Am I wrong to find it hard to believe they haven't filmed any of Part II? They were just sitting there on-location and going "nope, not gonna shoot any Part II material"? They've been talking up this ultimatum of "see it in theatre or else" for months, and I'm supposed to believe the studio would actually sit here and re-negotiate/re-budget cast/crew/locations? What am I missing?

Edit: For the record, I really liked Part I. How many people here watched it and were expecting to here people's mental dialogue jump on the sound track at a few points?

As someone in films myself I suspect they shot a ton of material they can reuse in part II. Maybe Villeneuve even came with the argument ("Part II is basically half in the box as we shot aome of the stuff already").

However it is hard to say if they really didn't have it planned from the start. Both is possible and likely.

Villeneuve's film definitly was a risk from a film producers standpoint. The director is not known for compromises and the material he worked with is not known to automatically lend itself to be filmed easily — historically these have been the key ingridients for catastrophic productions. So given the risk I wouldn't be surprised if they really didn't plan for part II from the start.

But my feeling is that they already decided for part II to exist before the movie hit the box office (which is why the movie feels like it needs a part II)

Thanks for the explanation, I'd assumed execs have access to the material and can tell what they have on their hands as it comes along (further assuming that this is the whole point of their job aside from telling if a screenplay is any good).

I think there's a lot of work to be done before you can start shooting scenes. Screenplay, set design etc. Since the project wasn't officially greenlit they would have had to be creative to pay for all that. I doubt it would have happened.

But I'm not in the film industry so perhaps I'm wrong!

While I agree with all the people who appreciate Dunes special effects, scenery, and actor choices…can we all agree that the directing is lack luster? The story isn’t being explained well. Emotions are being expressed with little or no back story and really fail to engage the audience emotionally. It really seems as if this would have been better done in GoT style. I mean I have to watch part two, but not because part 1 was good story telling or even acting. It wasn’t.

I love the way it is directed. Finally a movie that doesn't treat the audience with contempt and just wants us to be a fly on a wall in a story bigger than life.

I had no trouble following the story and I had both never read Dune before (yeah I know) and English is not my first language. The story lets those who want to dive into it do just that, but it is never spoonfeeding the audience, which is just too common and throws me off in so many movies because instead of feeling something that has been motivated by some inner forces of the world I am watching it feels like something just done to tingle my feelings in often very predictable ways.

Just like in everyday life emotions are not a 100% explained but there is nothing arbitrary in that movie. E.g. the way Paul's mother acts is unexplained more or less, but it isn't unexplainable. By explaining this for example, the film would loose parts of what made it great to watch in my eyes. But tastes differ of course.

While I share the distaste for spoonfeed drama/comedy (laugh tracks etc). I’m referring more to pacing and connection. Movies or shows that take the time to emotionally connect you with a character so you can share (even to a small degree) the weight of an event lend color to a story and make it personal.

I agree that the pacing in Dune was uncommon, but for me it fit quite well with the story, as it doubles the feelings Paul must have felt within the audience. He and his family is exposed to bigger forces and can do nothing about it, while being exposed to dreams and visions of far off places, all with a hint of puberty which is disorienting in it's own right. So a lot of this emotional "unguidedness" is part of the material the director worked with.

Whether Paul or his family works as a projection surface for the viewers or not seems to be a bit of an individual topic. I personally didn't feel unable to empathize with the protagonists. If anything the untypical impending doom (like in a greek tragedy) that is so rare in hollywood cinema nowadays made me care in a different way. Yeah, Paul is the hero, but you can't shake the feeling it is not gonna end well. Instead it made me ponder more about the world and society that produces such fates and where one would find parallels in our time (opiates in Afghanistan maybe?)

I like it when the filmic world is the protagonist before anybody in it and these films are sadly quite rare, especially with a decent production.

I don't really agree, I think it was great. I'm really glad it's not GoT style, and that it's more austere, cold in a way, as I think it's a better fit for the story. I don't think it failed to engage the audience emotionally, but rather that you personally failed to engage with it. Same thing with the lack of backstory, I don't have many memories of the Lynch one and had no trouble following.

I think maybe you are used to a certain style of movie that Dune differs from, and thus have a hard time with it?

