Dune (2020)

[Small Man Big Horse]

Just finished this now and wrote the following, apologies if it's repeating things already said as I haven't read the thread yet.

Dune (2021) - A bunch of royal families fuck about in space, looking after planets for a bit until the Emperor tells them to swap places.

Spoiler alert

Hence Paul Atreides, his Mum Jessica and his obviously soon to be dead Dad Leto end up on Arrakis, but it's all a trick so the Emperor can murder them easily which he couldn't do on the old planet they lived on for never explained reasons. Mom and Paul also have got the force I mean strange special powers thanks to centuries of specific breeding and they survive the big battle sequence, before mucking about in the desert and being briefly reunited with their pal Aquaman, though he's quickly killed off and they have to make some new friends

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. Aw. There's quite a bit that frustrated me about this, on the plus side it often looks stunning and it boasts a decent cast, but it's also filled with clichés and I don't know if they're the fault of Denis Villeneuve or Frank Herbert as I was only about 12 when I read the novel and can't remember a thing about it apart from that the big worms were fun. Some of the world building felt quite odd as well, they're able to fly around in space ships but largely fight with swords,

Spoiler alert

Paul has a gun at the end but appears to be the only person on the planet with one

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, they have these shields but they barely protect you from anything, and the bad guys have a portable kick ass laser that they only rarely use.

Spoiler alert

Oh yeah, and I know they've only recently arrived on Arrakis but their security was appalling, didn't they have anyone floating about in orbit to warn them of an attack, and did everyone need to sleep through the night, couldn't they do shifts or something? After that attack

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I found the film as a whole a lot less interesting, the score was obtrusive and annoying in many places, and strangely I became irritated more and more by Paul as the movie went on (and those visions and the stupid croaky voice irritated me no end), and the only characters that I liked were all killed, so I'm not sure I'm going to bother with a sequel if there is one. 6.1/10.

[Shit Good Nose]

But it won't be an IMAX as I've no idea where the nearest one is to Bristol.

Even the one that used to be in Bristol wasn't a proper IMAX screen (which I only found out not long before it went).

[mothman]

I think it's implied that House Atreides would be well nigh impregnable on their home turf, even with both the Harkonnen and Sardaukar attacking them. And Caladan is much more central and the other Houses would find out about the Emperor colluding with one House to destroy another. And Leto & co. were still getting settled on Arrakis, dealing with widespread sabotage and fifth columnists; the Baron's plan depended on them not yet being fully established and dug in yet.

[Fishfinger]

for never explained reasons.

There's dialogue: the greatest fear of the Houses is that the Emperor will pick them off one by one.

Spoiler alert

It's meant to be secret, however, they turn up in their official garb instead of pretending to be extra Harkonnens, which (iirc) is how it plays out in the book

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.

they're able to fly around in space ships but largely fight with swords

Personal shields are ubiquitous, and if a lasgun beam hits one it creates a thermonuclear reaction that wipes out the combatants on both sides. So, on the ground, melée combat is de rigeur. Not explained in the film I think and, yeah, it's a bit dumb that sometimes they use lasers anyway.

Spoiler alert

Paul has a gun at the end but appears to be the only person on the planet with one

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The Fremen have projectile weapons (Mauler pistols) and

Spoiler alert

Paul stole that from Jamis in their initial confrontation

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.

[Alberon]

The shields/lasgun nuclear explosion is a bit of a plot hole that goes back to the book. While the Great Houses have atomic weapons the ubiquity of shields and lasguns make it a very easy way to do a lot of damage.

[Fishfinger]

Yeah, like they clearly have remote-controlled drones. It wouldn't be hard to massacre your enemies. However - again, book stuff - the House atomics are kept in reserve as a weapon of last resort and if it were known that this was going on, the Landsraad would gang up on the rogue house.

[SweetPomPom]

Spoiler alert

Oh yeah, and I know they've only recently arrived on Arrakis but their security was appalling, didn't they have anyone floating about in orbit to warn them of an attack

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Spoiler alert

I don't think you find out until much later but the fremen are absolutely minted cos of the spice and pay huge bribes to the Spacing Guild to keep everyone else from having any orbital surveillance or satellites over Arrakis.

