Villeneuve's Dune

[levzloi]

Just saw it in IMAX, really enjoyed it.  I think Hanz Zimmer might have been trying to give Tenet a run for it's money in the volume over dialogue department, and they really allowed most scenes to develop and breath (maybe just a tad to much).  Still a really good adaptation, I'll plan on seeing it again in IMAX.  I really hope they make the second. 

[505thAirborne]

21 minutes ago, levzloi said:

Just saw it in IMAX, really enjoyed it.  I think Hanz Zimmer might have been trying to give Tenet a run for it's money in the volume over dialogue department, and they really allowed most scenes to develop and breath (maybe just a tad to much).  Still a really good adaptation, I'll plan on seeing it again in IMAX.  I really hope they make the second. 

From what I read earlier today, DUNE part 2 is a go. 

[derex3592]

I was gonna watch it tonight on HBOMAX....but then I found Natural Born Killers and Backdraft....LOL.  GOD the 90's had some epic movies! I'll get to DUNE later this weekend.

[505thAirborne]

52 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

I was gonna watch it tonight on HBOMAX....but then I found Natural Born Killers and Backdraft....LOL.  GOD the 90's had some epic movies! I'll get to DUNE later this weekend.

I saw Backdraft in theaters, good times! 

[CoryHolmes]

1 hour ago, 505thAirborne said:

From what I read earlier today, DUNE part 2 is a go. 

Dune 2: The Battle for Arrakis.  "Warning, wormsign."

[technoblue]

I braved the cinema to see this too and thought it was terrific.

I'm very much looking forward to the second half, and I thought Villeneuve chose a good place for the intermission.

[Kanedas Bike]

2 hours ago, levzloi said:

Just saw it in IMAX, really enjoyed it.  I think Hanz Zimmer might have been trying to give Tenet a run for it's money in the volume over dialogue department, and they really allowed most scenes to develop and breath (maybe just a tad to much).  Still a really good adaptation, I'll plan on seeing it again in IMAX.  I really hope they make the second. 

Decided to see this first in theaters and then watch it a second time via HBO Max. I also thought it was fantastic but as you mention the music sometime drowned out the dialogue.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Friday and noon showing was packed so hopefully that's a good sign. Week 2 box office numbers will be the real test.

22 minutes ago, technoblue said:

I braved the cinema to see this too and thought it was terrific.

I'm very much looking forward to the second half, and I thought Villeneuve chose a good place for the intermission.

Also agreed about the intermission, while not as smooth as The Fellowship of the Ring that's immediately what I thought of and not abrupt like some of the online reviews/comments were making it out to be (even from folks that loved the movie).

D.V. sure does now how to make gorgeous movies, like recent Ridley Scott, but infinitely better in the story department (*cough*Prometheus*vomit*Alien:Covenant*).

-b.

[sqidd]

21 minutes ago, Kanedas Bike said:

D.V. sure does now how to make gorgeous movies,

I was blown away about how beautiful it was and how perfectly odd the technology, etc was.

The music, while sometimes overwhelming the dialog a little, had a great mood to it. Very appropriate and odd. I didn't really have any trouble with the dialog though. Sure I had to pay attention, but I could always understand what was going on. You guys need a crappy 22yr old surround system.

[Kanedas Bike]

1 hour ago, sqidd said:

I was blown away about how beautiful it was and how perfectly odd the technology, etc was.

The music, while sometimes overwhelming the dialog a little, had a great mood to it. Very appropriate and odd. I didn't really have any trouble with the dialog though. Sure I had to pay attention, but I could always understand what was going on. You guys need a crappy 22yr old surround system.

Or subtitles...which is how I'm going to watch at home 👴

Not my favorite Hans Zimmer score, but I agree that it really fit the movie. Makes me very happy I ordered this last week when it went on sale; https://mondoshop.com/products/the-dune-sketchbook-music-from-the-soundtrack-3xlp

-b.

