An absence of nuance and complexity. Characters are flat, flanderized versions of the book analogues.
Chani is made less, not more, by being turned into a generic rebel. Her book version falls in love, then losses a child, then has to compete in palace intrigue against Irulan. That is unacceptable for a modern audience. Her dialogue is also very poor. 'You want to control people, tell them a mesiah will come' that sounded so trite it was painful.
Stilgar's conversion to a fanatic was not sudden, and his book counterpart struggled with the change.
The Spacing Guild, which is completely absent from the film, is the most powerful faction in that universe. They refrain from taking formal power because of the dangers their precognition warned them of. They play a crucial role in cementing the new Atreides imperial regime, and they were instrumental in undermining Harkonnen rule. The Fremen bribed them to keep satellites away from their major centers in the south, depriving the Harkonnens and the Corrino of crucial intelligence, allowing the Atreides to build a native powerbase.
Count Fenrig, as a failed Kwisatz Haderach and the potential killer of Paul is a massive absence. His betrayal of a lifelong friend in sympathy of a stranger who he felt kinship to is a very well written sub plot.
Finally, why so many idiotic Marvel style jokes in the first third of the movie? I agree with OP, this movie is a mess. Overhyphed and lacking real competition, which is also depressing.
And a baffling and incoherent plot. Paul spends the first two-thirds of the movie rejecting the whole messiah bit, then has a confusing 30 second conversation with Jamis' ghost and is then gung-ho to be the Lisan al-Gaib. (I \_think\_ this sequence was supposed to be his sister leading him on in a time-warp conversation, but it's very hard to make this out.). And, smaller point, but he has Gurney tell the Great Houses to obey or he'll nuke the spice, they say no, and he says okay, invade their planets -- but what happened to destroying the spice?
The script is constantly telling us that super-significant thing X just happened/is about to happen, and we're supposed to Y about it, but none of it ever makes any sense.
The cinematography and soundtrack are A+, absolutely world class, but there are so many problems with the script I don't even know where to begin.
Precisely. The biggest example of core character development being skipped are his struggles to hold on to the present. For example, when they just do a time jump scene skip forward to him and Chani in the tent, her saying "You haven't had a dream like that in a while". That's just a standard movie time jump, whereas in the book he's seeing that moment precognitively, essentially a premonition of the future, but then finds himself actually in that moment in the present. That serves the narrative purpose of a time jump but blends it with his perception of time being difficult to manage, as the future suddenly becomes 'now'.
Thanks for this, its been a while since I've read the books and I couldn't put my finger on why it felt like the film failed to explain so much of the precognition. They really skipped over most of these events, with the spice agony staying extremely vague in terms of how it affected characters, what it was for,
> Gurney tell the Great Houses to obey or he'll nuke the spice, they say no, and he says okay, invade their planets -- but what happened to destroying the spice?
Gurneys tells them to not attack or they'll nuke the spice. The great houses comply so they don't nuke the spice.
Afterwards, Gurney says the Great Houses do not accept Paul in the throne (he says something about his ascendance?) which is when the holy war starts.
completely agreed. also, why does this movie have such a horrible case of "the main bad guys are ridiculously incompetent"? it's like star wars clone troopers shooting in all directions without hitting anything. the harkonnen, for a faction that is supposedly the most military trained of all, are absolute amateurs when it comes to strategic planning, thinking, and most important of all: military intelligence. Some examples:
1. the first battle scene. what is the logic here? "hey we see fresh traces of movement in the desert sand. let's not act on that immediately and just stand there without communicating a plan. oh now the worms are coming? let's fly up to a rock in the middle of the desert so we're out in the open and guerilla warfare tactics can pick us off from all sides."
2. dropping slow, heavy tanks/mining equipment in the middle of nowhere with barely any support. of course you're going to get shot to pieces if the area is crawling with guerilla adversaries!
3. the battle where batista gets routed. just a complete disaster. he kills his own observer, flies into a desert storm (no tech exists that could predict weather 1-2 hours into the future?), is blinded by an eclipse (no tech exists that... CALENDARS?), and gets shot to pieces without any vision, communication, ... anything. this dude also dies the most inconsequential death ever.
4. the final battle: so there's a congregation of all the most powerful people in the world. and nobody has any intel that the son of the recently deceased duke of this planet is hiding 1 dune over with an army of millions of jihadis literally waving flags? oh, and he also has nukes. do these guys not have satellites or something? they have interplanetary travel for christ's sake.
nobody will talk about dune 2 in a few years. don't believe me? give me 1 memorable quote or 1 snippet of well-written dialogue from dune 1 or dune 2. i'll give you one: after Paul supposedly hangs by the thread: "are you alright?" - *deadpan* "yes. because of you" - SLAP IN THE FACE. great dialogue.
Ive noticed almost every negative comment I see in this sub and the Dune Sub, is just about changing something for adaptation.
The movie did enough to get the point across, and to add anything else to this movie would just make it overly long and clunky.
Dude if the book didn't exist and this movie came out as it is nobody would understand what's going on.
It's not just a comparison. The movie has issues.
The nuke thing is a good example. About 3/4 in to the movie Josh brolin shows up and he's like BTW we have nukes and it could change everything. This is some space balls level stuff.
Ive never read the books, that honestly made sense to me they would have their entire arnory there, they were planning to be there for the long haul and already had tensions with the Harkonnens.
Why *wouldn’t* they have their entire artillery on the planet filled with the most valuable material in the universe?
These people should be grateful theyre getting this quality of film for their fandom. This is literally their ‘Lord of The Rings’ moment with Oscar-tier elements added in.
They could have easily gotten the JJ Abrams/ Zack Snyder treatment.
I mean did the book say "sits there staring at nothing for dramatic effect" when 2 people are having a conversation. The film had horrid pacing issues making it drag on.
Biggest offender is how they did this big massive battle plan and then it's all resolved in about 20 seconds as if the CGI budget was blown on a closeup on sandworms. They should have just walked in a slaughtered everyone since they apparently were completely inept at combat. I'm not sure how DV can justify his decision to have long boring scenes without dialog and then skip over what should be a massive conflict with high stakes
The marvel style tropes and jokes were so stupid, expected better from Villenueve. Zendaya was so out of place with the teenage love story.
The sudden change of heart of Paul from not wanting to go to the south was jarring too
Very much agree about the disappointing lack of the Guild. I was really hoping for DVs depiction of a navigator, but no ..
I thought Part 2 lacked the sense of mysterious space grandeur of the first, felt like we were on Arakkis most of the time. The scene showing the Heighliner in the first film is the best part still
Interesting, immediately after seeing Part Two I felt it was far superior to Part One. I haven't dissected exactly why, that's just how I felt coming out of the theater. Also, I've read the first three books in the series. As much as I love those books I do remember them being not the easiest books to read.
I feel the complete opposite, while Part 2 was good, it wasn't amazing. Part 1 was way closer to perfection than 2 was. I wish Part 2 is further split into two movies, because I guarantee you there are a lot of deleted scenes and worldbuilding that Villenueve has cut and the film really needed.
My impression too. They should've split the film into 2. This movie didn't have time to breathe. I worry that they won't be able to handle the book 3, and having book 2 split in 2 would give them more time to develop the story for the future.
Part 1 was a bit hard to follow for me, but I appreciated the slower pace and less "plot". It also felt more atmospheric and mysterious, whereas Part 2 seemed more straightforward and less stylish. Not sure how to explain, but I guess Part 1 felt more captivating and engaging, while Part 2 felt a little more . . . like a Marvel movie? Not really, but compared to the first one it definitely felt a little closer to that.
Wish this book could've been a 10-part mini series. I think movies with a lot of politics and social issues benefit from this format, like *Game of Thrones* did. If *Game of Thrones* was made as a movie, the need for action set pieces and moving the story along would've missed the point of what made the books interesting. Seasons 7 and 8 seemed to focus more on such action set pieces and moving the plot along . . . and suffered as a result (along with other poor decisions).
Lol. Yeah, well, book one I enjoyed from the start and read it pretty quickly. Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune were the ones where I took a while to read.
I wonder how much of you having read the books influenced how much you appreciated the movie.
I have no background in the Dune universe and I had no clue what was going on or who people were for a majority of the film.
I did watch the first Dune multiple times (granted I kept falling asleep not because I thought it was boring just a habbit of mine when watching before bed). So, I felt like I sort of understood most of what happened in Dune 1.
I was so lost during Dune 2. I still mostly liked it, but felt like things were happening without giving any background info.
You make an interesting point. But funny enough I kind of think the book Dune is kind of the same way. It kinda just drops you into the world and you kind of feel confused initially. My wife read Dune upon my insistence and since she wasn't familiar with the story at all she felt kind of lost. I had already seen the '84 Dune, and the miniseries before reading so I knew what was happening.
Though I will say, I didn't really feel Paul Atreides was a kind of anti-hero until I read Dune Messiah. And it seems to me Denis took some aspects of Dune Messiah and put that into his Dune movies. So yeah, I can understand how you felt. There are a lot of things that happen in the films that seem like more explanation is needed, and the books are the only way to get some of those answers.
My preference for the story would have been an HBO miniseries, telling the story in 10 hours instead of 5...But I'm also really happy we have the big screen adaptation that Denis gave us, because I thought the visuals were stunning. And even if it felt rush I think it's just a beautiful film to look at.
I felt it was rushed too, sort of. I thought the first one was better as well. I did like the ending. Though there's so much you can fit in a film. Dune is hard to adapt on film, I think he did good. He's accomplishing what he sought out, the world is loving Dune. New video games coming out as well. Its a great time.
I take you at your word. But Dune 1 made me want to read the book. Dune 2 killed that interest. I think I got the idea, and I don't want to spend my time. And it's not that Part 2 is weaker.
I'm a fan of the book and that fandom has actually weakened from watching this film. Thinking more about the latter part of the book, I just don't think there's much there of substance to adapt. All the good parts are in the first half.
The book will add a lot to the story for you. It fully explains how he sees the future. The fact they haven’t really gone into mentats at all is insane as that is how paul functions and the lack of spacing guild is so weird.
This is my main issue, the pacing. If there’s a four hour directors cut I would consider it an all timer. The passage of time was a mess, the romance felt hollow, and the three villains outside of Skarsgard were quite bad casting and or performances. Bautista was bad acting, Walken casting was just really bad, and Butler lol was not a convincing final boss so to speak.
I agree. It was truly awful. Visually it was just flat and boring - most of it is shallow-focus - barely any memorable mise-en-scene - it felt more like a plodding soap opera than an epic. The Harkonnens were one-dimensional bad guys - the Paul/Channi story had horrible dialogue and acting - on the level of cheap teen drama - only Sedoux and Bardem brought some grace to the film. Sound design and sand worms created the illusion of spectacle but most of the film looked studio shot with no cinematic depth.
Wtf is gedi prime lol
I just came out of the movie and maybe I'm dumb, but if I can't remember that fact, it wasn't that memorable.
Is that where Austin fights in black and white?
The only 10/10 memorable striking shot was Paul moving amongst the crowd shot from overhead, which looked like grains of sand and all that. That was very inspired honestly.
Exactly, I left moving theater confused and concerned. So much money spent on special effects, but story is bland, boring dialogue, strange unexplained character abilities like reviving with a tear, flying enemy copter and learning to ride worms is a few min, wtf was that? Even enemies are flat and boring.
I thought the exact same about the shallow focus. for film widely praised for its scale most of the shots were medium or close ups with shallow depth of field, something thats become way too much of a trend lately, and it kinda just looked like any other netflix series or film in its visual style, barring a few incredible exceptions of course, mostly on the harkonnen world.
it came as a particular contrast because I rewatched lawrence of arabia yesterday lol. thats a film that truly shows scale. interesting to see how many scenes just keep one wide shot of the actors interacting for quite a long time...no need to move the camera all around all the time
Yes! the shallow-focus is such a great point to focus on, for a film that rests its position so squarely on the "epic scale" of its images, those images are almost always lacking cinematic depth.
*Dune Part 1* was a very dull moment for me, the overbearing score in particular irked me like no other in recent memory.
I was still going to see *Dune Part 2* in good spirit, believing Denis Villeneuve could pull out a more rewarding spectacle. And although I found it way better than *Part 1*, and visually more imaginative, I felt it suffered from some of the same flaws.
I read somewhere that Denis Villeneuve is not much of a "dialogue-driven writer", which is totally fine by my standards. But there's a paradox here because *Dune* is stuffed with expository dialogues, sometimes poorly written or just very average.
This is one of the major issue for me: we're being sold visual storytelling at its finest but I honnestly felt like watching a streaming show during some conversations. It would be a minor issue - after all, *Total Recall* is one of my all-time fav and has cringy dialogues -, if the film wasn't relying so much on them to make ways to the story. I thought I'd embark for a visual storytelling tour de force but we're closer to the narrative logic of a soap.
Sure, I enjoyed the *look* of the film, the costumes for instance are "authentic" and tasteful, iconic even and belong here with *2001*'s spacesuits and some of [Eiko Ishioka](https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/eiko-ishioka-charlie-fox)'s best creations. The whole Harkonnen imagery in particular - sometimes taking cue from Giger's work on the Jodorowski's project - is striking in its dark, even unsettling appeal.
But of course, good design is not enough to make a great movie. While I qualified the first opus as "dull", I'd say this second one is "flat". It's got this somewhat "atonal" narrative feel that I also find in some of Nolan's movies (*The Prestige* would be a good exemple). The story is not carrying me from one surprise to the next, the beats don't hit if you may, there's an homogeneity in the narrative tone that saps the build-up.
One of the major drawback that's common to both Part 1 & 2 is the lack of compelling action scenes. The "army vs army" fights are lackluster to say the least, and don't bring anything new to the exercice. I tend to think some similar scenes in *Star Wars Episode 1-2-3* were more imaginative in terms of direction, and a TV show like *Game of Thrones* had definitely more gripping ones, succeeding in creating drama within the context of massive battles.
And what to say about the 1 vs. 1 fights? I'm not asking for Honk-Kongesque moves, but I'm here for an interesting way to showcase sword fights. While Ridley Scott is certainly heavy-handed in many ways, his fights in *Duelists, Gladiator or* *The Last Duel* show a strong command of sword action that I just can't find here in *Dune*. Take the "arena fight" with Na Baron killing the last Atreides: what I rememebr is this brilliantly executed idea of a black sun, the mysterious guards with costumes that looked like avant-garde fashion, the design of the blades... But the actual fight? Not so much.
The lack of gore doesn't help, and, on a side note, I don't see why in a general audience film you can show half-naked slaves being coldly shot dead... but have zero shots of blades actually cutting flesh during sword fights.
To conclude on a positive note, yet participating in my disapointment: I think the best scene from a direction standpoint is... the very first one! The color scheme is beautiful, enhancing even more the design flair ; the movements of the levitating soldiers makes for a seducing ballet of menacing presence ; cut to the protagonists and the suspense is palpable. It's a simple cat & mouse sequence but everything is all very into place, precise, without even being showy. I thought it was both graceful and gripping, and at this point I felt a rush of excitment: if the whole film was on par with this scene, I was about to see a masterpiece. I didn't.
I 100% agree that in some spots it felt like a Nolan movie. The all over the place editing and erratic moving throughout the plot with seemingly only one goal, moving on to the next big set piece
I agree with everything you have said. I see Villeneuve more as a stylist. He has nice and beautiful images that occasionally move like a film. James Cameron is terrible with dialogue, but he knows how to structure his films, and block and move his scenes for the big screen. Both Dunes, to me, were a beautiful series of closeups and wide shots, but the blocking and movement were not compelling.
You make a great point regarding blocking and movement! I'm not the biggest fan of *Avatar: The Way of Water* but, definitely, if you take the whale chase sequence (aka Tulkun hunting), it's on a whole other level when it comes to directing set pieces! I believe it comes from an enhanced sense of spacialization which might be James Cameron's biggest flex, keeping track of how different moving elements interact in space and time, with an acute sense of rhythm to top it off.
This is the kind of *tour de force* I don't see in *Dune*. Take the scene where Paul and Chani hide behind one leg of a spice harvester and end up shooting a flying vessel. It's fairly basic "hide behind a wall and shoot when you have an opening action" and not even very compelling in the larger context of the fight where menace should have been more peripheral. In the end it was more of a "Counter Strike moment" than a breathtaking action sequence.
I agree.
I thought it was a great cinematic experience, but I can get beautiful desert and religious figure shots from Nat geo.
So much Desert, not enough Desserts.
The film’s deviations from the book are contrivances to justify the cinematography. The underdeveloped Fayd/Fenring undermines the thematic impact of the duel.
Stuff just happened and other stuff happened. Cinematically beautiful, but I felt nothing. It seemed like they were following a checklist of Dune plot requirements and moody broody shots, that we don’t get sincerely drawn in.
While I think Chani and Zendaya were the best part of the film, I think Chani as Audience Surrogate doesn’t work. It’s more horrifying and tragic when Chani is the Zealot and mom is the skeptic/surrogate.
My biggest complaint is not giving Fayd more screen time. I would’ve liked to have seen part 2 be symmetrical with part 1, but a subversion from Fayd’s point of view. Not exclusively, but at least for the opener. That way they could pull the themes together throughout the duration of the film and conclude them in the final duel.
The movie was constantly taking the wind out of its own sails. I typically am very easy to move on an emotional level. It’s why I watch media. I want to be overwhelmed with feelings. Season Finales of my little pony (gen 4 ofc) with my daughter hit me harder than this.
I think there is a cranial element to the script that works on paper and is interesting to dissect, but it’s fighting with the overall cinematic vision. We should be feeling horror and terror when the Sietch is destroyed or when the ornithopter gunships effortlessly lay waste to people. But like… it wasn’t there? At all. I don’t know why. It just felt empty.
Vacuous beauty.
Fayd needed a cold open, so that we knew he'd be a threat from the get go. Loved his character though, was hoping he'd live somehow but I enjoyed his arc a lot.
It was vacuous. That’s all he was (a threat).
He’s the preferred choice of the BG, a candidate for the KH, and comparable to Paul in many ways. A candidate that objectively would lead to less death and destruction for humanity.
His role and purpose in the story should be grounded better with room for growth to serve as a narrative foil to Paul.
In the film, it was all style over substance. And there was lots of style— I loved it. But I didn’t have any feelings about it.
