Dune Part 2 (2024 movie)

[alhoon]

I watched it and I liked it.
It was in my opinion close to the book with some notable changes and very close to the spirit* of the book.
NOTE: I read a translation of the book in 1992 or 1993 when I was in the equivalent of middle School, and I read it quickly. I remember it vaguely. I wanted it to have more action back then and a great many things flew right over my 12-13 years old head.

If I have some critique is that the ending seemed a bit rushed. And I missed having Alia there.



*
"What I'm saying in my books boils down to this: Mine religion for what is good and avoid what is deleterious. Don't condemn people who need it. Be very careful when that need becomes fanatical."
"Conversations in Port Townsend", interview with Tim O'Reilly, 1983.

[conon394]

Have not watched it but as I understand it glad the moved Paul clearly not into good hero journey. That said:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I still find the Fremen and their jihad victory (really in the next book) silly and break my suspension of disbelief. Although since the entire force/manpower of House atreides moved to dune seems to be maybe about as big as Medieval Pisa - may all the know universe is just planets with tiny postulations? Been too long since I read the books

[mishkin]

Frank Herbert/Dune is the most ridiculously overrated author/book I have ever read. Great imagination, absolute inability as a writer. I wish that Villeneuve had appropriated the general idea and from there he had made a truly interesting narrative, his own story. It still surprises me that he is a fan of the book.

[alhoon]

Have not watched it but as I understand it glad the moved Paul clearly not into good hero journey. That said:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I still find the Fremen and their jihad victory (really in the next book) silly and break my suspension of disbelief. Although since the entire force/manpower of House atreides moved to dune seems to be maybe about as big as Medieval Pisa - may all the know universe is just planets with tiny postulations? Been too long since I read the books

First, why spoilers?

Second I was also kinda ??? when I watched (didn't read) Messiah that the Fremen practically won but this movie and my understanding of how things work in Byzantine-politics societies makes a better case for it.

The logistics / economy:
1. Once the Fremen started hitting Spice production, the entire economy of the Empire started shaking, badly. We know this as there are mentions of the Great Houses being increasingly pissed that the Spice does not flow. And those are with the hiccups!
2. The Emperor was shown to actively hide what is going on Dune because he didn't want the Great House to chop of his head, and send their own armies to take the planet.
3. The Harkonnens and the Emperor had the big reserves of Spice (first movie).
And it is shown in this movie that the Harkonnen reserves are running low.
With all the Harkonnen in disarray as the baron and his nephews died and the Emperor abdicating, the existing reserves of spice are probably going to explode in price.
4. Spice is needed for a ton of things, one of which is space travel. Another is medicine. And I remind you that since they don't have computers, they are based on Mentats and bio-engineering to create "human data banks" and "human calculators".
Consider the upheaval when Spice production grinds to a halt!

Equivalent: If oil was coming out ONLY from the Middle East, and then the Middle East fell under ISIS, the entire of it... you would see the rest of the world's economy collapsing.

Travel:
1. Soon, the Fremen would have an insane advantage in travelling in space.
2. The Great Houses would have to deal with a population during a financial collapse AND rely on tiny "space and medicine fuel" from smugglers that have not been caught by the Fremen. They are practically isolated.
3. The Fremen could gather their forces, gather new recruits from their conquered planets and throw these big armies on the isolated and weakened Great Houses, attacking them one by one.


Fighting Prowess / willingness to fight:
1. The Fremen are millions upon millions of zealots and well trained fighters with serious weaponry in this movie.
2. The weapons of the Fremen are not backwater, they are very destructive. They automatically start with "Atomic weaponry", of the Atreides, serious warheads and would gain control of more as Great Houses fell or surrendered.
3. The Sardaukar are done for. The armies of the other Great Houses are not as powerful. Nor as numerous.

Think... the Western Military if the USA fell out of the fight and ISIS was sending millions of Jihadists up. With serious weapons. While the West lost access to 90% of the oil and natural gas they need.





Is it a done deal?
No.
But it is plausible that the Fremen would eventually win after 12 years of war. In those 12 years, the spice their enemies receive would be a trickle.

[mishkin]

You are trying to make sense of an absurd novel. There are inconsistencies everywhere.