[derex3592]

Can't do subtitles on an english movie, too distracting when I'm trying to get into the story, low dialog?..crank up my center channel to +10, which is honestly more or less where I keep it now with wifey pooh watching TV and movies with me because the subwoofer and surround sound is "too loud honey...turn it down"....🤷‍♂️😑

Edited October 23, 2021 by derex3592

[TangledThorns]

9 hours ago, derex3592 said:

I was gonna watch it tonight on HBOMAX....but then I found Natural Born Killers and Backdraft....LOL.  GOD the 90's had some epic movies! I'll get to DUNE later this weekend.

Just watched NBK for the first time in decades too. Very 1990s but very wild and violent movie for its time.

As for DUNE I'm waiting on a friend to heal up from surgery before I see the movie as we planned on seeing it together. I'm a patient man, lol.

 

[electric indigo]

Definitely see it in a theater – the opening montage with the Harkonnen reign on Arrakis is worth the admission alone. The movie has all the epic visuals I always wanted to see in SF cinema since I started reading books.

[Dobber]

Really LOVED this movie. Though they  could’ve done some things a bit better. I felt the secondary characters and their motivations/relationships were kind of lacking so when things go down it didn’t have the emotional impact it could’ve. That being said still a great movie. Also, anyone else hear the nod to Lynch’s Dune when Paul and Jessica head out to find the Fremen. Nice nod by Zimmer.

Chris

Edited October 24, 2021 by Dobber

[Duke Togo]

4 hours ago, Dobber said:

Also, anyone else hear the nod to Lynch’s Dune when Paul and Jessica head out to find the Fremen. Nice nod by Zimmer.

Chris

I’ve seen it twice and that was my thought as well. Zimmer claims to have never seen the original, though.

[jenius]

I watched it in IMAX today, thought it was about as good as you can get while remaining basically faithful to the source material. They spent a bit more time on Caladan than they needed to but otherwise I thought the things done to tighten the story up were wisely selected. A "slow burn" is a good way to describe Dune so it's no surprise many criticisms about it are that it doesn't match the pace of SciFi that followed it and was more tailored to screen adaptations. 

Spoiler

The book includes more deception around Jessica's character that leads to her being drunkenly accosted, I can't recall who it was. I also liked that they gave Kynes a much better death than she (who is then a he) in the book receives. In the book Kynes is brought back to the Baron who then sends him out into a spice field to cook but he instead gets blown up a spice bloom. The emperor's daughter was also conspicuously absent. I'm surprised they left it where they did. I would have thought the more natural break would be where Paul had risen to prominence within the Freman population. Then they could film the next movie after he had aged a bit and come back to him with a trained Freman military ready to take on the Emperor. 

I think I should watch the first Lord of the Rings film to see how it stacks up since it had a similar uphill battle being a portion of a larger text. 

[TangledThorns]

Ok, watched it last night. It was well made but I'm kinda torn as Lynch is one of my favorite directors and his version had a more memorable soundtrack and in classic Lynch fashion he made the Harkonnen creep AF, especially with their heart plugs and lack of skin care haha. Also, didn't see much mention of the Navigators either. Another creepy element from Lynch's movie as well. 

Now, I never read the books so only watched the original DUNE movie and the SCI-FI mini-series so I may be out of the loop on what we're meant to see, lol. 

 

[technoblue]

1 hour ago, TangledThorns said:

Ok, watched it last night. It was well made but I'm kinda torn as Lynch is one of my favorite directors and his version had a more memorable soundtrack and in classic Lynch fashion he made the Harkonnen creep AF, especially with their heart plugs and lack of skin care haha. Also, didn't see much mention of the Navigators either. Another creepy element from Lynch's movie as well. 

Now, I never read the books so only watched the original DUNE movie and the SCI-FI mini-series so I may be out of the loop on what we're meant to see, lol. 