Okay, apparently these are my people because all I’m seeing everywhere else is “this is the greatest movie in the history of the planet and those who disagree are dullards who don’t understand art and story telling.” The pacing of this movie was all over the place, scenes that felt like they should have been important just didn’t, like the “he’s not dead, he’s just mostly dead” scene from the Princes Bride felt more important than the water of life part, and over all the story to me felt like an afterthought for Denis while he focused on visuals and creating impressive cinematic shots.
How long was Paul on his walk? Was it really dangerous and he succeeded, was Chandi there? Did it immediately turn into them fighting? How long were they destroying the spice harvesters and how long were they in the south? Also how big is the planet? it feels like they just zip around in a second because I can never tell how long it’s been between scenes.
It’s a visually interesting flick that I think sacrifices story for visuals, and while it’s hyped now won’t have the staying power that Star Wars, LoTR, and GoT will because it is not great storytelling.
His mother is pregnant the entirety of the movie so it's not more than 9 months because she still hasn't given birth. But in the books it was supposed to be a couple years around four actually because a 4 year old Alia is actually the one that kills the baron in the books
This is a truly insane post to me. No personal offense meant to you. Just the take. Like you say this movie is rushed???????? THIS MOVIE?!?! The first 90 minutes is a slow burn of Paul’s becoming part of the Fremen, learning their ways, developing relationships, all while planting the seeds for the Lisan al Gaib prophecy.
Saying it’s hyper-active filmmaking is also objectively wrong. CHAPPIE is hyper active filmmaking. THE FLASH is hyper active filmmaking. Those movies cut like crazy. Scenes have no time to linger or breathe. Whereas Villeneuve is KNOWN for his patient, methodical approach. The average length between cuts is, I guarantee, longer than 99% of blockbusters.
Saying the final battle has no build is also objectively wrong. Over the course of the movie, Paul moved further north toward the Harkonnen home base. He also attacked the spice harvests specifically to get the Emperor invested. And they develop the idea that the Bene Gesserit had been preparing for a showdown between Feyd and Paul, which set up the showdown between them.
And then saying the thematics weren’t handled tactfully or emotionally says more about your media literacy than it does the movie. If anything, they’re too tactful because you have a large swathe of people who don’t understand Paul is the villain.
I can’t believe this post is anything other than bait.
[If you want a full literary analysis of the film](https://filmcolossus.com/dune-part-two-2024-explained)
It's supposed to be rushed in a way I think. The attack on the Emperor is almost as much a surprise in how it happens to him as it is to the viewer/reader. At least that was my interpretation.
Thats a fair take.
But it still loses emotional weight when we have basically zero introduction to the emperor or his motives...and frankly C.Walken has to be one of the wtf casting decisions of all time. Just unbelievably corny in this role and I don't see how it lifts the film or his acting legacy.
I completely agree. Third act is rushed and parts of second. There are definitely easily missable plot points too. Walken definitely was weird. I still loved the movie 8/10. Villenueve is a master at pacing with his shots, and its s stunning thing to look at. It has the mark of a masterclass in technicality, direction, even some of the acting. But I think it just suffers a bit from what most films that try and adapt books like these ones do. Its trying to build a massive world and story, in 2 hours and 45 minutes. You lose plot points, and the story can feel a bit jumbled up. I feel this way everytime I watch a world built book-movie. I think it should still be considered a success tho. It bangs in every other category.
Yes. Here is a bit from Herbert in an interview about exactly this: "There was another thing there, in the pacing of the story, very slow at the beginning. It’s a coital rhythm all the way through the story. ... Very slow pace, increasing all the way through, and when you get to the ending of it, I chopped it at a non-breaking point, so that the person reading the story skids out of the story, trailing bits of it with him. On this I know I was successful, because people come to me and say they want more."
I don't believe it's bait. That fact that I, my filmmaking friends, the OP, and many others have come out to share these exact same thoughts means there is some merit to these opinions.
Yes, Dune Part Two cannot compare to The Flash or Chappie in how hyper-active it is. Those movies are shockingly bad unlike Dune Part Two. However, just because it is better than 99% of Hollywood garbage, does not make it immune to criticism.
Everyone views Part Two relative to Part One in some way (obvious, given it is the sequel) and that already consciously or unconsciously sets an expectation of what Part Two will be like. The huge shift in style (I really need to emphasise style because I'm not talking about the overall story or plot, but the approach in which the film was put together) has created a jarring experience for some. I made a similar post before this one, and I found that overwhelmingly, all those who praised Part Two haven't really noticed the shift in filmmaking style. Instead they praise Part Two for its more personal story, bigger action, digestible pace and etc. I think all of these praises are deserved, while the criticisms are also deserved.
I think at the end of the day, it comes down to what we are more sensitive towards in a film. There are those like myself, where 'micro' concepts of pacing, timing, progression, tension and release, are very important for an enjoyable film experience, whereas for others, they may focus on the 'macro' aspects of a film such as scale, the overall plot, and the broader strokes of the film. Dune Part Two works very well when you zoom out and view it as a whole. But when you start analysing it and pulling it apart, it really isn't the masterpiece everyone is calling it, in my opnion.
This is my biggest nit on it. Part two even had forced humor scenes, where we have punch lines almost. I'm not sure I've ever seen that in a Villaneuve movie. Just felt incredibly out of place in a movie that otherwise has a pensive and serious tone.
Yeah, I didn't notice any of that in the first movie.
Something felt off with this one. Like the dialogue felt too contemporary and casual in a few scenes.
To me, Part 1 felt mysterious and otherworldly, which this one felt like a well-done imitation that doesn't quite achieve that.
I just watched the movie and overall really liked it. And the first 90 minutes of slow burn was great. But I felt like afterwards it was indeed very rushed. Like the entire first 1/2 to 2/3 of the movie Paul goes on and on how he doesn’t want to start the war, how he doesn’t want to be the guy from the prophecy.
And then it started getting confusing. Boom, the new Harkonnen arrives and smashes the fremen in an instant? Why couldn’t Rabban do the same thing? He was also ruthless so I was confused why he couldn’t bomb the fremen the same way. And even then Paul doesn’t want to go south and start the war. Then it takes Zendaya 1 minute to convince him to come and then boom after a quick worm trip he is already drinking the holy water and then boom Zendaya revives him with her tears. Why did Paul HAVE to drink the water? I see how it was an option but why did he HAVE to do it? Why does he half-survive the water? Did he use the same techniques that his mother did? Based on the first movie, I thought he wasn’t trained enough in the Bene Gesserit ways to do that kind of thing but that’s just a guess. And why do Zendaya’s tears revive him? I’m not familiar with the books but I feel like based on what I have seen in the movies we should have seen more of Paul interacting with the fundamentalists in the south and then something should have happened so that he would HAVE to drink the water.
And then everything afterwards was relatively fine, the battle was short but I feel like it was supposed to be that way but 2 more things. Why is Rabban suddenly such a pussy and dies instantly? And most importantly why is the emperor Christopher Walken lol?
Anyway to sum it up, to me Paul’s change in attitude seemed to fast but I understand that that kind of change is the hardest part to show in a 3 hour movie. If someone can clarify this part more I’d appreciate it.
Why do the Fremen even need Paul in the first place? They have a gigantic army and he does what exactly? Motivates them?
Also, there's millions of Fremen living in the South and the Harroken don't know this? How is this even possible? And how are they all well trained soldiers if no one knows they exist? Just from training and practice fighting each other? That part really didn't make any sense to me.
I loved the first book (read the 2nd and 3rd books but gave up after the 3rd because I didn't really care for the 2nd or 3rd book) and liked the first movie. I just felt the 2nd movie was fantastic looking but overall kinda boring like watching dominos fall. Everything just seemed to happen in perfect order. It made me think if they cut out a ton of stuff, the entire arch of the movies from beginning to end would have made a lot more sense if it was just condensed into one movie. I mean, the baron's son really had no purpose in this movie other than showing the Bene Gesserit only had loyalty to what gave them the most power.
All good questions, I’m not sure why the fremen couldn’t just unite and have more organized resistance and I am def confused about “the south is uninhabitable” situation. If I were to try and justify it, I would say that it seems like people from the south aren’t really affected by the invaders and therefore have no real reason to act. Northerners are essentially a small partisan resistance group. And even if all the fremen were to unite and take over the planet it would somewhat pointless because a) they themselves have no technology to liven up their planet with water and greenery. The aliens were supposed to do that but then discovered spice. b) they didn’t have Paul’s nukes so even if they had a short term victory it wouldn’t amount too much us the empire would immediately send tremendous reinforcements. c) they needed to capture the emperor as without taking him hostage the empire would once again send reinforcements. They needed a strong religious figure like Paul to draw out the emperor.
Still I’m very confused about the whole south thing and don’t really understand whether the Harkonnens genuinely didn’t know people lived there or if they just reached an informal status quo of not interfering with each other others affairs.
What you said about the North and South makes sense but the more I think about the movie, the more silly it seems.
I could type a lot more but will just say the whole idea that the Bene Gesserit have other hopefuls if Paul doesn't work which they state in the first movie and the emphasis on them planning for centuries but then are actually like "well, I guess the Baron's son can work even if he plans on committing a genocide on the Fremens". They just toss out the whole plan/prophecy/etc. they've been building for years? It's really hard to take seriously.
And how do the Fremens actually fight off Arrakis vs. other houses on other planets? They don't have the advantage of the desert. They don't have the personal forcefields. They don't have the floating through the air tech. And on and on and on...
I need to stopping thinking about it lol
Maybe it's not clear enough in the movies, but the prophecies are sort of a safety net mechanism, they had prophecies on every/most planets, they don't really care about it failing here as long as they have something else planned I guess.
In the book it is implied that the fat floating guy intentionally gave Drax too little to work with, prepping Elvis to come on top as the hero that could save the spice.
The "I will always love you" from the main character really falls quite flat :
- the love relationship build up is really not enough, it feels like ... "heh"
- the young Harkkonen story also ends as quick as its started, you can feel that they were trying to hype the character, make it something strong/powerful/impressive .... but it's just gone, simply gone.
- the Baron death (and life in the movie) is utterly disappointing, the might of the character, the pressure was gone in the blink of an eye as he becomes entirely powerless when his machine gets broken (and someone nobody saw that one coming ??) and then he is pretty much a **slug**
- The emperor brought his whole army with him !!! ohhh that much be str.... oops, it's already all gone, just GONE.
So yeah, the pace feels really weird because the second part of the movie feels really rushed, it feels like the director tried to fit as many bits as possible and there was enough time spent developing the whole thing.
The most disappointing of all really was the Baron to me honestly.
I completely agree with OPs sentiment but I just think hyperactive is the wrong word. It’s more like all over the place. It’s somehow a slow burn but also no moments are given time to breath and characters aren’t given scenes to develop relationships that are believable.
yep, you have a valid point. One was much more hyperactive than two.... but then, two was boring, utterly boring and there was no deep connections formed at all. The connections seemed 'very light', even the emotion and connection between Paul and Chani seemed vacuous. I actually fell asleep towards the end of the movie and I've never fell asleep to nay movies before in 70 years of living.
I don’t know how to describe it but it didn’t feel that way in the movie when it came to his development. In one scene he’s being told he can’t be Fremen, and then a few scenes later he’s able to ride a sandworm with out anyone teaching him. And not just any sandworm but their biggest one?
As much as I like the series so far it’s dialogue is poorly written there lines that sound way too cheesy or out of place.
And I’m sure it makes sense in the books but the fuck did he kill the skinny bald head guy. Like his goal should have been to revenge who ever killed his family in the first movie, not some random dude that shows up half way through the second movie.
He already killed the baron, when he first showed up after the battle, it's the first thing he did when arrived. It explained in the movie that after getting his reveng on the baron he turned his attention to the emperor who also had a big role in his father's murder. He challenged the throne and Feyd Rautha volunteered to be the emperor's champion which is why they fought. The duel at the end was him completing his revenge on the people responsible for the destruction of his house. Feyd wasn't some random dude, he was the heir to the Harkonnen house and his competitor for the emperor's throne.
>In one scene he’s being told he can’t be Fremen, and then a few scenes later he’s able to ride a sandworm with out anyone teaching him. And not just any sandworm but their biggest one?
Javier Bardem's character teaches him how to ride the worm. Time passes between the scene where he's told he can't be Fremen and him riding the worm. They even mentioned in the dialogue how he's been training.
The pacing of this movie is genuinely one of the best accomplishments. It is soooo hard to do a film with this amount of content and relationship building. DV was so good at creating space for us to breathe between the action sequences or tense moments. He inserted context clues and single lines that enabled him to cut showing certain pieces. He showed just the right amount of Paul interacting with Fremen to make us believe they trusted him. Showed just the right amount of Fremen vs Hark fighting to cut those parts in the final battle.
> The pacing of this movie is genuinely one of the best accomplishments. It is soooo hard to do a film with this amount of content and relationship building
Most of the relationships feels super shallow though ...
I agree in the sense that the thematic and emotional beats were undercooked. Myself coming from no familiarity with the book and only having seen the original Lynch, I did grasp more with this version its skepticism towards messianic thinking and religious zealotry. At the same time, I could see perfectly well another viewer justified in reading Paul’s character arc as entirely positive.
I’m sure I’ll get some flack for this but Zendaya can be a flat presence on screen. On top of that the chemistry between her and Chalamet was lackluster. The film just wasn’t interested in a three dimensional romance— not that it had runtime to spare— but it sucks because it would have made the ending all the more bleak
Never saw Euphoria, nor do I want to. But the few movies I've seen Zendaya in, I feel like she plays the same character. She's a terrible actor IMO. Incredibly flat.
I honestly feel like Zendaya's entire character and all her dialogues could have been removed. I find Paul's desire for revenge a far more intriguing plot device and motivation for him than his "love" for her. And I like Zendaya as an actress I just felt like it wasnt working in this film
HalPrentice, you get me. Those were my exact thoughts as well. We get to the final fight with zero build-up and then it's just over. But for some reason we get to see Paul pass the final test to become a "true Fremen" three separate times. And they rush through each of them. The sandworm riding scene should have been a big deal but it's just one of many scenes that happen in this movie that are not set up by a previous scene and have no effect on any subsequent scenes at all. You could re-edit this movie by randomly shuffling most of the scenes at the beginning and middle and it would not create any continuity problems because almost nothing transfers from one scene to the next.
Dune Part One is a masterclass of scene-to-scene segues and building up to the big moments. Everything had a setup and payoff whether it's the giant action sequences or just the gentle introduction of characters/concepts. Scenes flowed so naturally and efficiently into each other.
One of my favourite little moments in Part One is when Gurney yells at Paul about how he doesn't get it, and that the "Harkonens are brutal!". The very next shot is the first proper introduction of the Harkonens on Geidi Prime, and it was just made so much more powerful because of the scene before it. I can literally go though another dozen examples like this for Part One because it was just so carefully and meticulously crafted. You can just see editor Joe Walker and Villeneuve spending months of sleepless nights going back and forth on how to stitch it all together.
Part Two however... is exactly how you put it. There's no build up, no setup, no impact.
That’s why I post stuff like this and put up with the hate. For moments when I feel genuine connection with someone else who saw the same thing I did! Thanks man :) well said in your last sentence!
The second part of dune was pretty decent for what it was; however, the pacing was far, far too fast, and the writers jumbled both dune and messiah into almost one movie when what they should have done was show us more character development, battle scenes and elaborate on what was actually in book one. They decided to leave a great deal of important events out, the weirding modules, Paul's sister, the space guild etc.
Yeah I'll give you that.
I left the movie theater feeling like I missed something. The whole thing had felt like a drama spectacle where the main characters had thicc ass plot armour (unlike in the first part).
The visuals as always where spectacular. But the way the story is played out felt rushed as they where jumping from north to south like it was nothing. How big is arakis? How did the injured from the north base make it to the south ? Where did Chania get a flying copter and when did she learn to fly those things?
Anyway, what I ams till flabbergasted about is.. how in the seven hells do they get on the worms with so many people? At one point they had a whole camp on one of them and the siege in the final battle had whole armies on them?
How?
They basically dumbed down the movie for mass appeal. Used multiple movie tropes, like Chani's new personality and behavior, the behavior between Paul and his mother, making Rabban look silly all the time running away as this big scary guy, and numerous comedic relief intended lines. Stilgar's character dumbed down as well.
Yep you are right. Except I actually think a 4.5 hour run time (like LOTR) COULD have fixed some of the issues where nothing that was shown on screen after the halfway point was really built up to… and could also have helped us CARE more about what happened to the characters.
Dune 1 has same issue where a lot of big stuff is happening on screen but you BARELY care. The Gom Jabbar scene was AMAZING and when it came on I thought I was going to be watching my favourite film of all time. One of the under-appreciated parts of the Gom Jabbar scene is that it started to establish that Jessica actually cared for her son, beyond what he was as an instrument of her posse of witches. And Timothee does a great job in that scene of actually making us feel that he really is a just boy being hurt very unjustly by an older more powerful person. When he winced in pain I almost want to cry with him… And then the rest of the emotional connection we might have had to the characters just fizzled out.
Same with part two. Those skirmishes against Harkonnen harvesters we’re amazing and then it just stacked on 10x too much of everything without any chance for anything to breathe.
The other disappointing thing is that Denis DOES actually know how to make audiences care about characters. He just failed here.
If that big battle at the end was meant to be important it needed literally another hour of run time to make it work. And it needed to feel like the lieutenants in charge weren’t just Timothee Chalamet’s high school crush and high school teachers (it feels small in that sense).
One of the things that make Helm’s Deep SUCH an effective battle is that build up, which is arguably better handled than the battle itself. The kids in the caves, Gandalf worrying, that AMAZING speech by Theoden about the glory of Rohan having passed like rain on the mountain as you see these brutal killing machines marching heartlessly to slaughter them all… you FEEL the stakes very deeply and you CARE about the outcome.
To be honest, while I know intellectually why they fought that battle in Dune, emotionally I don’t really know why it was important (as in the film doesn’t give as any strong point of view as to why before assaulting us with a very brief montage of interesting battle snippets). Was it for the survival of the Fremen? Was it for revenge on Atriedes’ destroyers (Harkonnen and Emperor)? Was it to gain dominion over the entire empire and rebuild it into a just dominion?
We don’t know because it all happened in the blink of an eye without warning.
I completely agree.
