Dune (2021) Denis Villeneuve's Film

[Moe_Syzlak]

I wasn't so sure on that. It looks like he's jumping on the worm because he's awesome. I thought the idea of forcing it's scales open, so the worm moves the opening away from the sand and so caries the rider up to the top was such cool logical thinking through of how it could be done by Herbert. I hope we see that properly.

I mean I get that and I agree with what you’re saying. But honestly, I could forgive so many details like that if they simply make Paul a tragic figure. The beauty of Dune is that the messiah isn’t the savior; he doesn’t ride off into the sunset. He’s actually the agent of the universe’s undoing. I get hints in the trailer that the story is going that direction, particularly with Villeneuve wanting to do a Part 3.

 

[krausfadr]

Yeah I hope so to. The sandworm surfing at the end of pt1 was pretty awful though.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

Im really excited for this. I loved Part 1 and I cant wait for two. Im hoping one of my local theaters does a double features (with time for an extended bathroom break between)

 

[Iritscen]

I'll definitely need to rewatch Part 1 before I see Part 2. I'm intimately familiar with the original books and the 1984 and 2000 film versions, so it's less about needing a reminder and more about wanting to get back into the flow of this adaptation. However I'm pretty sure that most moviegoers will not remember anything that happened in the first film, so I wonder how many people will be motivated to see Part 2.

I also wonder how far the movies can possibly get in the story of Dune. I can't be the only one thinking about the long game here. Will Villeneuve get to cover Dune Messiah? Children of Dune? That's at least two more movies right there. Then the story gets weird with the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune, where Leto II turns into a giant worm. I think that part of the story would generally be considered "unfilmable" so it feels like we will never get farther than the Sci-Fi Channel got in 2003, which makes me despair a bit. But Children of Dune can at least be considered a somewhat satisfying stopping point, if they get that far. Technically Dune Messiah can work as a stopping point too, albeit it would probably be a downer for the audience.

Regarding Part 1, I think the production was obviously fantastic, but Villeneuve committed a big blunder: he tried to tell us, not show us, that Dune is an epic story. He does this with frequently ponderous direction and a soundtrack that literally shouts at you that this is An Important Story. Past Dune adaptations never had to do this; the story will naturally reveal its epic nature as it goes, through the powers of its characters and the scale of the world.

I also didn't feel much of a connection with the characters, as they are mostly uncharismatic. Chalamet himself is fine, but his character is written as a "relateable" insecure teen instead of a young man brimming with confidence who is the product of some of the best tutelage the universe has to offer, and who is living up to his teachers' expectations. Witness the building manic intensity of Kyle MacLachlan's Paul in 1984's "Dune" and compare that to the unsure sensitive boy in 2021's "Part 1" who says, "What if I'm not good enough?" I'm very curious how Villeneuve intends to turn this Paul into a desert warlord who longs to redden the sands with Harkonnen blood, not to mention a prophesied religious leader who leads thousands of death commandos. It doesn't seem like he can get there from here, does it?

I'm disappointed by how Jessica was handled, and Chani failed to make any impact in her brief screen time at the end of the movie. Sorry, but Zendaya has none of the presence of Sean Young or Barbara Kodetova. I get the impression she will just be a sort of bland girlfriend for Paul, instead of an alluring gateway into an exotic, violent and dangerous world. (Remember the part in Dune Messiah where it turns that out that Chani has been killing some of Paul's challengers who she deems to be unworthy of a fight with Paul? Male challengers? I don't think Villeneuve does.) One part I can give kudos to is the depiction of Duncan Idaho, because even though he seems ultimately unimportant as a character in the early story, those of us who've read the book know how important he becomes later. Past Dune film adaptations didn't give him much presence or screen time, but any investment made in Idaho early on will pay off later.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

The reviews for part two are pretty positive. I just booked a showing for next Thursday night. I should probably rewatch the first part this week sometime.

 

[Canon Editor]

I'll definitely need to rewatch Part 1 before I see Part 2. I'm intimately familiar with the original books and the 1984 and 2000 film versions, so it's less about needing a reminder and more about wanting to get back into the flow of this adaptation. However I'm pretty sure that most moviegoers will not remember anything that happened in the first film, so I wonder how many people will be motivated to see Part 2.

I also wonder how far the movies can possibly get in the story of Dune. I can't be the only one thinking about the long game here. Will Villeneuve get to cover Dune Messiah? Children of Dune? That's at least two more movies right there.