Foundation (on Apple TV) seems to be trying to GoT-ify the books, and not for the better in some cases (characters are less thoughtful, more action-hero, kind of weird choices). Dune (2021) at least avoided that, but it really needed more dialog. There are a lot of ponderous and beautiful scenes and soundscapes + landscapes, what Villeneuve is great at (it's in all of his movies that I've seen, and an element I greatly enjoy). However, watching it with a friend he had more questions than answers by the end, and not just because it was the first half of the book (and the first of the original 6 books). More dialog with a bit more explanation, which could easily have fit into the movie with its long scenes just watching people stand there and look contemplative or worried without extending the total runtime. The pair of movies may work well as a whole, but this movie is not a terribly good standalone film.

2001: A Space Odyssey is (imo) the greatest film of all time, and it's just about incomprehensible on first viewing and explains nothing. So while it might not be the best commercial move I'm personally very happy with telling the story with less dialogue.

Dune was good, it wasn’t 2001 good. But even 2001 did a better job (up to the trippy end at least) of storytelling.

That might be a personal preference but I don't mind movies that take more investment to really get. Some things you'll understand by watching it a few more times, some things you'll get by reading the book, some things you'll get by learning about the movie itself. Some things also take time to digest.

I liked the time spent on the visuals and music. It was dialogue that was missing. Long scenes that would not have been any cheaper or more expensive if characters had just spoken. Shadout, for instance, never got to be a real character. One scene of dialog, I think. Others suffered similarly.

A long scene with dialogue is not the same as a long scene without it though.

Foundation is verging on CW-level sci-fi writing

Yes. A better style of movie, that engages in storytelling, and not shallow highlights riffing off the experience of the book, with sufficient razzle dazzle to make people who haven't read the book follow along. The power of Dune is the interwoven plots, not the linear narrative the movie attempts.

It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good.

I think trying to find the book in the movie is useless, there's already the book for that, and the movie can't really be better at being a book than the book. I don't have many memories of Dune, but I have still strong ones of Hyperion, and I don't think I would ever be satisfied by a movie that attemps to be just the book. On the other hand, I would be fine with Villeneuve adapting it with his usual style (though maybe Hyperion is a bit too organic for his style? It's hard to say).

> A better style of movie

> It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good.

I think it was great.

By GoT style - I’m referring to time being taken to tell the story. Not necessarily in the style of GoT. I should have been more explicit there. Heck I guess I could have supplanted it with “A series of unfortunate events” style . My point was that it takes time to explore the characters and give the audience (readers or not) a chance to connect with the characters.

An important note, I have read all of Dune, all the way up to the God Emperor. I wasn’t expecting the movie to be as good as the book. However, the feeling I get from the experience is lost opportunity. We won’t get another rendition of Dune probably in our lifetimes. Would have been nice if it was given more screen time / there’s a lot of good story there and if this movie is any indication all we’ll get is a couple deep stares by the protagonists with no context.

Yep. For a world building story the movie was very pedestrian in making it seem like a new and different world. They made several poor choices cutting and modifying the story which I feel directly contradicts the spirit of the book.

It felt like reading a Brian novel - a bunch of weird stuff that didn't have any heart or feeling.

I watched it and will watch it again and maybe I'll change my opinion but it wasn't the savior of the Dune world story. I'll even pay to see it in a theater even though I saw it free on HBO.

Lynch and Jodorowsky had wildly imaginative visions for Dune. A precedent has been set that Villeneuve failed to live up to.

The new Dune relied on mostly the same key scenes, and lifted dozens of shots directly from Lynch's Dune. Villeneuve isn't enough of of an artist to imagine his own film, so we instead got a watered down version of Lynch's Dune.

Baron Harkonnen was properly villainous in Lynch's Dune. In Villenueve's Dune we got a fat guy in a mumu, and Gurney had to explain to us that the Harkonnen's are "brutal", because no actual brutality made it to screen.

The new Dune had way more expository talking heads than the old Dune, yet I still managed to lose the plot. The battle sequences looked like something you'd see on the history channel. They sent a full crew out to the Wadi Rum desert and somehow managed to make it look like the rear-projection set of The Mandalorian.

I loved Blade runner 2049, but I suppose with that film Villeneuve had an established style guide to work from, and understated performances fit with the tone of the film.

Dune is a different beast, and Villeneuve doesn't have the chops, unfortunately.

> It felt like reading a Brian novel - a bunch of weird stuff that didn't have any heart or feeling.

The novels were largely written by Kevin J. Anderson, who also was in the credits for the movie as a "Creative Consultant," so make of that what you will.