The Guild Navigators were there among the imperial delegation to Caladan, when the herald arrives to present Duke Leto with the Emperor's decree. It was interesting to see how Villeneuve's visual interpretation of spice mutation is quite different from the one Lynch used. Myself, I think I prefer Villeneuve's take on it. 

Lynch had an interesting take on the characters and was able to come pretty close to center target on some critical scenes, especially for someone who wasn't at all familiar with the book. That said, I appreciate how House Harkonnen was reimagined for the new film---unnerving, otherworldly, and odd for sure but not as visually grotesque as Lynch's Harkonnen. I enjoyed seeing them as being strategic, cruel, conniving, and insidious, but having their sadism only hinted at in this first part. To me, they felt more threatening and thankfully Bautista's Rabban doesn't come across as a fool.

Spoiler

Remember that Baron Harkonnen had a plan for Arrakis: to use Rabban as the warlord that subjugates the planet and then to use Feyd at a later time as the savior of Arrakis. This is another reason why Paul and Jessica being around is messing things up for him. It's hard to play at this strategy when the Fremen are leaning into their own prophecies and religion (seeded in part by the Bene Gesserit). 

Perhaps that shows how much Villeneuve was paying attention to Herbert's core story? I don't know.

For me, Lynch's vision is entertaining but clearly dated. His characterizations comes across as exaggerated and flamboyant now and that's okay---the movie is a product of its time. My only criticism is that this does make for some silly moments and Dune taken as a silly/hammy sci-fi story instead of a cautionary tale just seems wrong.  Villeneuve seems to be headed down the cautionary tale path and if we're lucky it will be interesting seeing it all play out on the big screen. To date, the only other team to show this, other than Frank Herbert and his publisher, was the team at Sci-Fi and they did that over multiple series! 

[renegadeleader1]

4 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Ok, watched it last night. It was well made but I'm kinda torn as Lynch is one of my favorite directors and his version had a more memorable soundtrack and in classic Lynch fashion he made the Harkonnen creep AF, especially with their heart plugs and lack of skin care haha. Also, didn't see much mention of the Navigators either. Another creepy element from Lynch's movie as well. 

Now, I never read the books so only watched the original DUNE movie and the SCI-FI mini-series so I may be out of the loop on what we're meant to see, lol. 

 

As far as the novels go nothing of the imagery from Lynch's film is in the books. No heart plugs, no wierding modules, the Baron is fat but not diseased, nor is he a raving lunatic, and ornithopters are anything but whatever the hell that gothic elevator looking thing was in the 1984 film.

[Dynaman]

3 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

As far as the novels go nothing of the imagery from Lynch's film is in the books. No heart plugs, no wierding modules, the Baron is fat but not diseased, nor is he a raving lunatic, and ornithopters are anything but whatever the hell that gothic elevator looking thing was in the 1984 film.

To be fair, to try and make an ornithopter look good with early eighties filmmaking techniques would have been insanely expensive or it would have looked like crap - and probably both. 

 

EDIT - Ack!  forgot the reason I was going to post.  Just read that the film took in 40 mil domestic.  That is considered good news.  I remember a time when that would be considered an absolute bomb.  Not to bad mouth the film but to say that we should expect movie budgets to come down quite a bit for a few years.  

Edited October 24, 2021 by Dynaman

[jenius]

