesity. I had wondered previously if the film would make this choice, and found it disappointing to see it played out in the typical fashion; not only is Skarsgård wearing a fat suit, but as per usual, every other character in the film is either strong and muscular (including Dave Bautista’s Rabban Harkonnen) or waifishly thin. While the production team evidently understood that making the Baron the only visibly queer character was a poor choice, no one seems to take issue with tying weight to pure evil.
There’s also the question of how the Bene Gesserit are used in the film, as Villeneuve had promised that this version would allow the women to take more focus. While the depiction of the sisterhood is given a clarity that the book took more time to render—particularly where their schemes, seeding of legends, and eugenics program are concerned—there is the issue of Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and Duke Leto’s concubine, to consider. Rebecca Ferguson is a superb actor, but there are choices made throughout the story that do her and her character a disservice. For one, Jessica’s abilities as a fighter are saved as a “reveal” near the end of the film, which is a strange piece of information to suggest yet withhold. But more importantly, in an attempt to show how difficult it is for Jessica to be pulled one way by the sisterhood and another by her loyalty to Leto, she spends nearly half of her time on screen shaking and sobbing. This choice, juxtaposed with the stoic, angry men found in every other direction of the film doesn’t do her character any favors, particularly when the film edits out a key arc of the book’s first section: Leto’s men are all suspicious of Jessica for belonging to the sisterhood, and their constant reiteration of that suspicion is what prevents them from being able to see the true traitor in their midst.
I say again, mistrust of women is part of the reason House Atreides falls, and this arc is almost entirely deleted from the film. Not really sure how that helps the story to center on women? And more importantly, it makes their fall seem incidental, as though Duke Leto is unaware of the trap he’s stepping into. It makes the Atreides seem less canny than they are as a group, which in turn makes it harder to understand how Paul Atreides can become any sort of leader, let alone an effective one. As for Paul’s all-important arc, Timothée Chalamet is great at acting a very specific range and set of emotions, but what he’s missing is the petulant teenager that exists at the beginning of Dune before his “special awful destiny” kicks in; it makes the film hard to understand in places because we’re meant to note a change in him—Duke Leto literally name checks said change to Jessica at one point—that doesn’t exist.
There are many places that might strike a new viewer as odd if they’re less familiar with the story; the focus on the Atreides homeworld of Caladan is one, as is the narrative drag in the second half of the film, and the tendency to have important mantras and speeches first whispered and then repeated. And there’s the repositioning of Liet Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) as well—a character whose role in the narrative is strangely over-explained at certain points and under-served in others. Ultimately, much of what is presented in this first half is perplexing because it’s unclear what changes to the story are being made. It is possible that as a whole, Dune will read far better, but we can’t know until the second half arrives.
Ultimately, Dune: Part One feels like the story that it is, which is a feat all its own. As eye candy and film tapestry, there is none better. As for the story, we’ll have to see where we wind up once Part Two is delivered to our eyeballs.
Emmet Asher-Perrin is grabbing that soundtrack right the heck now. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.
No offense to Stephen McKinley Henderson, but I don’t think he qualifies as either “strong and muscular” or “waifishly thin.”
I thought it was fantastic, but agree that it did a disservice to a number of elements of the book.
****Spoilers for book and film! Highlight text to view*****
The Conservatory scene(s) in the book (where Jessica finds a sealed greenhouse in the compound and the ensuing passages played out therein) and the Dinner Party were places where Jessica and her abilities could have been used to great effect and provided her character much more weight and competence.
Also, where the film ended following the duel between Paul and Jamis was played much differently in the book, where Jessica has to reign Paul in from taking too much pride in his victory.
Saw it Friday and honestly I’d give it 3 ½ of 4 stars. Lots of places where an added line or two would have really clarified things. But all those places would add half an hour to a 2 ½ hour movie. Would’ve liked to see the dinner party, too. But, again, running time. Really, quite a bit had to get trimmed to get it down to a reasonable time.
Loved the look an sound. Really needs to be seen on a big screen with big sound systems.
It does set up Duncan Idaho well for Dune Messiah, if that happens.
You’re forgetting the Duke’s attendant (accountant?) who was a big adorable bear and I was really sad that he died off screen and didn’t get a noble on screen death during the Harkonnen attack like the other leading male fighters. If season 1 finale of GoT taught us anything, its that a good character doesn’t need to fit the stereotype of big strong man to get a noble on screen death (looking at you Syrio Forel!).
I def didn’t feel like there was actually a lack to diversity of color in the film as part 1 was set very much from the narrative of the white “masters” and it was VERY overt how much this movie draws parallels with our own worlds colonialism.
Def agree that Jesicca was given the short straw for this movie, she either spent her time playing the role of the defiant/ignorant child to the Bene Gesserit, or the trembling and incapable mother to Paul who had to show her basic survival skills. The only scene she really gets to shine in was saving her and Paul from being tossed out the helicopter.
The comments here is the first place I’ve seen one of my biggest “quibbles”. I wanted the dinner party scene so badly!! And that is really my main issue I have with this film (and it’s a small one!), in that I felt the period between the arrival on Arrakis and the betrayal was too short. Even rushed, if I am allowed to say that. I wanted a longer period for the tension and dread to build and build…to really understand how trapped and doomed the Atreides are. I was telling one of my friends that after the movie, and her response was…”Wait, so you want a movie that’s even longer?” Yes. That’s exactly what I wanted.
