Dune: Part Two.

[prelektric]

That's the lovely track "Kiss the Ring" (fnar fnar). Triumphant and tragic at the same time. Never been a Zimmer megafan but he's done well here.

I agree, combine that with "Only I Will Remain" afterwards (which I think was used over the end credits) and it's really beautiful - his best for a while I reckon.

I like Zimmer a great deal, but I'm not a mega-fan. I like his stuff sporadically. I'm very much a traditionalist when it comes to film scoring - but he has done some astonishing stuff when he's given material by a director that has a story he can emotionally cling to. He's a hugely creative producer first, rather than a musician - and to be honest that isn't always a bad thing.

He does have a lot to answer for with regards to the "wallpaper" effect of film scoring over the last 20 years or so - but I don't think that was his real intention. He just wanted to support up and coming composers and provide shelter and opportunity for them. The unfortunate effect being they all sound a bit too... similar.

He always seems like a kind and charming man in interviews so it's hard to dislike him really. I think he's a GBOL.

Plus he wrote the theme for the late 80s xenophobe baiting quiz show "Going for Gold" - so what more could you want from him?

[surreal]

That Paul and Chani love theme motif is really beautiful. I love how it soars

Spoiler alert

at the end of the movie when the heartbroken Chani is calling the worm.

[close]

One of the pieces of music that gives me genuine physical chills when listening to it - I'm getting it now just thinking about it.  I'd always found Zimmer a bit boring as a composer, with all the "BRARRRRRRRMMMMMMMM" stuff (even some of part 1) he's been more about texture than melody but here for pt 2 he's really delivered a stunning piece of work which elevates the movie even higher.

[Glebe]

That's the lovely track "Kiss the Ring" (fnar fnar). Triumphant and tragic at the same time. Never been a Zimmer megafan but he's done well here.

Oh ta Mr T. I've listened to the full soundtrack for the first film on YT. It's a pretty obvious choice, but I love 'Herald of the Change'. Yes, it's got a bit of 'BRAAAM' in it, but it's a nicely-employed and wonderfully chilling science fiction 'BRAAAM'!:

[Dex Sawash]

Was a bit jarring how in one scene they were showing how difficult it was to ride a worm and in the next scene it was as easy as taking a bus.

When they went south it made me think

[curiousoranges]

This film did a passable job of having  everyone on the poster. It's a format we've seen a fair bit recently, when films have lots of big names.



It's understably tricky to get all the faces in and still have a dramatic poster that's cool to look at. These did it better.

[Blinder Data]

as someone who has not read the books, seen Lynch's version and watched part one in less than ideal circumstances (over a few days at home), I enjoyed this.

I'm not quite buying into the hype though. I know the books came before and influenced Star Wars and Game of Thrones, but the comparison with them is quite stark. obvs the latter had the luxury of TV seasons, but it did a better job of world-building and politicking.

i suppose i can't blame the films for this but something about the plotting and characterisations didn't quite work for me - was the same for the first film. the emperor sent the atreides to arrakis just to fail, the harkonnens willingly left and then came back? an extremely roundabout and risky way of achieving your aims. it was the same for some of the baron's actions, and not helped by perfunctory dialogue - characters felt slightly automaton-like (e.g. rebecca ferguson is great usually but her character got much more boring as soon as she became a religious fanatic)

couldn't they let florence pugh do an English accent? her american one is OK but sounds quite "performed". and considering the proposal at the end, we could've done with more of her and the emperor to show why that lot are so important

it is a very serious film, quite stagey. i don't need quips but the austin butler character was amusingly camp and a bit of lightness might have helped take the edge off the ridiculous and made the dark moments hit more

BUT overall i imagine it's a decent adaptation of the books. worm-riding was fun. battles were fun. it was FUN. and visually it looked great. i look forward to part iii

[Blumf]

i suppose i can't blame the films for this but something about the plotting and characterisations didn't quite work for me - was the same for the first film. the emperor sent the atreides to arrakis just to fail, the harkonnens willingly left and then came back? an extremely roundabout and risky way of achieving your aims.

I think the films covered this; The Emperor was doing a high level power play to get rid of the Atreides, the Harkonnen were fully on board for their own reasons. It had to be like this for political reasons, the Emperor couldn't just directly attack another Great House. Certainly thought his character and motivations could have done with some fleshing out though.

rebecca ferguson is great usually but her character got much more boring as soon as she became a religious fanatic

Thought she was much better in pt2, actually scheming and ruthless like a Bene Gesserit should be. Again, the film is pretty clear; she didn't become a religious fanatic (unless you mean her pre-existing Bene Gesserit allegiance, which she'd fucked off already, and is more a political thing), but she was playing to the pre-seeded religious faith of the Fremen, really leaning into it for her (and Paul's) own gain. She doesn't believe it, and knows full well it's bollocks.