It feels like there's a few "why" questions missing to me. The emperor kicks the Harkonnens off Arrakis because he fears how respected the Atreides have become and that they can somehow challenge him. I don't really get HOW anyone challenges the emperor though. Arrakis is a trap, the Atreides go there and are easily ambushed. What was the false pretense that was used to remove the Harkonnens? Did the Emperor tell the other families that the Harkonnens were doing a bad job so they lost their most-favored family status? Then, when the Harkonnens retake Arrakis, what story would be told then? If the emperor gave Arrakis to the Atreides, then wouldn't they need his blessing to retake it? The movie mentions that spice production is down and the Atreides want Kynes to go to bat for them and make the case to the emperor that the Harknonnens left them in a lurch but there didn't feel like enough connection between those scenes and the return of the Harkonnens. It feels like we needed another exposition bomb speech from the Baron where he laid out that the lack of spice production would allow him to step back in and retake the planet without furor among the other houses. The one speech where the Baron explains to his nephew that the Atreides are being set-up for a trap could have been expanded just a little bit... or they could have added a quick scene with the other families complaining that someone needed to do something to resolve the lack of spice production. The ambush as it plays out in the movie just feels like a little too obvious of an ambush. 

[sqidd]

13 minutes ago, jenius said:

It feels like there's a few "why" questions missing to me. The emperor kicks the Harkonnens off Arrakis because he fears how respected the Atreides have become and that they can somehow challenge him. I don't really get HOW anyone challenges the emperor though. Arrakis is a trap, the Atreides go there and are easily ambushed. What was the false pretense that was used to remove the Harkonnens? Did the Emperor tell the other families that the Harkonnens were doing a bad job so they lost their most-favored family status? Then, when the Harkonnens retake Arrakis, what story would be told then? If the emperor gave Arrakis to the Atreides, then wouldn't they need his blessing to retake it? The movie mentions that spice production is down and the Atreides want Kynes to go to bat for them and make the case to the emperor that the Harknonnens left them in a lurch but there didn't feel like enough connection between those scenes and the return of the Harkonnens. It feels like we needed another exposition bomb speech from the Baron where he laid out that the lack of spice production would allow him to step back in and retake the planet without furor among the other houses. The one speech where the Baron explains to his nephew that the Atreides are being set-up for a trap could have been expanded just a little bit... or they could have added a quick scene with the other families complaining that someone needed to do something to resolve the lack of spice production. The ambush as it plays out in the movie just feels like a little too obvious of an ambush. 

To quote The Drinker:

"Don't know"

[technoblue]

43 minutes ago, jenius said:

It feels like there's a few "why" questions missing to me. The emperor kicks the Harkonnens off Arrakis because he fears how respected the Atreides have become and that they can somehow challenge him. I don't really get HOW anyone challenges the emperor though. Arrakis is a trap, the Atreides go there and are easily ambushed. What was the false pretense that was used to remove the Harkonnens? Did the Emperor tell the other families that the Harkonnens were doing a bad job so they lost their most-favored family status? Then, when the Harkonnens retake Arrakis, what story would be told then? If the emperor gave Arrakis to the Atreides, then wouldn't they need his blessing to retake it? The movie mentions that spice production is down and the Atreides want Kynes to go to bat for them and make the case to the emperor that the Harknonnens left them in a lurch but there didn't feel like enough connection between those scenes and the return of the Harkonnens. It feels like we needed another exposition bomb speech from the Baron where he laid out that the lack of spice production would allow him to step back in and retake the planet without furor among the other houses. The one speech where the Baron explains to his nephew that the Atreides are being set-up for a trap could have been expanded just a little bit... or they could have added a quick scene with the other families complaining that someone needed to do something to resolve the lack of spice production. The ambush as it plays out in the movie just feels like a little too obvious of an ambush. 

Indeed. There are political machinations at work that are only touched upon briefly using dialogue in the film, and I can only guess that Villeneuve pushed this into the background intentionally for a reason? It will be interesting to see if part 2 highlights more of what's going on, especially since Irulan's name was invoked, but I'm not going to be disappointed if we get more of the same.

Anyway, the Landsraad is a council/body that represents the Great Houses in the Imperium. Through the Landsraad, the houses negotiate trade agreements, create alliances, announce government sanctioned vendettas, and the like. For instance, one of Frank Herbert's core characterizations in the novels was that it was a well-known fact that Houses Harkonnen and Atreides had a vendetta against one another lasting generations. This vendetta becomes very important since it sets the stage against House Atreides from the beginning.