Anyway. That was my biggest issue. What did I think of this movie? I thought it was magnificent. I never thought I’d see a movie come so close to doing Dune justice, and this film admirably approached doing so. I was grinning throughout. This movie – no, it wasn’t perfect, I know! – felt like Dune. Such loving care taken with this one, there is no doubt it was made by someone who loves the source material. So many small things (I wondered if they’d ever explain Yueh’s conditioning – nope! Guess not necessary) in the movie that a non-book reader would not understand, but this movie also works for a non-book reader! (As I’ve been told by a few friends) I loved that V had no hesitation in long, lingering shots. I loved the cinematography. Such a beautiful film. The acting was superb throughout. Yes, I would have liked to see the Lady Jessica showcase her skills even more, but this *was* the Lady Jessica I’ve always imagined. Would have also liked some more Leto/Jessica interaction, but alas. Chalamet far outpaced my expectations for his Paul. The vision scenes with Chani surprisingly worked quite well. The scene in the tent with him seeing the Fremen under the Atreides banner sweeping across the galaxy – superbly moving. And even the very subtly played revelation that that future was further constricting and locking into place as Paul and Jessica continued their flight. Brilliantly done.
The world and setting felt human and alien both. Worldbuilding was outstanding and so many hints of so much more beneath the surface. That scene on Caladan heralding the Change. Loved that!! Sci-fi spectacle that is rarely achieved so flawlessly. Oh I haven’t mentioned yet – loved the music as well! Yes, a bit over the top at times, but it worked.
Yes, there are some plot issues and character issues here and there. The Baron wasn’t quite right – very flatly villainous in a way that stripped any sense of reality from him – but his menace was palpable. Felt they over-explained the Emperor’s role in the downfall of the Atreides. Wish they would have kept that more subtle, in-the-background. But they obviously wanted to highlight the role of the Sardaukar, so understand the necessity there (even to the point of having the Sardaukar go into battle undisguised!) And yes, I still felt the downfall of the Atreides was rushed. I wanted to see drunk Duncan! I wanted the dinner party! Yes, I wanted to see the distrust shown towards the lady Jessica and the fear by everyone (mostly) that she was the traitor. But alas.
I have a lot of things I “wish” were different or otherwise, but don’t get me wrong, I loved this movie. Grinning throughout. Been a while since I’ve seen a sci-fi movie this good. Possibly Interstellar? (this movie may top even that) I want to see this again and enjoy it. Just a gorgeous movie. I got the urge to applaud at the end, and I have never yet done that at the theatre. I do have fears that Part 2 cannot top this one, but that is partly because I view the latter part of the book as being inferior to the first part. I still have hopes and am very happy that I got to see this one on the big screen. It was a most enjoyable experience.
The Dune’verse is a very sexist place, that’s just one of it’s many, many flaws as a culture. Change that and the Bene Gesserit’s secretive and manipulative ways stop making sense.
Jessica crying and trembling is just wrong. The woman has been trained in control, the only time she loses it in the book is when Paul tells her Leto is dead.
IMO Timothee Chalamet is way too pretty and waifish to make a believable war leader.
I really hate gender swapping and race lifting.
I really liked the film as an adaptation. Echoing others that felt the dinner scene would have been nice to have, along with the discovery of the conservatory. But the movie is long enough as is. Also: Jessica is very explicitly stationed at the door during the Gom Jabbar test, and we are told by the reverent mother that her combat skills are excellent enough to stop any guard. I know ‘show and not tell’ is the mantra of film, but I have a hard time seeing how the reviewer would understand the scene at the end of the film to be meant as a ‘reveal’ of Jessica’s combat abilities.
I’m really glad I saw this in a theater, first off. First time I’ve been in a theater since I went to see Avengers: Endgame, and this is absolutely worth the spectacle. It’s a visual and auditory thunderbolt.
I need to see it again to be sure how I feel. I’m torn. On one hand it’s maybe the most faithful adaptation of book to film I’ve seen, and on the other it shows some of the reasons that’s not always a good thing.
Dune is my favorite book, so it was thrilling to finally see it on screen. The other versions have their charms but neither felt like I was watching Dune. This movie IS Dune. The world it drowns you in is amazing and the thematic depth is, while surely not as layered and intense as the book, about as well done as a movie version can be.
The fact that it hews so closely to the book though is also a handicap. Some things happen that seem to occur only because they are in the book. Paul Atreides is a very difficult character to nail down for a 2 1/2 film, and he isn’t quite right. I also remarked on the oddity of Leto saying Paul had changed when I saw no change in his character. Some of the things they left out of the script made perfect sense why they cut it, but without the context those scenes provide in the novel the movie seems a bit thin on motivation and consequence at times.
The changes they did make I understand though. Making Kynes a woman is a good choice to add a bit more of a female presence. Giving Duncan Idaho a slightly bigger role makes sense, since you have Jason Momoa and as some groundwork in the case that the next two books get made. It would have been really cool to see more of the Bene Gesserit powers, genetic memories and physical control and all that, and they feel less important without that, but I get why it was deemed unnecessary.
I did hate that Jessica lost her shit so many times. Especially in a Villaneuve movie, who’s characters are so often stoic blocks of stone. That just was a bad choice for her character.
Like I said I need to watch it again to be sure what I think. I think I’m mostly positive but kind of let down that it isn’t quite a masterpiece.
” …it makes their fall seem incidental, as though Duke Leto is unaware of the trap he’s stepping into.”
They are most definitely aware that it’s a trap; they just thought they’d have more time to establish themselves and co-opt the Fremen “desert power.”
This is made as explicit as possible without doing the equivalent of the very awkward, grandiose, and stilted scene from the Lynch version where the emperor spells out his whole plot. I appreciated the restraint here.
The key change is having Chani doing the voiceovers. This fits with Denis V saying she will be the protagonist of Part 2. It refocuses the narrative away from the savior complex some viewers may be expecting. I also like that Jessica is given the recitation of the Litany of Fear. Makes perfect sense, since she’s the one that taught her son.
I liked that Paul had visions where Jamis could’ve been a friend and mentor in a different timeline. It’s Jamis’ intractability that dooms him.
Couple of the best acting choices were directly from the actors themselves. Skarsgaard decided to go into the slime bath himself and emerged like Brando’s Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. There’s a moment where the camera lingers on Jessica’s face after Paul’s fight where a bit of darkness falls on her expression. She asked the director for those extra moments.
