Dune’s Scale is More Than Simply Spectacle | The Backdrop
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- Опубліковано 4 бер 2024
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I find it very interesting that such a exposition heavy book was adapted with a "show not tell" approach, and masterfully at that.
It's one of the most impressive things about it. The Buttlerian Jihad is never mentioned, for example, even though it explains so much of the logic of the world. It's a legitimately great choice.
I remember doing a double take about a certain character death because of that. Which I eventually appreciated more in comparison to something akin to GRRM's novels...where too much mid-exposition can be a bad thing. That dude almost ruined nipples for me.
It's a bold strategy, Cotton. They definitely had to avoid it simply because it was impractical for the medium. The exposition is so heavy that you would essentially need to extend the movie by 2 hours just to hear everything going on in their heads. They cut it down a considerable amount for the David Lynch film and it felt both long-winded AND lacking in essential information/continuity. It would've been better served in an HBO series, but the problem is always trying to do something of this scale on an HBO budget with HBO-tier producers. Never would've happened and if it did we would've regretted it.
Villeneuve is great at that imo
@@Darren_Mooney I found myself explaining that backstory to my friend who saw the second movie with me but hadn't read the books, and after I was done I realized that my friend didn't need that backstory because Villeneuve simply showed the characters behaving as they would in a world where all that was true and treated as normal. My friend's a network engineer, and he didn't notice that there are no computers in this far-future spacefaring society. It's a genuine monument to smart visual storytelling.
I love what Dave Batista said about the movie when comparing it to his Disney work. He was so used to going to an entirely blue set with ping pong balls everywhere that working on dune was such a new experience.
The bull is a metaphor for House Harkonnen: they are beasts. Even Rabban is literally known as, "The Beast." By acting as a virtuous house, the Atreides inevitably put themselves in the path of this bull over and over again. almost as though trapped in a metaphysical rather than social system. But what ultimately destroys them is not the bulls obvious horns but love: Lady Jessica is of Harkonnen descent and by choosing to bear Leto a son she creates exactly the right genetic conditions to bring about the Kwisatz Haderach: an entity that unites not only male and female but good and evil.
Though the movie sets up the distinction between man and beast, Paul turns out to be both. And just like the Bene Tleilax generated Kwisatz Haderach, Paul would rather destroy himself than become the opposite of what he imagines himself to be.
It's also an Easter egg - Leto's father (Paul's grandfather) was killed by that bull as part of a Harkonnen plot IIRC.
"Big… really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is." (Douglas Adams)
This essay, in a nutshell!
Especially when you reflect it off of a piece of toast.
You might think it's a long walk down the road to the chemist, but that's peanuts.
@@kevingriener7441 it’s so good when someone else picks up what you’ve put down and runs with it
This is a great take on why the bigness in _Dune_ feels like it means something, when so often in cinema (eg, _The Force Awakens_ ) it's just an empty attempt at wowing. Using the language of cinema to simultaneously explore the points raised by the source material and provide a blockbuster visual spectacle is a real tour-de-force.
Yep. I think it’s one of the great modern uses of the form, and it is inseparable from the function of the films.
It made me realise that's also the case in Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy, because you start with the little hobbits on their little farms who live in little burrows, with Gandalf towering over them and then they cross mountains, go into abandoned mines, ride across open fields and even when they're in cities you see them climbing a lot of steps in Gondor and Lothlorien. It reinforces the story of small people caught in big events, but in a hopeful way instead of Dune's overwhelming feeling. It feels like something that's been lost in modern LOTR media too.
@@calamitysangfroid2407 I think another thing that feels lost with modern LOTR adaptations is the feeling that the things we're seeing belong where they are. Sounds vague, but let me elaborate. In my country, there's this old, big theme park based around fairy tales that's located right next to and partially inside a large forest and nature preserve. In order to preserve both the fairytale aesthetic and the "park" side of "theme park", they put an immense amount of thought into the appearance, colors and materials used in the various attractions. Not only so they fit in with the attraction-specific themes, but also so they look like they've always been there. Basically making a brand new ride look like the buildings it's composed of have been standing in that place for years, decades or even centuries. You never get the feeling that anything is "new" there, everything looks lived-in.
That's a problem that I tend to see with both newer LOTR adaptations and many fantasy and sci-fi media: the things inside the world look too new. Even when the props and decor are really well made, they look like they were made and assembled relatively new. And often buildings look like they do not belong to wherever the set location is, with CGI backgrounds often enhancing this feeling that that nothing's "real".
Both the LOTR trilogy and these Dune movies do one thing really well: everything looks like it belongs, nothing looks out of place and buildings and objects look like they've been a thing since before most characters were born.