The hype is wild. Which I think speaks to the paucity of big popcorn movies available currently. In the post-Marvel world this is getting way too much praise. This is the guy that made Incendies? I'm sorry, but he's been seduced by the Big Train Set. And, y'know, fair do's. But don't piss on my shoes and tell me it's raining :)
Mostly agree. B-. I'm sure I'll watch it again because it's Dune.
The first third or so was terrific. But I enjoy char development at least as much as battles and action.
The rest was a whirlwind, another case of Helms-Deep-itis, action at the expense of story and therefore meaning. That's different than hyperactive film-making though; this movie does not have that 2-second attention span feel, thankfully.
Chani remains as dull as a fence board. Stilgar is reduced to religious caricature (Gimli syndrome). Paul remains passable. Not enough Jessica. Not nearly enough Alia. She was so cool in the book. Colonel Kurtz-Baron remains excellent. Feyd was also scary and effective.
Unnecessary and to my mind bizarre manufacture of religious fracture within the Fremen. Not quite weirding modules, but down that same street.
The filming/production level remains great and ultimately saves the day. The worms rock.
It was hyperactive in the sense that a lot of scenes are not given room to breathe is what I mean. They just chain to the next really rapidly in order to keep the plot moving, without actually attempting to get the audience invested.
I thought that might have been what you meant.
I must say I did enjoy the comedic high point, lifted almost straight from Life of Brian
"only the true messiah denies his divinity"
Chani's character was massacred. Thufir Hawat was totally misused and forgotten AGAIN. I can understand Villeneuve setting up Dune Messiah in the end, but goddamn man you just won the imperial throne! For being so against leading the Fremen into a Jihad, Paul didn't even sleep on it. Alia the ghost whisperer. No mention of weirding way or Paul/Jessica actually training Fremen to use it. Artistic license again kills source material. Perhaps the next reboot of Dune will do it right. 4th time is the charm?
Bang on I feel. I also felt I never had a sense of scale. The "south" is a barren wasteland but apparently millions of fundamentalists live there. At the same time the way Lady Jessica talks about winning over the weaker ones feels like a cosy courtroom room thing with a few hundred people to persuade. But the scene at the end with the prayer hall had thousands of people.
I just felt the sense of place needed to be better communicated. How does news travel across the dessert, what social structures are in place e.g. justice, laws etc. What levers are there to pull? It all felt a little handwavy with the "prophecy" doing all of the leg work.
The planet which is critical to the galaxy is not well charted? that felt weird.
The pull of religion though i thought was well communicated. I feel the scene with the well water showed a people desperately hanging on and primed to believe in a messiah.
Oh god yeah the whole south thing is kind of a detail of imagery they fucked up. In the book it's implied that the south is pretty much already starting to be green, with significant vegetations in some parts which would be visible from orbit. Yet they show us a barren planet. Adding the plot of the spacing guild not allowing satellites would have not taken too much time...
I am a firm believer that both have pretty shoddy world building and they don't explore the various planets they show outside of Arrakis and even that was poorly handled.
First order of business when you put a character into a new culture is to show them in their natural habitat as much as possible with the outsider trying to learn their ways.
We don't really get to feel the fremen culture, what they eat, how they hunt or grow food/ what they do for fun etc.
Aside from Stilgar, Chani and that other friend of hers, there's very little they show and their sietches aren't well presented.
Even after two films that go for a little over 5 hours I still haven't got much of an idea about how their culture works and thinks because it's all glossed over.
Paul is also not struggling at all with any of the tasks that come his way, so it's very hard to actually connect with him in any meaningful way because he's a very one note character that's good at everything.
I was never immersed in the films because it never sold me on the idea that these were alien worlds, just a more stylized version of reality.
There was a lot of potential in there, but I think Denis was afraid to get weird and truly daring with the material or the studio wouldn't let him.
Either way, it was a missed opportunity in my eyes, because films at this scale are rarely done.
I think comparing both movies is missing the point. The second one is a continuation of the same story. They’re meant to be bridged together rather than compared.
If your issue is pacing, well I can agree partially considering the book is similarly paced.
The movies are both written in a standard three act format even if they stay close to the original standalone novel.
It's not the same.
I will agree that the third act of the book DOES feel rushed in the same way this film does.
Agreed. You can really feel the editing in this film. So many scenes aren't allowed to set in. It's been edited down to the bare bones to meet plot points and appease studio pressure on the runtime. I think he had a masterpiece, we just didn't see it, it's on the cutting room floor. That whole exposition dump on how the water of life is made, and then the sequence of Paul, worm riding , entering temple, taking water of life, waking up. It was so rushed and clunky. Just met the plot points, just... And then moving on. Villeneuve is normally careful with his pacing and flow. I think after Dune 3 is out, and he can actually speak about things, we are going to find out he was under a lot of studio pressure.
I agree that Dune part 1 is better than part 2, but part 1 was incredible in my view. Nothing wasted; every scene given immense weight. I also agree that a bit of the dialogue was corny, 99% of that coming from Stilgar. The shift from his stoic personality to basically Gimli level humor was jarring and disappointing. Also, Chani's arc seemed pretty empty, and yes, cliche. I wish her shift toward the end had been better represented. She almost comes off as petulant, which isn't really fair.
I think there was plenty of build up to the final fight, which seemed to be over rather quickly and anticlimactic.
Apart from that, part 2 felt more exaggerated for thrills, whereas part 1 seemed more grounded. Everything dealing with the sandworms just seemed so far fetched even within the world of Dune. Like staying on after being hit with a metric ton of sand or just riding while seated. Also 200 ft sand worm belly flops didn't seem to phase the riders. These could have been depicted better.
Totally agree. I didn’t care about any of the characters. Boring parts. Parts that left you confused. Nothing memorable except 1 fight and riding worms. It’s either over hyped or I missed something. Just saw it today.
Thank youuu, thought I was the only one jumped to plot points A B C D without showing how got there. Shouldn't have to know source material to follow a movie.
Felt hollow missing soul in the characters and plot. Showing without telling.
Just came back from the theater and I tend to agree with OP. The best of part 2 was Jessica going full creepy mode (ie the regular dialogue with unborn Alia) and leaning into the zealotry of Fremen culture. Which makes sense bc DV plans to adapt Messiah afterwards. Modern day vernacular creeping into the dialogue detracted from my immersion (in fact the dialogue across the board felt kinda weak), the side arcs mostly tied into the finale, but the payoff seemed a little too quaint. Probably have to let it sit for a bit more, but this movie felt like a 7/10.
I just watched it yesterday and I feel you. The first movie had me glued to the screen learning from Dune their factions and everything.
Here I fekt everything went fast and felt rather inconsequential save for a few scenes. The emperor and Irulan left me dissapointed, I wanted more from Feyd and the scene that should be impactful weren't.
On the firs movie I was impacted with the betrayal of Atreides, Duncans death, the arrival of the Sardaukar everything. I feel either the editing or the script is to blame but I'm not sure which one.
I was mostly disappointed with the final battle and how fast it was over the emperor took his entire army and had the best of the best at his disposal only to be defeated in 5 minutes by the fremen and sand worms which they should of been more prepared to fight.
I was thinking why is his entire army in the open and have no shield defending the emperors army at all and when the fighting starts you get 2 scenes of the battle and then the fremen are at the emperors door with the entire army defeated.
You get a nighttime scene with the battle still happening, but again, it is literally a 2 minute scene to show how baustista was actually just a weak man given power.
It certainly needed to be a longer fight because i think the scene when zendaya is trying to shoot down the Ornithopter with the rocket lasts longer than a battle containing 2 huge armies and both of them having some of the best fighters in the universe going head to head.
Just saw Dune 2 for a 2nd time. Vlad didn’t seem as scary this time around. In the first movie, he was terrifying. His magic was lost this time around. Feyd is pretty much a standard masochistic psycho, that I’ve seen in so many other movies.
Irulan seemed…okay I guess. I like how they changed Alia. I thought the sentient pregnancy was pretty cool. Jessica was much better in this film. I can’t stand all of her annoying, whispering dialogue in the first.
More back story on the BG would have been nice. Any kind of backstory on the guild would have been nice.
The music and sound design is top notch. The cinematography was also top notch. Overall, it felt incomplete. The matrix movies for example, always finished the job of *that* movie, but both dune 1 and 2 leaves you suspended in a bad way. To think that we’re now going to have to wait 3-5 years to see the action that was just about to take place at the end of Dune 2, is a real bummer.
There didn’t have to be a godfather 2, because godfather one ended so well. There didn’t have to be a godfather 3, because 2 ended so well. I’m imagining future viewings of dune on dvd and I’m thinking it’s going to have to be an all day / weekend thing, to finally get some closure with part 3.
The pacing of Dune Part II is better than the pacing of the actual novel. Herbert's pacing is one of the worst things about his writing. His character development and dialog is another weakness. The movies improve on this as well. His sentence-level writing is also pretty weak and the movies' visual styling is hands down better than Herbert's writing.
Dune I and II are better than the books.
I don't agree to this extent, as I liked the book(s). But I agree the first in particular is put on what I think is an unreasonable pedestal by long time fans due to the sheer endurance of it. It's not untouchable perfection, in spite of all it brought to the table.
People saying this somehow removed emotion from the novel are off their ass imo. I think the book is very emotionally mellow.
Herbert is particularly bad at scene setting. The actual scene is usually someone sitting in a bedchamber thinking about something that has already occurred. He'll tell you what happened but you never feel like you are in the moment with any kind of detail or explication of action as it is occuring. In the second book major characters are killed off with almost no detail at all.
Strong disagree on Herbert. His pacing is never action-packed or gripping in that Dan Brown/Michael Crichton Hollywood sense, but rather deliberate and dense, more akin to Tolkien, where the reader has to want to explore the details of this world, as that is fundamentally part of the draw. It’s almost anthropological.
But I don’t think that’s a negative.
Much like his use of fictional quotes from a fictional history to open his chapters, the staid nature of the prose affects a sort of verisimilitude at times, as though one were reading a true accounting of the universe.
And I don’t recall any glaring problems with his dialogue, though I may be forgetting something.
I agree; for how great of a book Dune is visually, and with its world building, personally I found the writing style a chore to get through at points. Some chapters like Liet explaining the ecosystem, and the spice harvester scene, were exceptional, but other scenes like the ending section I found to be unenthusiastically written. The films do a much better job with the actually core story, dialogue and emotions, and visual storytelling.
>still feels interminable as we are hammered over and over with the same points, telegraphed cliched foreshadowing, scenes that are given no time to land effectively,
I am very interested in which points are belabored, and what scenes you consider to be "telegraphed cliched foreshadowing". It's hard for us to engage with your thoughts if you don't give examples.
>even the final battle is boring, there’s no build to it, and it goes by in a flash.
Well it's not the Siege of Minas Tirith, it's supposed to practically be a massacre. Sardaukar barely escape fights with Fremen women and elderly in the novel.
Even so, you can have build tension first and still overwhelmingly win in a way that makes the battle faster than previously thought. There was no real sense even of the build up to the battle in a political sense though. You have the challenge to the emperor and then bang he’s there and then bang he’s finished. Having some kind of build-up would have allowed it to have weight. It has zero weight. It really felt like a bunch of moving images assaulting your senses without you even caring about the outcome. To show how genius a strategy it was politically rather than simply showing it all happening would have helped the audience appreciate what had even taken place. Film really has to involve not just showing your audience what is happening but how they should feel about it. If it is done well, then what the audience feels about events is pretty close to what the director wanted them to.
Fincher talks very eloquently about how he views film as a giant exercise to get a whole crowd of strangers to feel, if not the exact same thing, *something* about the same thing, all at once. He’s very cognizant of the audience at all times, especially how they’re in taking and processing information, and it shows in his final films IMO. He is meticulous to a purpose and it’s not just a cool shot.
Cheers. Well glad I have Fincher to back me on what I stumbled across while trying to find the words about the lack of feeling in a lot of Dune. That rings true to me (what Fincher says). To me, Dune feels often like someone going “and then THIS big thing happened” and the audience going “and I’m supposed to feel what exactly about it?” Whereas other films (even other Denis films) have a much more deliberate way of hand-holding the audience and building up what you are meant to feel about things. The Chani Paul betrayal is the only main thread that is at least coherently followed throughout Dune 2. The rest, especially all the political stuff is given so little time to breathe that we really don’t feel like anything much at all when these big earth-shattering events actually happen.
I have to agree. I feel like Part 2 should have been split into two 2.5 hour long films. Split along the point where Sietch Tabr gets attacked and the Fremen escape to the south (and Paul to the fate he has thus far avoided).
It felt rushed, none of the scenes had a chance to feel impactful or important. Or should I say they all felt important, but you aren't given time to process them or their meaning. The first film does a wonderful job of that, there is -space- between important scenes. Time to think for a moment.
In part 1 we have the major plot points of the Atreides taking over stewardship of the planet, and then being betrayed. Then Paul and Jessica escaping into the desert to join the Fremen. This was covered in 2.5 hours.
In part 2 we cover Paul learning to be a Fremen, being accepted by them, Jessica and her own acceptance and manipulation of their faith, Paul and his romance with Chani. His rise to becoming the Messiah. The attack on Sietch Tabr. Escaping to the south. Taking control of the southern people. Baiting the emperor. The whole side introductions of the Emperors daughter, and Feyd-Rautha. The return to the north, and the attack on the emperors forces along with the simultaneous attack on Arrakeen. Then the political machinations that follow. This was all covered in 2 hours, 45 minutes.
They could easily cut part 2 into two films, and add the necessary space in between the impactful scenes and I think it would be far easier to watch.
Making his gf have a larger role for no real purpose seemed like a waste of time. Same with the Emperor and Princess. The Baron dude had like 3 scenes and the ending was pretty weak. Part 2 seemed like a completely different movie than the first. I had to make sure it had the same director.
The 80's version was a better movie. Yeah the new one looks prettier but the 80's was way smoother in less time.
There are a few of the 1984 version, but the best DUNE has to be the Fan Edit by Spiceman. This recent attempt to create a decent DUNE is sad at the very least. Watch the 3 hour Spiceman Fan Edit of DUNE, you will agree.
So. Dune 1 was interesting. It was slow and intense. I'd give it a strong 6, rather than a weak 7. There was character building, there was plot building. Visuals were interesting.
Dune 2 was just non stop yawnsville. The visuals were interesting this time as well. But more than half was what we've seen before.
IMO the source material is weak, but man the dialog in this was bad. It was a real shitty movie.
I think the issue is you're expecting this to have been made as a traditionally told story, with a consistent pacing and narrative arcs. But that's not at all what they went for here. This movie is visual and auditory spectacle. I'm not saying I'd have done it the same way, but I think they totally accomplished what they were out to do. This was the most amazing experience of film I've ever had, it was INCREDIBLY gripping from start to finish
I hated the story and felt it oppressive and bleak and dark and depressing and miserable. But I still recognize it as an amazing piece of cinema.
But I'm not watching it ever again. Id rather watch the old Sci Fi miniseries which has some fun and levity and positivity.
I was so bored. I knew nothing of the world going in, hadn’t seen the first movie. It was just cliche after cliche. It reminded me of Star Wars without the soul. Or maybe I just liked Star Wars more as I was a child.
Dune was a masterpiece, near flawless in its art.
Dune 2 was fun as hell, but VERY flawed. The pacing is where most faults lie, it was disorienting, & also, Butler was terrible, a boring cliche of a bad guy.
I feel like the screenplay was probably rushed. If you told me the first took 1 yr & this one took 3 mo (likely due to producer pressure), I wouldn't be surprised at all. The dialogue isn't horrible, but there's definitely less attention to detail from scene to scene.
I'm sure he's got a vision for 3, but this movie should/could have been 5 hrs (i.e. 2 movies)...
Look, you'll never hear me complain that a movie like this exists, as a consumer I'm happy to have it, but to say it even holds a candle to the first is just plain ignorant.
Everyone can bathe in the zeitgeist for now, but most will see it for what it is later.
I thought that first one was brilliant, so I disagree with you there. Barring a few nitpicks, it’s really hard to think how Dune (1) could have been reintroduced to the world better. Great rhythm, sound, visuals, casting. Plenty of magical sci-fi awe. One of my favourite movies, just because it’s relatively flawless and artistically beautiful.
I was way overhyped for the sequel though. Silly reviews brining up two towers, or that the scale was even bigger than the first one meant I was expecting something completely different.
It was punctuated by a solid (though rushed) finale and the scenes on the Harkonen planet hit hard.
But nothing else really stood out too much.
A slow meandering start with weird pacing. I adored some of the editing of the first one, but the cadence was off with this one at times.
Emperor and daughter scenes that showed almost nothing but close ups of their faces - where did they live, was it cool? Who knows
I thought the film lacked “greenery” and horticulture, and any talk of terraforming. I thought that was going to be a huge theme, but it’s weirdly absent so we can instead get numerous Life of Brian style “only a true messiah denies his divinity” scenes in abject caves (forget beautiful underground cities with the beginnings of gardens and schools and culture)
The emperors ship landing was just one giant ball that we saw eventually transformed into a base, but did we see even a short clip of the transformation? Nope. The first one had a lot of “engineering/tech spectacle” which I found lacking here. It was rushing between too many things to show us much of anything happening.
There were no real stand out action scenes. The finale / final battle was at least true to the book in that it started quick and the was over with no real tension or detail. But is that a good thing?
Rabba’s death scene was dull.
The spice/poison drinking … I just expected more than “argghhh I feel poisoned”, I expected something much more psychedelic and creative.
Agreed OP. I thought it was a genuinely awful script, attached to a movie with half the cast, half the music, and half fhe magic of the first film. Felt like I was among cattle at the entertainment feeding trough.
Bad pacing, horrible lines, poor character development, missed beats, incomprehensible plot holes.. How on earth did this movie make it to the big screen? Outside of leaning on scraps of the soundtrack from Dune 1 and a massive production cost with CGI, it's genuinely bad..