Which ties into: “…it makes the film hard to understand in places because we’re meant to note a change in him—Duke Leto literally name checks said change to Jessica at one point—that doesn’t exist.”
This was deliberate, I think. At this point, Paul is a frightened teenager bluffing his way through the events flying at him. The scene where his bearing changes and he tells Liet what he will do for the Fremen as emperor is pure BS and she sees through it. Liet may be more aware than anyone that the messiah myth was seeded by the BG centuries earlier.
Anyway, there are more quibbles, both with the movie and review, but I’ll end with a couple trivial observations: Momoa’s beard apparently varies in length throughout the film (which I didn’t notice while watching); and there’s a very creepy large spider with human hands.
Uh, the Bene Gesserit are a cult of eugenicist manipulators and people who actively subvert religions to control humanity. Saying they’re “women” is kind of problematic by itself because it reduces them to their gender. Indeed, the only reason Jessica IS trustworthy is she’s betrayed her order.
This is made as explicit as possible without doing the equivalent of the very awkward, grandiose, and stilted scene from the Lynch version where the emperor spells out his whole plot. I appreciated the restraint here.
Yeah. Having Shaddam IV’s presence felt and not seen was also the right move for Part I.
It’ll build anticipation for his eventual arrival on Arakkis if Part II gets green-lit.
I’m definitely curious who’s on Villeneuve’s potential casting list to play the final scion of House Corrino.
Original comment got removed for something that I guess violated the moderation policy – maybe the idea that obesity doesn’t connote evil but rather indulgence, which Baron Harkonnen is known for?
I will add that the “reveal” that Lady Jessica is a super competent fighter doesn’t come out of nowhere. When she interviews the Shadout Mapes for the housekeeper position, she basically says “I know you have a weapon and it doesn’t matter, you aren’t capable of hurting me with it.” Which is at least a little foreshadowing of her combat skills.
It’s also sort of unclear why she would need to be a good fighter – I know that she is in the novel, but the fact is that the film portrays the Voice as a nearly unbreakable command, so she’s already a competent opponent. Kind of like how a D&D wizard isn’t supposed to also be brawny, they’ve got their lane and all that. In the novels, the Voice is more of a suggestion that works better on those with less strength of will – the Harkonnen goons are far more susceptible than the Fremen.
While I didn’t care that they made Liet-Kynes a woman, I rather dislike that they did it for gender equality. This is DUNE! There’s a society of space-nuns who secretly control almost everything that happens because they like being shrouded in secrecy and mystique. A few historical changes, and you have a thousand-generation matriarchy of despots who control men with Voice to do their bidding. (And we absolutely see this later in the Dune canon with the Honored Matres.) Dune is possibly the least sexist story to come out of sci-fi and into mainstream. What the movie needed was for the Bene Gesserit to have clarity in the film, and they chose to show the fewest number possible to prove they were a galactic power.
The movie also needed some color, darn it. In the SciFi Dune (2000), You could tell where everyone stood. The Atreides had earthtones like sand, beige, forest green, and leather tabs. The Harkonnens went with red and shiny black plastic. The Corrino sections were awash with purple and gold. Bene gesserit acolytes who served Reverend Mohaim wore purple and white with stylish hats to show where they came from, the Harkonnen troops looked like scary firefighters (sorry, real firefighters), the Sardukar wore scary black uniforms with purple trim, and the Atreides looked like Rebel troopers from Yavin IV. What did the new Dune have? The Atreides wore black martial uniforms, or grey armour, or white fighting suits? The Harkonnen wore black uniforms and armor. The Sardukar wore dirty white armor, and had some weird religious ceremony completely absent in any other part of a story about manipulating religions. The only truly distinguishing thing about Harkonnens was that none of them seem to have any body hair — which could be an interesting note to fit into their worldview of industrial planet-plundering, but they didn’t have time to squeeze it in.
And frankly, time is the problem. The SciFi Dune ran for about two hours to accomplish what this movie did in two and a half. There were some interesting scenes they invented to explain things without infodumping, but they left so many other scenes on the cutting room floor, such as everyone’s requested dinner party. That scene needed to be there for political worldbuilding and character worldbuilding. Much of the plot hinged on that scene and they removed it and didn’t replace it with anything. They did less plot with more time then a twenty-year-old TV movie. Admittedly, they did it with more style.
But that leaves me with one last complaint. Someone mentioned the “over-engineered Heighliners” of Dune (2000). Frankly, that was possibly the most brilliant part of the Tv movie. We have a story of both medium-hard science and fantastical mysticism, a blending of the high-tech natural and the psionic supernatural. And their spaceships are made of skyscrapers that float independently of each other but around a dual rotating frame reference? And they never even bother to explain how that works! Everything you needed to know about the movie was right there in the spaceship — science fiction and magic in one design. I assume each of the skyscrapers is rented separately? (“Yes, Spacing Guild? I’d like to plan a trip for me, my family, a thousand retainers and fifty thousand troops and camp followers?” “Yes, Duke Leto. We have an opening in one of our XXXL troop berths, with four dining hours and a full service maintenance crew. That will be 43 million solaris. Will you be paying with cash, spice or your GalactiCard?”)
They did a very pretty movie with some very talented actors, but David Lynch did that too. I am waiting to see how they play the rest out.
@Sunspear
“I liked that Paul had visions where Jamis could’ve been a friend and mentor in a different timeline. It’s Jamis’ intractability that dooms him.”
That was a neat detail in the visions that I liked too, and I had a slightly different interpretation. As the midpoint of the story, Paul killing Jamis is kind of the first step he takes toward becoming who he becomes. Being accepted by the Fremen, being a messianic figure who does what is necessary for his subjects, being the leader, however unwillingly, of a war that burns the whole galaxy. At this point he doesn’t know the ways of the desert; he’s never killed anyone before.