The end of part 2 felt fucking massive. What a theatre experience.
It’s incredible. Seen it four times already.
It's telling that the only leader worth a damn in the _Dune_ series was the one who gave up his humanity to intentionally become a monster and who would go on to suffer eternal agony as a diaspora of sandtrout: I.E a choice of such ethical proportions and of such intesne self sacrifice no human being, such as Muad'Dib -- even at the very limits of possibility with millennia-long breeding programs and every avalible resource a person could possibly have made avalible to them in their lifetime -- could be expected to have made it.
And so it fell to one who was not one but many. An abomination birthed from the collective unconscious as a true God-man entity.
A messiah and child of Dune.
Only something beyond human could break the trap of humanity's systems.
2:38 Frost channeling James Earl Jones with "i wasnt an actor, I was just a special effect."
/Love your work Frost, just thought it was funny that you're slowly becoming the iconic Darth Vader voice of Second Wind
Frost is wonderful here.
Just to add one tiny bit of pedantry to the already existing pedantry: in the A-plot, the Fremen are, indeed, standins for the indigenous people of Arrakis. But in the B-plot, they're anything but. They're humans from Earth, colonising the planet and slowly replacing its native ecosystem with its own for their own convenience. The only truly alien life that we see are the sandworms (and, later, the sandtrout). I haven't seen D:2 yet but in the book, the Fremen are totally willing to dump their caches of water into the desert, killing all the sandworms and destroying this ecosystem, simply to stop the production of spice. I don't think Herbert was thinking about colonialism in the modern sense when he wrote it, but I do think it absolutely intentional that the Fremen are portrayed as no more innocent than any of the other factions in the setting.
Well-said! I hate the term indigenous as it applies to humans, as the term misinforming at best and propagandistic at worst. Besides the fact that all H. sapiens originally came out of a region in now Africa, anthropology is a continuous timeline of colonisation, conflict, conquest, coexistence, and extermination. The so-called indigenous are merely (the least contested) earliest colonisers of a region.
The Fremen dream of unleashing the water to create a lush world, without realizing that means no more Fremen. It's a complex dynamic, not reducible to simple stand-in allegory, even if it had aspects reflective of history or then-contempory events.
In the books, the diamond tattoo of a royal doctor is implied to signify the fact that they are unable to cause harm more than the fact that they are the emperor's own physicians.
Yeah, it's SUK conditioning rather than Imperial programming. Supposedly, a form a brainwashing which makes it impossible for them deliberately to harm their patients. I guess their use by the emperor is evidence that he trusts them, but it's not the source of their trustworthiness. Although, AFAIK, FH never elaborates on the SUK school more than a few sentences in the first book only.
I like all the adaptations of Dune. No adaptation is ever going to cover the entire book, much less the sequels. At a time when most of his SF contemporaries where exploring one or two Big Ideas in their stories, Herbert was juggling at least a dozen. I like that we have all these different interpretations that focus on a few key themes of the novel, or even just pay homage to it as one of the key foundational texts of the whole genre. Villeneuve conveyed the scale and enormity of Dune's setting in a way no one before him did, so I can live without the dinner scene. Great essay Darren!
Yep. “Dune” is a foundational text for me. And I have a soft spot for both earlier adaptations. But this adaptation really worked for me simply based on the process of adaptation. It’s not trying to transpose the book to screen, but understands that film is a different medium with different strengths.
Frost channeling his inner Frenchman here
As someone who lives in France he sounded more Algerian 😂
Fantastic cameo. Love that he volunteered for it.
@@Darren_Mooneyfyi I wasn't hating
Frost can read the phone book to me... And I'll listen 😂
Darren knows what he's talking about. He grew up next door to Dune-egal.
See how it feels?
Good. It feels good.
OMG Frost coming in for the Villeneueve quote.
Delighted to have him.
I have only been to theaters like 4-5 times in my life, and i have never been in a theater because i actually cared about the movie, i always went with friends, and had a good time.
Naturally, i didnt see Dune part one in theaters when it released, and i watched it on my laptop, and it was excellent, and i was kicking myself for not seeing it theaters while i could.
Two days ago, for the first time in my life, i went to a cinema, out of my own volition, specifically because i wanted to see a movie, and it was 100% worth it.
Dune part two goes above and beyond the first one, and if you're reading this, go watch the movie in theaters. I hate being around loud, obnoxious, filthy mess makers too who treat staff like cleaning robots, but, the movie is just so worth it. Its an oustanding experience, feeling all the bass heavy tones your body when they happen, its amazing
It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
@@Darren_MooneyOh yeah, and i didnt even see it in imax.