[Dex Sawash]

Might be clickbait BS but DUN3 is going ahead

[Poobum]

Was a Hans Zimmer interview where he said Villeneuve came into his office, plonking Dune:Messiah on his desk then leaving. Excited.

[El Unicornio, mang]

This is now "available"

[Blumf]

This is vary stupid and thus funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W2NeKB6RGw

(Didn't know whether to post it here, or in that thread that ended up going on about Camden market T-shirts)

[Dex Sawash]

The SpongeBob thing made it for me

[checkoutgirl]

She doesn't believe it, and knows full well it's bollocks.

How is it bollocks when the lad can see the past present and future and his kid becomes a giant invincible sandworm that rules the universe for a millennium?

[checkoutgirl]

Might be clickbait BS but DUN3 is going ahead

It's a pity because Dune doesn't really get freaky until the fourth book and these two films only cover the first book. It'll be 2038 and 4 billion in budget before we get to the good stuff.

[Blumf]

How is it bollocks when the lad can see the past present and future and his kid becomes a giant invincible sandworm that rules the universe for a millennium?

The Fremen believe something that was seeded into their culture millennia ago by the Bene Gesserit. That bit is the bollocks with which Jessica is using to bend Fremen society to her and Paul's needs.

Paul's abilities are grounded in (the Dune universe's) science. His predictive capability is down to the Water of Life giving him access to all his genetic past's memories and the Spice giving him a slight foresight (similar to how the Guild navigators work) and using his Mentat training to process that information and use it to make highly accurate predictions. It's superhuman, but not magical/godlike abilities.

This is the crux of the whole series. People being misled by power in it's various forms. In the Fremen's case, religion. Somewhat simply put: The Bene Gesserit use religion, the Atreides use charisma, the Harkonnen use fear, the Emperor uses raw force, the Guild use control of transport, and so on...

[checkoutgirl]

In the Villeneuve film did they indicate Paul's ambitions and cynical power grab? He seemed quite sincere and idealistic towards the Firemen and shacked up with Chani. Then suddenly that's out the window and he's ordering people about and dumping her for a power coupling.

I'm not sure if that was narratively sufficient or if I'm a complete idiot. Can't remember any space worm travel guides either which would be a travesty. Those were one of the coolest things in the Smithee film.

[Blumf]

It's a bit sub-textual, but I think the parts are there. The scene where Paul is rabble rousing with talk about getting the Harkonnen off the planet, but also about getting revenge for them killing his father. Now normally, any self respecting Fremen would tell you to fuck off with that last bit. What do they care about the petty squabbles of the big nobs in the Landsraad, they want shot of them all? But because of the religious priming, the true believers (Stilgar) are lapping it up (but not Chani, even though she's got the hots for Paul. I like this change, but it's a bit awkward). Paul, for his part, I don't think has properly grasped that he's using them yet, although he knows what a mess this whole thing is going to lead to (the parallels to T.E. Lawrence are obvious and deliberate)

[checkoutgirl]

It's a bit sub-textual

It's probably when he tells her he will always love her and you're supposed to read into it I've got bigger fish to fry sweetcheeks and your status as a sand cave dweller isn't cutting it anymore. Goodnight Vienna. Could have been clearer.

Was surprised when the Emperor's security advised him to get the fuck out of there rather than just scooping him up and leaving. We've got a barely organised bunch of sand people that are going to slice through the elite army of the rest of the universe like it's nothing, we're going back into orbit now.

Couldn't he have done a zoom call?

[Mister Six]

It's a pity because Dune doesn't really get freaky until the fourth book and these two films only cover the first book. It'll be 2038 and 4 billion in budget before we get to the good stuff.

Sadly, the good stuff is surrounded by hundreds of pages of characters monologuing Frank Herbert's inane observations and theories, punctuated by "She gasped as his brilliance," so basically unreadable. The whole 800 pages of God Emperor is summed up in about six paragraphs on Wikipedia without losing very much at all.

So I'd be fascinated to see Mr No Dialogue Villeneuve doing a pared down version of GE, presumably with substantially beefed up character work (cf. Chiani in Dune Part Two), but I reckon he'd be insane to try to continue past Messiah (DUN3) and he seems to recognise that himself.