Jamis in his visions telling him that he will teach Paul their ways, how to survive out here, is exactly what he ends up doing. Maybe he could have been a mentor and friend in another life, but in a less literal sense he still was a teacher. Fighting Paul to the death taught the young man how harsh Arrakis truly is, and taught him that he was capable of killing when it was necessary. Taking the visions as symbolic as much as literal is I think the intention Villaneuve had behind them.
Thank you for this review. It sums up a lot of the issues I have with this adaptation. Yes, it’s stunningly beautiful. I’d expect nothing less from Villeneuve at this point. His portrayal of characters – Jessica being the most egregious, in my opinion – and his choice of scenes to show or to cut drastically alters motivations and character arcs. And the fight with Jamis was anticlimactic. Without Jessica asking, “…how does it feel to be a killer?”, how are we to see the impact of this action? How are we to see Paul grow? This is just one example of a missed opportunity. I can only hope that when they take Jamis’s water, the full impact of that scene isn’t lost.
Saw the film last night and thought I am still parsing it in my mind so this will be a bit all over the place but I can say I thought it was great! There were many places I thought were missing from the book and I thought the first half on Arrakis went too fast with the story. But I have realised that the film is an Adaptation, things will not be the same. Yes the dinner scene was missing, yes it would have given depth to some of the characters but was it really necessary? DV thought not and in the full scheme of things I tend to agree.
Going into the film I was a bit annoyed at the change of Liet Keynes to a woman, I don’t like what seems to be token changes just to even up the gender/racial/sexual balances. Having said that I thought she was great and after the first scene with Kynes I forgot all about my reservations. An whilst on the subject yes there are not that many “ethnic” actors in the Freman we saw (bear in mind we did not see a lot of them so I give DV the benefit of the doubt here) but on the other hand Javier Bardem was fricking AWSOME as Stilgar!
Loved the weapons, functional and brutal.
Gosh so many things that this film did right that I can over look the few that was not so good,
– I was annoyed that Jessica lost her s**t a few times, should have been kept back until she knew of the Duke death, would have had more effect.
– Why do the Freman all have such large Cod Pieces? Really could have done without that.
– In the tent under the sand, where was the sand snorkel? They would have been over come by CO2 as they were.
– The Desert mouse – why was it sweating from its ears? In the desert???
Seriously need to see it again!!!
The lines where Liet says his loyalty isn’t for sale, and Paul apologizes, would have been an economical way of building both their characters, and the Harkonnens.
The Baron is another character who could’ve used a couple more lines to lay out his motivations.
I did like the way Gurney and Duncan were presented.
A YouTube reviewer, the Critical Drinker, felt they could have cut some of the gorgeous panoramas and walks on the beach for actual scenes like the dinner party.
@5 He’s a Mentat, though sadly the film doesn’t even attempt to explain what that means.
@12 I assume they’re saving the Bene Gesserit’s body manipulation abilities for part 2, when they will become *extremely* relevant.
Another aspect that got a bit lost was Leto and Jessica’s relationship, there are one or two tender moments, and he does say he should have married her, but there’s not much to make us believe he means it. Cutting the entire traitor hunt story also loses the moment when Leto wants to make sure she knows that he always believed in her, and allowing the Reverend Mother’s accusation that she had a son because of her own pride to go totally unchallenged doesn’t help either. All of this becomes pretty important when Paul is forced to make similar choices at the end of the book.
Chalamet was a good fit for Paul in part 1, but I’m a bit worried that’ll need to wait like 5 years if they want him to still be a good fit for part 2…
@22 – IanS, I believe that the mouse’s ears were condensing the water from the morning air. Such large ears would be for shedding heat, and the cooler night air would leave them chilled.
@15. Mr Magic: “I’m definitely curious who’s on Villeneuve’s potential casting list to play the final scion of House Corrino.”
I’ve started my campaign for Mads Mikklesen in several other places.
@17. andrewrm: Yeah, agreed entirely. This from the review: “no one seems to take issue with tying weight to pure evil”, threw me off also. Citation needed for any intent in the film to equate obesity with evil. In addition, Brian Herbert was involved in the production to some degree (at least set visits) and there’s information in the prequels that Mother Mohiam poisoned him at some point, causing his metabolic issues.
@22 – Why do the Freman all have such large Cod Pieces? Really could have done without that.
Keep in mind that stillsuits capture sweat, urine and feces and process the water out of them. Probably the reason for the codpieces: the stuff has to go somewhere before the action of moving filters it.
@18. reagan3: “The SciFi Dune ran for about two hours to accomplish what this movie did in two and a half.”
That production took three episodes with a combined runtime of about five hours to tell the story of the first novel. (If you watched it on TV live, it was six hours including commercials :)) Denis V’s Part 2 will reportedly include elements of Dune Messiah, so I’m assuming the second film will be even more economical in its storytelling than Part 1 in roughly the same amount of time as the SciFi series.
I agree that I wanted more color, but I wouldn’t use the costume design of the TV series as an example. For many, it comes very close to camp. I would’ve added color to landscapes and human dwellings. Caladan was strangely colorless, with buildings/castles blending into hillsides. Same with Arrakeen. It was so bland that I could throw a Steven Erikson Ochre meme at it. It also looked like a miniature set.
I don’t remember how the TV heighliners looked. Guess I’ll need to find a copy to watch; maybe I’ll skip to Children of Dune. One thing I wanted in this film was to see a space folding jump; was disappointing to just see them already there. But the design rhyming with the giant worms was a good choice. The liners in Lynch’s production were, however, ridiculous: looked like a bunch of flathead screw scattered in space.
Seems like Dune part 2 is confirmed!!!
@30,
It’ll be interesting to see how the 2023 release impacts the Dune: The Sisterhood series in development for HBO Max.