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[Small Man Big Horse]

I think it's implied that House Atreides would be well nigh impregnable on their home turf, even with both the Harkonnen and Sardaukar attacking them. And Caladan is much more central and the other Houses would find out about the Emperor colluding with one House to destroy another. And Leto & co. were still getting settled on Arrakis, dealing with widespread sabotage and fifth columnists; the Baron's plan depended on them not yet being fully established and dug in yet.

There's dialogue: the greatest fear of the Houses is that the Emperor will pick them off one by one.

Spoiler alert

It's meant to be secret, however, they turn up in their official garb instead of pretending to be extra Harkonnens, which (iirc) is how it plays out in the book

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.

After I posted that I did suddenly think that on their home planet they'd have a much bigger army, so yeah, attacking them when there's a lot less of them and they're new to the place does make sense.

Personal shields are ubiquitous, and if a lasgun beam hits one it creates a thermonuclear reaction that wipes out the combatants on both sides. So, on the ground, melée combat is de rigeur. Not explained in the film I think and, yeah, it's a bit dumb that sometimes they use lasers anyway.

It's a shame they didn't have a throw away line explaining that, I know it might sound petty but things like that annoyed me a bit.

The Fremen have projectile weapons (Mauler pistols) and

Spoiler alert

Paul stole that from Jamis in their initial confrontation

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I guess my confusion is over why everyone doesn't have a gun, and why they prefer swords, more than anything else when the technology does exist in this world.

Spoiler alert

I don't think you find out until much later but the fremen are absolutely minted cos of the spice and pay huge bribes to the Spacing Guild to keep everyone else from having any orbital surveillance or satellites over Arrakis.

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That's interesting to hear, and it does make me feel that more and more my issues are with Villeneuve and the writers rather than it being a problem in the original books as well.

[Steve Lampkins]

After I posted that I did suddenly think that on their home planet they'd have a much bigger army, so yeah, attacking them when there's a lot less of them and they're new to the place does make sense.

I did read on another forum that they were hard to attack on their home ground because they had a lot of submerged defences -- when they left, a lot of their ships left from beneath the waves. Not sure if that is something else explained in the novels.

[mothman]

There's the line where Leto says the House's strength is based on air power and sea power. But their big ships take even longer to get airborne from underwater than they did from the spaceport on Arrakis, and looked slow and cumbersome once in the air. It's a bit of a non sequitur. It could be perhaps they were stronger than anything the Guild would let another House take to Caladan, and would be stronger than anything other Houses would have were the Guild to let the Atreides invade another planet.

And we shouldn't forget that at the end of the day they were betrayed from within. The Duke seems to have put too much stock in personal friendships and gut feelings and not in adequate vetting for his key staff.

[Fishfinger]

I guess my confusion is over why everyone doesn't have a gun, and why they prefer swords, more than anything else when the technology does exist in this world.

On that point I think it's 'cos personal shields, in theory, would make them useless. They would need to fire slow bullets. On Arrakis, per the movie, shields are counterproductive in the desert because they attract worms. So the Fremen are the best fighters because they've never had to second-guess their reactions to make shield-penetrating moves. Oh, and yeah, 'cos no-one uses shields there they can have projectile weapons.

But for sure there are plentiful plot holes. You have to activate your shield, so good luck doing that before a fast projectile rips through your skull. Maybe you just keep it on all the time, but that's not what we were shown.

[NoSleep]

Why does the ornithopter seem to be based on something entomological rather than ornithological?

[earl_sleek]

And we shouldn't forget that at the end of the day they were betrayed from within. The Duke seems to have put too much stock in personal friendships and gut feelings and not in adequate vetting for his key staff.

I don't think the film explains (unless it was in the bit I went for a piss) that Dr Yueh is a member of the Suk School who are meant to have 'Imperial Conditioning' which normally makes it impossible for them to turn traitor (that's what the diamond tattoo on his forehead represents). The Harkonnens finding a way to turn him is something no one in-universe could have predicted.

