Dune (2021) movie discussion (incl. spoilers)

[DennisN]

This is a thread for discussing the SF movie Dune (2021).
Please post your opinions and reviews of the movie here, which may contain spoilers.

There will be spoilers in this thread so please don't read it
if you haven't seen the movie and don't like it spoiled!

My short review:

I really liked it. I think it was the best SF movie I've seen since quite some time ago.

The casting and the acting was very good, and the cinematography was excellent.
As a Dune fan I was of course already very familiar with the story, and I wonder
how my impression of the movie would have been if I did not know the story.

Two things that I also paid attention to and found interesting when I saw the movie
was (1) the soundtrack and (2) the general atmosphere of the movie.

The soundtrack sounded quite unusual and a bit "alien", which I thought gave the
movie an extra touch of feeling "otherworldy". Here's a clip where the composer
described working with many different recordings of unusual sound sources to
make it more "alien", and I think he succeeded with this:

How Hans Zimmer's Genius Made ‘Dune’ a Musical Masterpiece — Supporting Players
I felt that the atmosphere was quite unusual for a SF movie.
There was sometimes a strong medieval feel to it, which I can't remember having seen
so accentuated before in a SF movie (well, there are some semi-medieval things in
Star Wars, but in my opinion they are more like "sword & sorcery" and "high fantasy").

The portrayal of House Atreides had a strong medieval feel to it (the settings, scenes and ceremonies).
The portrayal of the Bene Gesserit also had a medieval feel to it, and there is a clip where the director
breaks down the scene with the needle test ("Gom Jabbar") and describes that he tried to
make them feel a bit like medieval nuns:

'Dune' Director Denis Villeneuve Breaks Down the Gom Jabbar Scene | Vanity Fair
Also, I think the cinematography of the use of "The Voice" was excellent, and very cool.
And Charlotte Rampling gets a big extra plus from me as the Reverend Mother. She felt cunning and scary.

I very much look forward to the next movie!

 

[DennisN]

So, I thought this version of 'Troubled Teen Dreams of Kissing a Girl' was quite excellent.

Viewed through a social realistic lens:

The story of a troubled young man who loses his father and turns to drugs.
He experiences a series of psychoses and gradually develops a messiah complex.
Eventually he becomes a cult leader of a superstitious tribe in a remote location.

 

[geishaslave]

Why did Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) shave the facial hair after meeting the Fremen? Did the actor suffer a horrible shaving accident during shooting in real life? lol

Who betrayed Kynes, Lady Jessica and Paul at the eco station? This based on the scene of the Sardaukar arriving, there was the edge of a device buried in the sand.

There is a scene in Dune 2021 where the script from Dune 1984 is matched word for word. Interesting as it indicates to me that the 2021 team looked at Mr. Lynch's work much more closely than implied.

 

[Haborix]

...

There is a scene in Dune 2021 where the script from Dune 1984 is matched word for word. Interesting as it indicates to me that the 2021 team looked at Mr. Lynch's work much more closely than implied.

Does the example you have in mind also happen to be directly from the book? If that were the case, then I wouldn't be surprised by the exact overlap.

 

[geishaslave]

Does the example you have in mind also happen to be directly from the book? If that were the case, then I wouldn't be surprised by the exact overlap.

Good point. I will dig out my copy of the Dune novel and check that. Thanks for this, had not considered checking.

 

[geishaslave]

For those who want to discuss the hypothetical physics of Dune, the Holtzman stuff, folded space navigation, and more, please take a look at the following.

1) Grazier, Kevin R. "Cosmic Origami: Folded Space and FTL in the Duniverse" In Grazier, Kevin R. (ed.) The Science of Dune pp. 177–206 ISBN 978-1-933771-28-1.

https://archive.org/details/scienceofduneuna00graz/page/177/mode/2up

2) The Science of Dune: An Unauthorized Exploration into the Real Science Behind Frank Herbert's Fictional Universe.

Smart Pop 2007

232 pages

Print ISBN: 9781933771281, 1933771283
eText ISBN: 9781935251408, 1935251406

Download AZW3 format below (~2.68MB)

https://1lib.us/book/17939237/ef803b?id=17939237&secret=ef803b

 

[Borg]

Went to see Dune on Monday. Overall, it was pretty good.

The one bad thing was that the theater had the volume up way too high. I had to put cotton in my ears ten minutes into the movie and still felt like I was going deaf. The volume must have been a constant 110 db - seriously.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Towards the end, as they were walking with the fremen across the desert (with the distracting sub-par CGI of a worm rider), all I could think of was: put your goddamn masks on.

 

[Haborix]

Went to see Dune on Monday. Overall, it was pretty good.

The one bad thing was that the theater had the volume up way too high. I had to put cotton in my ears ten minutes into the movie and still felt like I was going deaf. The volume must have been a constant 110 db - seriously.

Agree with you about the volume. I couldn't decide if my long absence from a movie theater was the cause or if they really had just cranked it up.

 

[DennisN]

The one bad thing was that the theater had the volume up way too high.

Agree with you about the volume. I couldn't decide if my long absence from a movie theater was the cause or if they really had just cranked it up.

 

[Bandersnatch]

The one bad thing was that the theater had the volume up way too high. I had to put cotton in my ears ten minutes into the movie and still felt like I was going deaf. The volume must have been a constant 110 db - seriously.

Ouch. Mine had a dirty screen. I say, let the theatres die.

 

[Borg]

Yeah. About that loud.