Given the gap between Part One and Part Two (in terms of production and internal narrative chronology), it could definitely be used to bridge the two films.
There’s also an opportunity to use the show to set up elements of Part Two (i.e. Shaddam IV, Irulan, Fenring, etc.).
@29 Sunspear: I agree that the TV series approached camp. All I’m saying is that people were easily delineated in a feudal system where that would be expected. In the Dune Part 1 a climactic scene of two forces clashing against each other had both forces wearing white-ish armor with face covering helmets. Even knowing who I was seeing (mostly) I still had trouble seeing who was on which side because they were virtually identical. Plenty of cultures have had major identifying marks involving shapes or colors, and these ideas could have been co-opted by the director or design teams. Color, ceremonial garb, embroidered patterns in clothes — The Atreides could have had wavy horizontal lines (showing both water and then wind), the Harkonnen could have had square designs (shows their intractability), the Bene Gesserit could have circles (all comes around to our plans eventually) and Imperial robes could have had upward triangles (to show they’re above everyone.) I’m just shooting from the hip, and I’m a layman with a few art classes. I’m not saying Dune (2000) did it great, I’m just saying that out of three Dune movies it remains the most intelligible over the runtime.
@@@@@ 32 – you’re actually way off base on this one. Most feudal soldiery wouldn’t be easily distinguishable, nor would the nobles. You’ve got a different coat of arms, perhaps, and maybe the soldiers wear a white patch on their armor, but the kind of delineation you see in the Dune miniseries would have been absurd. The concept of a differentiated uniform is very, very new.
I suppose you could make an argument that each planet (and thus House) would develop it’s own unique insignia and gear over the centuries, but that’s a level of worldbuilding that is unnecessary to get into. I really had no trouble following the action – Villanueve does a good job of showing a character we know leading one side, and then you just have to remember your orientation to the scene.
After watching the movie, I must say I am very disappointed. Particularly because I loved Blade Runner 2049.
The visual flair is there, true. But it is like someone grabbed the first half of the book, did a stringent summary, and then stretched the surviving portions into an impalpable gossamer. A beautiful video clip, only two-and-a-half hours long.
Villanueva’s Dune is the LaCroix water of Dune movies. It’s a hint of a hint of Dune.
@@@@@34 and @@@@@ 35: exaggeration can be funny, but you two are being far too harsh.
@@@@@ 35: ROFL. That’s very, very true.
Except one of those dark-skinned characters is actually a white male in the book (whose death greatly affects another character), so in this case I’d say it’s probably an even wash at the very least. It was still a very progressive decision to cast a black female in that role, regardless
Disappointed that the dinner party, a key scene in the book, was cut.
I shouldn’t hope for an Extended Edition with it, should I?
Two words: “stillsuit discipline”.
I still loved it. Will watch it at least 40 more times before I get tired of it.
If they’re going to adapt more of the books into movies after this, not keeping Harkonnen’s obesity doesn’t make sense. He’s the prime example of someone who did everything “right” and gained weight regardless (because Bene Gesserit revenge taking his appearance, which he valued most), and then gave up in a truly spectacular and depraved way once he realized there was nothing to be done. According to the books that are set earlier in time.
A much-deserved nod here to the late author-artist-editor Sterling Lanier, without whom this conversation would not be taking place. Sterling was the editor who purchased DUNE for Chilton after it had been turned down by more than 20 other publishing houses, and he helped Herbert fine-tune the manuscript for its first hardcover publication. Sadly, Sterling paid a price for his prescience regarding DUNE’s prospects. That original hardcover was expensive to produce, did not actually sell well, and ultimately cost him his job at Chilton. It wasn’t until the Ace mass market paperback came out that DUNE started to soar.
And here we all are, today. Thank you, Sterling!
(Also, here’s another piece of DUNE trivia. Herbert’s original title for the sequel wasn’t DUNE MESSIAH. It was FOOL SAINT. The original manuscript is in the special collections library at Cal State Fullerton.)
This is the first review I’ve read that really captures how I felt about the movie, both the good and the bad. I agree that it was odd not to have any discussion of how the Atreides knew they were walking into a trap, or why it was unthinkable that the traitor turned out to be who it was. Without the background, the reveal just seemed shallow and made everyone look like an idiot. I feel like it could have all been addressed with a relatively short scene too. I’m picturing something like a meeting between Leto and Hawat shortly after arriving on Arrakis, Hawat mentions they’ve received reports from their spies that the Harkonnens have planted a traitor, he mentions his distrust of the BG and implies it could be Jessica, the Duke gets angry, throw in a line about how it couldn’t possibly be Yueh. It would still seem rushed and inadequate, I think, but it would at least provide some crucial context. And I agree with other commenters that I would have loved to see the dinner party, though that would have added a lot of time if done well.
I agree with the criticisms, except with the statement that some of the Fremen needed to be played by middle eastern actors. It’s not clear what original ethnicities the Fremen’s (presumably various) ancestors were – the fact they use words that were originally Arabic indicates just one of their roots (they’re described as (possibly descended from) “Zensunni wanderers” – Zen isn’t Islamic). It’s reductive to simply see them as essentially Muslim. I certainly would have thought it would be better to have more middle eastern actors – just because it is better to have actors from diverse backgrounds in general – playing some of them, but I don’t think it was necessary. I’ll acknowledge I read a discussion forum on reddit which made this point more eruditily than me.
Apart from that – this film was well plotted, got the point of the original novel better, and had some good design. But it was also utterly po-faced, often dull, and didn’t feel like we were on a journey with a whole raft of interesting people in a bizarre feudal society in 10,191 AD, who were recognisably human, but from a quite different culture, in my opinion.
Whereas my favourite film – Dune (1984) by David Lynch – was the opposite in just about every way…!
Feels like this review inverts an old question. In the old days it would be “Sure, it’s a good movie, but is it art?”
For this it seems to be more “Sure, it’s art, but is it a good movie?”
