In new adaptation Yueh's betrayal came out of the left field without real explanation, wasn't shown how it was motivated, suspicions of everyone vs Jessica and Leto's trust in her are all dropped, and on top of it all Yueh's death was very anticlimactic compared to the old movie.

And also, Paul's awakening was my favourite scene in Lynch's Dune, and it was a letdown in Villeneuve's.

Movie adaptations will never be able to be as detailed as books. People that first read a book and then watch the movie will almost always notice there are things that are missing, and if those missing things are something the watcher was really attached to, they will be disappointed. But for people who haven’t read the book, as long as the missing things don’t create large plot holes or confusion, it’s fine. I think Dune does a fantastic job of striking the balance of detail while still telling a cohesive and fascinating story. Stuff like mentats and suk doctors are really fascinating and it’s unfortunate that movies don’t have the time available to expand on them, but the movie is able to stand alone without it.

Thank you, CO! :-D

But I didn't mean that he's mentat, just that Atreides and Harkonnen mentats main activity was related to the traitor plot, which was rather faithfully done in Lynch's version, and was all but omitted in Villeneuve's. The tiny detail that the Baron personally killed Yueh, thus removing the last bit of importance from DeVries before his death, is the final offence to his character.

I recently read the book and I couldn’t even remember the character now and had to look up who was meant. Maybe that is more a testament to how bad I am at remembering stuff I read in books than how important the character is but there you go.

Villeneuve leans so heavily into "show, don't tell" that the movie becomes a long trailer. It has lots of visual exposition, but no character experiences an arc or development. So much rich lore is passed by on the wayside, and no work is done to connect the dots between the plot points. Elements as essential as character motivations are nowhere to be found.

I understand wanting to keep exposition to a minimal, but there's a way to craft and weave it into the rhythm and pace of a story.

The reason Yueh's betrayal doesn't sting is because no effort is put into developing him or his relationships. The fall of House Atreides is rather dull, action fluff. The Spice, the Spacing Guild, the Mentats, and the Bene Gesserit are passed over for more CG and more action scenes. The flash-forward dream sequences of Paul are sloppy and don't do the forthcoming plot ramifications justice. The Harkonnens are turned into cartoons, and their one act of supreme cruelty is handled entirely off-camera.

I dearly love the books, but you shouldn't have to read the books to appreciate the film. It should stand on its own legs, and Villeneuve totally misses on that shot. He delivered incoherent action dreck. It's visually appealing, but it's practically a GPU advertisement.

I can't entirely hate on Villeneuve, though. Blade Runner 2049 is a masterpiece.

The reaction to Dune is similar to the reaction to Oppenheimer. I'm a huge fan of Christopher Nolan. A common criticism I see of him, which echoes what you are saying here, is that his characters lack motivation and are one-dimensional. I actually don't disagree. For me, film isn't primarily about character or plot like literature is. It's about creating a mood using pictures and sound. The best parts of Oppenheimer weren't the details of characters' personal lives or the Manhattan project or the senate hearings, they were the sweeping montages of beautiful images, music, and snippets of dialogue that came together to create a feeling of fear and awe appropriate for the subject matter. I feel the same way about Villeneuve's Dune. It might not be faithful to the intricate story of the book, but I think it nails the dark, vast, mystical quality that inhabiting the Dune universe ought to feel like.

You mention Blade Runner 2049. For my money, Villeneuve's true masterpiece is Arrival. It's not only great science fiction but also has a surprising amount of emotional depth, which sci-fi usually lacks.

This is the part I completely disagree with. I don’t think you need to read the books at all to understand or love Villeneuaves Dune. I hadn’t read the book at the time of seeing it, and I loved it. And then after I read the book I love the movie even more.

I think it's usually much harder to please fans of a book, because they all will find different parts of the book important and something will be omitted, e.g. see the discussions about Tom Bombadil in LOTR.

Most of the criticisms I made are film criticisms that could be levied against any bad or middling movie.

- The film is a vacuum for intricacy and coherence.

- The characters are one-dimensional, unchanging, and don't matter.

- The stakes might be huge, but they carry no emotional weight. Like most superhero films these days.

These are deficiencies in storytelling.

If we contrast Lynch's Dune with Villeneuve's, we might find similar analogies in contrasting "Jurassic Park" versus "Jurassic World", Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" versus Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit", or "Independence Day" versus whatever the hell "Independence Day 2" was.

Each of these latter films promised more, but they turned out to be empty and soulless. More box checking than composition, more visual spectacle than substance. The same is true of Villeneuve's Dune as a film.

I don't need a film adaptation to be faithful. I just need it to be a good movie. I'd be totally fine if the film made a wild departure from its source material, so long as it used that liberty to deliver something impressive. That would honestly mean more to me than a fully "by the books" rendition.

Villeneuve's Dune was just lazy.

Spent more time thinking about the CGI than I did thinking about the plot, I think that might indicate something.

This planet was the focal point for all political and economic machinations of the universe, yet it was a vast, mysterious and dangerous place. Humans were intruders.

Lynch's Dune had many wide shots that attempted to convey this, and when Paul was with the Fremen it felt as if he was truly removed from the rest of the human universe, and within the mysterious universe of the planet.

Villeneuve's Dune had amazing visuals yet too many scenes were tightly shot. To me this Dune felt claustrophobic, not vast. and when Paul was with the Fremen it didn't feel so removed from reach of the Empire.

Perhaps I had preconceived notions the first time (I did watch Lynch's version immediately prior). Perhaps also as others have mentioned I didn't catch all the dialogue as it is quieter than the score in many sections, this time I had the subtitles on.

The cinematography is great, there are way more wide context shots than I remembered. I also felt the magic was there and there is a dreamlike quality during Paul's spice vision scenes. I'm honestly not sure why I didn't enjoy it the first time.

If you are like I was and ambivalent about the sequel, maybe give this movie another go. I've changed my mind and now looking forward to seeing part 2.

I came away thinking they got the ornithopters right but little else.

If intentional then it would be a good character arc for Paul to reject this in the second movie.. and then become dispassionate in his own way again in the third

Blade Runner has always been about how replicants are people treated as slaves. Rachel having given birth in BR2049 is a big deal not because it means she's finally a person unlike all the other replicant women, but because it means replicants have the potential to control their own destiny, instead of being reliant on humans to make more of them.

The film was extremely explicit about that, to the point of beating you over the head with it. I'm not sure how you could have possibly interpreted it in the way you did, unless you view everything through the lens of "how can I be outraged about this."

EDIT: the comment I responded to originally said something like "Blade Runner 2049? The movie where personhood for women is defined as being capable of giving birth?"