Denis Villeneuve’s Dune

The "otherworldly helicopter" paragraph with the "SW for grown ups" - these two points are actually related I thought ha.

So obviously first of all, George Lucas literally copied Dune and reinvented it into space opera "easy watching" for the mass audience back then (i am a SW fan myself), literally everything in SW you can find traces from Dune (I think even Lucas admitted that at some point?) - but the genius in Lucas is that the guy really has his own visions on the SW world building (how alot of people slammed the prequels and now we would kill to have his visions put back into the new SW...). Denis's "SW for grown ups" is just the simplest term he used during interview etc since SW is very well known - the man is a Dune fan since he was 14yo so he didnt mean to offend or describe Dune in a lesser way - it was purely the easiest way to explain Dune to the mass audience.

And the "otherworldly helicopter with buttons" - this is something to do with the huge story/history in Dune - long story short, there is no super computer/AI in that future due to some historical wars (better not spoil here ha) - so everything we see in Dune is the (strange) future stuffs with reasons/history. There is nothing shiny or flashy in this future, humanity is advanced in a way without automations basically. Aesthetically, the future world is so bleak that they are in the extremes (industrial like Baron's world, or the more 'nature' Atreides planet), and things are made to be solely practical, with some known cultural stuffs left (chinese language, scottish bag pipe aha) - all these are Frank Herbert's version of 10/20 thousands years in the future.

I thought that's why Dune is regarded as THE sci-fi story - the books are so 'boring' to read because they are almost like...philosophy books lol - iirc so much on politics, socio-economical stuffs. The topics/ideas Frank Herbert touched are heavy on 'thought-provoking' - it is so strange to say that the series is too full of substance (spice) aha.

The point is that it is truly a feature that the man successfully adapted Dune in modern age in almost all aspects, while stays true to the source (not a straight forward story like SW etc), and also stomacable ('streamlined') for the casual viewers. Aesthetically I thought Denis nailed it so hard for Dune, with just an adequate amount of his interpretations on things like Sadaurkar is shown to be like some fanatics/religions in which it makes sense and it fits the lore.

SW is literally the fun 'space opera' suitable for all ages, effectively engineered for the mass audience, a rather simple (nice) hero's journey saving the world. While Dune literally everything in it is about life or death, in which they go into details of generations of politics and family issues contribute to the future of humanity - ya seems pretty 'grown up' to me. Ya SW is a product designed to sell to everyone, while Dune books...are not for kids I am sure ha.

I think futuristic etc aesthetics are rather subjective. For me, SW ships are mainly designed to look cool (to sell toys) while Dune ships aim to give that 'real' and practical feels - they fit to their own universes (and purposes), i think the team refers to the source Frank Herbert's Encyclopedia book for their designs. But ya, if i looked at Stargate, the high tech aliens look like old egypt gods that come with pyramid starship aha.

I don't think it is fair to compare SW ('movie original') vs Dune (books + adaptation), as we are touching a lot of different reasons/factors behind the productions/end products and their success/failure. I enjoy both for different reasons lol. Dune 1984 was a mess and it says a lot on how hard to adapt it to the big screen.

And not sure about Foundation vs Frank Herbert - Asimov wrote so many more books than Frank - both are legends. By legendary status obviously Asimov took it lol - Dune popularity is so high so ya the best selling sci-fi of all time? (personally Asimov is even harder to read for the young me ha....)

Aye maybe I knew Dune stories well beforehand, in fairness I could see why indeed in the movie there is not a lot of the world/politics/family details in it - and I think that's exactly the hardest thing to adapt Dune. The balance between the huge world with the characters stories unfold in an interesting way, thats receptive to the audience (without some sleep inducing info dumps), also ensuring visually pleasing (most things happened in desert in the end of day ha), plus making sure to get the right actors to deliver the story with styles - all in all just incredible work.

Lynch's Dune...maybe i should watch it again (really don't want to lol), i remember there was massive info dump in the dialogues that it wasn't easy for me back then (someone actually knew the story beforehand), rather problematic jumping scenes (obvious scenes are being cut here and there) that it was madness to have much stories in 1 movie, no characters are being fleshed out iirc, and the visuals dont age well for sure.

Foundation aye the Apple production was nice (and i am fan of Jared Harris), the brothers stole the show and thats about it. Asimov stuffs are even more abstract that I never got into them for long.

Again, it's not explicitly described, but all fremen in the sietch were participating. Also, they were not simple orgies done just for sexual gratification, but something more mystic related to rituals and beliefs. This is one of the things that are difficult to put in films, although they tried with the TV series, but without these the fremen will be painted as simple savage warriors, but they were much more that that.

Timothée Chalamet (I had to google) is just as good at acting as Keanu Reeves is so perfect casting here 😐️

Ya he fit well too. He also pulls of the sense of posh royalty better than Reeves probably could.

It's disgraceful Joe!

Ahhhh Jeysusssss

I never liked anything about the artwork or style of the film and it looks to me like he was far more concerned about silly costumes than actually making Dune. I think it would have been a massive flop I reckon and way more ridiculed than the Lynch version even

Yep. I would like to see what movie makers like that would do if they had today's tech. Would we get artistic masterpieces or some incoherent Michael Bayham type mess

I might as well rewatch the Sardaukar scene so..

any excuse 😁

Dune Harkonnen Sardaukar The Emperor´s blades Army Full Scene with subtitles 4K

Kyle MacLachlan posted this on his Twitter page so I thought it'd be fun to post it here.

Agree. The film overall was a dud. All CGI and a cacophony of noise. The mini series version ...with Saskia Reeves I think...was the nearest effort to crack it..despite its low budget special effects and sets. The book really merits a Peter Jackson style trilogy over several hours to do it justice. Wanted to like this one but ended up leaving the cinema early.