[surreal]

So I'd be fascinated to see Mr No Dialogue Villeneuve doing a pared down version of GE, presumably with substantially beefed up character work (cf. Chiani in Dune Part Two), but I reckon he'd be insane to try to continue past Messiah (DUN3) and he seems to recognise that himself.

I think he's going to have to draw stuff from the later books, and also do things like go into details about the other Great Houses and show at least some of the war against them or he will have precious little action to showcase.  Like LotR drawing from the appendices I guess.

[Mister Six]

Given that very final shot, I think he'll pick it up a little bit after Part Two and explore the fallout there, which would fit within the holy war timeline, and also maybe give Chani a role as a rebellious figure on Arrakis. Weren't only half the Fremen true believers in the film?

[Mr Trumpet]

I think Villeneuve is planning another non-Dune film project or two before he comes back for Messiah, to give himself a break and to let the actors age suitably.

[13 schoolyards]

Given that very final shot, I think he'll pick it up a little bit after Part Two and explore the fallout there, which would fit within the holy war timeline, and also maybe give Chani a role as a rebellious figure on Arrakis. Weren't only half the Fremen true believers in the film?

Yeah, the southerners were all hardcore believers while the North Fremen were more skeptical... I think there was some line in there about everyone being untied in their belief after Paul sculled the Water of Life, but it wouldn't be hard to find a bunch of Fremen thinking "hang on, we didn't sign up for a galactic genocide".

Plus, as you point out, the second film ends at just the right point for a third film to begin with "Five years later and the galaxy is knee deep in corpses" opening crawl

[greenman]

Yeah, the southerners were all hardcore believers while the North Fremen were more skeptical... I think there was some line in there about everyone being untied in their belief after Paul sculled the Water of Life, but it wouldn't be hard to find a bunch of Fremen thinking "hang on, we didn't sign up for a galactic genocide".

Plus, as you point out, the second film ends at just the right point for a third film to begin with "Five years later and the galaxy is knee deep in corpses" opening crawl

Thats pretty much inline with Dune Messiah which picks up several years latter although there its moreso some Fremen become disillusioned by the jihad rather than there being sceptical about it beforehand.

The book Paul I think you could argue is shown to be more negative towards the Jihad, the film does mention this a bit but as mentioned seems to drop it in the latter stages of the second film were Paul seems to buy into his own hype much more.

You could argue I spose the book is quite self serving, it basically puts Paul in a situation were the Jihad is inescapable very early on, by the time he's killed Jamis and they've got back to the Fremen settlement its already too late, he's too close to the implanted prophecy to the degree the uprising will happen reguardless even if he's dead. So he's basically pushed along with it hoping his presensce will make it less deadly.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Where did the Fremen learn to fly spaceships?

[Mr Trumpet]

I dunno, but Jessica assumes they have access to some at the end of the first film when she asks them to smuggle her and Paul off planet.

We've seen they have ornithopters. They're resource poor, not technologically undeveloped.

[Mister Six]

Yeah, bear in mind that they're making stillsuits and weapons themselves - they know their way around tech.

Yeah, the southerners were all hardcore believers while the North Fremen were more skeptical... I think there was some line in there about everyone being untied in their belief after Paul sculled the Water of Life, but it wouldn't be hard to find a bunch of Fremen thinking "hang on, we didn't sign up for a galactic genocide".

Plus, as you point out, the second film ends at just the right point for a third film to begin with "Five years later and the galaxy is knee deep in corpses" opening crawl

The question is when Chani is going to get up the duff though. If they do a five-year timeskip then either she'll be carting the nippers around without a dad, which would change the ending of Messiah a bit, or she'll have to get pregnant in the middle of Messiah after reconciling with Paul, which would require another nine-month jump.

Maybe Villeneuve will compress the timescale again, and have Chani already be pregnant at the end of the first one? Although it'd mean the jihad being waged in improbable time. Also, had Paul drunk the worm-juice before he got her pregnant? Was that relevant to his own kids' spooky foresightedness?

[beanheadmcginty]

They must get through a lot of those thumpers and they are presumably single use because the worms eat them. So who's coughing up for all those thumpers is my question. Don't look cheap. Quality workmanship by the looks of it.

[13 schoolyards]

Aren't the Fremen making bank by secretly selling spice out the back door? They cut it with worm laxative or something but you can still see a half hour into the future off it

[Mister Six]

I know you're kidding a bit there, but I think there is something about that - something like one of the guilds not giving proper satellite info to the Harkonnens (or Atredies) so that smugglers can get Spice off the planet.