I am considering going back and seeing it in imax because it was shot with that in mind, specifically. When i left the theater i didnt think i'd go back because it wasnt cheap, but, man, this movie is something else, i really like it
You know what episode 4 the new hope was for the generations then? Dune is that for us.
@@nemtudom5074 I went on the weekend to IMAX and it's ABSOLUTELY worth it, especially if it's going to be a unique event for you :) There are very few films that really make use of the scale and sound in the way that this does.
Amen brother. One if not the only movie I'm glad to have seen in theaters. I hope they'll play Dune part 1 again at some point so I can see it in all its glory.
@@kerrermanisNL Me too!
The one criticism I'd have of Dune is that the lack of blood makes it feel very clinical. I'm sure it had to be done for rating reasons, but so many evil things the Harkonnen do occur offscreen or are so quick and bloodless as to have their impact lessened. I guess I miss scenes like in the Lynch version where one of the Atreides slaves has his heart pump removed and bleeds to death in the Baron's arms - real punch in the gut moments that make you *hate* the Harkonnen.
I did feel that too. Harkonnens are supposed to go beyond barbaric to the point of making cruelty an artform and a passion. Not just psychopaths, but psychopaths with a very sturdy social structure and hierarchy. That concept alone is meant to be scary as all hell. I hope there's maybe a director's cut in the future that scraps the ratings and goes for telling the story as it should be told. Again, not for the sake of spectacle, but emotional gravitas.
I noticed there was a one 18 rated showing in in my cinema on Sunday. I'm sure it's not a different, bloodier cut, just, made me curious.
My one gripe is that the explosions and missiles all looked far too much like Generic Hollywood Explosion Effect; big fireballs of smoky yellow fire. I though it didn't fit the aesthetic of the film at all well, and wished that Villeneuve had gone for a different look: something whiter and more clinical, maybe.
I would suggest that the spider-thing does duty for that, in a way. From Dr Yueh's comment that the Harkonnen's would take his wife apart like a doll, that dispays cruelty, but spider-thing implies they can _put a person back together in whatever manner amuses them._ And that's horrifying.
@@nicholascross3557 Yeah, spider gimp was pretty much all I needed to buy into House Harkonnen as the worst of the worst.
What makes this movie the best Dune so far are the 3 Easter Eggs actually shown but not explained. 2 of the 3 are explained throughout the series but the last one is not explained until the last chapter of the last book.
(1) Coffee is drank by everyone that is considered human or important in the series. It is one of the a few things that humanity brought with them from Earth and is subconsciously reminds us of our past.
(2)The importance of ever changing speech. It explains the ever changing of humanity but ironically the stagnant position they are currently in. Language changes but people technically never do in a grand scale.
(3) The lookers/ Watchers
They are always depicted as side characters watching the main characters at the time. The main characters don’t notice them or really even see them. They are 2 characters a part of the coward that is only looking and not doing what everyone else is doing.
2:38 You're playing with hearts by having Frost speak with a French accent.
We may just release an audio book of the Denis Villeneuve press tour, read by Frost!
@@Darren_Mooney hehe
Dune is BIG, its always going to hard to fit into film 6 ~500 page books into film. Books that reference things that happened 20,000 years ago like they yappened yesterday. The end of children of dune, into a 3500 year time skip into a 1500 year time skip with Heretic of dune. Its just a true classical Epic.
I know Villeneuve is tapping out with "Messiah." And fair play to him on that. But goodness would I love to see his (or any strong director's) take on "God Emperor."
@@Darren_Mooney I honestly don't think God Emperor is adaptable. Yes, I know people claimed that about Dune before, but the problems with God Emperor are orders of magnitude worse. It's all inner monologue, and the main character would be a CGI monstrosity. There's no way to get an audience to connect with that. Not to mention that his bride genetically engineered to appeal to him might not work so well with a modern audience...
But does DV need to do the third movie? The original book is a classic in itself, and is a self-contained story. It only continues because Herbert decided to keep on writing.
In that respect, I think the SyFy miniseries had it better - the first two episodes could be entirely self-contained and had a good ending (heck, even the first ep of that series ended at a more appropriate cliffhanger than DV's version), and you didn't have to watch the second two if you didn't want to. But DV baiting a third movie like this...that's dangerous, and I think ultimately does damage to the film overall.
@@draco84oz I think “Messiah” is a special case, in that Herbert very much wrote that to clarify what he meant with “Dune”, and as a response to misreadings of it. I completely understand and respect Villeneuve seeing it as essential, and I think a lot of the best stuff in this movie is him threading themes backwards from “Messiah” more overtly.