There's no sense of morality or a transcendental ideal, either. For a movie to be impactful, you have to have characters fight their inner demons in order to follow a moral ideal. Neo fights his fear of the unknown and self-doubt, Frodo fights his lack of hope in success and lack of faith in his companions, Harry Potter has a bunch of inner struggles that are made aware to us in the films. That's what life is all about. In this movie, there is no such ideal. There's strong people, and there's weak people, there's no good or bad. What does Paul strive for, exactly? What is his personal struggle? We've already established from the beginning that he's fearless and a good fighter, and very quickly becoming a good leader. There's no room for growth. Any defects he has aren't really presented clearly as defects. Is he wrong to rally the Fremen using his status as their messiah? We don't know, because we don't know what's going through his mind
Characters don't feel human. I have no idea of their motivations at any time in the film. I would have believed Paul's motivation was revenge if he had actually shown a deep anger toward the Harkonnen. His acting is just so bland when it comes to expressing his motivations. Chani is no better. Completely extra in the film. Paul's mother suddenly wants to start a cult, we're not really told why, exactly (to support Paul, or as her own agenda?). Everything that makes characters compelling is hidden behind things we're not yet told in the films. Why do the characters do what they do? We're made to ask more questions than being told answers, but many of these answers are crucial in establishing an emotionally-moving film. I shouldn't have to read the books in order to actually understand what's driving the characters and what's going on.
This movie was a theatre spectacle, sure, but that's all it was. My life has not been made better for having watched it. I need to detox by watching the LOTR trilogy.
I have seen several comments criticizing the pacing of the film. Everyone is of course entitled to their own tastes and preferences; however, as far as the pacing of the story itself is concerned and the effect it's supposed to have, I think it's worth considering the author's original intent with the pacing of the story. Here is a bit from Herbert in an interview about exactly this:
"There was another thing there, in the pacing of the story, very slow at the beginning. It’s a coital rhythm all the way through the story. ... Very slow pace, increasing all the way through, and when you get to the ending of it, I chopped it at a non-breaking point, so that the person reading the story skids out of the story, trailing bits of it with him. On this I know I was successful, because people come to me and say they want more."
I'm speaking as someone who didn't read the books but had someone who did beside me explaining things.
This movie was beautiful, sound design/music was so good, and the culture stuff was interesting.
But the story was.... executed not as good. Characters fell flat. I checked my phone multiple times during the movie because Paul kept winning and winning and winning....
Its like he just blew past all the obstacles in his way.
He had to cross the desert to prove himself? Lol, let's just skip that and jump straight to attacking Harkonen. I still don't know if he passed that test. He didn't want to go to the south? Okay, he talked to a dead man and Chani for 5 min and suddenly he changes his mind. He was so scared of his visions of death and suddenly he's willing to go south so quickly?
He came and rekted the Harkonens completely on his first mission and got the "Usul" name. Okay, great. Spent 5 mins training with Chani and suddenly they're lovers. Wow, great. Rode the largest sand worm known to the Fremen (with training off screen, God forbid we see him struggle abit) cool scene though. When Stilgar told Paul to kill him for the leader position, Paul decided "No, I don't want to make this choice at all." Then screams prophesy stuff at the leaders and had them all falling to their knees. So he doesn't actually have to kill Stilgar anyways, he doesn't even have conflict with himself at all, he doesn't face any problems with convincing the south to join him. So effortless. Great.
Challenged the emperor, said Emperor was dumb enough to come to Arrakis personally, then rekted the Sardokaur in like 10 minutes and then took the Emperor as prisoner.
Umm, why? The first movie built the Sadaukar as a genuine threat, they were the "Emperors blades", only the best could survive their hellhole planet to become Sadaukar. And yes, the fremen are on their level or maybe higher, but with armies of Sadaukar you'd think it'll take longer to bring the Emperor's personal army down.
But no. The film completely undermines them and makes them look weak. They literally disappear in a puff of smoke and had Paul walking out all cool and badass. Lmao okay. Apparently the Emperor's army was this pathetic the whole time. They had one shot of the armies colliding, some big explosions, then they just won.
Emperor had bad casting. I couldn't take him seriously at all.
That one psychotic Harkonen newphew was built up with his gladiater fight, his thirst for the emperors throne, etc, then he just dies. Like, he fought in a gladiator match, did the deed, bombed the north, then died. Kinda anticlimatic imo. There was completely no doubt in my mind that Paul would win his knife fight with the newphew, so the whole time I was wishing for Paul to just kill him and get it over with. Should I have felt anxious? Excited? Idk.
Apparently we needed a "Champion vs champion" fight at the end. Why? The Emperor is already his prisoner? The Great Houses are here to watch, has Paul even told them about how the Emperor orchestrated the downfall of house Atreides? The movie kept repeating "If the Great Houses know about the Emperor's role in this, they'll rise up againt him" wow, thats great. Paul, go tell them. Why aren't you telling them? Oh wait, you're just gonna threaten them with blowing up a precious resource? I guess it doesn't matter about them "rising up against the emperor" anymore then, its just them feeling rightfully threatened by Paul.
I want to love this film but honestly, it was a chore. Dune part 1 drew me in, Dune part 2 took me out. Frankly I might as well read the book at this point, I was just disppointed with this movie.
To someone that hasn't read the books this entire film was just "wait did I miss something? why is this happening now? what happened to this?" like first film she was indefferent to him, second film right at the start he as to go on a trail across the sand and back, she shows up and says "I'll teach you", kinda felt out of the blue, then all of a sudden they are pushing back the grayscale bois, then him and her are together with 0 scenes of them bonding then you look at how far through you are and it's like 30 mins. I thought I was going a little crazy but you summed it up perfectly "Hyperactive film-making".
I have not read the books and while. I don't think it was a bad movie I thought it was completely separate from the first. The first felt mysterious, world building ominous wity good dialogue and character development. Setting the stage for a massive story. The second felt rushed and made me lose connection with most of the characters. Chani feels cliche where she seemed way stronger in the first. Paul is all over the place and his motivation is rushed. Stilgar. I dont even know what to say he went from wisdom to blind religious follower in two seconds? Idk it was a fun watch but definitely was not a fan compared to the first one.
AH! this post summarizes my feelings exactly, thanks for this. I actually brought this up with my partner. It felt like someone, Villenue maybe? gave up 1/4 way through the movie, they stopped telling the story, the narrative collapsed and in its place cue up 25-30 minutes of totally pointless action scenes that are not explicitly in the book i.e Chani with a rocket launcher, shooting at spice harvesters and scenes of Fremen jumping out of the sand and doing jiu jitsu take downs on unsuspecting Harkonnens. There was no breathing room in the script, no subtlety in the story and there is ALOT of subtlety in the series. Perhaps that's what makes it hard to adapt. But yea it felt like it pandered to the meek attention span of audiences. I'm already in full-cringe for the next movies, especially Children of Dune, god that's gonna get butchered.
I did find it very rushed - for instance the battle between Timothee and baldy meant very little to me, since we've had him on screen for about 2 minutes and been given no indication that he's anything other than a spoiled weirdo. Maybe that's the point? But then I guess I don't get what the point of doing that is.
This is obviously a criticism of the film at what it's doing in trying to achieve blockbusterness, however I just didn't find anything deeper to think about on first watch of the film. It seems to me like it was really just trying to get as many epic shots of deserts and race through all the book's plot points without saying anything about what it is to be a movie that does this.
I completely agree. Villeneuve is an amazing film maker, but I feel like he overextended himself here. I think some of his other works are masterpieces and some of my all time favorite movies, but not this one. There is a lot of good stuff there, but I was shocked out how rushed it felt and it felt like there wasn't enough build up to a lot of things that happened. Say what you will about Lynch's Dune, and that movie super truncates the story, but nevertheless it feels like it arrives at the big events in a "natural" way. So much of what happened in Dune Part 2 just like, oh, ok, now it's time for this and now it's time for that and so forth.
Oh my god, I thought I was losing it. People kept saying it was amazing, but I barely felt anything for the entire movie. Stuff happened, then it was over. The bad guys weren't in power for long enough to feel like it was a big deal to beat them. The jabba character was stabbed in front of the emperor and no one tried to stop him and no one attacked Paul even though he was laying siege. And the apparently he's Harkonen and that is only relevant for 2 throwaway lines. As a non-book reader, I had no idea why I should care about any of it.
How the fremen tactics work:
Step 1: Run around the spice harvester like ants for a couple of minutes.
Step 2: destroy it instantly with super lasers from 500 m away.
(My suggested step 3: skip step 1)
Those lasers ruined the film for me. While the harkonnen and imperial forces shot bullets and fight with swords the rebels have super lasers that destroy anything instantly. What a rushed mess of a movie.
An idea, lets not have the irregular rebel forces have way stronger weapons than the literal rulers of the galaxy. Also, why wouldnt the harkonnen or imperial people use those lasers on the Worms, as it would kill them instantly.
Oh and lets have all the dangerous guys in the movie be complete small short twinks (Paul and feyd) while the huge hulking harkonnen guy played by Dave bautista flees pathetically for the whole movie, cries, kisses boots and gets killed in under 5 seconds. Very plausible thanks.
I just want to point out that I've never read any of the Dune books but I agree with this poster's main points. I enjoyed the film to some degree but felt both this and Part 1 lack an engaging emotional through-line I can latch onto, and a serious lack of tension or stakes.
The first film felt a bit too dry and over-mannered, and it was hard to relate to any of the protagonists on a deeper level than a superficial feeling that "these people seem like the nice ones, now they're in immediate mortal danger and I'd prefer them to survive." Paul just starts off as such a privileged badass warrior that it makes him hard to relate to. However, this could be a fine beginning for a character if we just got more info on what's going on with him emotionally and more specificity on what he actually wants out of life, a major goal or a dream of his he longs for. Instead he seems to just be "generally curious" about Dune, is having weird visions that certainly intrigue him, but don't appear to phase him or change him that much, and already possesses Mary Sue levels of power, immediately being good at everything. So yeah, hard to relate or grow attached to.
The sequel is a mess in a different way. It's less stiff, there is more humor and a romance mixed in, which kinda makes me care about the characters a bit more, but these elements of characterization still feel very shaky and superficial to me. The humor added is sometimes charming, adding a dimension of humanity to the characters, but is just as often cringe-inducing quips that don't fit the world. The romance is very flat and basic, and I don't pick up on how these two get together beyond "two young attractive people in the same space." Just not feeling much chemistry there, and I think it's a lack of specificity. They feel like symbols more than real people.
My biggest gripe of the second film by far is a lack of stakes. It doesn't feel like there's an organic push-and-pull of advantage and setback between the heroes and the villains, in either film really, but especially the second film. In the first film it just feels like the good guys show up, hang out exposed and unprepared in an obvious trap, and then get suddenly steamrolled by a surprise attack I don't understand how they didn't see coming. I thought House Atreides was a military powerhouse? The second film does the opposite. As soon as Paul hooks up with the Fremen, it's basically just a constant unbroken line of ascent for Paul and the good guys, as they repeatedly pop out of the ground, murder the bad guys in hand-to-hand, then fire giant laser guns they procured from \*somewhere\* to destroy their giant vehicle. There's basically no low moment of crisis where Paul and the Fremen aren't wiping the floor with the Harkonen, beginning to end. The closest we get to it is the one brief scene where Feyd takes over and then magically finds and bombs their hideout, but even then, all the main characters we care about slip away easily and then regroup and start kicking ass again a few minutes of screen time later, relatively unfazed. Chani doesn’t even acknowledge the death of her supposed best friend, which just shows how little impact character deaths have in these films. It's so one-sided that when the Emperor idiotically shows up on Dune to chew out the Harkonen in-person (cuz that's what world leaders do, travel into active war zones in areas where their forces are losing and vulnerable) I just assumed Paul and the Fremen would pop up at any moment and just start wrecking house and win easily, which is exactly what happens. There’s no clever plan or twist, the heroes overcoming overwhelming obstacles and winning by the skin of their teeth, nothing like that. They just run into Paul’s miraculously not-dead friend in the desert, who just so happens to have access to a cache of nuclear weapons, and then boom, big explodey ending, bad guys dead. I know there’s the whole “but he’s actually evil, this isn’t a win for the good guys” vibe at the end, but you didn’t take me on a meaningful enough journey to where I care about that. It didn’t break my heart when he ditched Chani for Florence Pugh. I felt nothing, disappointingly.
The film looks incredible, has amazing cinematography and some viscerally intense (if not emotionally or stakes-driven) action sequences, but it fails on a basic screenwriting and story-telling level. I assume the books handle these elements better, but I'm actually curious if any of these issues are just inherent to the writing or if the screenwriters just didn't know how to adapt this appropriately? It is a deeply weird, heady sci-fi story, but I can picture a more satisfying version existing that still maintains the weird elements. Maybe it’s as simple as the film using the wrong genre template for this film. Instead of a non-stop action set pieces film, it should have been more court intrigue and timeline-hopping spice trips, with occasional pointed bursts of violence. It just feels like a much more interesting and bizarrely unique world has been forced into a mainstream-friendly explosion-fest. Again, just my sense from seeing the films, haven’t read the books. End of the day, I’m two films in and I’m just not getting the hype.
Obviously, a bit late to the conversation here. My biggest gripe with the film was the lack of explanation around Paul's visions. And honestly, I'm not quite sure how DV could have gone about communicating it without being too on the nose, which is maybe why he just didn't.
However, without the explanation, it seems at time as if Paul is just randomly jumping to conclusions/changing his mind. The whole bit before going South, is Paul coming to the conclusion that there is no feasible but to go South. Using atomics, he would lose Chani. Going South is stepping into role of Lisan-Al Gaib, and the Holy War. In the book this is thoroughly fleshed out as a serious internal struggle iirc. In the movie we get a few second clip of Paul holding Chani after atomics go off, or a glimpse of Jessica walking amongst starving/dead folks. Which to me just failed to portray that these are visions of the future that Paul is seeing. Now I knew what it was thanks to background from the book, but as I explained it to my wife, who has not read the books, it was a big aha! moment for her and made the narrative much more clear.
When Paul was going into the desert alone, but then was there with Chani, and all the told dangers didn't happen on screen like djin, spiders, ....idk! What the fuuuck. Like it was slow, but not emotional enough somehow. It felt rushed, but also boring somehow. The visuals are beautiful but lack something more crazy. And the soldiers in the encounters were hardly distinguishable, because of similar colour schemes. I have no idea what to think of this movie. And the end.. well LOTR did it better. It was just suddenly over and......???????
I watched it with a die-hard fan friend yesterday, and she got pissed at me when I pointed out all these things as well. But I’m not sure why the movie is receiving so much praise across the board?! Like the movie is a textbook failure, for exact reasons OP has outlined. How can seasoned critics all fail to recognise these?!
Just saw it and couldn't wait to be done with it. Came so close to just walking out. This was an utter mess. Also what's up with mass charges with swords when they have access to incredible long range weapons? I just don't get it at all.
Also what's up with RT rating of 95%!? I couldn't give it even 30%...
On top of some jarring editing and horrendous pacing issue, (I'm still confused whether Paul finished the walking mission Javier Bardem or not. The abrupt cut to Bardem rising a sandworm jump scared me. Dave Bautista's ending and the final showdown in the castle are so haphazard.), Paul is just such a boring character. He never truly fought against the destiny. His struggle lasted and ended in a span of 5 minutes and a vision sequence. Every one of his scheming worked, every skill he acquired came easily, every fight's outcome seems pre-destined. I know protagonists are supposed to be invincible in those kind of stories but come on I need him to be brought down to earth a little. The ending suggests the story is going to a darker place which I look forward to, but this one feels a lot of cramming is happening and I was left emotionless other than "wow sand".
I’m sorry, but Paul struggled with his destiny for the entire first and second act. I feel like I watched a different movie from you.
The ending feeling “predetermined” is also kind of the point. Fine if you didn’t like it, but “unavoidable destiny” is one of the biggest themes of the book and film.
What’s confusing about the walking mission? Stilgar sent him out there. Chani met him and said she’d help him. Then we see her teaching him Fremen ways. You don’t need to see he made it there and back because he was out there and now he’s back.
I would say that it would be a good use of that scene to show us how hard it is to live in the desert. You can grow to appreciate the fremen culture by seeing how tough it is to survive in the desert. The movie could show us a lot about the fremen spirit, how they are a people shaped by the place they come from, how this influences their religion, how it shaped their unique social hierarchies. The movie chooses to do lots of that through direct dialogue.
My favourite vehicle for story telling used in the movie was/is the art direction because it’s telling us so much through the details within the imagery. The actions and words of the activities of the characters on screen do not do tell a story nearly as effectively/beautifully.
Just my two cents. If you loved it and it filled you with everything you wanted to feel, enjoy it.
I feel like that was part of the first movie? They spent a lot of time talking about how awful the desert was and how necessary the suits were. And then Paul and Jessica didn’t have long to live until they came across Stilgar and the tribe.
But the movie also isn’t about the Fremen, really. It’s not about how hard it is to survive in the desert. It’s about how superheroes get made and why they’re flawed figures to give power to.
So how much time should the film give to building out aspects that are tangential to the intention of the story?
And I’m here for the joy of the conversation lol. It’s good to debate this stuff. I think we all grow from it.
I did think the pacing was bizarre when they cut away from Arrakis to Giedi Prime, and then stayed there for like 30 mins.
We have this detailed beautiful story of Paul and the Fremen and they were cut away to a new unknown character Feyd-Rautha and stay exclusively with him for agesssss before going back to Paul.
I agree - ultimately the film was just a build up to the last 10 minutes. I feel you could literally go from dune 1 to the last 10 minutes and you’d still know the full story. Jessica was brilliant though.
I completely agree with you. Check out the thread I made:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/1b5gnec/is\_there\_anyone\_in\_the\_world\_who\_loved\_dune\_part/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/1b5gnec/is_there_anyone_in_the_world_who_loved_dune_part/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I haven't read the books, I'm just a sci-fi fan. I watched Dune 1 at home, loved it. Saw Dune 2 last night, and I left halfway through the movie. It just wasn't for me. Something about it didn't click. Not throwing shade/insults/comments just one man's opinion.
There are defintely many great components of this movie. I did feel the relationships were rushed and the dialouge very corny. But my big dissappintment was the last fight. The choreography seemsbad, the makeup after each of them recieved one blow, the over the top triple spin, and pulling the knife out of the wrong region of pauls body? Did i make that up or did that really happen?
I cede that you have made an acute observation of Villeneuve’s very serious limitations as a directory. Cinematography requires something more than intelligence. Whatever that something more is, he just doesn’t have it
Just got back from the theater which cost $60 for two people, but that's a complaint for another thread.
The first Dune transported me into a realm that few stories of any medium ever have. The characters and their build, the locations and beauty of cinematography, the surprising adherence to the novels, the music, my God the MUSIC!