Villeneuve has been saying multiple times that in his intentions, the trilogy would end with Messiah.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Villeneuve has been saying multiple times that in his intentions, the trilogy would end with Messiah.

As he should IMO. I’ve only read Children of Dune past Messiah, but it’s definitely the beginning of a new story.

 

[TM2YC]

Does anybody have first hand info on if the 1st part trailers were ever released on blu-ray? I don't think they are on the standard Dune Part1 discs but maybe they appeared on other discs, for other films? I'd like to own them in not-sh*t youtube quality for editing purposes.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Just got back from seeing Part Two. I’ll write a little more tomorrow with spoiler tags, but I enjoyed it. If you liked Part One, this is definitely part two of the same movie. So if you didn’t like part one be warned. The movie made some interesting choices. Some worked very well for me and others less so. But I feel I should talk about that more when I post some spoiler stuff. Definitely a movie to see on the big screen though!

 

[Gibichung]

Just got back from seeing Part Two. I’ll wrote a little more tomorrow with spoiler tags, but I enjoyed it. If you liked Part One, this is definitely part two of the same movie. So if you didn’t like part one be warned. The movie made some interesting choices. Some worked very well for me and others less so. But I feel I should talk about that more when I post some spoiler stuff. Definitely a movie to see on the big screen though!

Really need to see this on IMAX first.

And I'm too late. I can't get any tickets this weekend

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Okay, I have a few things to say about the movie. They could be considered small spoilers, so if you want to be completely unspoiled, don’t read further.

The movie is definitely much more unambiguous about its stance on the dangers of religion and charismatic messiahs. From what I understand, Herbert wrote Messiah as a response to people not getting the message he was trying to send in the original book. For me, this worked well. Chani becomes the audience surrogate that Villanueve wants us to relate to. It also becomes very clear that a third movie is intended. So much so that if Part One was the first act, this feels like the second act of a three act story arc. So if you were annoyed at how Part One ended, you may feel similarly here (though not nearly as bad IMO).

The other major choice is how they dealt with Alia. Alia communicates via Jessica in utero for the entire movie. This obviously sidesteps the challenge of having to portray an infant or toddler with adult consciousnes, but it also shrinks the timeline down to presumably less than nine months. I may be alone, but I kept thinking about how that was a LOT to happen in that timeframe.

Otherwise I’d say the movie is incredibly faithful to the book. It is definitely implied that there will be a Part 3 and it seemed to me that would be sooner than I had initially expected.

 

[daedal]

So it turns out the black and white scenes are really infra red. Villeneuve said so in an interview at the Colbert's late show recently.
I did not know infra red capture was a thing. I wonder if it's being done digitally or if it is possible to capture infra red on film? Are those scene in imax? So many technical questions...
I haven't seen part two yet, those of you who have, what do you thought of that? did you pay attention to that kind of detail, does it bring something unique? have we seen IR in other movies before? Are there any IR specialist in the room to educate me?
I'm probably going to see the movie before it leaves theatres, but meanwhile I'm curious to hear your impressions on the whole thing.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

So it turns out the black and white scenes are really infra red. Villeneuve said so in an interview at the Colbert's late show recently.
I did not know infra red capture was a thing. I wonder if it's being done digitally or if it is possible to capture infra red on film? Are those scene in imax? So many technical questions...
I haven't seen part two yet, those of you who have, what do you thought of that? did you pay attention to that kind of detail, does it bring something unique? have we seen IR in other movies before? Are there any IR specialist in the room to educate me?
I'm probably going to see the movie before it leaves theatres, but meanwhile I'm curious to hear your impressions on the whole thing.

It is a cool effect that is (imo) justified in-film. In other words, there’s a very good reason why it is used and why you didn’t see the effect in the Geidi Prime scenes in the first movie.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

I did not know infra red capture was a thing. I wonder if it's being done digitally or if it is possible to capture infra red on film?

Sure, why not? IR is just light at a frequency lower than the human eye can register but there's nothing stopping another medium (like film) from registering it. We can't see X-rays either because they're too high of a frequency but they're recorded on film all the time.

 

[daedal]

Sure, why not? IR is just light at a frequency lower than the human eye can register but there's nothing stopping another medium (like film) from registering it. We can't see X-rays either because they're too high of a frequency but they're recorded on film all the time.

