Who's looking forward to Dune Part 2?

[SimonDoom]

Dune Part 2 debuts on March 1. It doesn't have much to do with erotica, I suppose, but I think a lot of the authors here are into sci fi, so I'm curious about whether you are looking forward to it and why.

I read Dune as a teen, decades ago, a few years after I read Lord of the Rings. I enjoyed both, greatly, although in different ways. For years I thought both could never be turned into decent movies. I thought David Lynch's Dune in 1984 was a disaster. But I was astonished by how good I thought Peter Jackson's LOTR was. It left a lot of the book out, but it had no choice in order to condense the story into three movies. I thought the casting was great and the realization of Middle-earth was excellent. The musical score was one of the best in movie history, IMO.

I thought the same of Dune Part 1. Visually, I thought it was a near-perfect realization of the book. I think the cast is great. The problem with Dune is the story. LOTR is a feel-good story. You can fall in love with the characters. It's hard to fall in love with anybody in Dune. It's a fairly bleak, dark universe, and everybody in it follows a questionable moral code. Paul, the hero, is a compelling but morally ambiguous hero.

Still, if you get past that, it's a fascinating story, with maybe the best world-building in sci fi/fantasy history, and I'm looking forward to part 2. I can't wait to see Christopher Walken as the emperor. I suspect it will be far more entertaining than the first installment because of the quicker pace and more action, and the further development of the relationships. I'm curious to see how Alia is portrayed. I've heard that Anya Joy-Taylor is in Part 2, but nobody has said whom she plays, so I wonder if somehow she's going to play Alia as a super-intelligent and preternaturally mature child.

 

[samhasstories]

Very much looking forward to it. I love the book, love the first movie. Love everything I've seen from Denis Velleneueve to this point, and can't wait to see what he's got in store for us with this one.

I'd planned to re-read the book again before it comes, but time's running short. But soon.

 

[djrip]

I loooove Lynch's Dune for the weirdness. But yes, awaiting anxiously.

 

[TakeItOrLeaveIt]

I’m a huge fan of the Dune series - I’ve actually just finished re-reading through to Dune Chapterhouse - and I really do think it stands up.

The movie, as with BladeRunner 2049, is a masterpiece imo. I’m very much looking forward to Part 2. I understand that Villeneuve is planning on adapting Messiah to complete the Paul Atreides arc. Messiah is probably my favourite of the Frank Herbert penned entries.

So, yes, I am rather excited!

 

[AG31]

Dune is an example of my main criterion for an important classic piece of narrative art (books, movies). That is, I remember it for decades. Maybe I don't remember the details, but I remember the impact, the feel. Here I'm talking about Dune, the book. I did enjoy the movie, but not like the book. Other examples, all encountered in my teens or earlier are African Queen (Bogey/Hepburn film), Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, The Story of O, although it's probably not fair to include erotica, since it's impact depends on what buttons it pushes.

So, I'll probably go see the movie, but won't expect the impact of African Queen.

 

[AlinaX]

Mixed feelings, really. I'm fond of the TV miniseries and the original film. The visuals in the new film(s) are good, but I haven't felt an emotional connection to it.

 

[O2]

Me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I took myself off to see Part One last week - the Oz distributor very sensibly brought it back for a cinema run.

Being a fan of Rebecca Ferguson, I liked it; Timothy what's his name, not so much. Hard to be a tough guy when you barely fit into the boots, and the hair? Anyway.

I'm looking forward to Part Two - the "big cinema" appeal of Villeneuve is always there, and Anya Tailor-Joy is always worth it.

I might even go back and read the book.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I am in the minority, but I didn't like part 1 much at all. It felt too Hollywood-y. Amazing visuals and some equally impressive worldbuilding, but I just felt like I was watching A-List actors doing their thing for six hours. It got monotonous.

 

[Devinter]

I've got tickets to go see it on the 3rd. But I didn't love the first part. I mean, it was essentially only half of the first book and so it ended before things got any sort of satisfying resolution. The story felt half-baked, because.. Well.. It was! But that's also why I think the second part is going to be better than the first. The basic world-building for people unfamiliar with Dune has now been set, and so now there should be more room to bring that world and its characters to life!

 

[djrip]

I am in the minority, but I didn't like part 1 much at all. It felt too Hollywood-y. Amazing visuals and some equally impressive worldbuilding, but I just felt like I was watching A-List actors doing their thing for six hours. It got monotonous.

I miss the voiceovers.

 

[Bamagan]

I liked how the movie somehow managed to look and feel like the 'retro' SciFi of the era in which the book was written, and which probably influenced Herbert in various ways, yet managed to avoid looking campy and cheap. The relative lack of blasters/phasers/death rays probably helps in that regard. And I thought it was about as faithful an adaptation as possible given the constraints of cinematic productions. So yeah, looking forward to it.

 

[karina_jayde]

I'm really looking forward to it.

I liked Part One enough to see it multiple times in theaters, but I still have a few quibbles. Notably, I think they could have gone a bit weirder with the set designs and costume design to make it feel more distinct and extravagant. In particular, didn't really care for the designs of the Harkonnen, reducing them to generic bad guy designs. I also feel like a couple of shorter scenes from the book (including the chat between Jessica and Yueh, and maybe a shorter version of the dinner scene) would have fleshed the characters, plot, and world out a bit better. Just a few extra minutes of screentime on that front would have gone a long way.