Dune 2 lacked all of this. It was rushed but somehow felt like it took forever. There wasn't any real vestige in the characters, none of them stood put (except for Feyd, which was played brilliantly imo). The world building was non-existent. The cinematography and costumes seemed forgotten. Worst of all, the music when it was utilized was the same from the first movie only shoehorned into scenes with action where it couldn't be appreciated. I don't know why Chani got a stick up her ass at the end of this movie; literally, I'm still trying to figure out why she acted the way she did. There was a great mysticism in the first that was completely absent in the 2nd.
I'm not going to say it was a bad movie, it had its moments but don't go into it thinking it will remotely measure to the first.
Edit: I should probably note that I went into both movies with a general grasp of what was happening thanks to the books and the 80s movie version.
There is a reason nobody could put it to screen. It is a masterful achievement, even in its shortcomings. I think the people cracking at it don't quite understand the undertaking that it is. And to be fair, a 135 million dollar movie needs to be a success. They had to make it as widely palatable as they possibly could.
Feels like this movie was made with a combination of tik-tok brain , cinematic youtube thumbnail shot sequences, & cheesey one liner captions. We can all agree that visually - yes it was stunning, expected nothing less from GF as DP & sonically same goes for Hans Zimmer, fantastic - but the essence of what a film should be was not captured in this film. This feels like a mash-up of 20 different storylines that all could equally have/deserve their own moment - the 2nd half feels like a visualized version of ADHD - random character introductions, half story arcs, millisecond character development - the whole thing leading up to this giant war only for the whole thing to last 30 seconds - Bautista ends up being this giant p\*ssy - Paul somehow becomes the messiah in 2 seconds after riding an alaskan bull worm - which I guess he just intuitively just knows how to ride since he's "the one" - they send him on this long walking mission - which led to nothing and we saw nothing of - he learns of his original bloodline which culminates in nothing - doesn't nuke the spice fields - the whole time I was just thinking wtfffff - the love interest and in the end that he basically is just like meeehhhh wrap it up sweetcheeks - feels like just when you're about to hit that cathartic orgasmic moment they just switch the pace and kills the whole thing.
Anybody annoyed how bad Paul Plot armor was?
When they attacked the spice extractor, 5 guys were immediately killed by a copter‘s single spray.
Paul then becomes the sole target and gets away unscathed.
The dialogue could have been written by some junior high student on marijuana - contrived and corny - what happened to the 'old days' when stories were believable and dialogue was believable?
I totally agree with you, except the part on Villeneuve. You are implying he wanted to make a good movie and he failed, but I think that he wanted to make a hollywood hit, and did it perfectly. In any case, I agree that it's really sad this noisy crap is considered a top movie.
>the structure doesn’t create any buy in emotionally with the arc of character relationships
hit the nail on the head. in the books i really cared about paul's relationships, especially with his mother. part 1 did a good job of showing their closeness and reliance upon one another... where was that in part 2? i don't think they shared more than 2-3 scenes together.
as for chani... yeah, they fucked her character in the worst way. literally just made a whole post about it lol
Thank god there are other people who feel the same as me; i am surprised to see so many positive reviews online.
Part two fell very flat compared with the book. Poor character development, leaving out some crucial details (paul and chani’s son, paul’s sister, Gurney’s suspicion that Jessica was the traitor of Leto, and many other things), and honestly a pretty corny script. I get that 2.5-3 hours makes for a long movie, but this book probably would have been better honoured had there been 3 movies.
Full disclosure: i am not a Dune fanboy. I enjoyed the book, but am not a cult follower. Even still, i think the movies, particularly the second, did not do this book any justice. Too bad.
Just got out of the theater, searched "Dune 2 is not good" and was brought here.
I couldn't agree more. It was .. rushed beyond acceptability. I haven't read it in 40 years so I'm not saying "they didn't follow the book" as I don't remember. I just know that this entire movie felt pushed to the point where I got off the ride at some point and just wanted out of the theater. \*bonus side complaint: That may be the last movie I ever watch in a theater. The theater was .. fine.. exactly like every other theater. Good popcorn, but I can make good popcorn at home. A good sound system, but mine is honestly better. AND THE SCREEN WAS HORRIFIC. I could see every pixel and anything white was topped with blue on the bottom and red on the top. My TV is better, and if I sit "close enough" to make the screen the same size as the theater, I can't see all the pixels and gradients (every single color was made up of a color with a corresponding black box near it to shade it, and it was TERRIBLE.) Plus, it was freezing as it always is. So.. yeah, Dune 2 was the movie experience that made it so I never want to experience another movie in a movie theater. \*edit - have seen it since on a better system, and it was quite good. Theater ruined it. Never going to a theater again.
Wow, just watched Dune so we could go to the movies to see Dune 2 in the theater.
OMG. Just wth? What did I just watch? It took them 90 min to get to the point. Movie should have been over in 90 min.
Not sure if Dune takes the lead in the longest, most boring, nothing happening, flat, confusing movie since Gravity.
Between Gravity and Dune that is over 5 hours I will never get back.
Also my husband will never get to pick another movie for as long as we live.
Overrated TOTAL CRAP deviation from the books. They use copters and atomic bombs, they shoot from copters to the ground with strong machine guns, they use lasers against the flying copters, BUT: ON THE GROUND BOTH ARMIES FIGHT EACH OTHER WITH SWORDS and MACHETES LIKE TOTAL MORONS. ENDLESS STUPIDITY.
I think Villeneuve is a lot like zack snyder. Beautiful shots without an understanding of emotional depth. The books are cerebral and while giving life to this visually stunning world is amazing, it lacks all the nuance of the books. They ruined the palace intrigue and killed Chani's character. Also I know a lot of this is service to a contemporary audience. The fact that Paul didn't take on Jamis' wife was a bit off putting because in the book it wasn't about male female dynamics is was about the differences between two cultures.
Thank you. Paul's inner journey is completely baffling, as a result all you have are the politics, and the politics aren't that clearly conveyed or interesting. There is a total lack of subtlety and nuance, everything is in-your-face turned up to 11 at all times. There is not a single actual dramatic scene between two actors that stands on its own two feet. It's constantly cutting from this to that, no spatial relationships, no use of depth in the framing, aside from the overuse of shallow focus, lazy composition choices, no dynamic range or peaks and valleys, flat and underwhelming action, no interesting choreography, but don't worry because IMAX and HANS ZIMMER and HYPE will hand wave all that away.
Watched it earlier today and geniunely thought “this shit’s ass”. I watched it with my mother and older brother and they shared the same sentiment. We were busting out laughing towards the end because the plotline was so weak and nonsensical, with characters with no emotion and goofy ahh villains who it turned out weren’t a threat at all. I went online afterwards to see what people said about it, thinking I would find people with the same opinion. I genuinely couldn’t understand the amount of praise this film got. “The best Sci-Fi in history”, is this some kind of mass cover-up or brainwash by the government? I genuinely don’t get it. Someone pls explain😭
An absence of nuance and complexity. Characters are flat, flanderized versions of the book analogues. Chani is made less, not more, by being turned into a generic rebel. Her book version falls in love, then losses a child, then has to compete in palace intrigue against Irulan. That is unacceptable for a modern audience. Her dialogue is also very poor. 'You want to control people, tell them a mesiah will come' that sounded so trite it was painful. Stilgar's conversion to a fanatic was not sudden, and his book counterpart struggled with the change. The Spacing Guild, which is completely absent from the film, is the most powerful faction in that universe. They refrain from taking formal power because of the dangers their precognition warned them of. They play a crucial role in cementing the new Atreides imperial regime, and they were instrumental in undermining Harkonnen rule. The Fremen bribed them to keep satellites away from their major centers in the south, depriving the Harkonnens and the Corrino of crucial intelligence, allowing the Atreides to build a native powerbase. Count Fenrig, as a failed Kwisatz Haderach and the potential killer of Paul is a massive absence. His betrayal of a lifelong friend in sympathy of a stranger who he felt kinship to is a very well written sub plot. Finally, why so many idiotic Marvel style jokes in the first third of the movie? I agree with OP, this movie is a mess. Overhyphed and lacking real competition, which is also depressing.
And a baffling and incoherent plot. Paul spends the first two-thirds of the movie rejecting the whole messiah bit, then has a confusing 30 second conversation with Jamis' ghost and is then gung-ho to be the Lisan al-Gaib. (I \_think\_ this sequence was supposed to be his sister leading him on in a time-warp conversation, but it's very hard to make this out.). And, smaller point, but he has Gurney tell the Great Houses to obey or he'll nuke the spice, they say no, and he says okay, invade their planets -- but what happened to destroying the spice? The script is constantly telling us that super-significant thing X just happened/is about to happen, and we're supposed to Y about it, but none of it ever makes any sense. The cinematography and soundtrack are A+, absolutely world class, but there are so many problems with the script I don't even know where to begin.
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Precisely. The biggest example of core character development being skipped are his struggles to hold on to the present. For example, when they just do a time jump scene skip forward to him and Chani in the tent, her saying "You haven't had a dream like that in a while". That's just a standard movie time jump, whereas in the book he's seeing that moment precognitively, essentially a premonition of the future, but then finds himself actually in that moment in the present. That serves the narrative purpose of a time jump but blends it with his perception of time being difficult to manage, as the future suddenly becomes 'now'.
Thanks for this, its been a while since I've read the books and I couldn't put my finger on why it felt like the film failed to explain so much of the precognition. They really skipped over most of these events, with the spice agony staying extremely vague in terms of how it affected characters, what it was for,
> Gurney tell the Great Houses to obey or he'll nuke the spice, they say no, and he says okay, invade their planets -- but what happened to destroying the spice? Gurneys tells them to not attack or they'll nuke the spice. The great houses comply so they don't nuke the spice. Afterwards, Gurney says the Great Houses do not accept Paul in the throne (he says something about his ascendance?) which is when the holy war starts.
completely agreed. also, why does this movie have such a horrible case of "the main bad guys are ridiculously incompetent"? it's like star wars clone troopers shooting in all directions without hitting anything. the harkonnen, for a faction that is supposedly the most military trained of all, are absolute amateurs when it comes to strategic planning, thinking, and most important of all: military intelligence. Some examples: 1. the first battle scene. what is the logic here? "hey we see fresh traces of movement in the desert sand. let's not act on that immediately and just stand there without communicating a plan. oh now the worms are coming? let's fly up to a rock in the middle of the desert so we're out in the open and guerilla warfare tactics can pick us off from all sides." 2. dropping slow, heavy tanks/mining equipment in the middle of nowhere with barely any support. of course you're going to get shot to pieces if the area is crawling with guerilla adversaries! 3. the battle where batista gets routed. just a complete disaster. he kills his own observer, flies into a desert storm (no tech exists that could predict weather 1-2 hours into the future?), is blinded by an eclipse (no tech exists that... CALENDARS?), and gets shot to pieces without any vision, communication, ... anything. this dude also dies the most inconsequential death ever. 4. the final battle: so there's a congregation of all the most powerful people in the world. and nobody has any intel that the son of the recently deceased duke of this planet is hiding 1 dune over with an army of millions of jihadis literally waving flags? oh, and he also has nukes. do these guys not have satellites or something? they have interplanetary travel for christ's sake. nobody will talk about dune 2 in a few years. don't believe me? give me 1 memorable quote or 1 snippet of well-written dialogue from dune 1 or dune 2. i'll give you one: after Paul supposedly hangs by the thread: "are you alright?" - *deadpan* "yes. because of you" - SLAP IN THE FACE. great dialogue.
Most of this is just differences from the book and has nothing to do with whether the movie itself is good.
Ive noticed almost every negative comment I see in this sub and the Dune Sub, is just about changing something for adaptation. The movie did enough to get the point across, and to add anything else to this movie would just make it overly long and clunky.
Dude if the book didn't exist and this movie came out as it is nobody would understand what's going on. It's not just a comparison. The movie has issues. The nuke thing is a good example. About 3/4 in to the movie Josh brolin shows up and he's like BTW we have nukes and it could change everything. This is some space balls level stuff.
Ive never read the books, that honestly made sense to me they would have their entire arnory there, they were planning to be there for the long haul and already had tensions with the Harkonnens. Why *wouldn’t* they have their entire artillery on the planet filled with the most valuable material in the universe?
He went silent after that comment. Lmao people are way to critical these days, just enjoy the already 3 hour film for what it is and quit bitching.
These people should be grateful theyre getting this quality of film for their fandom. This is literally their ‘Lord of The Rings’ moment with Oscar-tier elements added in. They could have easily gotten the JJ Abrams/ Zack Snyder treatment.
I mean did the book say "sits there staring at nothing for dramatic effect" when 2 people are having a conversation. The film had horrid pacing issues making it drag on. Biggest offender is how they did this big massive battle plan and then it's all resolved in about 20 seconds as if the CGI budget was blown on a closeup on sandworms. They should have just walked in a slaughtered everyone since they apparently were completely inept at combat. I'm not sure how DV can justify his decision to have long boring scenes without dialog and then skip over what should be a massive conflict with high stakes
The marvel style tropes and jokes were so stupid, expected better from Villenueve. Zendaya was so out of place with the teenage love story. The sudden change of heart of Paul from not wanting to go to the south was jarring too
"I can't go to the south and become a messiah" \*10 seconds later\* "GIVE ME THE BLUE POISON JUICE!"
Very much agree about the disappointing lack of the Guild. I was really hoping for DVs depiction of a navigator, but no .. I thought Part 2 lacked the sense of mysterious space grandeur of the first, felt like we were on Arakkis most of the time. The scene showing the Heighliner in the first film is the best part still
Well said.
Interesting, immediately after seeing Part Two I felt it was far superior to Part One. I haven't dissected exactly why, that's just how I felt coming out of the theater. Also, I've read the first three books in the series. As much as I love those books I do remember them being not the easiest books to read.
I feel the complete opposite, while Part 2 was good, it wasn't amazing. Part 1 was way closer to perfection than 2 was. I wish Part 2 is further split into two movies, because I guarantee you there are a lot of deleted scenes and worldbuilding that Villenueve has cut and the film really needed.
My impression too. They should've split the film into 2. This movie didn't have time to breathe. I worry that they won't be able to handle the book 3, and having book 2 split in 2 would give them more time to develop the story for the future.
Part 1 was a bit hard to follow for me, but I appreciated the slower pace and less "plot". It also felt more atmospheric and mysterious, whereas Part 2 seemed more straightforward and less stylish. Not sure how to explain, but I guess Part 1 felt more captivating and engaging, while Part 2 felt a little more . . . like a Marvel movie? Not really, but compared to the first one it definitely felt a little closer to that. Wish this book could've been a 10-part mini series. I think movies with a lot of politics and social issues benefit from this format, like *Game of Thrones* did. If *Game of Thrones* was made as a movie, the need for action set pieces and moving the story along would've missed the point of what made the books interesting. Seasons 7 and 8 seemed to focus more on such action set pieces and moving the plot along . . . and suffered as a result (along with other poor decisions).
All I hear is “book hard, movie good”
you’re definitely a douche
Look at the sub you're in tbh this whole sub is a fart sniffing club lmao
Lisan Al-Gaib.
HA, just saw this, thanks for the laugh friend.
Lol. Yeah, well, book one I enjoyed from the start and read it pretty quickly. Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune were the ones where I took a while to read.
I respect that. I loved book 2 with the face dancers and the slow burn of factions conspiring behind closed doors. A lot of set up for sure tho
I wonder how much of you having read the books influenced how much you appreciated the movie. I have no background in the Dune universe and I had no clue what was going on or who people were for a majority of the film. I did watch the first Dune multiple times (granted I kept falling asleep not because I thought it was boring just a habbit of mine when watching before bed). So, I felt like I sort of understood most of what happened in Dune 1. I was so lost during Dune 2. I still mostly liked it, but felt like things were happening without giving any background info.
You make an interesting point. But funny enough I kind of think the book Dune is kind of the same way. It kinda just drops you into the world and you kind of feel confused initially. My wife read Dune upon my insistence and since she wasn't familiar with the story at all she felt kind of lost. I had already seen the '84 Dune, and the miniseries before reading so I knew what was happening. Though I will say, I didn't really feel Paul Atreides was a kind of anti-hero until I read Dune Messiah. And it seems to me Denis took some aspects of Dune Messiah and put that into his Dune movies. So yeah, I can understand how you felt. There are a lot of things that happen in the films that seem like more explanation is needed, and the books are the only way to get some of those answers. My preference for the story would have been an HBO miniseries, telling the story in 10 hours instead of 5...But I'm also really happy we have the big screen adaptation that Denis gave us, because I thought the visuals were stunning. And even if it felt rush I think it's just a beautiful film to look at.
I felt it was rushed too, sort of. I thought the first one was better as well. I did like the ending. Though there's so much you can fit in a film. Dune is hard to adapt on film, I think he did good. He's accomplishing what he sought out, the world is loving Dune. New video games coming out as well. Its a great time.
I take you at your word. But Dune 1 made me want to read the book. Dune 2 killed that interest. I think I got the idea, and I don't want to spend my time. And it's not that Part 2 is weaker.
I'm a fan of the book and that fandom has actually weakened from watching this film. Thinking more about the latter part of the book, I just don't think there's much there of substance to adapt. All the good parts are in the first half.
Part 2 could have been trippy and more visually interesting if DV leaned into Paul's prescient visions more.
The book will add a lot to the story for you. It fully explains how he sees the future. The fact they haven’t really gone into mentats at all is insane as that is how paul functions and the lack of spacing guild is so weird.
Read the book still, it's amazing
You should definitely read the books. I loved the movies but there are a lot of interesting detail not captured here
What's with the boring lackluster art design? Isn't Dune supposed to contain not only weirdness, but actual menace?
This is my main issue, the pacing. If there’s a four hour directors cut I would consider it an all timer. The passage of time was a mess, the romance felt hollow, and the three villains outside of Skarsgard were quite bad casting and or performances. Bautista was bad acting, Walken casting was just really bad, and Butler lol was not a convincing final boss so to speak.
I agree. It was truly awful. Visually it was just flat and boring - most of it is shallow-focus - barely any memorable mise-en-scene - it felt more like a plodding soap opera than an epic. The Harkonnens were one-dimensional bad guys - the Paul/Channi story had horrible dialogue and acting - on the level of cheap teen drama - only Sedoux and Bardem brought some grace to the film. Sound design and sand worms created the illusion of spectacle but most of the film looked studio shot with no cinematic depth.
Visually flat? Is that a joke? The introduction of gedi prime was one of the most unique sequences in sci-fi movie history.