So this was definitely a personal vision of Dune by someone who is clearly a fan of the book so whatever else I appreciate the passion behind it. I’ll just add, I feel like Villeneuve was really stretching his budget to make it feel as epic as it does, because I found the art direction and production design extremely sterile and spartan. Many scenes take place in these enormous chambers and hallways with 30+ foot ceilings, and yet almost all the rooms are strangely devoid of furniture, wall hangings, knick-knacks, or windows. It’s like watching a $160 million stage play, or maybe one of those low-budget 1970s British SF series. (The vehicle designs, especially the ornithopters, were excellent though.)
For all their faults, the Lynch and Sci-Fi adaptations understood that the Imperium was a baroque manorial society ruled by an opulent aristocratic class. They reflected that with their set design and especially costuming, even given the Sci-Fi series’ limited budget. (The decadent galactic society depicted in the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending still feels like one of the better realizations of this trope.) In this film, the city of Arakeen is just a complex of giant bunkers and ziggurats with no visible people or active public spaces, just one shot of chanting pilgrims. I think that trickles down to the other missing book scenes: the dinner party, the conservatory, Jessica instructing Mapes and the household about water-beggars–those scenes not only made Arrakis feel like an actual populated place, it humanized both the Fremen and the Atreides.
In the end, I liked it even if it sometimes felt like a 2.5 hour long commercial for its own at-the-time not guaranteed second installment. Hopefully with its success and news of the sequel being greenlit, Villeneuve gets enough money to do the battles, sietch life, and imperial intrigues of the book’s second half justice.
Unless an important element of Liet-Kynes’ relationship to the Fremen has been changed, it’s difficult to believe that this version of the character could have managed to keep it a secret. I guess that we’ll have to wait for Part 2 to find out how the issue’s handled. (Sorry to be so rambling and vague, but the people who know what I’m referring to will get it, and I’d rather not inject a spoiler for anyone who doesn’t.)
I read the book around 1970. It was reasonably fun but I have never understood the cult status. Jack Vance, one of Herbert’s many contemporaries, created many more interesting and believable detailed galactic societies as did others. As a dynastic struggle it was entertaining. It translated a historical novel trope into science fiction. We watched the movie on TV. I thought it was, from what I can remember, a reasonable port to the screen. My wife and I agreed that it was a suddenly a shot rang out adventure story. She read a review that called it “beige.” I think that captures it very well. The color theme was beige. The lack of affect displayed by the actors had to be a director’s decision. It had the overemphasis on long, heavily choreographed, combat scenes that happens a lot in movies. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it in a theater. It met my TV criterion which is, “Is it better than NCIS?”
I enjoyed and have seen it twice now. I’m not sure that I would made the same artistic choices the DV but he’s a world class director and I’m not so whatever.
After the first viewing I was slightly bothered by the portrayal of Jessica, but now I think this is setting up a more interesting story arc for her coming into her full potential in the 2nd half. Her emotional points are never public and she presents a different face to other characters than what we are able to see as the audience.
Some of the other issues people talk might be boiled down to the book is better than the movie in my opinion but I’ve found it extremely rare that the books aren’t better than the movie and I find comparing the two completely different mediums of little value. They are different experiences and I find that neither is wholly superior to the other. I think back to years ago when I saw the Harry Potter films not having read the books and I think they were fun and had some great moments, now having read the books I find that I don’t enjoy the films for all the great moments that were left out or changed… alas I digress.
For me this movie is a 9/10 and will likely remain so. Are there things I wish were different, improved upon, characters recast? certainly. Was I entertained and enthralled for 2.5 hours? Definitely. After the miserable 1.5 years we’ve had this movie is refreshing and uplifting.
I loved this movie! Perfect, no, but oh so good. I’m so glad I got to see it on a big screen, however the sound was so loud many quiet dialogue scenes were incomprehensible. I found changing Liet to a woman odd only because HE was supposed to be Chani’s father….now mother?? The dinner party scene would’ve been wonderful, but alas run time.
I thought the scenes on Caladan set a good contrast to desert Dune. I loved the Gom Jabbar scene where we get to watch Paul’s face as he over comes the pain, and faces Moheim with a fierce glare. I thought Chalamet was a wonderful Paul. Paul was only 15 when the book begins. He pulls that off…there’s a bored, put upon look to him, both with Gurney in the training room, and with his mother at breakfast.
I thought there was plenty of foreshadowing of Doom….Leto knows it’s a trap, he says so. A couple of lines about a traitor in our midst could’ve heightened the tension and plot, but i liked that he told Jessica himself that he should’ve married her. (In the book Paul tells her after Leto is dead) Oh yes, someone above mentioned that Hawat dies off screen, but in the book the Barron has him, and he uses him, as his own mentat is killed in action.
I would’ve loved to have seen Jessica appear stronger. But I did like Rebecca Ferguson in the role. I blame writing there. I think Chalamet is pitch perfect as Paul. Callow, young, but trained and smart. He grows. I rewatched it last night on HBO Max with subtitles so I could understand some of the dialogue. The scene in the tent with Jessica when he gets his father’s ring and they learn he’s dead for sure, he rages at Jessica for what she’s done to him, and he describes his apocalyptic vision of the future. Nevertheless, Paul finally decides to put the ring on and accept his role. Very moving the second time. Also in the short scene before his fight with Jamis, his visions voice tells him he has to kill Paul to become the Kwisatz Hadderach…..and he does. His eyes look very different after the fight. (I hadn’t heard any of that in the theater.) I think when we see him in the next film, he’ll be a grown up.
Lastly….it was beautiful! Remarkably so. I liked the pace, and the obvious love for the source material….which I also love. I’m so glad Part 2 has been green lighted! Hurry up on that, ok?
Why does everybody hate the David Lynch version so much? It’s like hating on “2001” because the graphics are from the ’60s. Science fiction wasn’t socially cool yet, either.