[Kyriakos]

It is "interesting" that they plan to make a third movie, when they changed Alia's timeline. If they do, it will be Dune fanfiction, given Alia can't have guilt about killing Baron (she didn't in this Dune fanfic) ^^
It's also strange that the Guild played no role in these two films, when the Guild is the primary reason for spice being important.

[mishkin]

If she is not St Alia of the Knife I dont want her.

[Kyriakos]

She isn't. She is not even born during this film.

I find it remarkable that the director explicitly had said that his adaptation of Dune would be the one more closely aligned to the book, when it easily is the least aligned (Lynch and the tv series were far better in that respect, despite other shortcomings).

[alhoon]

Kyriako, this is closer to the spirit of the book than the miniseries (which I loved) and the meh movie of the 80s.

[Kyriakos]

Spirit is very subjective, obviously. From what I have read of the book, this adaptation doesn't seem closer. They didn't even include arguably the most iconic line from the first book, about fear and minds being killed ^^
Also made the Harkonnen into some kind of industrial goth group, didn't explain anything about what mentats are, pretended the Space Guild doesn't exist,the list of stuff objectively changed goes on and on (Paul killing Baron in this movie just takes the cake as a final message of not caring about the book).

[Cyclops]

I enjoyed the film. I did not get the sense of "**** we're two hours in and the final act hasn't opened yet" which I got with Nolan's Batman films and other self-serious kino. This is up there with Oppenheimer and Blade Runner 2046 as a very enjoyable film that doesn't waste its length or bore me.Plotlines were pruned, which is sad, but only a lengthy miniseries could integrate the appendices and chapter headings as well as the story into a meaningful narrative.The kicker is the final line in the Pardot Kynes subplot appendix, "until Arrakis was afflicted by a hero" which allows for the canonical PoV of Paul as villain. that's something that could be portrayed as flashbacks interspersed across seasons but simply cannot be unfolded in 6 hours across 2 films.He deleted a few men, or collapsed them into female characters, eg the pivotal Count Fenring is divided between his wife and Irulan (agent and advisor).

[Flinn]

You are trying to make sense of an absurd novel. There are inconsistencies everywhere.

Seconded.. it often happens with science fiction: a good idea, coupled with the inability to properly made an open and closed story on it. A good writer knows when to give end to their creatures.. Herbert wasn't one of those. Much like it happened with other great ideas such as The War Against the Chtorr or Berserker.

About the movie.. I won't say it's a bad movie per sé, fact is I don't like either Chalamet or Zendaya, and that really kills it for me. Also, I was expecting much more fron 2020's CGI, honestly.

[mishkin]

better than the first part (it has an ending!!), waiting for the third part (Anya Taylor-Joy as the protagonist, for god's sake).

[Infidel144]

The idiot director-writer (Villenueve?) wub-ed the ending. The time between Paul and Jessica joining the Fremen and the conclusion is supposed to be like 5 years. Not a couple months. What a wub-stain. Where was Leto? And the Abomination, 3(?) year old Alia slapping down the Reverend Mother, and putting the Padishah-Emperor in his place. The 'I'm sorry grandfather, you meet the Atreides gom jabbar'. Then dropping the needle as the Baron dies and going off to get a knife and dispatch wounded Sardaukar and Harkonen soldiers as a Fremen child is trained to do. Pathetic. No Guild Navigators. And Chani as one of Paul's Fedaykin death commandos? And then all mad and leaving because Paul followed the forms takes Irulan as wife. Did the director-writer fool just miss those last sentences where Jessica tells Chani that 'we who are concubines, history will remember us as wives'. (Don't have the book handy, so no exact quotes). And 'fundamentalists'? Herbert does not even use the word that I recall. What a dumb-wub. Screwing up the duel. Only Paul says may thy kinife chip and shatter. Feyd followed the kanly form. And Paul being stabbed (deeply) twice? As opposed to a cut with a soporific on the blade, and no spring-dart from Feyd? Just stupid.

[mishkin]

Authors are under no obligation to be faithful to the works on which they base their stories. This has always been the case, there are hundreds of examples of adaptations in which authors literally piss on the original work, creating something almost totally different and often better. The criticism that the author is not absolutely faithful to the original is another of the diseases of our century.