@@draco84oz I agree with Darren Mooney's reply entirely. Dune (the novel), on its own, appears to a casual reader as a classic fairy-tale of the prophesized hero coming of age and beating the forces of evil. Lots of world building, sure, but that's the top level story and theme. Messiah throws that around and tells you you've been cheering for a villain all along, and you should have noticed the clues. As a reader, it's a crucial reflection and even inversion of the tropes that the first book used (and criticised relatively discretely). As such it's an essential conclusion to Paul's arc - the third book by comparison is really just his epilogue and the start of a mostly new story.
For the films, it's different, because part 2 is already very direct about its message. In some way, the story is done, Paul's arc has reached the top. But seeing the impact that that has had, on himself, on the fremen, on Chani, and on everyone else is also important. It's the fall to his rise. Although the fall is more in a mental health sort of thing than political, it's still important to the character.
I appreciate the puns and submit this question to feed the algotrithm.
May thine comment be liked and upvoted.
Even put in a scene from Mulholland Drive. Love it.
All Jesse! Genius, I think!
Jesus christ this movie needs to be seen on a huge fuckin screen
Yep. It's amazing. I've seen it four times now. Will likely get at least another three in before it leaves cinemas.
I just want to say that I appreciated the Forbidden Zone clip. Danny Elfman's Satanic Cab Calloway bit is one of my favorite scenes ever committed to film.
Though, gotta say referencing that movie in a video essay on Dune is not an idea I would have conceived of in a million years. (At least, not Villaneuve's Dune)
I wish I could take credit. All Jesse.
I really hate it when people accuse these movies of being all style and no substance. To those people, I say that you might as well be telling me you can't read visual storytelling without telling me you can't read visual storytelling. While it's true that Villenueve does leave some elements of the book on the cutting room floor and greatly streamlines the narrative (as well as make a few key changes that, whether or not they were the best decision, at least make sense from a screenwriting standpoint), it does an excellent job of trying to effectively communicate complex ideas through the visual language inherently suited to the artform in order to convey what was significantly expressed through the inner thoughts of the characters in the book. Don't get me wrong, great dialog absolutely has its place in film, but especially when dealing with something as conceptually and thematically dense as Dune, let the visual storytelling do some of the heavy lifting. Books have the benefit of being able to more freely express internal conflict on the page by giving the audience free access to characters' thoughts. It's one of the inherent advantages of books. Movies and TV can do it too, but it's not the most effective way to tell a visual story unless it's done with intention for a good reason. I'm contrast, the ability to tell a powerful story or communicate complex ideas in the most succinct and effective way possible in film is done through powerful imagery, and that is the unique strength of that medium. It only makes sense to flex the strengths of your storytelling medium when translating a story from one medium to another.
Jack.... Damn dude.... I've been hooked on 'The White Vault' since this video dropped....
That was an EPIC plug.
You sir, are a master of your craft.
I have something to keep me going till AiN S4!
The content of @FoolScholarProductions is amazing!
Thank you!
Frost as Dennis is so awesome 🤣
Delighted by the cameo.
It's a big, sprawling epic of a film series with extraordinary visuals and I'm definitely looking forward to the next installment. The character-focus and the emphasis on the galactic politics (without getting bogged down in minutiae) is engaging, and the action sequences are, for the most part, exciting. That being said, I do have one gripe: the pacing.
The movie tends to slow down and take a breath in all the wrong places. We spend a lot of time in tents, in caves, having in-between discussions between characters and following them on a-little-too-long-walks through the scenery. On the other side of the coin, some of the things you'd expect to take up some down-time, like Paul learning to ride Shai-Hulud (or even convincing Stilgard to let him try,) as well as the progression of his relationships with Chani just jumpcut from "You're not one of us!" to "He IS one of us!" in a flash. It very much feels like we skipped the montage, so to speak, in a few places and that can sometimes lead to big moments in the movie not having the gravitas they're meant to.
In an otherwise excellent 2 and 1/2 hour film, it felt a little strange that some parts felt rushed.
Commenting and liking for the algorithm gods. I'll be back after I've had a chance to see this bad boy.
Much appreciated!
Chef's Kiss for that wrestling joke, Jesse, keep 'em coming.
Edit: correction from Darren about joke source
Wish I could take credit, but that was all Jesse!
Wonderful breakdown.
I haven’t been able to find the emotional breakdown between the film and the book as fully as before now.
Absolutely solid.
This got really hyped me up for watching the film, thanks a ton!