I agree with your feeling, though; the metaphor I keep coming back to is that it was a tapestry that was reduced to a thread: Paul's rise.

It felt like all the supporting characters and their motivations, which form a part of the tapestry of time that the entire Dune series covers, were reduced to steps that Paul is climbing to the top.

I can't agree with this. The movie was easy to follow (although the lore isn't spoonfed via long exposition scenes). I went to watch it with several people who had no prior knowledge and they seemed to genuinely enjoy it, as well as understand the plot.

This is anecdotal evidence, but I found that online (Discord chat, reviews...), most people who had no prior knowledge of Dune, seemed to have enjoyed it more than the people who had prior book knowledge.

My main concern going in was the 3rd act (or lack of one) but I was already fully expecting it, so I had no issues knowing it was only part 1.

As a massive fan of the book and someone who enjoyed the film and think it was excellent, my reservations about it boil down to the fact that Denis' directing style feels somewhat restrained compared to his previous films. My impression watching it for the first time was that the film was very fast-paced and as a result felt as though it was glossing over the lore. I chalk this up to the fact that the film has a LOT of narrative ground to cover, and even at 2.5 hours long the film could've still run for much longer.

In my estimation what we end up missing as a result of this economy in storytelling is the feeling of "living" in the scene. There are few, if any, opportunities for the film to slow down and allow the viewer to immerse themselves in the gravity of each scene. What's missing is the opportunity for the viewer to reflect upon the information they are receiving and to figure things out as the characters are figuring them out, or before they do. There is little in the way of quiet moments that allow the viewer to process and come to certain realizations themselves. Unfortunately this is not a luxury that this movie is able to provide without making for a very long film.

That said, I still love it.

It's a setting that makes it really difficult to turn into a movie without a bunch of exposition. For example, even in the original book, you wouldn't really know why they have Mentats instead of computers unless you turned to glossary pages.

I love the setting, but it just doesn't translate very well to the big screen at all, and I agree with you a long form TV series in the GoT style would have been much better.

My girlfriend who never even knew what Dune was, was blown away by the world and the movie and hat no issues at all with the unexplained bits.

If a movie just throws you into a new place of course that new place feels foreign and might be hard to read, but if I wanted a known thing I wouldn't go and watch a new movie in the cinema, right?

I think the story telling is ok at least much better than the David Lynch's version, but the characters and settings are actually a step down.

I quite liked the overall direction. I liked that I had to piece together the backstory. Not everything needs a Star Wars wall of text.

For me the weak part was the casting of several of the supporting actors. Several of them just didn't work for me, and it felt like they were included more for their name than fitting the role.

It gave me the impression of a vignette from the Dune universe, as opposed to an epic space opera.

I quite enjoyed it. I was joking with my wife that the first 3 minutes before the title roll was better than the Lynch version.

The effects certainly helped; the sheer size of things was amazing.

Awesome, I really enjoyed Dune, it's one of the best movies ever made. The scenery were so beautiful.

When you state it's one of the best movies ever made, do you mean it's up there with Apocalypse Now? Are there lines or performances from Dune you intend to stand next to Brando's? Is it in any way pointing at or making explicit an essential aspect of the human condition in a way that no other film has done before? (You don't have to agree with me this is important for one of the best movies ever made but it helps.) Should it stand shoulder to shoulder with Bergman or--for sci-fi--Alien or Blade Runner? If so, I'd really appreciate an explanation of why you think it's one of the best movies ever made.

It's my opinion that Dune is the seal to Villeneuve's fall from grace. His early career was studded with greats like Sicario, which explored the deep vulnerability of a powerless female lead outflanked by the violent potential of the professional men in her company; and Enemy, a psychotic allegory for fear of real intimacy. Villeneuve was a rising star, I couldn't have been more excited for where he was pushing film together with his often companion, Roger Deakins.

Dune is nothing more than beautiful scenery with airbrushed beauties vaulting through bedecked spaces. The dialogue could have left the lips of anyone in any scene with as much impact as the platitudes of a college freshman.

There is good cinema within our generation but it is startlingly rare. Most of what makes it to the theaters is bloodless, drained of anything to say about anything at all. Villeneuve's new Blade Runner 2049 was a visual feast as equally as bankrupt. The passage from Nabokov's Pale Fire that Gosling was allowed to develop into the film's baseline test appears as a kind of last, bare rebellion from the director against the powers of Hollywood like Sylvan Esso's pop track Radio, 2 seconds longer than the mandated 3.30 of a real radio hit.