Edit: I'm right now remembering Coppola's version of Dracula, who even had the "audacity" to title "Bram Stoker's Dracula" where the titular character is practically unrecognizable/completely different from the original.

Edit 2: It is a very good movie, far superior to the book. (and infinitely superior to all the garbage that was written after the original book/Dune).

Edit3: Do you know what true audacity is? People who would not know how to write the film adaptation of the simplest novel, criticizing the decisions of extremely capable directors/screenwriters adapting terribly complex and sometimes stupid works and turning them into great stories.

generically speaking, the director owes you absolutely nothing because you are a fan of the original work. You didn't like it, bad luck, you still have the book, read it again. For some reason the book is not enough and you want a film adaptation 90%, 95%, 100% faithful to the original? Keep waiting or do it yourself.

[alhoon]

95 out of 100 times, the adaption is inferior to the original. You may not like Dune but it is a classic for a reason.
That said... the adaption was very faithful to the book in spirit. Sure, Chani threw a temper tantrum and Alia was not around to do her abomination stuff. Most of the story and the complexity is there and we see the transformation of Paul to a war-bringer.

The book may not use the word "Fundamentalist" but that word describes the Fundamentalists perfectly.

To get back to Mishkin's post: No, it is not audacity from people that have not adapted any works to judge an adaption. Judging that an adaption is not faithful or good is waaaay different than making an adaption.
Exactly as judging whether X political party or Y party is better for the country is much easier than running a party. The expectation that every voter that votes for X or Y or something else should be able to do what is expected from a political party, and better, is downright absurd. As is the claim that we shouldn't judge an adaption if we can't write a better one.
Or, closer to home @Mishkin, it like saying it is audacity to poop on book that has 20 million sales unless you have written books that have sold 20.1 million copies.
And no, it is not audacity to say "I don't like Dune, I think it is overrated and the follow-ups are trash." when you are not a world-famous author.
It is also not audacity to say "I don't like that adaption, I think it is trash" when you have not made any adaptions.

Other than that, Mishkin is right: You don't like the adaption? You still have the book. You want a better adaption? Keep waiting / email production companies to make one / create social media sites dedicated to generating interest for a remake / kickstarter money for a faithful adaption.

[mishkin]

Boldness is telling a writer/director how they should do something, not saying you don't like it. I've seen horrible movies and it wouldn't occur to me to say to the director "you should have done this this other way."

[Halie Satanus]

I liked it, watched both back to back rather than as stand alone movies. There were holes and it felt like there were time jumps without any obvious indicators. Would have loved a bit more of the battle scenes and the ending felt a bit rushed, but it did leave me wanting more.

Part 3 has been green lit, though I saw a review that claimed it might take 5+ years before that comes out.

[Kyriakos]

Authors are under no obligation to be faithful to the works on which they base their stories. This has always been the case, there are hundreds of examples of adaptations in which authors literally piss on the original work, creating something almost totally different and often better. The criticism that the author is not absolutely faithful to the original is another of the diseases of our century.

Edit: I'm right now remembering Coppola's version of Dracula, who even had the "audacity" to title "Bram Stoker's Dracula" where the titular character is practically unrecognizable/completely different from the original.

Edit 2: It is a very good movie, far superior to the book. (and infinitely superior to all the garbage that was written after the original book/Dune).

Edit3: Do you know what true audacity is? People who would not know how to write the film adaptation of the simplest novel, criticizing the decisions of extremely capable directors/screenwriters adapting terribly complex and sometimes stupid works and turning them into great stories.

generically speaking, the director owes you absolutely nothing because you are a fan of the original work. You didn't like it, bad luck, you still have the book, read it again. For some reason the book is not enough and you want a film adaptation 90%, 95%, 100% faithful to the original? Keep waiting or do it yourself.

Oh won't someone think of the holywood directors? /Simpsonsmeme


I don't get what you want to say with your own post, tbh. By the same logic, you have the movie, so if you don't like posts about it, why post? ^^
Besides, the director himself went out of his way to claim that his adaptations would be the closest to Dune, so of course he himself opened up the movies to critique from the pov of faithfulness to the books.