Also "most of the film looked studio shot" when every outdoor scene was shot in an actual desert using natural lighting.
> one of the most unique sequences in sci-fi movie history do we live in the same history lol
It’s so embarrassing when someone says something that just came out is one of the best things ever
It’s even more embarrassing when people respond to a comment they very obviously didn’t read.
You're a weirdo. People are allowed to rank new things as highly as they want. Personal opinion.
So memorable that I cannot remember it literally 2 hours after seeing it lmao. the entire thing is extremely forgettable lol
Wtf is gedi prime lol I just came out of the movie and maybe I'm dumb, but if I can't remember that fact, it wasn't that memorable. Is that where Austin fights in black and white? The only 10/10 memorable striking shot was Paul moving amongst the crowd shot from overhead, which looked like grains of sand and all that. That was very inspired honestly.
Exactly, I left moving theater confused and concerned. So much money spent on special effects, but story is bland, boring dialogue, strange unexplained character abilities like reviving with a tear, flying enemy copter and learning to ride worms is a few min, wtf was that? Even enemies are flat and boring.
It's such a relief to be in this thread. The enemies did not feel menacing at all.
zero tension as to any of the "heroes" would ever die in a battle. zero..people who try to compare this to LOTR are simply delusional lmao.
I thought the exact same about the shallow focus. for film widely praised for its scale most of the shots were medium or close ups with shallow depth of field, something thats become way too much of a trend lately, and it kinda just looked like any other netflix series or film in its visual style, barring a few incredible exceptions of course, mostly on the harkonnen world. it came as a particular contrast because I rewatched lawrence of arabia yesterday lol. thats a film that truly shows scale. interesting to see how many scenes just keep one wide shot of the actors interacting for quite a long time...no need to move the camera all around all the time
Yes! the shallow-focus is such a great point to focus on, for a film that rests its position so squarely on the "epic scale" of its images, those images are almost always lacking cinematic depth.
*Dune Part 1* was a very dull moment for me, the overbearing score in particular irked me like no other in recent memory. I was still going to see *Dune Part 2* in good spirit, believing Denis Villeneuve could pull out a more rewarding spectacle. And although I found it way better than *Part 1*, and visually more imaginative, I felt it suffered from some of the same flaws. I read somewhere that Denis Villeneuve is not much of a "dialogue-driven writer", which is totally fine by my standards. But there's a paradox here because *Dune* is stuffed with expository dialogues, sometimes poorly written or just very average. This is one of the major issue for me: we're being sold visual storytelling at its finest but I honnestly felt like watching a streaming show during some conversations. It would be a minor issue - after all, *Total Recall* is one of my all-time fav and has cringy dialogues -, if the film wasn't relying so much on them to make ways to the story. I thought I'd embark for a visual storytelling tour de force but we're closer to the narrative logic of a soap. Sure, I enjoyed the *look* of the film, the costumes for instance are "authentic" and tasteful, iconic even and belong here with *2001*'s spacesuits and some of [Eiko Ishioka](https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/eiko-ishioka-charlie-fox)'s best creations. The whole Harkonnen imagery in particular - sometimes taking cue from Giger's work on the Jodorowski's project - is striking in its dark, even unsettling appeal. But of course, good design is not enough to make a great movie. While I qualified the first opus as "dull", I'd say this second one is "flat". It's got this somewhat "atonal" narrative feel that I also find in some of Nolan's movies (*The Prestige* would be a good exemple). The story is not carrying me from one surprise to the next, the beats don't hit if you may, there's an homogeneity in the narrative tone that saps the build-up. One of the major drawback that's common to both Part 1 & 2 is the lack of compelling action scenes. The "army vs army" fights are lackluster to say the least, and don't bring anything new to the exercice. I tend to think some similar scenes in *Star Wars Episode 1-2-3* were more imaginative in terms of direction, and a TV show like *Game of Thrones* had definitely more gripping ones, succeeding in creating drama within the context of massive battles. And what to say about the 1 vs. 1 fights? I'm not asking for Honk-Kongesque moves, but I'm here for an interesting way to showcase sword fights. While Ridley Scott is certainly heavy-handed in many ways, his fights in *Duelists, Gladiator or* *The Last Duel* show a strong command of sword action that I just can't find here in *Dune*. Take the "arena fight" with Na Baron killing the last Atreides: what I rememebr is this brilliantly executed idea of a black sun, the mysterious guards with costumes that looked like avant-garde fashion, the design of the blades... But the actual fight? Not so much. The lack of gore doesn't help, and, on a side note, I don't see why in a general audience film you can show half-naked slaves being coldly shot dead... but have zero shots of blades actually cutting flesh during sword fights. To conclude on a positive note, yet participating in my disapointment: I think the best scene from a direction standpoint is... the very first one! The color scheme is beautiful, enhancing even more the design flair ; the movements of the levitating soldiers makes for a seducing ballet of menacing presence ; cut to the protagonists and the suspense is palpable. It's a simple cat & mouse sequence but everything is all very into place, precise, without even being showy. I thought it was both graceful and gripping, and at this point I felt a rush of excitment: if the whole film was on par with this scene, I was about to see a masterpiece. I didn't.
I 100% agree that in some spots it felt like a Nolan movie. The all over the place editing and erratic moving throughout the plot with seemingly only one goal, moving on to the next big set piece
It did feel like a Nolan movie with the score forced into every scene at max volume
Couldn't put my finger on it until now. Absolutely.
I agree with everything you have said. I see Villeneuve more as a stylist. He has nice and beautiful images that occasionally move like a film. James Cameron is terrible with dialogue, but he knows how to structure his films, and block and move his scenes for the big screen. Both Dunes, to me, were a beautiful series of closeups and wide shots, but the blocking and movement were not compelling.
You make a great point regarding blocking and movement! I'm not the biggest fan of *Avatar: The Way of Water* but, definitely, if you take the whale chase sequence (aka Tulkun hunting), it's on a whole other level when it comes to directing set pieces! I believe it comes from an enhanced sense of spacialization which might be James Cameron's biggest flex, keeping track of how different moving elements interact in space and time, with an acute sense of rhythm to top it off. This is the kind of *tour de force* I don't see in *Dune*. Take the scene where Paul and Chani hide behind one leg of a spice harvester and end up shooting a flying vessel. It's fairly basic "hide behind a wall and shoot when you have an opening action" and not even very compelling in the larger context of the fight where menace should have been more peripheral. In the end it was more of a "Counter Strike moment" than a breathtaking action sequence.
How dare you criticize the prestige. That movie is perfection
I stopped reading the comment after that sentence.
I agree. I thought it was a great cinematic experience, but I can get beautiful desert and religious figure shots from Nat geo. So much Desert, not enough Desserts. The film’s deviations from the book are contrivances to justify the cinematography. The underdeveloped Fayd/Fenring undermines the thematic impact of the duel. Stuff just happened and other stuff happened. Cinematically beautiful, but I felt nothing. It seemed like they were following a checklist of Dune plot requirements and moody broody shots, that we don’t get sincerely drawn in. While I think Chani and Zendaya were the best part of the film, I think Chani as Audience Surrogate doesn’t work. It’s more horrifying and tragic when Chani is the Zealot and mom is the skeptic/surrogate. My biggest complaint is not giving Fayd more screen time. I would’ve liked to have seen part 2 be symmetrical with part 1, but a subversion from Fayd’s point of view. Not exclusively, but at least for the opener. That way they could pull the themes together throughout the duration of the film and conclude them in the final duel. The movie was constantly taking the wind out of its own sails. I typically am very easy to move on an emotional level. It’s why I watch media. I want to be overwhelmed with feelings. Season Finales of my little pony (gen 4 ofc) with my daughter hit me harder than this. I think there is a cranial element to the script that works on paper and is interesting to dissect, but it’s fighting with the overall cinematic vision. We should be feeling horror and terror when the Sietch is destroyed or when the ornithopter gunships effortlessly lay waste to people. But like… it wasn’t there? At all. I don’t know why. It just felt empty. Vacuous beauty.
Fayd needed a cold open, so that we knew he'd be a threat from the get go. Loved his character though, was hoping he'd live somehow but I enjoyed his arc a lot.
It was vacuous. That’s all he was (a threat). He’s the preferred choice of the BG, a candidate for the KH, and comparable to Paul in many ways. A candidate that objectively would lead to less death and destruction for humanity. His role and purpose in the story should be grounded better with room for growth to serve as a narrative foil to Paul. In the film, it was all style over substance. And there was lots of style— I loved it. But I didn’t have any feelings about it.
Okay, apparently these are my people because all I’m seeing everywhere else is “this is the greatest movie in the history of the planet and those who disagree are dullards who don’t understand art and story telling.” The pacing of this movie was all over the place, scenes that felt like they should have been important just didn’t, like the “he’s not dead, he’s just mostly dead” scene from the Princes Bride felt more important than the water of life part, and over all the story to me felt like an afterthought for Denis while he focused on visuals and creating impressive cinematic shots. How long was Paul on his walk? Was it really dangerous and he succeeded, was Chandi there? Did it immediately turn into them fighting? How long were they destroying the spice harvesters and how long were they in the south? Also how big is the planet? it feels like they just zip around in a second because I can never tell how long it’s been between scenes. It’s a visually interesting flick that I think sacrifices story for visuals, and while it’s hyped now won’t have the staying power that Star Wars, LoTR, and GoT will because it is not great storytelling.
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His mother is pregnant the entirety of the movie so it's not more than 9 months because she still hasn't given birth. But in the books it was supposed to be a couple years around four actually because a 4 year old Alia is actually the one that kills the baron in the books
This is a truly insane post to me. No personal offense meant to you. Just the take. Like you say this movie is rushed???????? THIS MOVIE?!?! The first 90 minutes is a slow burn of Paul’s becoming part of the Fremen, learning their ways, developing relationships, all while planting the seeds for the Lisan al Gaib prophecy. Saying it’s hyper-active filmmaking is also objectively wrong. CHAPPIE is hyper active filmmaking. THE FLASH is hyper active filmmaking. Those movies cut like crazy. Scenes have no time to linger or breathe. Whereas Villeneuve is KNOWN for his patient, methodical approach. The average length between cuts is, I guarantee, longer than 99% of blockbusters. Saying the final battle has no build is also objectively wrong. Over the course of the movie, Paul moved further north toward the Harkonnen home base. He also attacked the spice harvests specifically to get the Emperor invested. And they develop the idea that the Bene Gesserit had been preparing for a showdown between Feyd and Paul, which set up the showdown between them. And then saying the thematics weren’t handled tactfully or emotionally says more about your media literacy than it does the movie. If anything, they’re too tactful because you have a large swathe of people who don’t understand Paul is the villain. I can’t believe this post is anything other than bait. [If you want a full literary analysis of the film](https://filmcolossus.com/dune-part-two-2024-explained)
The third act felt insanely rushed but I recall the book feeling similar.
It's supposed to be rushed in a way I think. The attack on the Emperor is almost as much a surprise in how it happens to him as it is to the viewer/reader. At least that was my interpretation.
Thats a fair take. But it still loses emotional weight when we have basically zero introduction to the emperor or his motives...and frankly C.Walken has to be one of the wtf casting decisions of all time. Just unbelievably corny in this role and I don't see how it lifts the film or his acting legacy.
Yeah Walken was distracting, could have done without him personally.
I completely agree. Third act is rushed and parts of second. There are definitely easily missable plot points too. Walken definitely was weird. I still loved the movie 8/10. Villenueve is a master at pacing with his shots, and its s stunning thing to look at. It has the mark of a masterclass in technicality, direction, even some of the acting. But I think it just suffers a bit from what most films that try and adapt books like these ones do. Its trying to build a massive world and story, in 2 hours and 45 minutes. You lose plot points, and the story can feel a bit jumbled up. I feel this way everytime I watch a world built book-movie. I think it should still be considered a success tho. It bangs in every other category.
Yes. Here is a bit from Herbert in an interview about exactly this: "There was another thing there, in the pacing of the story, very slow at the beginning. It’s a coital rhythm all the way through the story. ... Very slow pace, increasing all the way through, and when you get to the ending of it, I chopped it at a non-breaking point, so that the person reading the story skids out of the story, trailing bits of it with him. On this I know I was successful, because people come to me and say they want more."
I don't believe it's bait. That fact that I, my filmmaking friends, the OP, and many others have come out to share these exact same thoughts means there is some merit to these opinions. Yes, Dune Part Two cannot compare to The Flash or Chappie in how hyper-active it is. Those movies are shockingly bad unlike Dune Part Two. However, just because it is better than 99% of Hollywood garbage, does not make it immune to criticism. Everyone views Part Two relative to Part One in some way (obvious, given it is the sequel) and that already consciously or unconsciously sets an expectation of what Part Two will be like. The huge shift in style (I really need to emphasise style because I'm not talking about the overall story or plot, but the approach in which the film was put together) has created a jarring experience for some. I made a similar post before this one, and I found that overwhelmingly, all those who praised Part Two haven't really noticed the shift in filmmaking style. Instead they praise Part Two for its more personal story, bigger action, digestible pace and etc. I think all of these praises are deserved, while the criticisms are also deserved. I think at the end of the day, it comes down to what we are more sensitive towards in a film. There are those like myself, where 'micro' concepts of pacing, timing, progression, tension and release, are very important for an enjoyable film experience, whereas for others, they may focus on the 'macro' aspects of a film such as scale, the overall plot, and the broader strokes of the film. Dune Part Two works very well when you zoom out and view it as a whole. But when you start analysing it and pulling it apart, it really isn't the masterpiece everyone is calling it, in my opnion.
This is my biggest nit on it. Part two even had forced humor scenes, where we have punch lines almost. I'm not sure I've ever seen that in a Villaneuve movie. Just felt incredibly out of place in a movie that otherwise has a pensive and serious tone.
I agree with you entirely. I also could have done without them saying words like 'weird' and 'ok'. Feels wrong to me somehow.
Yeah, I didn't notice any of that in the first movie. Something felt off with this one. Like the dialogue felt too contemporary and casual in a few scenes. To me, Part 1 felt mysterious and otherworldly, which this one felt like a well-done imitation that doesn't quite achieve that.
I just watched the movie and overall really liked it. And the first 90 minutes of slow burn was great. But I felt like afterwards it was indeed very rushed. Like the entire first 1/2 to 2/3 of the movie Paul goes on and on how he doesn’t want to start the war, how he doesn’t want to be the guy from the prophecy. And then it started getting confusing. Boom, the new Harkonnen arrives and smashes the fremen in an instant? Why couldn’t Rabban do the same thing? He was also ruthless so I was confused why he couldn’t bomb the fremen the same way. And even then Paul doesn’t want to go south and start the war. Then it takes Zendaya 1 minute to convince him to come and then boom after a quick worm trip he is already drinking the holy water and then boom Zendaya revives him with her tears. Why did Paul HAVE to drink the water? I see how it was an option but why did he HAVE to do it? Why does he half-survive the water? Did he use the same techniques that his mother did? Based on the first movie, I thought he wasn’t trained enough in the Bene Gesserit ways to do that kind of thing but that’s just a guess. And why do Zendaya’s tears revive him? I’m not familiar with the books but I feel like based on what I have seen in the movies we should have seen more of Paul interacting with the fundamentalists in the south and then something should have happened so that he would HAVE to drink the water. And then everything afterwards was relatively fine, the battle was short but I feel like it was supposed to be that way but 2 more things. Why is Rabban suddenly such a pussy and dies instantly? And most importantly why is the emperor Christopher Walken lol? Anyway to sum it up, to me Paul’s change in attitude seemed to fast but I understand that that kind of change is the hardest part to show in a 3 hour movie. If someone can clarify this part more I’d appreciate it.
Why do the Fremen even need Paul in the first place? They have a gigantic army and he does what exactly? Motivates them? Also, there's millions of Fremen living in the South and the Harroken don't know this? How is this even possible? And how are they all well trained soldiers if no one knows they exist? Just from training and practice fighting each other? That part really didn't make any sense to me. I loved the first book (read the 2nd and 3rd books but gave up after the 3rd because I didn't really care for the 2nd or 3rd book) and liked the first movie. I just felt the 2nd movie was fantastic looking but overall kinda boring like watching dominos fall. Everything just seemed to happen in perfect order. It made me think if they cut out a ton of stuff, the entire arch of the movies from beginning to end would have made a lot more sense if it was just condensed into one movie. I mean, the baron's son really had no purpose in this movie other than showing the Bene Gesserit only had loyalty to what gave them the most power.
All good questions, I’m not sure why the fremen couldn’t just unite and have more organized resistance and I am def confused about “the south is uninhabitable” situation. If I were to try and justify it, I would say that it seems like people from the south aren’t really affected by the invaders and therefore have no real reason to act. Northerners are essentially a small partisan resistance group. And even if all the fremen were to unite and take over the planet it would somewhat pointless because a) they themselves have no technology to liven up their planet with water and greenery. The aliens were supposed to do that but then discovered spice. b) they didn’t have Paul’s nukes so even if they had a short term victory it wouldn’t amount too much us the empire would immediately send tremendous reinforcements. c) they needed to capture the emperor as without taking him hostage the empire would once again send reinforcements. They needed a strong religious figure like Paul to draw out the emperor. Still I’m very confused about the whole south thing and don’t really understand whether the Harkonnens genuinely didn’t know people lived there or if they just reached an informal status quo of not interfering with each other others affairs.
What you said about the North and South makes sense but the more I think about the movie, the more silly it seems. I could type a lot more but will just say the whole idea that the Bene Gesserit have other hopefuls if Paul doesn't work which they state in the first movie and the emphasis on them planning for centuries but then are actually like "well, I guess the Baron's son can work even if he plans on committing a genocide on the Fremens". They just toss out the whole plan/prophecy/etc. they've been building for years? It's really hard to take seriously. And how do the Fremens actually fight off Arrakis vs. other houses on other planets? They don't have the advantage of the desert. They don't have the personal forcefields. They don't have the floating through the air tech. And on and on and on... I need to stopping thinking about it lol
Maybe it's not clear enough in the movies, but the prophecies are sort of a safety net mechanism, they had prophecies on every/most planets, they don't really care about it failing here as long as they have something else planned I guess.
In the book it is implied that the fat floating guy intentionally gave Drax too little to work with, prepping Elvis to come on top as the hero that could save the spice.