My main gripe is that the trailers for it have revealed SO MUCH. This was the same for Part 1 as well. Of course I know everything that's going to happen (having read the books), but seeing some particularly epic moments spoiled in multiple trailers irked me a bit. Almost makes me wish I would have just slipped out of the cinema for a few minutes when the Dune 2 trailer popped up.

I've also enjoyed the other adaptations, for one reason or another.

I think Lynch's version, for all of its flaws, leans into the fact that this version of humanity in the future would be <I>alien</I> to us in a lot of ways. The set design and costume design (for its time) is wondrous. I wish the recent versions had injected a bit more of that sci-fi extravagance into the design.

You can fall in love with the characters. It's hard to fall in love with anybody in Dune.

While everything's subjective, I never really felt that way. In pretty much every version, I really resonate with Jessica's struggles. She may not necessarily follow my own moral standard, but as someone who also grew up in a rigid religious environment and was forced into a specific role, I definitely sympathized with her a great deal. Of course, my own life didn't involve being part of a long-spanning messiah-producing project, lol.

 

[oneagainst]

(puts hand up) - the big debate is there's a place where I live that's doing a Part 1 and Part 2 back-to-back, which is 5.35h of continuous viewing.

Loved the sumptuous visuals from the first film and the way it was brave enough to stick close to the book and go to two movies instead of taking the knife and chopping down into one. Now I just need someone to go with!

 

[MadeleineSinha]

It was a load of rubbish.
Denis Villneuve’s standard shots of aircraft flying with heat haze distortion behind them is getting very dull. Paul Atreides was a whining self obsessed child, with nothing engaging about his character.
The tech was ludicrous, they can fly across the universe but can’t create a weapon better than a sword?
Dull, dull, dull. I will not be watching part 2.

And Lord of the rings was rubbish as well.
Run through the woods, have a fight, run through the woods, have a fight, run over the mountains,have a fight. Oooh dragon!
It’s a kids story and should be treated as such.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Oh yes. I really enjoyed the first half.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The tech was ludicrous, they can fly across the universe but can’t create a weapon better than a sword?

I did think that too, but at least the swords didn't go "woosh".

 

[mildlyaroused]

It’s a kids story and should be treated as such.

I don't particularly enjoy a lot of fantasy films, but you sound jaded and pretentious. Treat a story like a story, don't arbitrarily categorise it by its alleged intended audience.

 

[Bamagan]

I did think that too, but at least the swords didn't go "woosh".

The reason given in the books is that personal defensive technology is dominant at the time of the events. Personal shields protect users from most projectiles and even fast-moving stabbing weapons, but by slowing their attacks just before striking, they can force a blade through the shield. They have lasers, which are seen briefly in the film, but if they collide with a shield they create a reaction as destructive as a nuclear weapon, so they are very rarely used in combat zones. They often can't use the shields on Arrakis, however, because the sand worms can detect them (apparently by the sound/vibrations they emit) and it attracts them.
Apologies if you already knew all that, but perhaps not everyone does.

 

[AlinaX]

They have lasers, which are seen briefly in the film, but if they collide with a shield they create a reaction as destructive as a nuclear weapon, so they are very rarely used in combat zones.

This has always bothered me. Surely it makes an easy way to deliver widespread destruction to an enemy, just by targetting their shields with lasers?

 

[MadeleineSinha]

I don't particularly enjoy a lot of fantasy films, but you sound jaded and pretentious. Treat a story like a story, don't arbitrarily categorise it by its alleged intended audience.

Pretentious?
Moi?

 

[SimonDoom]

The tech was ludicrous, they can fly across the universe but can’t create a weapon better than a sword?
Dull, dull, dull. I will not be watching part 2.

This is a problem with the book, not the movie. It's the central issue for which you have to suspend disbelief. It's a world that's far more technologically advanced than our own, but they've banned the use of computers and severely limited the use of certain types of weapons. If you don't buy it, then nothing makes much sense. The book offers an explanation. I thought it was OK.

 

[Bamagan]

This has always bothered me. Surely it makes an easy way to deliver widespread destruction to an enemy, just by targetting their shields with lasers?

If I recall correctly, the reaction occurs at both ends, although that's admittedly not an especially likely thing to happen in real-world physics unless some kind of quantum effect is involved, an idea that may not have been formulated at the time the book was written, or at least hadn't become mainstream. But physics aside, the rules of war at that time (The Great Convention) prohibited using nuclear weapons or lasgun-shield devices on enemy combatants. Like in any war, rules are sometimes ignored, but since those kinds of weapons are not exactly sneaky, massive retaliation from all the other Houses and the Imperial Forces generally kept such offenses to a minimum, at least as Herbert wrote it.

 

[karina_jayde]

This has always bothered me. Surely it makes an easy way to deliver widespread destruction to an enemy, just by targetting their shields with lasers?

It's expanded slightly more in the books, and more of an implication than something directly stated, but doing so would nuke whatever territory you were trying to take, while also taking out the enemy. The houses are bound by certain rules and expectations, both to stay off the Emperor's shitlist and to avoid the ire of the other houses. Using tactics like that (or nuclear weapons) would take the gloves off, and every other House would use the same tactics against you.

Similarly, just because we have nukes in our world, doesn't mean it's smart to use them.

But the truth is all the shield stuff is just a conceit so Herbert could combine swordfighting with sci-fi themes. It was fairly common in other works at the time, and he wasn't even the first to use the logic of a shield blocking everything but slower blades. Other authors used similar conceits to justify the 'swords in space' them

 

[TadOverdon]

I'll see it on opening day.