Thanks. Hope you enjoy!
I watched Part 2 on Sunday and when the credits started I just sat in silience trying to process what I had just seen, it's two days later and I'm still thinking about it. Denis Villeneuve has made something unique and special in Dune, everything from the visual to the sound design is just big and cinematic in way a lot films just seem to lack these days, as you said both director and cinematographer were at the top of their game.
Yep. It’s just good filmmaking.
When the credits rolled, my friend next to me just said "CINEMA" and it had me cackling because he was totally right.
@@hollandscottthomas”Some good food!”
I think this sense of vastness and cinematic storytelling is what is missing from the second movie. When I walked out the theatre today, I remarked that it felt like a summary compared to the first film. It just didn’t linger on shots like the first one, going quickly from plot point to plot point without letting the places speak for themselves
Did not expect to see White Vault on here! Really great podcast!
Really great. Thank you as always Darren.
Thank you!
Excellent and thought-provoking essay, Darren.
Kudos for the Forbidden Zone shout out. 😂
I enjoyed every moment of it and even my only complaint about the extremely expositional nature of a lot of the dialogue grants credit to it as a faithful adaptation of the books.
Can't wait to see this film
Dune Part 2 made me actually get the book so that's a good upside!
Book is a little different, but read dune messiah straight after and it makes more sense.
@@murphy7801 gotcha! Thanks! I plan on reading the first 3 and might read the last 3 because I heard they get weird
Enjoy! I love the books, but they are very dense.
@@Darren_MooneyIronically some people are too dense to read books that are too dense
@@Darren_Mooney I finished House of Leaves and Hamlet, I can handle it
Political realism is something that cannot be ignored in a real analysis of the text of "Dune" and this has none of that.
Great review guys. Darren I reckon this will be your legacy "Dune: it's big😂"
It’s *really* big!
The "Christopher Nolan Back Shot" is literally ripped from "The Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog", a classical painting by Caspar David Friedrich.
Listen to the White Vault if you're an audiobook/fiction podcast fan! I usually click away during ad sections but I finished the White Vault a few weeks ago and enjoyed it thoroughly!
I've never heard Frost pretend to be French before. Nice cameo!
Yep. Thought that was a fun touch.
Just realized this time its not "The Bock Drop". loved the episode!
As opposed to Venom’s web news show, “The Brock Drop.”
@@Darren_Mooney got an out loud chuckle from me. Well done :)
One thing that struck me about the film is how mundane some of the epic stuff was depicted, but in a good way. All these technological marvels are insignificant compared to the machinations of the characters.
Yep. And the books go into why that is, but the film - like “Star Wars” - just operates on the logic the audience will get that and follow along.
Thanks again, sir, for another interesting discussion.
Look upon this content, oh Algorithm, and know that it is good.
The Content Maker shall know his way.
After putting so much effort into Denis' name, hearing Jodorowsky get mutilated like that was surprising
When you apologised for the dune part two pun, I thought of "Two"ne before "deux"ne
Darren's review of Dune - part two: "it's still big"
It’s bigGER.
@@Darren_Mooney can't wait for your review of dune Messiah: it's biggerER
@@solpintorizvi249 bigGEST
I'm curious how they'll tackle Dune Messiah. It's only been adapted once and that wasn't even really a full adaptation, more of a prologue for Children of Dune
It's also interesting that Villeneuve wants to finish on "Messiah." Which I guess makes sense if you think of it as the end of Paul's story. (I know that it's maybe not - and I'm being vague here to avoid spoilers - technically the end, but it's the point at which he stops being the active protagonist.)
@@Darren_Mooney I hope they try doing Children of Dune and maybe even God Emperor
Frost's Denis impression is honestly not bad lol
I think it’s pretty great:
Beautiful films, just saw the second one last night, only complaint is NO INTERMISSION! The reason why I watch movies from home now is they are all 3 hour slogfests. Theaters need to bring back intermissions, people will go buy more snacks and rest and enjoy the second half more.
Frost cracked me up
Lovely analysis and shows real understanding of the source material and visual language. I learned a lot from this and even the comments.
One thing I would like to see from those of us engaging with these analyses is more political and social action since we have strong understanding of how media reflects our flawed world. I spent a lot of time in film school with people who only spoke about the theory of these texts but never about the work to be done in the real world, at the same time I was getting a journalism degree and found many just interested in reporting an event but not its historical context.
The humanities have educated all of us but kept us waxing lyrical. This keeps a lot of people inactive even as injustice had continued to expand. We can't allow media to only be a theoretical exercise.