I enjoyed the film but as noted already one area it fails is adequately explaining certain things so they just look like plot holes, although presumably some of them will be explained in Part 2.

[The Culture Bunker]

I don't think the film explains (unless it was in the bit I went for a piss) that Dr Yueh is a member of the Suk School who are meant to have 'Imperial Conditioning' which normally makes it impossible for them to turn traitor (that's what the diamond tattoo on his forehead represents). The Harkonnens finding a way to turn him is something no one in-universe could have predicted.

It wasn't exactly a hugely complicated way of doing so - they just kidnapped his wife.

[sevendaughters]

and i was so shocked when they just killed him after helping them lol no i wasn't

[earl_sleek]

It wasn't exactly a hugely complicated way of doing so - they just kidnapped his wife.

No, it's not complicated but it's not known to anyone (in-universe) either.

I don't think it's meant to be shocking that they kill him. Hence the tooth. He's got no illusions him and the missus are gonna skip merrily off Giedi Prime.

[Jerzy Bondov]

He should have done his own tooth as well, the Baron floats right over to him, could have got his ass good.

[NoSleep]

He should have done his own tooth as well, the Baron floats right over to him, could have got his ass good.

He wasn't there to die, though. Has to be wondered how the Baron delivered his carefully worded promise of setting Yueh's wife free and allowing him to join her in the first place.

[Fishfinger]

They didn't just kidnap her, I think it's the certain knowledge of the torture she's suffering that breaks his conditioning. He wants them to kill her instead. Paul is remarkable for enduring the gom jabbar test for a few minutes.

[Fishfinger]

.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Is the thing about the mentats having red lips and the little rhyme they say unique to the David Lynch version? I missed that, you didn't get much of a sense of the mentats and how cool and weird they are in the new one. Actually what happened to Thufir I don't remember seeing him after the attack

[Blumf]

Is the thing about the mentats having red lips and the little rhyme they say unique to the David Lynch version?

IIRC that little mantra was Brad Dourif's idea.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Brad Dourif fucking rules

[mothman]

I presume Thufir's fate has been held back for part two, along with

Spoiler alert

Gurney's

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.

It's been so long since I read the book, I can't remember how much character description there was. Because I was struck by how similar the two films' depictions of House Atreides/Caladan, and even more so House Harkonnen/ Giedi Prime, were.

[Dex Sawash]

. Did Sting's character die on bis way back to his home planet before the film started?

Yes, apparently

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

He's walking on the moon, because he's an alien.

[NoSleep]

Is the thing about the mentats having red lips and the little rhyme they say unique to the David Lynch version?

The red lips are mentioned in the book, caused by the drinking of sapho juice.

[Twit 2]

Average storyline and characters, gorgeous visuals. Saw this in imax and the overbearing sound design worked a treat. 4/5

[mothman]

He's walking on the moon, because he's an alien.

I hope he's not tue lawley up there.

[colacentral]

There's a bit in the Lynch book "Room to Dream" where he talks about wanting to do Dune because of being genuinely interested in the source material, saying something about "the dreamer who must awaken" (having not read the books, I have no idea if this is a line from them or not, but it's what Lynch says), and I think he mentions that he spoke to Frank Herbert about it.

I've also never seen his version of it, and as I said, no familiarity with the books, so I kept looking out for anything relevant to Twin Peaks here, and it's surprising how much there is - the obvious constant reference to dreams; Paul being "the voice from the outer world" or whatever, which can be taken as "outside of our reality," ie outside the dream; and Paul being "The One," to name a few.

I also had Lynch's comments on enlightenment and unity or oneness in my mind during the duel at the end. There's a particular interview where he says that when reaching greater consciousness / enlightenment "there is no enemy," because hurting someone else would be like hurting yourself. With that in mind, I took the line in this about killing someone else being like killing yourself to mean that Paul learned to be passive in the duel, that he'd get killed by trying too hard to kill your other man there. Is that the idea in the book?

I have no idea how the story plays out but I'll be interested to see what other parallels there are.