Nobody seems to mention the mini-series - I thought it was the best Dune rendition to video/film. I hated the Lynch version. Sting totally turns me off.

I read the book in the early seventies; never liked the prequels/sequels. I'm also not that keen on the mutant Paul/Sandworm god. That didn't work for me.

This is how I felt about his Blade Runner 2049 -- aesthetically stunning, but weak hollow story, like an intensively expensive well done fan-fic.

As a big fan of the Dune series I'm a bit unsure if I really even want to see the movie.

Arrival was excellent, but my experience with Blade Runner 2049 makes me unsure about Villeneuve's work.

Wait and watch it with part 2.

My biggest gripe with it is that it's just yet another Villeneuve movie. It's not different enough compared to BR2049. It seems as if 2049 was just a study for Dune. (Because probably it was.) And there's just not enough life in Dune compared to the richness of the books. (Nor in BR. Or in Arrival. ... Because Villeneuve emphasizes the anxiety of alienation a bit too much...?)

The emptiness in BR2049 was explained in-universe: people were leaving Earth for colonies and the planet was severely depopulated. It was OK for it to have this lifeless feeling. But "Dune" should be brimming with life, struggle and constant dangers, this melancholy and sterility do not fit it at all.

I also found Blade Runner 2049 terrible. It felt totally empty. The original movie had an interesting story and built an interesting world. I don’t even know what 2049 was really about.

I felt the same about the “Joker” movie. Good acting and production but ultimately not interesting .

2049 is completely unengaging for me. It seemsa to add exactly zero to the original movie.

Yep. And doesn't work as a standalone movie either.

Aesthetics were amazing. But after a certain point I just don't care how it looks and feels. No story worth digging into.

And it's not like the man can't tell a character driven story. I cared a lot about the characters in Arrival. It made my whole family cry.

I felt nothing from Blade Runner 2049. Nothing.

Did you not care at all for K and his struggle for meaning?

I love that movie and I think in it, the story is just an excuse to show us the world and it's the world that's more interesting. A future where androids are organic, of course they have protein farms everywhere. They appear to have mastered sustainable (solar) engergy too. All of this and it's still a distopian future ravaged of inequality.

For all its faults, Lynch's Dune turned out to be an overall better movie! Who could have thought?

My god, how could you say that. I watched the Lynch version before watching the new version, just to be able to compare. The Lynch version was the worst movie I've ever seen.

One must know how to watch it. Younger people can hardly see past the flashy pictures. Lynch's Paul was particularly brilliant, his figure had some mystic qualities around it, new movie has nothing like it.

I'm not young :)

I just couldn't get past the horribly stilted dialogue, the clowny costumes, and the completely terrible "inner monologue."

Oh, and the last scene where the emperor himself jumps on the merry-go-round and is shooting things. wtf.

The movie was so completely bad in every dimension.

The only positive is that after watching it, I got a better idea of what was happening in the 2021 version.

Well, I can agree with parts of that, and still, the new movie is worse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Totally agree. I think it was badly done. Big waste of lots of millions of dollars; and it blocked the stream for a new version, for two decades.

Not criticising Lynch for having a go; props. I just don't think it worked out. That's how the cookie crumbles for most movies. Nice try.

The merry-go-round thing was pretty cool tho, for a society without computers. I've yet to read an essay that examines it and tries to figure out its principle of operation.

How can you say that? There's no such thing as a bad Patrick Stewart movie.

Especially when he runs into battle with a doggie in his shirt!

A friend saw it with me, no context at all for him, he was fascinated by the religious war undertones sprinkled through the movie

I wouldn't call "sprinkled undertones" a few visions describing very explicitly a holy war, but to each their own.

> war

Given some folks are complaining about the "white saviour" trope in Dune, it would be interesting to see Dune Messiah be made. It's not like Herbert wasn't aware of the idea, given what he knew about (e.g.) T. E. Lawrence ('of Arabia').

Haven't seen the movie yet, but from reading the book I just don't see the white savior angle. Freemen were indoctrinated by the Bene Gesserit to believe in a prophesy and Jessica "lies" to them to make them believe Paul is the one.

Freemen are being oppressed, but they aren't the weak ones in Dune not by a long shot since they even have enough wealth to outbid the empire on satellites in orbit around Arrakis.

I want to see Dune God Emperor adapted now that would start getting to "seriously weird" territory.

I think white savior just means guy came from outside who has amazing abilities and lead the native.

Yes, but my point is that he's not a saviour of the Freemen at all. It's clear in the books that they are better armed, better adapted and their numbers is severely underestimated by the Harkonnen. At no point in the first book are the Freemen truly at risk of being decimated.

This is a fine line to thread and I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment as to how the handled it, but while the Freemen don't have interplanetary domination in mind and Paul does lead them to Jihad, it's not like Avatar where the native are being exterminated and some random guy leads them to military success.

I dont think it matters whether they are oppressed or need a savior.

The ridiculous thing about that narrative is that an alien with their own agenda (most likely not for the benefits of the native) is somehow given leadership

In the book, at least, he earns/steals that position (it's not given to him) by virtue of his mother's knowledge of their religious beliefs and his training from birth to be a leader. Which was only barely hinted at in this movie.

I've always read Dune as a strong condemnation of the white saviour. Paul dooms the Fremen to a horrible purpose; forever to deliver a religious genocide in his name. Paul knows what he's doing is wrong, we the reader are told its wrong, and yet Paul does it anyway because his power of prescience shows him the alternative is worst for the universe. The sequels completely adhere to the idea that Paul is right, and turn the whole Dune universe into shlock, but the original novel posits the idea that Paul can't be sure it's the right thing to do.

The thing is all of that is explained in much more detail in the second part of the book. You know, the part that's not a film yet.

> condemnation of the white saviour

it seems more like condemnation of the concept of leading, or controlling, as opposed to educating and liberating. The white savior element is not neccessary to convey that message.

The white savior tropes are mostly from activists. The actual book is a critique of the very idea of saviors in general.

"white saviour" is just the pithy modern name for what the book was critical of. It wasn't just in general against saviours, the oppression and race aspects were def part of the book. I'm no activist but I was disappointed (and surprised given the current climate) that those undertones weren't in the movie at all (arguably acting nice to the Freman for "desert power", but the movie was too invested in showing Leto as a really great guy with so little screen time that it couldn't afford to dwell on the complexity) - it comes more to the foreground after he's with the Freman so hopefully the second movie will explore that critique a bit more.

None of this stopped me from really enjoying the movie - though I think highlighting the ambiguity could make it into a really great movie. The book does it by exploring how the systems work in the world which rarely works well in movies, so I'm not sure how part 2 could do it without it feeling "tacked on"

Was it the intention from the start or did Frank come up with it as he wrote more books?

The movie sets up a direct commentary on our middle east adventures.

The only commentary that is set up is "colonization and oppression is bad", there's not much more there.