To be fair, that was a significant part of the "Masters of the Air" video we released just before this one, about its portrayal of the dehumanising effect of war conducted at a distance.
Nice video! Some interesting thoughts and a good opportunity to return to something so visually deliberate and rich in images. Ah, cinema.
“DA PICTURES!”
Must utilize algorithm to propel this further. Loved the take
Thank you!
I love how you say HarkOnnen, like it was pronounced in Lynch’s Dune, rather than Harkannen, how it’s been pronounced in the TV mini series and Villeneuve’s adaptations 😂
Every Denny made me laugh
Denny Vilnuff.
It's "Denis". French, silent "s".
Another way to put it is: they did the bare minimum and conveyed the surface of Dune with spectacle. What makes Dune is the details, the politics, the characters, the conversations, the concepts, I watched both parts and I read the books as a teenager and letting Dennis make this movie did no justice to the books, anyone can do scale, we see it all the time and unfortunately the movies feel empty and sterile.
Its a mistake to have someone who doesnt like dialogue make a movie about a book that draws importance on words, that's just backwards
I'm looking forward to your thoughts about part 2, Darren!
I have plenty of them!
2:49 tell me you have never watched the Princess Bride without telling me you never watched the Princess Bride
In France, some of us call Part Two "De Deux", so you aren't that far off
Ha! I like that. I may steal that.
Now that you mention this concept of scale as message, that one scene where Paul has the vision of his future and sees the pile of burning bodies always seemed underwhelming for the magnitude of what it meant. In the books, as Paul essentially becomes SPACE HITLER, commanding his Fremen army to scour the galaxy and eliminate all who oppose his rule. This pogrom results in glassed planets, millions dead, the Arrakis becomes the financial capital of the Empire. (BTW, the Hitler comparison was made by Paul himself in Dune Messiah.)
So why, in Paul's vision is that pile of bodies so small? Paul says that he understands the scale of what happens if he succeeds, he SAW it. So why don't we? Other filmmakers have done great jobs showing the horrors of war on a large scale (ie Game of Thrones, Ender's Game, or any holocaust movie) Heck, if they could've made the bodies easier to differentiate and focus on one body like in the White Phosphorous scene from Spec Ops : The Line.
This scene where Paul sees the results of his actions, a vision that spawns his mantra of "disengage", informs his entire character arc. So why the break from the pattern? Why does it look so small compared to everything else shown?
Is Villeneuve shying away from the fact that his main character hijacks a grass roots rebellion and turns it into a series of genocides and the birth of a despot? If anything the tension of following Paul's morals being set aside for his ambitions would be compelling to follow. It could be like Starship Troopers where the whole time you're thinking, "yeah they're cute, but they seem to be wearing SS uniforms".
All of this scaling I believe is meant to put into context just how *titanic* a certain future God Emperor is going to be.
Ha! To be fair, Villeneuve has no plans to adapt the books past "Messiah", which I'm torn on. On the one hand, I'm happy for this to just be his trilogy and left at that. On the other hand, I'd love to see what a similarly talented filmmaker could do with "God Emperor."
I'm here to say that "The White Vault" is one of the best audio dramas I ever heard. You should really check it out.
You can listen to "We're alive: A Story of Survival" afterwards.
These two are the best of the best in audio drama.
All freeeeeeeeeeee.
I think i liked the first dune better. Not Lynch Dune even if that feature has its merrits aswell in its oddities. But i found myself wondering if dune II wouldnt have benefited from being 30 minutes shorter. Its alot of running around in the desert. Its good mind you all and i wouldnt expect less from Villeneuve and a certain sandworm scene is pure awesomeness.
Dune part one is all set up though. My only complaint about it is that it doesn't function very well as a standalone movie.
Not yet seen the movie. Read the first four books. Glad second wind is doing some movie stuff
Thank you. I also love the first four books, and struggled past them.
*Chorus* Alllll gooooo rithm, pleeeeeeeease, shoooooooow us the waaay
Lisan-Al-Giab!
Just watched Dune part 2 and I loved it. Can’t wait for part 3 in 2030 lol.
I think 2029 is doable!
4:55 based beyond based....core to human nature honestly
Dune's Scale. 10/10 Dunes, would worm about.
Ah, Deuxne. I got it. Merde.
Never considered the bull side of things. I believe that's the emblem of House Harkonnen, at least in the videogame Dune 2.
Shai-How’d You Like Those Apples?
@@Darren_Mooney A bit, wormy. :|
Did Villeneve really say he doesn't care about dialogue when hes adapting a fricking novel?