> For this it seems to be more “Sure, it’s art, but is it a good movie?”
Yes – GREAT art and a WONDERFUL movie. I am thinking DUNE (2021) is now surpassing ARRIVAL as my top 2 SF films of all time.
KJP Review of DUNE (2021)
I think it’s safe to say that everyone in this group is familiar with Herbert’s DUNE novel and most with its sequels. This latest movie from director Villeneuve does it complete justice and is superb in all facets: the acting, dialog, special effects and cinematography. The casting seems brilliant and the plot faithful to the novel (hooray!). I read DUNE exactly once, 40 some years ago as a teenager and loved it; since then, I have read small snips from its Analog serialization (and did read the first half of the novel in first 4 of the 8 Analog installments).
This new movie, part 1, covers the first half of the book and is exceptionally well done. Already heard rumors that Warner Bros. are giving the part 2 a go [confirmed on 10/27]. Hard (nearly impossible) for me to imagine Dune fans not loving this on-screen adaptation; I think you all will enjoy this! My only minor complaint is that this film didn’t cover and show how interstellar travel was achieved, it talked about it minimally.
One a scale of 0 to 10, this movie is a perfect 10. It’s modern, it’s serious, and it’s mature.
Expectations clearly exceeded from my serious POV. I enjoyed Lynch’s Dune but this new one is the Real Thing. Cheers!
“Fear is the mind killer.”
@52. Dutch: David Lynch hates the David Lynch version!
I tried watching it recently and it feels very stilted and clumsy. The emperor’s betrayal of House Atreides is openly known in the book and in Denis V’s version, but in Lynch’s the entire throne room scene invented for the movie comes across as plodding, laying it all out, holding the viewer by the hand.
Patrick Stewart is miscast and gives a very wooden performance. “You young pup!” Sian Phillips as Mohiam really leans into the witch angle of the BG, actually hissing when confronting Paul as the new emperor. Lots and lots of missteps. This review found the Baron’s portrayal offensive (it isn’t); look at the 1984 version for a truly histrionic and over-the-top offensive performance.
Also, I don’t think anyone hates 2001 and it’s graphics still hold up, probably because they were practical, meticulous, and in camera.
While I didn’t miss Feyd, and I understood removing references to Baron Harkonnen’s sexuality, I agree that they left him with—essentially—no character. My biggest complaint with the movie (which I loved) was all the excess story Villeneuve stuffed in between Paul and Jessica’s escape into the desert and their meeting with Stilgar’s people. It reads as, “Well, we have Jason Momoa, we really need to give him something to do” Also, the actor playing Piter de Vries was too stoic. Piter in the book is evil and arrogant—he’s his own favorite topic. I’m really torn regarding Villeneuve’s battle scenes in the fall of Arakkeen. In the book, the battle within was far more important than the stuff getting blown up outside. Yes, the battle scenes are spectacular, but I found myself squirming in my seat, wondering how long they were going to stretch the fall of Arakkeen. As for Jessica’s big martial reveal alongside Paul’s first kill:as far as I recall, in the movie they never mentioned The Way. Not once.
I actually loved the old Dune with sting in it. Whatever year that was. This one is pale and maybe because it’s in parts. There were many elements that were more elegant and finessed (that Spanish sensibility worked well) but why 3 parts? Peter Jackson did that to the Hobbit and totally destroyed the beauty of the book. Sorry, not sorry. I love sci fi, and this story especially, so it’s not the end of the world. But unfortunately, I just wish this was more exciting and scary and beautifully mysterious.
@@@@@ Sunspear:
Exaggerating? Explain to me how anyone who has not read the books can have any inkling of what’s going on in that movie.
@Ashgrove: book readers have pointed out how much detail and explanation has been left out, true.
What’s a mentat? implied.
What’s a centuries long breeding program (which amounts to eugenics) about? implied.
What is Paul’s training in the Bene Gesserit way? implied.
What does the spice do and why is it so supremely valuable? How is it key to FTL space travel? implied.
It is expressly designed to make sense to a non-book reader, to not overwhelm with detail. I guess you’d have to ask someone who hasn’t read the books or seen the prior adaptations. My impression is that it works well enough. It is distilled just enough to work for both factions.
So yes, it’s water, but not diaphanous gossamer; and water has power, water is life.
Great review that followed my thoughts almost exactly. It was a beautiful film but made no attempt to mitigate the racism, ablism, sexism, imperialism, etc. of the original. As a disabled viewer I was particularly annoyed that the only people like me (all two of them) were evil and sustained gruesome injuries / died. What is the point of representation if it’s negative?
The Empire of the Known Universe in Dune is not meant to be an ideal society. Far from it. The Empire is a Bad Place. Fremen are far from ideal, noble savage or not. Bene Gesserit are horrible abusers of women, not to mention men and children. I don’t think softening that awfulness is a good choice.
@47: That’s a very good point I hadn’t thought of before.
@@@@@ 62. taleyn: “no attempt to mitigate the racism, ablism, sexism, imperialism, etc. of the original.”
I don’t think this is the case. If anything (look at the comments using hyperbole like gossamer and spring water), some think it went too far in diluting the original content. The original novel and universe has a density of detail that can’t be fully replicated in the short span of one film.
One of the major omissions, the banquet scene after the Atreides arrive on Dune, it makes clear that the Atreides are also colonizers and very wealthy (1%ers in our terms), even if less harsh than the Harkonnens. The film makes it explicit that the Duke intends to exploit the Fremen.
Portrayal of harsh conditions and savage court politics doesn’t equal endorsement. Softening it to the degree some viewers seem to expect would not make it Dune. It would be a reinterpretation, not an adaptation.