So I guess they have to use a special lense or maybe a filter over the lense that only lets IR light through? Do you need a higher or lower ISO sensibility for your film to react properly, or does it let the same amount of light in, but just different "type" or frequency of light?

 

[Gibichung]

I. Have. Seen. It.

Caught a late night IMAX showing. Got home well past midnight... and WORTH IT. Part Two was gloooorious. What a movie.

So much better than the first one in my opinion. I mean, having seen this I get why they needed to cut it into two, but Part One felt barely a movie. It was good but there was a lot of sand-staring and flashbacks/forwards. I think more than anything it primed you on how immersive that world could be- so in that way Part One was a success (ex: sandstorm scene).

Without giving away spoilers, the sandworm riding scene here tops the sandstorm scene from the first. My chair was vibrating. I felt I was literally riding that sandworm. My only non-spoiler gripes about the movie was that the short amount of time with Christopher Walken... felt like Christopher Walken lol His scenes felt like he was just hanging out with him at a Santa Barbara duplex during the summer. I was expecting a bit more fleshed out about the Emperor and what his planet looked like and whatever. It turns out it's just California hahaa

About the black and white scenes in the movie: I think they explained it. That's their sun's reflection on the planet, I think. The black and white scenes felt like a fever dream. Absolutely gorgeous. It's off-world as hell. Makes sense to me. The way it all looked reminds me of those terrible propaganda events from old Nazi ceremony footage as they prepare for battle.

Anyway, highly recommend. It's long, but it's kino. Just good vibes. Movies are back, babyyyy.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Yeah there are a few supporting roles that don’t really get much development. I think anyone who knows Messiah will assume those roles would be much larger in the third part. I thought all the actors did a great job but I just didn’t feel much chemistry between Paul and Chani. But again, I think both Chalamet and Zendaya were terrific. But it’s definitely Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem that steal the show. I’m going to take the kids to see it in a week. This time we’ll see it on the world’s largest IMAX screen.

 

[daedal]

theatres around me offer to see the movie in regular imax OR 70mm film (not digital non-imax screen)
So I guess real film is better than bad imax, right?

 

[asterixsmeagol]

So I guess they have to use a special lense or maybe a filter over the lense that only lets IR light through? Do you need a higher or lower ISO sensibility for your film to react properly, or does it let the same amount of light in, but just different "type" or frequency of light?

I'm not sure if you would need to pre-filter or if you could just have film that only reacts to certain wavelengths? Actually now that I think about it wasn't the movie shot on digital? In that case you would just need a camera with receptors tuned to pick up IR frequencies (like night vision goggles), and then you could apply whatever kind of frequency color shifting you wanted to bring the image into the visual range with false colors, and then apply whatever kind of filters you wanted as usual, including a black and white filter as part of it.

 

[tremault]

So I guess they have to use a special lense or maybe a filter over the lense that only lets IR light through? Do you need a higher or lower ISO sensibility for your film to react properly, or does it let the same amount of light in, but just different "type" or frequency of light?

You cannot change the wavelengths of light with a filter, and for a film or digital sensor(CCD) that are designed to be sensitive to visible frequencies, filtering out visible light and only allowing IR would result in darkness. Having said that, many phone sensors these days actually pick up infrared light. You can see it if you look on your phone screen and point the camera to your TV remote. So many modern CCDs can pick up infrared light, but I do not believe most high end cameras for cinema would have that type of CCD, they would be highly optimised for the visual spectrum I expect. It would probably be very expensive to have a custom CCD setup for filming infrared but that is possible. It would also probably be very expensive to set up infrared film for a film camera. There is 35mm infrared film for stills cameras, so it exists, but preparing all of that to go into a film camera seems like it may be even more expensive. you can't use ISO, as the ISO is simply how fast the film reacts to the light is is designed to react to. It would have to be manufactured with specific chemicals and would need specific processing.
My guess is that they used a customised digital camera.

I'm not sure if you would need to pre-filter or if you could just have film that only reacts to certain wavelengths? Actually now that I think about it wasn't the movie shot on digital? In that case you would just need a camera with receptors tuned to pick up IR frequencies (like night vision goggles), and then you could apply whatever kind of frequency color shifting you wanted to bring the image into the visual range with false colors, and then apply whatever kind of filters you wanted as usual, including a black and white filter as part of it.

Ah there you go, yes I agree with you