I think "adapting" is a key word there. I don't think of textual fidelity as being the main reason that, say, "Jaws" or "The Godfather" are two of the best movies ever made.
I'm a sci-fi enjoyer but the movies really didn't grab me. I'm a big fan of Warhammer 40k which obviously 'borrowed' from Dune, and the movies are well made, but it just felt empty. Like, it mentions these big things, it hints at these big things, it sorta gives me a 'nudge nudge wink wink' as if I've read the books and know what is being hinted at but I don't. So it's just kinda out there for me to assume that everything is big and vast and complex, but all I get is a loose framework of what's happening in the bigger picture and then it focuses back on a sandy planet with a guerilla war. And it's not complex. Planet with important stuff being colonized by a faction that is loyal to an emperor. That's about all the depth I got out of the movies. And then some magic nonsense about breeding a perfect human over generations or whatever.
I'm fully willing to accept that it is actually complex and deep and interconnected, but that's not obvious to me through the movies.
Lots of wrestling references.
Big Beautiful Worlds
Eh up Mr Mooney. Doon with Dune…hmmm so even Rautha is human…quite the spectrum for humanity
Not to get spoilery, but the second film certainly opens up debates about the validity of the Bene Gesserits’ “sifting.”
I want gummy worms now. Thank you Darren
If you walk *with* rhythm, I hear you might attract the worms.
@@Darren_Mooney 🤣😂
I very much enjoyed this film, finish strong.
Cheers!
@@Darren_Mooney I do think it's important to note that this series isn't done yet. I am very impressed with the work so far, but a lot of viewer judgement will be reserved in anticipation of a solid ending.
Darren warms about spoilers...so: Watch the new Dune movie that i have been waiting with spoilers or not watch The Backdrop as soon as it came out...
F my life, Sophies choices looks easy now.
Emgagement comment keep up tje good work
Much appreciated!
nice ^^
Are the Freman actually indigenous to a planet with no water? Nah, they're aliens from Earth
Yep, didn't really have time to get into that in the video - and the Zensunni stuff, and the way you could argue that they're LARP-ers - but the Freman are coded as indigenous, and it makes sense to talk about them as such. (In much the same way that all human beings originate in Africa, for example, but we still talk about cultures being indigeneous.)
@@Darren_Mooney for the sake of the story it makes sense
While I haven't seen the second movie, my impression from the first film was that there was not enough... I dunno, _competence._ The characters do what they're supposed to do and there's some brevity thrown in there, but there's something definitely lacking in Timothee Chalamet's portrayal of Paul Atreides. He doesn't come across like someone who was trained as a mentat. He's so close to hitting the mark, but he leaned too heavily on "young boy" in his acting rather than "boy conditioned to be calculative robot lacking most of his natural instincts and humanity." His portrayal was too human and emotionally sloppy while his character was supposed to be very inhuman in a lot of ways.
I feel like Dune is one of those universes just too big to compress into the concept of 2-3 hour movies but maybe more into limited TV series productions.
You could put the first book into two seasons with 20 Episodes and probably still miss things from the books.
So this would need really good writers and production, an infinite budget without some corporate dick ruling over it all for the boards sake.
❤❤❤
Thank you!
so Dune is big, but how big is it? is it as big as Jack Reacher, who is very big?
That video about how there is physically no problem that Jack Reacher isn’t big enough to fix is one of my favourite pieces of criticism of the past year.
Christopher nolan backshots. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Don't blame me, blame the Amazon India twitter intern.
You should also apologise for how you say Villeneuve :P
Fair ‘nuff.
@Darren_Mooney (it's closer to "VEEa-nerve" but nerve like a British person says it, non rhoticised)
:)
Did anyone else who hadn't read the book see the first film and think it made almost no sense? All of my friends that I've talked to about it were in the same boat and had the same experience. I wonder if it's a much better film with all of that context already in place for you, because the film gives you almost nothing.
I only played the RTS game sometime in the 2000s. The only thing that didn't make real sense to me was: how did they get dozens of people riding a single worm when they show how hard it is for one person to jump on one. Also, how do they get off the warm? I would assume they get it to a full stop, but it was never shown nor hinted that the Fremen had any such control over the worms, except for showing how they use the worms to pass through the strong storms of the South.
"Did anyone else who hadn't read the book see the first film and think it made almost no sense?"
Hm, not really, never read any of the Dune books - personally thought that the narrative in the movie was fairly clear cut, that said we are an avid reader of other sci-fi, so we suppose we have some familiarity with the genre and the ideas therein.
I feel like your humour undermines your content. You're trying to talk about serious motifs but insert cartoons and bad jokes. You don't need to try to keep me laughing if I'm here to watch a deep dive into art.