You only chose older films to contrast with Dune (2021). Blade Runner being the newest at nearly 40 years old. It’s a lot easier to bring up old media. Be it music or movies. People revere the old, the classics.

Apocalypse Now, which is amazing, in my opinion, didn’t get amazing reviews upon release.

Fall from grace means you didn’t like Arrival too much either? I loved Arrival as I loved Sicario and Enemy.

> Alien or Blade Runner?

I love the concept of time so personally I enjoyed Arrival more than either of these. Same with Ex Machina, Annihilation, Primer, and Upstream Color. I also think these films are better too. I admit I must have a bias against glorifying the classics because of it being done so much. Obviously everyone has biases.

> There is good cinema within our generation but it is startlingly rare. Most of what makes it to the theaters is bloodless, drained of anything to say about anything at all.

Yes. This is the easy way out. Revering the old is easy. In 40 years people will be saying how new films don’t compare to Dune (2021) or Blade Runner 2049.

You said what makes it to theaters. Not wide release films. That would include a lot of indie and other films. In that case, I completely disagree. I believe it has gotten better. I get to see movies with a wider range with the easier access and technology for smaller films that get to be made. Same with music.

Yes, Arrival was terrible and bloodless. The central conceit was what I called the sundered triforce but this tropes page calls the Dismantled Macguffin [1]. It was Villeneuve's first real stepping out into becoming whatever Hollywood needed him to be and it shows every step of the way.

> This is the easy way out. Revering the old is easy. In 40 years people will be saying how new films don’t compare to Dune (2021) or Blade Runner 2049.

Startlingly rare within our generation means what I say. I would expect there to be a strong corpus this round given film history but it defied my own expectations. That doesn't mean I don't think good examples exist just that they're, well, startlingly rare.

Upstream Color was courageous I'll give you that. But I think it took real moxy from Carruth to make it happen: he did the music, shot the film, wrote it, directed it, and starred in it and for basically no money just like Primer. And I think directors like Ana Lily Amirpour who did A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night are the courage we need to see. The problem doesn't appear to be a lack of directing talent so much that the media machine takes that talent and corrupts it absolutely.

Look what happened to Ridley Scott or Taika Waititi. They became owned and operated by the industries behind them which must ensure a broad appeal for the highest ROI. It's market forces at their most efficient at a global scale we've never seen before.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DismantledMacGuf...

> bloodless

Most of modern life for most people in the west and even beyond is relatively bloodless. At least not bloody filled :p.

I enjoy films that are slow paced and stick closer to reality. So usually I’d prefer them not to be so dramatic. But I get you mean bloodless in how simple Arrival was too.

I don’t disagree at all with those points about Arrival. However Denis didn’t write most of his films any way, no? I enjoy the concept of time a lot so really just that combined with the visuals are enough for me to love the film. You’re def right on the massive weaknesses.

I gave only a few examples. I don’t pay too much attention to what is the major film in theaters. There’s only like 2 major releases on average per week. Even if it’s 3. That’s only 150 films. There are so many good films put out.

I think modern day stacks up if not exceeds past days especially when you don’t look at the major wide releases that are in thousands of movie theaters.

I think we would end up disagreeing on how good current films and old films are. I would not think of old films as good as you would, etc. if we were to begin listing a bunch out. This same sort of thing has happened with me with friends and music before.

To throw two recent films I watched. Though they aren’t new. The Lighthouse and Midsommar. The latter especially stacks up with how so much coverage of it was framing it as a happy story with a happy ending…when it’s a psychological horror film where every protagonist loses.

It’s also harder to compare only films. TVs golden era is arguably happening now. There’s a lot of very high quality awesome TV. Notably thanks to HBO, Netflix. I think one of my favorite shows, Rectify, was on IFC. Pretty obscure. This takes away from films as people can only multi task so much.

I found myself lost in it's world, wondering what it will be like to belong to one of it's great houses, and being able to travel to other planets.

I also found myself considering coloring my eyes lol, it's been really long a movie has got me in that state of mind.

This reminds me of a certain bar scene from Good Will Hunting.

I hoped the announcement was related to a modern remake of the classic RTS game Dune II from Westwood Studios (1993?).

Although I do look forward to watching Dune.

You mean Super Dune? ;) https://www.moddb.com/mods/super-dune-ii-classic

Yes, but not soon enough!