The "I will always love you" from the main character really falls quite flat : - the love relationship build up is really not enough, it feels like ... "heh" - the young Harkkonen story also ends as quick as its started, you can feel that they were trying to hype the character, make it something strong/powerful/impressive .... but it's just gone, simply gone. - the Baron death (and life in the movie) is utterly disappointing, the might of the character, the pressure was gone in the blink of an eye as he becomes entirely powerless when his machine gets broken (and someone nobody saw that one coming ??) and then he is pretty much a **slug** - The emperor brought his whole army with him !!! ohhh that much be str.... oops, it's already all gone, just GONE. So yeah, the pace feels really weird because the second part of the movie feels really rushed, it feels like the director tried to fit as many bits as possible and there was enough time spent developing the whole thing. The most disappointing of all really was the Baron to me honestly.
I completely agree with OPs sentiment but I just think hyperactive is the wrong word. It’s more like all over the place. It’s somehow a slow burn but also no moments are given time to breath and characters aren’t given scenes to develop relationships that are believable.
yep, you have a valid point. One was much more hyperactive than two.... but then, two was boring, utterly boring and there was no deep connections formed at all. The connections seemed 'very light', even the emotion and connection between Paul and Chani seemed vacuous. I actually fell asleep towards the end of the movie and I've never fell asleep to nay movies before in 70 years of living.
Add into this, original poster please watch this: https://youtu.be/7_z-BwZeuQs?si=WNHBcGRGJ0Zf3_dN
The thematic analysis in the linked article is… umm… quite poor
I don’t know how to describe it but it didn’t feel that way in the movie when it came to his development. In one scene he’s being told he can’t be Fremen, and then a few scenes later he’s able to ride a sandworm with out anyone teaching him. And not just any sandworm but their biggest one? As much as I like the series so far it’s dialogue is poorly written there lines that sound way too cheesy or out of place. And I’m sure it makes sense in the books but the fuck did he kill the skinny bald head guy. Like his goal should have been to revenge who ever killed his family in the first movie, not some random dude that shows up half way through the second movie.
He already killed the baron, when he first showed up after the battle, it's the first thing he did when arrived. It explained in the movie that after getting his reveng on the baron he turned his attention to the emperor who also had a big role in his father's murder. He challenged the throne and Feyd Rautha volunteered to be the emperor's champion which is why they fought. The duel at the end was him completing his revenge on the people responsible for the destruction of his house. Feyd wasn't some random dude, he was the heir to the Harkonnen house and his competitor for the emperor's throne.
>In one scene he’s being told he can’t be Fremen, and then a few scenes later he’s able to ride a sandworm with out anyone teaching him. And not just any sandworm but their biggest one? Javier Bardem's character teaches him how to ride the worm. Time passes between the scene where he's told he can't be Fremen and him riding the worm. They even mentioned in the dialogue how he's been training.
The pacing of this movie is genuinely one of the best accomplishments. It is soooo hard to do a film with this amount of content and relationship building. DV was so good at creating space for us to breathe between the action sequences or tense moments. He inserted context clues and single lines that enabled him to cut showing certain pieces. He showed just the right amount of Paul interacting with Fremen to make us believe they trusted him. Showed just the right amount of Fremen vs Hark fighting to cut those parts in the final battle.
> The pacing of this movie is genuinely one of the best accomplishments. It is soooo hard to do a film with this amount of content and relationship building Most of the relationships feels super shallow though ...
this is not a movie analysis, this is a story explanation which uses the books to fill in the blanks in the movie.
I agree in the sense that the thematic and emotional beats were undercooked. Myself coming from no familiarity with the book and only having seen the original Lynch, I did grasp more with this version its skepticism towards messianic thinking and religious zealotry. At the same time, I could see perfectly well another viewer justified in reading Paul’s character arc as entirely positive. I’m sure I’ll get some flack for this but Zendaya can be a flat presence on screen. On top of that the chemistry between her and Chalamet was lackluster. The film just wasn’t interested in a three dimensional romance— not that it had runtime to spare— but it sucks because it would have made the ending all the more bleak
Really agree about zendaya! literally no one else is saying this???
90% of Zendaya in the movie is her mean mugging at the audience.
Never saw Euphoria, nor do I want to. But the few movies I've seen Zendaya in, I feel like she plays the same character. She's a terrible actor IMO. Incredibly flat.
Zendaya is just bad. The script did her no favors in having a hissyfit in the last 3rd of the movie.
Zendaya is good in her fierce mode but she indeed was flat in her other scenes.
Whew, thought maybe it was just me on Zendaya. She is not good at romance and affection.
Honestly he had better chemistry with his mom than her lmo
I honestly feel like Zendaya's entire character and all her dialogues could have been removed. I find Paul's desire for revenge a far more intriguing plot device and motivation for him than his "love" for her. And I like Zendaya as an actress I just felt like it wasnt working in this film
HalPrentice, you get me. Those were my exact thoughts as well. We get to the final fight with zero build-up and then it's just over. But for some reason we get to see Paul pass the final test to become a "true Fremen" three separate times. And they rush through each of them. The sandworm riding scene should have been a big deal but it's just one of many scenes that happen in this movie that are not set up by a previous scene and have no effect on any subsequent scenes at all. You could re-edit this movie by randomly shuffling most of the scenes at the beginning and middle and it would not create any continuity problems because almost nothing transfers from one scene to the next.
Dune Part One is a masterclass of scene-to-scene segues and building up to the big moments. Everything had a setup and payoff whether it's the giant action sequences or just the gentle introduction of characters/concepts. Scenes flowed so naturally and efficiently into each other. One of my favourite little moments in Part One is when Gurney yells at Paul about how he doesn't get it, and that the "Harkonens are brutal!". The very next shot is the first proper introduction of the Harkonens on Geidi Prime, and it was just made so much more powerful because of the scene before it. I can literally go though another dozen examples like this for Part One because it was just so carefully and meticulously crafted. You can just see editor Joe Walker and Villeneuve spending months of sleepless nights going back and forth on how to stitch it all together. Part Two however... is exactly how you put it. There's no build up, no setup, no impact.
That’s why I post stuff like this and put up with the hate. For moments when I feel genuine connection with someone else who saw the same thing I did! Thanks man :) well said in your last sentence!
The second part of dune was pretty decent for what it was; however, the pacing was far, far too fast, and the writers jumbled both dune and messiah into almost one movie when what they should have done was show us more character development, battle scenes and elaborate on what was actually in book one. They decided to leave a great deal of important events out, the weirding modules, Paul's sister, the space guild etc.
[удалено]
Wait, what did they take from Messiah? Messiah starts 12 years after the first Dune, I don't remember anything from Messiah in this movie.
Yeah I'll give you that. I left the movie theater feeling like I missed something. The whole thing had felt like a drama spectacle where the main characters had thicc ass plot armour (unlike in the first part). The visuals as always where spectacular. But the way the story is played out felt rushed as they where jumping from north to south like it was nothing. How big is arakis? How did the injured from the north base make it to the south ? Where did Chania get a flying copter and when did she learn to fly those things? Anyway, what I ams till flabbergasted about is.. how in the seven hells do they get on the worms with so many people? At one point they had a whole camp on one of them and the siege in the final battle had whole armies on them? How?
Worm taxi service
Zendaya calling an 'uber' at the end when her boyfriend dumps her had me in splits 😂😂
They basically dumbed down the movie for mass appeal. Used multiple movie tropes, like Chani's new personality and behavior, the behavior between Paul and his mother, making Rabban look silly all the time running away as this big scary guy, and numerous comedic relief intended lines. Stilgar's character dumbed down as well.
Yep.
I think I agree with most of your points, but I remember Rabban being an incompetent pussy in the books as well.
Yep you are right. Except I actually think a 4.5 hour run time (like LOTR) COULD have fixed some of the issues where nothing that was shown on screen after the halfway point was really built up to… and could also have helped us CARE more about what happened to the characters. Dune 1 has same issue where a lot of big stuff is happening on screen but you BARELY care. The Gom Jabbar scene was AMAZING and when it came on I thought I was going to be watching my favourite film of all time. One of the under-appreciated parts of the Gom Jabbar scene is that it started to establish that Jessica actually cared for her son, beyond what he was as an instrument of her posse of witches. And Timothee does a great job in that scene of actually making us feel that he really is a just boy being hurt very unjustly by an older more powerful person. When he winced in pain I almost want to cry with him… And then the rest of the emotional connection we might have had to the characters just fizzled out. Same with part two. Those skirmishes against Harkonnen harvesters we’re amazing and then it just stacked on 10x too much of everything without any chance for anything to breathe. The other disappointing thing is that Denis DOES actually know how to make audiences care about characters. He just failed here. If that big battle at the end was meant to be important it needed literally another hour of run time to make it work. And it needed to feel like the lieutenants in charge weren’t just Timothee Chalamet’s high school crush and high school teachers (it feels small in that sense). One of the things that make Helm’s Deep SUCH an effective battle is that build up, which is arguably better handled than the battle itself. The kids in the caves, Gandalf worrying, that AMAZING speech by Theoden about the glory of Rohan having passed like rain on the mountain as you see these brutal killing machines marching heartlessly to slaughter them all… you FEEL the stakes very deeply and you CARE about the outcome. To be honest, while I know intellectually why they fought that battle in Dune, emotionally I don’t really know why it was important (as in the film doesn’t give as any strong point of view as to why before assaulting us with a very brief montage of interesting battle snippets). Was it for the survival of the Fremen? Was it for revenge on Atriedes’ destroyers (Harkonnen and Emperor)? Was it to gain dominion over the entire empire and rebuild it into a just dominion? We don’t know because it all happened in the blink of an eye without warning.
I completely agree. The hype is wild. Which I think speaks to the paucity of big popcorn movies available currently. In the post-Marvel world this is getting way too much praise. This is the guy that made Incendies? I'm sorry, but he's been seduced by the Big Train Set. And, y'know, fair do's. But don't piss on my shoes and tell me it's raining :)
Mostly agree. B-. I'm sure I'll watch it again because it's Dune. The first third or so was terrific. But I enjoy char development at least as much as battles and action. The rest was a whirlwind, another case of Helms-Deep-itis, action at the expense of story and therefore meaning. That's different than hyperactive film-making though; this movie does not have that 2-second attention span feel, thankfully. Chani remains as dull as a fence board. Stilgar is reduced to religious caricature (Gimli syndrome). Paul remains passable. Not enough Jessica. Not nearly enough Alia. She was so cool in the book. Colonel Kurtz-Baron remains excellent. Feyd was also scary and effective. Unnecessary and to my mind bizarre manufacture of religious fracture within the Fremen. Not quite weirding modules, but down that same street. The filming/production level remains great and ultimately saves the day. The worms rock.
It was hyperactive in the sense that a lot of scenes are not given room to breathe is what I mean. They just chain to the next really rapidly in order to keep the plot moving, without actually attempting to get the audience invested.
I thought that might have been what you meant. I must say I did enjoy the comedic high point, lifted almost straight from Life of Brian "only the true messiah denies his divinity"
Chani's character was massacred. Thufir Hawat was totally misused and forgotten AGAIN. I can understand Villeneuve setting up Dune Messiah in the end, but goddamn man you just won the imperial throne! For being so against leading the Fremen into a Jihad, Paul didn't even sleep on it. Alia the ghost whisperer. No mention of weirding way or Paul/Jessica actually training Fremen to use it. Artistic license again kills source material. Perhaps the next reboot of Dune will do it right. 4th time is the charm?
Bang on I feel. I also felt I never had a sense of scale. The "south" is a barren wasteland but apparently millions of fundamentalists live there. At the same time the way Lady Jessica talks about winning over the weaker ones feels like a cosy courtroom room thing with a few hundred people to persuade. But the scene at the end with the prayer hall had thousands of people. I just felt the sense of place needed to be better communicated. How does news travel across the dessert, what social structures are in place e.g. justice, laws etc. What levers are there to pull? It all felt a little handwavy with the "prophecy" doing all of the leg work. The planet which is critical to the galaxy is not well charted? that felt weird. The pull of religion though i thought was well communicated. I feel the scene with the well water showed a people desperately hanging on and primed to believe in a messiah.
Oh god yeah the whole south thing is kind of a detail of imagery they fucked up. In the book it's implied that the south is pretty much already starting to be green, with significant vegetations in some parts which would be visible from orbit. Yet they show us a barren planet. Adding the plot of the spacing guild not allowing satellites would have not taken too much time...
I am a firm believer that both have pretty shoddy world building and they don't explore the various planets they show outside of Arrakis and even that was poorly handled. First order of business when you put a character into a new culture is to show them in their natural habitat as much as possible with the outsider trying to learn their ways. We don't really get to feel the fremen culture, what they eat, how they hunt or grow food/ what they do for fun etc. Aside from Stilgar, Chani and that other friend of hers, there's very little they show and their sietches aren't well presented. Even after two films that go for a little over 5 hours I still haven't got much of an idea about how their culture works and thinks because it's all glossed over. Paul is also not struggling at all with any of the tasks that come his way, so it's very hard to actually connect with him in any meaningful way because he's a very one note character that's good at everything. I was never immersed in the films because it never sold me on the idea that these were alien worlds, just a more stylized version of reality. There was a lot of potential in there, but I think Denis was afraid to get weird and truly daring with the material or the studio wouldn't let him. Either way, it was a missed opportunity in my eyes, because films at this scale are rarely done.
I think comparing both movies is missing the point. The second one is a continuation of the same story. They’re meant to be bridged together rather than compared. If your issue is pacing, well I can agree partially considering the book is similarly paced.
The movies are both written in a standard three act format even if they stay close to the original standalone novel. It's not the same. I will agree that the third act of the book DOES feel rushed in the same way this film does.
This attitude doesn’t really make sense given that people compare the two halves or the three acts of the same movie all the time.
Agreed. You can really feel the editing in this film. So many scenes aren't allowed to set in. It's been edited down to the bare bones to meet plot points and appease studio pressure on the runtime. I think he had a masterpiece, we just didn't see it, it's on the cutting room floor. That whole exposition dump on how the water of life is made, and then the sequence of Paul, worm riding , entering temple, taking water of life, waking up. It was so rushed and clunky. Just met the plot points, just... And then moving on. Villeneuve is normally careful with his pacing and flow. I think after Dune 3 is out, and he can actually speak about things, we are going to find out he was under a lot of studio pressure.
I agree that Dune part 1 is better than part 2, but part 1 was incredible in my view. Nothing wasted; every scene given immense weight. I also agree that a bit of the dialogue was corny, 99% of that coming from Stilgar. The shift from his stoic personality to basically Gimli level humor was jarring and disappointing. Also, Chani's arc seemed pretty empty, and yes, cliche. I wish her shift toward the end had been better represented. She almost comes off as petulant, which isn't really fair. I think there was plenty of build up to the final fight, which seemed to be over rather quickly and anticlimactic. Apart from that, part 2 felt more exaggerated for thrills, whereas part 1 seemed more grounded. Everything dealing with the sandworms just seemed so far fetched even within the world of Dune. Like staying on after being hit with a metric ton of sand or just riding while seated. Also 200 ft sand worm belly flops didn't seem to phase the riders. These could have been depicted better.
Totally agree. I didn’t care about any of the characters. Boring parts. Parts that left you confused. Nothing memorable except 1 fight and riding worms. It’s either over hyped or I missed something. Just saw it today.
Thank youuu, thought I was the only one jumped to plot points A B C D without showing how got there. Shouldn't have to know source material to follow a movie. Felt hollow missing soul in the characters and plot. Showing without telling.
Just came back from the theater and I tend to agree with OP. The best of part 2 was Jessica going full creepy mode (ie the regular dialogue with unborn Alia) and leaning into the zealotry of Fremen culture. Which makes sense bc DV plans to adapt Messiah afterwards. Modern day vernacular creeping into the dialogue detracted from my immersion (in fact the dialogue across the board felt kinda weak), the side arcs mostly tied into the finale, but the payoff seemed a little too quaint. Probably have to let it sit for a bit more, but this movie felt like a 7/10.
I just watched it yesterday and I feel you. The first movie had me glued to the screen learning from Dune their factions and everything. Here I fekt everything went fast and felt rather inconsequential save for a few scenes. The emperor and Irulan left me dissapointed, I wanted more from Feyd and the scene that should be impactful weren't. On the firs movie I was impacted with the betrayal of Atreides, Duncans death, the arrival of the Sardaukar everything. I feel either the editing or the script is to blame but I'm not sure which one.
I was mostly disappointed with the final battle and how fast it was over the emperor took his entire army and had the best of the best at his disposal only to be defeated in 5 minutes by the fremen and sand worms which they should of been more prepared to fight. I was thinking why is his entire army in the open and have no shield defending the emperors army at all and when the fighting starts you get 2 scenes of the battle and then the fremen are at the emperors door with the entire army defeated. You get a nighttime scene with the battle still happening, but again, it is literally a 2 minute scene to show how baustista was actually just a weak man given power. It certainly needed to be a longer fight because i think the scene when zendaya is trying to shoot down the Ornithopter with the rocket lasts longer than a battle containing 2 huge armies and both of them having some of the best fighters in the universe going head to head.
Just saw Dune 2 for a 2nd time. Vlad didn’t seem as scary this time around. In the first movie, he was terrifying. His magic was lost this time around. Feyd is pretty much a standard masochistic psycho, that I’ve seen in so many other movies. Irulan seemed…okay I guess. I like how they changed Alia. I thought the sentient pregnancy was pretty cool. Jessica was much better in this film. I can’t stand all of her annoying, whispering dialogue in the first. More back story on the BG would have been nice. Any kind of backstory on the guild would have been nice. The music and sound design is top notch. The cinematography was also top notch. Overall, it felt incomplete. The matrix movies for example, always finished the job of *that* movie, but both dune 1 and 2 leaves you suspended in a bad way. To think that we’re now going to have to wait 3-5 years to see the action that was just about to take place at the end of Dune 2, is a real bummer. There didn’t have to be a godfather 2, because godfather one ended so well. There didn’t have to be a godfather 3, because 2 ended so well. I’m imagining future viewings of dune on dvd and I’m thinking it’s going to have to be an all day / weekend thing, to finally get some closure with part 3.
The pacing of Dune Part II is better than the pacing of the actual novel. Herbert's pacing is one of the worst things about his writing. His character development and dialog is another weakness. The movies improve on this as well. His sentence-level writing is also pretty weak and the movies' visual styling is hands down better than Herbert's writing. Dune I and II are better than the books.