As one of your Scottish Viewers, apology not excepted, you have made an enemy for life and your name is going in the Book O' Grudges
Look, I'm going to put my hands up and accept that that is a perfectly reasonable response.
What’s this dude’s accent? American Irish?
I have an opposing view on the movie in that it forgoes political intrigue, character building and characterization from the novel and rejects the idea of personal agency that the book gives to the story and instead boils the plot down too far. An example in the first movie is the cutting of the secret garden, the traitor subplot (Yui's entire characterization), the banquet, any and all tension in them staying in the city, or even how little of Peiter we see when the novel makes him one of the biggest pay offs for how he dies in the Duke's sacrifice. Yet they have the audacity to make this a 3 part series, turn Paul and his mom into everything their book characters aren't and skip ALOT of time just to now have nothing more in the first book to adapt.
Beautiful and well made movie : Yes
Faithful to the material : Not really
folks keep acting like the syfy miniseries never happened. Not as cinematic as the movies, but far more accurate to the books and more compelling, narrative-wise.
I've been slowly going insane over the bull symbolism after seeing the gladiator battle scene in part two. Just like the Harkonnens, the Atreides keep a tradition of ritualised performative violence. They despise the Harkonnens for their brutality, yet they too entertain themselves with the killing of living beings they consider to be lesser.
The Harkonnens are very obviously and blatantly cruel and violent, yes. But the Atreides ar far from without violence as well - theirs is simply an implicit, unseen violence. The violence inherent in running a military. The violence inherent in owning land. The act of existing as a noble house in this world is fundamentally an act of violence. Yet we as an audience are so alienated from this violence that it is not percieved as violence at all.
The Atreides do not wish for the Fremen to be eradicated outright, yet even they see them simply as a resource to be cultivated and utilized. Their inherent right to exist as a people does not matter - what matters is what use they are to their colonial overlords.
Feyd-Rautha passed the Gom Jabbar test. He is no less human than Paul. That is what Paul understands in his vision: The moral high ground of the Atreides is a lie. The conviction that there is something that makes the Atreides inherently better than the Harkonnens is false.
Idk tho propably none of this is actually intended & I'm just making shit up
Give yourself more credit. It's entirely intentional that the Atreides are only the good guys in comparison to the Harkonnens. It goes back to Herbert's take on the oppressive nature of systems; The Atreides are a product of the evil Imperial system as much as anyone else. Even when Paul becomes Emperor he doesn't escape the system, he becomes enmeshed in another layer of it that he can only get out of by dying, and it takes Leto II thousands of years to dismantle it completely.
"I'm not interested in dialogue"
Just means this type of movie is perhaps not made for you.
I think the power of cinema is many things. Indeed, acknowledging the power of the image also means acknowledging the power of the close-up as much as the wide shot, a special effect you can’t replicate in theatre, for example. But I think Villeneuve isn’t wrong in signalling what separates film from theatre and (traditionally) television. After all, cinema developed from photography, television from theatre.
I love “12 Angry Men” as much as most, but scale, spectacle, size and majesty have always been the medium’s selling point. (Even with “Dune”, where a lot of the business is coming through premium-format screens.)
I am not claiming that dialogue is unimportant, and I personally would argue that I do know a lot of film quotes (but, then, English is my first language, I don’t know how many lines of dialogue I can quote from French cinema), but I think it’s a perfectly valid way for a filmmaker to talk about his relationship to the medium.
I don't dispute that the type of movie is not for me, but the director wasn't speaking in terms of types of movies. What I was getting at is that the director's taste, as well as many critics, leaves out other types of movies. I would expect most comedies to be among them.@@zanec14
I don't fault Villeneuve for pushing one of the things that only cinema can do. I guess I'm just wary of modes of analysis that feel overly tilted in one direction. Just from how you've described the movie, I doubt the dialogue is particularly lacking anyway.
As a point of comparison, I just watched Emmerich's "2012" last night, which also aims for scale in many ways. I think my favorite parts of the movie were less the sheer amount of on-screen destruction and more how much of the world the cast spanned and how many languages were spoken even before the title drop. @@Darren_Mooney
I think that, as Darren alluded to, dialogue often gets used as a crutch or a shortcut to strong-arm exposition into scenes where it's not really needed, which is more to the point that Denis was making. He's not suggesting dialogue is unimportant, more that it's possible to convey a lot more nuance and complexity by making the audience project themselves into the visuals and pay attention to things rather than just have someone outright say what they're thinking.
It's always cool when you can use your environment to help tell the story and not just be a glorified set.