I haven’t seen this mentioned in any other comments so maybe I’m the only one that picked up on it, but it REALLY bothered me that the only role given to an East Asian actor had major “Inscrutable Oriental” trope vibes. Herbert describes Dr. Yueh’s features in the book (in a very unflattering way, clearly influenced by tropes of his day and age), but as shown by Villeneuve’s willingness to completely reimagine Kynes’ gender and skin color, there wasn’t a commitment to stick perfectly to the book. No need to make the shifty, untrustworthy character East Asian (esp. cause Suk doctors were all kinds of people) this was a missed opportunity to correct one of Hollywood’s most pervasive tropes.
From tvtropes.com:
@66, but Dr. Yueh is a sympathetic character. He has been broken by Baron Harkonnen, tormented with the uncertain fate of his wife, his conditioning undermined. He is a traitor, and villainized in later histories but he’s shown as a man caught in the gears of a Great House vendetta. And he saves Jessica and Paul from the wreckage.
@@@@@ 60: We must agree to disagree on this one.
The much maligned (and admittedly clumsy) Lynch movie and both Syfy series were lots of fun and bursting with ideas.
Villeneuve’s minimalist version is neither. It’s like those white-on-white minimalist interiors whose empty rooms hold nothing but a white couch and a white vase, and maybe a white Shih Tzu.
@69. ashgrove: well, there is a lot of ochre. But I wouldn’t call it minimalist. It’s like critiquing a desert (you know, a series of dunes) for being one color. If you use operatic, baroque, and camp as barometers, sure, it’ll seem much more restrained.
Otherwise, as long as you’re aware of the hyperbole, it’s fine…
I agree with most of what SonOfThunder said in the comments. However, if there had been less repetition of dialogue (some of which you could not hear clearly!) and fewer long shots (Yes, he sees Chani, we get it), there would have been time for those important moments (e.g. dinner scene) that were left out.
I will say that yes, it was beautiful and I was very glad they were able to get more elements of the book correct. One thing that has been a tiny issue for every rending of Dune so far, the stillsuits: when they are being checked for fitting every movie shows the shoulder straps being pulled up and back behind. No, no, no. You have to be able to put this on by yourself. The straps would go to the front. Picky, I know, Sorry.
I was glad I saw it in the theater. I did not like the soundtrack. Still glad I saw it on the big screen.
Looking forward to part two.
Btw, Herbert reportedly hated the ending of Lynch’s version. Paul bringing rain to Arrakis was not quite on the level of Jodorowky’s bonkers ideas (which would’ve altered Dune into something unrecognizable, but the doc on his attempt is interesting enough to watch). If the objective is to gain control of Dune, the last thing they would want is the element that would kill the worms. It shows a misinterpretation of the text and a misunderstanding of the ecology of Dune.
Alia’s creepy “For he IS the Kwisatz Haderach!” does not mean Paul has become a weather god. She may as well have said, “For he is become Thor!”
@72/Sunspear — Wikipedia quotes Frank Herbert’s comment on the ending of the 1984 movie: “Paul was a man playing god, not a god who could make it rain.”
The 1984 Paul could not only make it rain, as I recall, he could also break rocks with his voice. Which made the final duel with Feyd-Rautha a little bit anti-climactic.
@69/Ashgrove — The 2021 filmmakers overreacted to the baroque glories of the 1984 film, making everything dull and gray. Even Caladan which, under the wise rule of House Atreides, is supposed to be a verdant paradise.
But the biggest mistake in the new film is probably the miscasting of Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto. Indeed, the bushy beard the filmmakers gave him is a giveaway. The earlier versions of Dune made it clear that Leto’s real crime is that he makes the Emperor feel inferior. But even with the beard Isaac comes across more like a mid-level bureaucrat than a great lord.
@73. taras: I haven’t heard that take about Isaac’s magnificent beard being miscast anywhere else. :)
Who would you have cast as Leto?
I’ve already moved on to campaigning for Mads Mikkelsen to play the Emperor.
@@@@@ 66 – I think you’re way off base on the “Orientalist” trope. Dr Yueh isn’t a negative stereotype, at all. He’s not a cold, calculating chessmaster. He’s a broken man, betraying everything on the chance of reuniting with his wife. And he’s not a fool, because he knows the odds are essentially nil that the Baron is going to keep his word, so he plans his own doublecross.
It’s worth pointing out that just because a character of any given ethnicity is a villain, doesn’t mean they’re a negative stereotype. For what it’s worth, Yueh is a minor character. He’s there to be the traitor, which is only necessary so Jessica isn’t trusted, which drives a lot of the sense of impending doom in the first half of the book (or this movie). For a bit player, Yueh is actually given a lot more characterization and depth in his small amount of screen time than others. For example he and Duncan Idaho are about as important as one another, but we never get a good reason for his fanatical loyalty to the Atreides – it’s there to show us people love them, but it has no basis.
And you can hardly call him unfeeling, because he shows genuine regret for what he’s doing, he clearly cares about the Atreides as a whole, and he’s doing it out of love for his wife. Nor can you call him a “chessmaster” as per your post, because his plans fail.
And if he hadn’t been cast as an East Asian character, half the internet would be up in arms about how no people of Asian descent were cast. It’s a lose lose, and I think Villaneuve did the character justice
@@@@@ 73. taras: I’m with you on everything you said.
Except I think the Duke’s weakness is less about Isaac’s lack of gravitas and more about him being giving so little to work with –not to mention so little screen time. The Duke is barely in the movie.
Though one could argue that of every character. Like someone already commented, it would have been wise to cut on the long panning shots of greige nothing and give us more scenes of characters talking and doing things.
@67, 76 – Thanks for sharing your points, I recently read Interior Chinatown (about discrimination in Hollywood) and it really shook me – I’m currently on the hyper-sensitive side.
You both make good points about how the character differs from the stereotype (NOT chessmaster, doing it out of love). And how he was shown with as much depth as they could afford screen time to give to a bit player. I think I’m reconsidering my stance on this. Thanks for the discussion!