Knowing who the Emperor is, and to which house he belongs, is another important point. At the beginning of Dune, House Corrino is in its twilight. It has been the leading imperial house for millennia. However, Shaddam Corrino IV, has recently become jealous of his adoptive cousin Duke Leto Atreides I. Duke Leto has grown to become the well known, charismatic, and compassionate leader of Caladan. He has quickly gained popularity in the Landsraad. He has a Bene Gesserit concubine who gave him a son. He has built up an army which is rumored to rival the Emperor's own Sarduakar in strength. When these whispers reach the Emperor's ear, he decides that the Atreides are too much of a threat and that this house needs to be extinguished. Leto is essentially a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The whole thing with House Harkonnen leaving was a ruse. It wasn't legitimate or an outright rebuke of the Harkonnen as Rabban thought, but a cunning ploy staged to reaffirm House Corrino's power. The Harkonnen's hatred of the Atreides made it that much easier for the Emperor to persuade them to do their part.

A cool thing that the movie does is show how Leto I's own idealism works against him. He was tricked into thinking the issues were done more to disgrace the Atreides name in the Landsraad by crippling mining production. Of course, there is much more going on, and there are other betrayals that make for a bitter end. But yeah, the point really was about wiping the Atreides off the map.

[TangledThorns]

Today I re-watched DUNE (1984) first and then DUNE (2021). Interesting experience. Lynch's DUNE still holds it creep factor all these years while the new DUNE seems more modern of course but lacks some character.

That being said Lynch's DUNE soundtrack is still stuck playing in my head, lol.

Edited October 25, 2021 by TangledThorns

[sqidd]

53 minutes ago, technoblue said:

Indeed. There are political machinations at work that are only touched upon briefly using dialogue in the film, and I can only guess that Villeneuve pushed this into the background intentionally for a reason? It will be interesting to see if part 2 highlights more of what's going on, especially since Irulan's name was invoked, but I'm not going to be disappointed if we get more of the same.

Anyway, the Landsraad is a council/body that represents the Great Houses in the Imperium. Through the Landsraad, the houses negotiate trade agreements, create alliances, announce government sanctioned vendettas, and the like. For instance, one of Frank Herbert's core characterizations in the novels was that it was a well-known fact that Houses Harkonnen and Atreides had a vendetta against one another lasting generations. This vendetta becomes very important since it sets the stage against House Atreides from the beginning.

Knowing who the Emperor is, and to which house he belongs, is another important point. At the beginning of Dune, House Corrino is in its twilight. It has been the leading imperial house for millennia. However, Shaddam Corrino IV, has recently become jealous of his adoptive cousin Duke Leto Atreides I. Duke Leto has grown to become the well known, charismatic, and compassionate leader of Caladan. He has quickly gained popularity in the Landsraad. He has a Bene Gesserit concubine who gave him a son. He has built up an army which is rumored to rival the Emperor's own Sarduakar in strength. When these whispers reach the Emperor's ear, he decides that the Atreides are too much of a threat and that this house needs to be extinguished. Leto is essentially a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The whole thing with House Harkonnen leaving was a ruse. It wasn't legitimate or an outright rebuke of the Harkonnen as Rabban thought, but a cunning ploy staged to reaffirm House Corrino's power. The Harkonnen's hatred of the Atreides made it that much easier for the Emperor to persuade them to do their part.

A cool thing that the movie does is show how Leto I's own idealism works against him. He was tricked into thinking the issues were done more to disgrace the Atreides name in the Landsraad by crippling mining production. Of course, there is much more going on, and there are other betrayals that make for a bitter end. But yeah, the point really was about wiping the Atreides off the map.

Thanks for this. I haven't read the books in about 35yrs. I don't remember many details.

[technoblue]

42 minutes ago, sqidd said:

Thanks for this. I haven't read the books in about 35yrs. I don't remember many details.

Ah, my pleasure. There is a lot to unpack with Dune. In the novels, some of it doesn't get explained well until later books like Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune. Herbert's final two books: Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune deal with events far in the future after Leto II's multi-millennial reign and after the scattering of humanity throughout the known universe. 

HaHa! Now that I think about it, I should add Frank Herbert's books to the reading pile again. I need my own refresher course. 

[mikeszekely]

So, I watched this last night, and from the glowing comments here I wonder if we were actually watching the same movie.  Maybe because I've never read the books or watched the older Dune movie, but I thought it was an overwhelming info dump until

Spoiler

the attack on House Atreides.

Despite that, I still often found myself confused about the motivations of different factions.  Still, I had enough of a sense that Paul's got enemies in the Harkonnen and probably the Emperor, and that he's likely looking to make an ally of the Fremens.  And just as I was getting interested in where that story is going, it just ended.

Now, I think a project like this needs to be taken as a whole, and it's quite possible, perhaps likely, that I'll like the Dune parts 1 and 2 taken as a whole.  I'm also considering reading the novels, and it's also possible that I'll have a new appreciation for the film after doing so.  As a standalone film, though, divorced of any prior knowledge of the Dune universe?  I thought it was kind of boring, and I have no desire to watch it again.

[azrael]

Caught this online.

Was it a good point to stop? I guess. It had to pause somewhere. Guess that was as good as any point.

I think Dune needs the political exposition. You kind of need it to explain why things play out the way they do. You need it to rear its ass into the story or else it makes hard to understand the "why" of it all. I know they don't like to intect it in to movies like this but Dune  needs it. Plots in Dune take centuries to play out. Make it a little longer and throw it in. As for missing Shaddam Corrino IV, Irulan or others...yes they are needed in the story, just not early on/right here. They need to be in Part 2, but leaving them out of Part 1 is fine. 

[CoryHolmes]

Just saw it in the theatre today.  Overall a solid 7/10.  The casting was top-notch, with the exception of Lady Jessica.  Paul was suitably uncool, but ripe for development.  Duncan Idaho is awesome, natch.  Duke Leto's beard is so epic it deserves it's own credit at the end.  I'm strangely disappointed with the Harkkonen, tbh.  The mini-series Baron is my high-watermark and so far this Baron is just... I 'unno, kinda there, I guess?  And Bautista wasn't very good, either.

 

The soundtrack was strangely unmemorable, which is odd for Hans Zimmer.  Flight in Man of Steel was awesome, but this is just so very lacking.  Arakeen was kinda lacking as well.  The shield wall was supposed to be a ring of mountains that protected against the deep deserts, and not an actual wall.  Same thing with the city, I was expecting more favella and less actual city I suppose.

 

The stillsuits are interesting and look good.  Same with the crys-knives.  The settings are gorgeous, though I didn't ever get a sense of heat from the desert.  It's supposed to be hot and dry, and yet none of the characters looked to be in a hot or dry environment.

[jenius]

11 minutes ago, CoryHolmes said:

The soundtrack was strangely unmemorable, which is odd for Hans Zimmer.  Flight in Man of Steel was awesome, but this is just so very lacking.  Arakeen was kinda lacking as well.  

So true! The soundtrack felt more like a wall of noise more often than not... like someone slamming their hand on the deeper notes of the keyboard whenever drama needed to be reinforced. 

13 minutes ago, CoryHolmes said:

The settings are gorgeous, though I didn't ever get a sense of heat from the desert.  It's supposed to be hot and dry, and yet none of the characters looked to be in a hot or dry environment.

Also noticed this... to the point it was distracting a couple times. "Shouldn't the heat be totally oppressive here?"

Speaking of all the political intrigue that's missing and the failure to fully understand the motivations of the characters because of that, it really seems like they should have gone the trilogy route and ended the first filme with Leto's false tooth. The second film would be Paul's ascension to the backdrop of Beast's tyranny. Then the final film would be the big showdown and the beginning of the jihad. 

Maybe the real end game here should be an HBO series in the vein of Game of Thrones. 

[pablumatic]

I watched it. When I started it I was expecting this movie to have all of the story that was in the 1984 version. Once they meandered a bit on Caladan I figured this movie wasn't going to make it and yup, it doesn't. 

The weird technological anachronisms in Dune get to me more than in most sci-fi stories, but I know I need to just ignore that thought in my head as I watch it. 

Okay movie. Did not blow me away, but maybe its the deju-vu I got from seeing the 1984 Lynch version first or the above mentioned anachronisms that brought it down a bit for me.

I am glad Paul seems to have more misgivings about his origins this time around. Its been a while since I've seen the original, but in the Lynch version I got a sense that all the characters, including Paul, thought that he was some sort of prophesized savior all along. That sucked most of the tension out of the original, but I still liked it enough. The new version still has Paul quickly becoming a super being, but there was a little more pushback here which was better.

Also glad all that internal dialogue exposition was taken out. Show, don't tell, is the best for movies.

Edited October 25, 2021 by pablumatic

[mikeszekely]

8 minutes ago, jenius said:

Maybe the real end game here should be an HBO series in the vein of Game of Thrones.

I definitely felt, while watching the movie, that making it longer would have helped explained a lot more, and breaking it up into an episodic format would have given me more time to digest who the various players are and their motivations.  A TV show like Game of Thrones I think would have worked a lot better, yeah.  Plus they have a ton of material to mine for later seasons after they finish the first book.

Speaking of... if I decide to read the books, should I just read the six Frank wrote, or should I also read the sequels/prequels his son wrote with Kevin J. Anderson?

[jenius]

5 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Speaking of... if I decide to read the books, should I just read the six Frank wrote, or should I also read the sequels/prequels his son wrote with Kevin J. Anderson?

I read the original three Dune novels and couldn't take any more after that. My wife is a huge Dune fan, she encouraged me to read the later books, said they have a more modern structure and flow to them. I was too burnt out to go down that road though. There's only so much hemming and hawing over prophecies that I can take.

14 minutes ago, pablumatic said:

Also glad all that internal dialogue exposition was taken out. Show, don't tell, is the best for movies.

The funny thing about Frank Herbert's writing is that the character's thoughts are what move the plot forward and there's plenty of exposition through dialog... it's almost as if he was writing to intentionally make the story ill-suited for film or television. 

[technoblue]

28 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Speaking of... if I decide to read the books, should I just read the six Frank wrote, or should I also read the sequels/prequels his son wrote with Kevin J. Anderson?

I suggest starting with the books that Frank Herbert wrote, especially if you want to focus on Paul’s part of the story. For that, you only need to read the first two books. If you want to continue and see what happens after Paul, you can dive into God Emperor and the rest.

[electric indigo]

18 hours ago, technoblue said:

The Guild Navigators were there among the imperial delegation to Caladan, when the herald arrives to present Duke Leto with the Emperor's decree. It was interesting to see how Villeneuve's visual interpretation of spice mutation is quite different from the one Lynch used. Myself, I think I prefer Villeneuve's take on it.

Here are the Navigators in the delegation:

While their presence was eerie enough, I did miss the powerful introduction from the 84 Dune.

The white one reminds me strongly of french comic artist Moebuis' designs.

[technoblue]

2 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Here are the Navigators in the delegation:

<snip>

While their presence was eerie enough, I did miss the powerful introduction from the 84 Dune.

The white one reminds me strongly of french comic artist Moebuis' designs.

I am curious to know if Villeneuve was giving a nod to the idea of having different stages of spice mutation. I think that was one if the ideas that came out of the 84 film that Frank Herbert liked? I recall reading how he was into the big spice tank and created an in-universe reason for it in his later books.