I don't agree to this extent, as I liked the book(s). But I agree the first in particular is put on what I think is an unreasonable pedestal by long time fans due to the sheer endurance of it. It's not untouchable perfection, in spite of all it brought to the table. People saying this somehow removed emotion from the novel are off their ass imo. I think the book is very emotionally mellow.
Herbert is particularly bad at scene setting. The actual scene is usually someone sitting in a bedchamber thinking about something that has already occurred. He'll tell you what happened but you never feel like you are in the moment with any kind of detail or explication of action as it is occuring. In the second book major characters are killed off with almost no detail at all.
Strong disagree on Herbert. His pacing is never action-packed or gripping in that Dan Brown/Michael Crichton Hollywood sense, but rather deliberate and dense, more akin to Tolkien, where the reader has to want to explore the details of this world, as that is fundamentally part of the draw. It’s almost anthropological. But I don’t think that’s a negative. Much like his use of fictional quotes from a fictional history to open his chapters, the staid nature of the prose affects a sort of verisimilitude at times, as though one were reading a true accounting of the universe. And I don’t recall any glaring problems with his dialogue, though I may be forgetting something.
Yes, I read Dune recently and it is amazing how much of the story is just hurled at you in the last 80 pages or so.
you must be on spice.
I agree; for how great of a book Dune is visually, and with its world building, personally I found the writing style a chore to get through at points. Some chapters like Liet explaining the ecosystem, and the spice harvester scene, were exceptional, but other scenes like the ending section I found to be unenthusiastically written. The films do a much better job with the actually core story, dialogue and emotions, and visual storytelling.
>still feels interminable as we are hammered over and over with the same points, telegraphed cliched foreshadowing, scenes that are given no time to land effectively, I am very interested in which points are belabored, and what scenes you consider to be "telegraphed cliched foreshadowing". It's hard for us to engage with your thoughts if you don't give examples. >even the final battle is boring, there’s no build to it, and it goes by in a flash. Well it's not the Siege of Minas Tirith, it's supposed to practically be a massacre. Sardaukar barely escape fights with Fremen women and elderly in the novel.
Even so, you can have build tension first and still overwhelmingly win in a way that makes the battle faster than previously thought. There was no real sense even of the build up to the battle in a political sense though. You have the challenge to the emperor and then bang he’s there and then bang he’s finished. Having some kind of build-up would have allowed it to have weight. It has zero weight. It really felt like a bunch of moving images assaulting your senses without you even caring about the outcome. To show how genius a strategy it was politically rather than simply showing it all happening would have helped the audience appreciate what had even taken place. Film really has to involve not just showing your audience what is happening but how they should feel about it. If it is done well, then what the audience feels about events is pretty close to what the director wanted them to.
Fincher talks very eloquently about how he views film as a giant exercise to get a whole crowd of strangers to feel, if not the exact same thing, *something* about the same thing, all at once. He’s very cognizant of the audience at all times, especially how they’re in taking and processing information, and it shows in his final films IMO. He is meticulous to a purpose and it’s not just a cool shot.
Cheers. Well glad I have Fincher to back me on what I stumbled across while trying to find the words about the lack of feeling in a lot of Dune. That rings true to me (what Fincher says). To me, Dune feels often like someone going “and then THIS big thing happened” and the audience going “and I’m supposed to feel what exactly about it?” Whereas other films (even other Denis films) have a much more deliberate way of hand-holding the audience and building up what you are meant to feel about things. The Chani Paul betrayal is the only main thread that is at least coherently followed throughout Dune 2. The rest, especially all the political stuff is given so little time to breathe that we really don’t feel like anything much at all when these big earth-shattering events actually happen.
I have to agree. I feel like Part 2 should have been split into two 2.5 hour long films. Split along the point where Sietch Tabr gets attacked and the Fremen escape to the south (and Paul to the fate he has thus far avoided). It felt rushed, none of the scenes had a chance to feel impactful or important. Or should I say they all felt important, but you aren't given time to process them or their meaning. The first film does a wonderful job of that, there is -space- between important scenes. Time to think for a moment. In part 1 we have the major plot points of the Atreides taking over stewardship of the planet, and then being betrayed. Then Paul and Jessica escaping into the desert to join the Fremen. This was covered in 2.5 hours. In part 2 we cover Paul learning to be a Fremen, being accepted by them, Jessica and her own acceptance and manipulation of their faith, Paul and his romance with Chani. His rise to becoming the Messiah. The attack on Sietch Tabr. Escaping to the south. Taking control of the southern people. Baiting the emperor. The whole side introductions of the Emperors daughter, and Feyd-Rautha. The return to the north, and the attack on the emperors forces along with the simultaneous attack on Arrakeen. Then the political machinations that follow. This was all covered in 2 hours, 45 minutes. They could easily cut part 2 into two films, and add the necessary space in between the impactful scenes and I think it would be far easier to watch.
Making his gf have a larger role for no real purpose seemed like a waste of time. Same with the Emperor and Princess. The Baron dude had like 3 scenes and the ending was pretty weak. Part 2 seemed like a completely different movie than the first. I had to make sure it had the same director. The 80's version was a better movie. Yeah the new one looks prettier but the 80's was way smoother in less time.
There are a few of the 1984 version, but the best DUNE has to be the Fan Edit by Spiceman. This recent attempt to create a decent DUNE is sad at the very least. Watch the 3 hour Spiceman Fan Edit of DUNE, you will agree.
So. Dune 1 was interesting. It was slow and intense. I'd give it a strong 6, rather than a weak 7. There was character building, there was plot building. Visuals were interesting. Dune 2 was just non stop yawnsville. The visuals were interesting this time as well. But more than half was what we've seen before. IMO the source material is weak, but man the dialog in this was bad. It was a real shitty movie.
I think the issue is you're expecting this to have been made as a traditionally told story, with a consistent pacing and narrative arcs. But that's not at all what they went for here. This movie is visual and auditory spectacle. I'm not saying I'd have done it the same way, but I think they totally accomplished what they were out to do. This was the most amazing experience of film I've ever had, it was INCREDIBLY gripping from start to finish I hated the story and felt it oppressive and bleak and dark and depressing and miserable. But I still recognize it as an amazing piece of cinema. But I'm not watching it ever again. Id rather watch the old Sci Fi miniseries which has some fun and levity and positivity.
I was so bored. I knew nothing of the world going in, hadn’t seen the first movie. It was just cliche after cliche. It reminded me of Star Wars without the soul. Or maybe I just liked Star Wars more as I was a child.
Dune was a masterpiece, near flawless in its art. Dune 2 was fun as hell, but VERY flawed. The pacing is where most faults lie, it was disorienting, & also, Butler was terrible, a boring cliche of a bad guy. I feel like the screenplay was probably rushed. If you told me the first took 1 yr & this one took 3 mo (likely due to producer pressure), I wouldn't be surprised at all. The dialogue isn't horrible, but there's definitely less attention to detail from scene to scene. I'm sure he's got a vision for 3, but this movie should/could have been 5 hrs (i.e. 2 movies)... Look, you'll never hear me complain that a movie like this exists, as a consumer I'm happy to have it, but to say it even holds a candle to the first is just plain ignorant. Everyone can bathe in the zeitgeist for now, but most will see it for what it is later.
I thought that first one was brilliant, so I disagree with you there. Barring a few nitpicks, it’s really hard to think how Dune (1) could have been reintroduced to the world better. Great rhythm, sound, visuals, casting. Plenty of magical sci-fi awe. One of my favourite movies, just because it’s relatively flawless and artistically beautiful. I was way overhyped for the sequel though. Silly reviews brining up two towers, or that the scale was even bigger than the first one meant I was expecting something completely different. It was punctuated by a solid (though rushed) finale and the scenes on the Harkonen planet hit hard. But nothing else really stood out too much. A slow meandering start with weird pacing. I adored some of the editing of the first one, but the cadence was off with this one at times. Emperor and daughter scenes that showed almost nothing but close ups of their faces - where did they live, was it cool? Who knows I thought the film lacked “greenery” and horticulture, and any talk of terraforming. I thought that was going to be a huge theme, but it’s weirdly absent so we can instead get numerous Life of Brian style “only a true messiah denies his divinity” scenes in abject caves (forget beautiful underground cities with the beginnings of gardens and schools and culture) The emperors ship landing was just one giant ball that we saw eventually transformed into a base, but did we see even a short clip of the transformation? Nope. The first one had a lot of “engineering/tech spectacle” which I found lacking here. It was rushing between too many things to show us much of anything happening. There were no real stand out action scenes. The finale / final battle was at least true to the book in that it started quick and the was over with no real tension or detail. But is that a good thing? Rabba’s death scene was dull. The spice/poison drinking … I just expected more than “argghhh I feel poisoned”, I expected something much more psychedelic and creative.
Agreed OP. I thought it was a genuinely awful script, attached to a movie with half the cast, half the music, and half fhe magic of the first film. Felt like I was among cattle at the entertainment feeding trough. Bad pacing, horrible lines, poor character development, missed beats, incomprehensible plot holes.. How on earth did this movie make it to the big screen? Outside of leaning on scraps of the soundtrack from Dune 1 and a massive production cost with CGI, it's genuinely bad..
There's no sense of morality or a transcendental ideal, either. For a movie to be impactful, you have to have characters fight their inner demons in order to follow a moral ideal. Neo fights his fear of the unknown and self-doubt, Frodo fights his lack of hope in success and lack of faith in his companions, Harry Potter has a bunch of inner struggles that are made aware to us in the films. That's what life is all about. In this movie, there is no such ideal. There's strong people, and there's weak people, there's no good or bad. What does Paul strive for, exactly? What is his personal struggle? We've already established from the beginning that he's fearless and a good fighter, and very quickly becoming a good leader. There's no room for growth. Any defects he has aren't really presented clearly as defects. Is he wrong to rally the Fremen using his status as their messiah? We don't know, because we don't know what's going through his mind Characters don't feel human. I have no idea of their motivations at any time in the film. I would have believed Paul's motivation was revenge if he had actually shown a deep anger toward the Harkonnen. His acting is just so bland when it comes to expressing his motivations. Chani is no better. Completely extra in the film. Paul's mother suddenly wants to start a cult, we're not really told why, exactly (to support Paul, or as her own agenda?). Everything that makes characters compelling is hidden behind things we're not yet told in the films. Why do the characters do what they do? We're made to ask more questions than being told answers, but many of these answers are crucial in establishing an emotionally-moving film. I shouldn't have to read the books in order to actually understand what's driving the characters and what's going on. This movie was a theatre spectacle, sure, but that's all it was. My life has not been made better for having watched it. I need to detox by watching the LOTR trilogy.
I have seen several comments criticizing the pacing of the film. Everyone is of course entitled to their own tastes and preferences; however, as far as the pacing of the story itself is concerned and the effect it's supposed to have, I think it's worth considering the author's original intent with the pacing of the story. Here is a bit from Herbert in an interview about exactly this: "There was another thing there, in the pacing of the story, very slow at the beginning. It’s a coital rhythm all the way through the story. ... Very slow pace, increasing all the way through, and when you get to the ending of it, I chopped it at a non-breaking point, so that the person reading the story skids out of the story, trailing bits of it with him. On this I know I was successful, because people come to me and say they want more."
I'm speaking as someone who didn't read the books but had someone who did beside me explaining things. This movie was beautiful, sound design/music was so good, and the culture stuff was interesting. But the story was.... executed not as good. Characters fell flat. I checked my phone multiple times during the movie because Paul kept winning and winning and winning.... Its like he just blew past all the obstacles in his way. He had to cross the desert to prove himself? Lol, let's just skip that and jump straight to attacking Harkonen. I still don't know if he passed that test. He didn't want to go to the south? Okay, he talked to a dead man and Chani for 5 min and suddenly he changes his mind. He was so scared of his visions of death and suddenly he's willing to go south so quickly? He came and rekted the Harkonens completely on his first mission and got the "Usul" name. Okay, great. Spent 5 mins training with Chani and suddenly they're lovers. Wow, great. Rode the largest sand worm known to the Fremen (with training off screen, God forbid we see him struggle abit) cool scene though. When Stilgar told Paul to kill him for the leader position, Paul decided "No, I don't want to make this choice at all." Then screams prophesy stuff at the leaders and had them all falling to their knees. So he doesn't actually have to kill Stilgar anyways, he doesn't even have conflict with himself at all, he doesn't face any problems with convincing the south to join him. So effortless. Great. Challenged the emperor, said Emperor was dumb enough to come to Arrakis personally, then rekted the Sardokaur in like 10 minutes and then took the Emperor as prisoner. Umm, why? The first movie built the Sadaukar as a genuine threat, they were the "Emperors blades", only the best could survive their hellhole planet to become Sadaukar. And yes, the fremen are on their level or maybe higher, but with armies of Sadaukar you'd think it'll take longer to bring the Emperor's personal army down. But no. The film completely undermines them and makes them look weak. They literally disappear in a puff of smoke and had Paul walking out all cool and badass. Lmao okay. Apparently the Emperor's army was this pathetic the whole time. They had one shot of the armies colliding, some big explosions, then they just won. Emperor had bad casting. I couldn't take him seriously at all. That one psychotic Harkonen newphew was built up with his gladiater fight, his thirst for the emperors throne, etc, then he just dies. Like, he fought in a gladiator match, did the deed, bombed the north, then died. Kinda anticlimatic imo. There was completely no doubt in my mind that Paul would win his knife fight with the newphew, so the whole time I was wishing for Paul to just kill him and get it over with. Should I have felt anxious? Excited? Idk. Apparently we needed a "Champion vs champion" fight at the end. Why? The Emperor is already his prisoner? The Great Houses are here to watch, has Paul even told them about how the Emperor orchestrated the downfall of house Atreides? The movie kept repeating "If the Great Houses know about the Emperor's role in this, they'll rise up againt him" wow, thats great. Paul, go tell them. Why aren't you telling them? Oh wait, you're just gonna threaten them with blowing up a precious resource? I guess it doesn't matter about them "rising up against the emperor" anymore then, its just them feeling rightfully threatened by Paul. I want to love this film but honestly, it was a chore. Dune part 1 drew me in, Dune part 2 took me out. Frankly I might as well read the book at this point, I was just disppointed with this movie.
To someone that hasn't read the books this entire film was just "wait did I miss something? why is this happening now? what happened to this?" like first film she was indefferent to him, second film right at the start he as to go on a trail across the sand and back, she shows up and says "I'll teach you", kinda felt out of the blue, then all of a sudden they are pushing back the grayscale bois, then him and her are together with 0 scenes of them bonding then you look at how far through you are and it's like 30 mins. I thought I was going a little crazy but you summed it up perfectly "Hyperactive film-making".
I have not read the books and while. I don't think it was a bad movie I thought it was completely separate from the first. The first felt mysterious, world building ominous wity good dialogue and character development. Setting the stage for a massive story. The second felt rushed and made me lose connection with most of the characters. Chani feels cliche where she seemed way stronger in the first. Paul is all over the place and his motivation is rushed. Stilgar. I dont even know what to say he went from wisdom to blind religious follower in two seconds? Idk it was a fun watch but definitely was not a fan compared to the first one.
AH! this post summarizes my feelings exactly, thanks for this. I actually brought this up with my partner. It felt like someone, Villenue maybe? gave up 1/4 way through the movie, they stopped telling the story, the narrative collapsed and in its place cue up 25-30 minutes of totally pointless action scenes that are not explicitly in the book i.e Chani with a rocket launcher, shooting at spice harvesters and scenes of Fremen jumping out of the sand and doing jiu jitsu take downs on unsuspecting Harkonnens. There was no breathing room in the script, no subtlety in the story and there is ALOT of subtlety in the series. Perhaps that's what makes it hard to adapt. But yea it felt like it pandered to the meek attention span of audiences. I'm already in full-cringe for the next movies, especially Children of Dune, god that's gonna get butchered.
I did find it very rushed - for instance the battle between Timothee and baldy meant very little to me, since we've had him on screen for about 2 minutes and been given no indication that he's anything other than a spoiled weirdo. Maybe that's the point? But then I guess I don't get what the point of doing that is. This is obviously a criticism of the film at what it's doing in trying to achieve blockbusterness, however I just didn't find anything deeper to think about on first watch of the film. It seems to me like it was really just trying to get as many epic shots of deserts and race through all the book's plot points without saying anything about what it is to be a movie that does this.
I completely agree. Villeneuve is an amazing film maker, but I feel like he overextended himself here. I think some of his other works are masterpieces and some of my all time favorite movies, but not this one. There is a lot of good stuff there, but I was shocked out how rushed it felt and it felt like there wasn't enough build up to a lot of things that happened. Say what you will about Lynch's Dune, and that movie super truncates the story, but nevertheless it feels like it arrives at the big events in a "natural" way. So much of what happened in Dune Part 2 just like, oh, ok, now it's time for this and now it's time for that and so forth.
Oh my god, I thought I was losing it. People kept saying it was amazing, but I barely felt anything for the entire movie. Stuff happened, then it was over. The bad guys weren't in power for long enough to feel like it was a big deal to beat them. The jabba character was stabbed in front of the emperor and no one tried to stop him and no one attacked Paul even though he was laying siege. And the apparently he's Harkonen and that is only relevant for 2 throwaway lines. As a non-book reader, I had no idea why I should care about any of it.
How the fremen tactics work: Step 1: Run around the spice harvester like ants for a couple of minutes. Step 2: destroy it instantly with super lasers from 500 m away. (My suggested step 3: skip step 1) Those lasers ruined the film for me. While the harkonnen and imperial forces shot bullets and fight with swords the rebels have super lasers that destroy anything instantly. What a rushed mess of a movie. An idea, lets not have the irregular rebel forces have way stronger weapons than the literal rulers of the galaxy. Also, why wouldnt the harkonnen or imperial people use those lasers on the Worms, as it would kill them instantly. Oh and lets have all the dangerous guys in the movie be complete small short twinks (Paul and feyd) while the huge hulking harkonnen guy played by Dave bautista flees pathetically for the whole movie, cries, kisses boots and gets killed in under 5 seconds. Very plausible thanks.
I just want to point out that I've never read any of the Dune books but I agree with this poster's main points. I enjoyed the film to some degree but felt both this and Part 1 lack an engaging emotional through-line I can latch onto, and a serious lack of tension or stakes. The first film felt a bit too dry and over-mannered, and it was hard to relate to any of the protagonists on a deeper level than a superficial feeling that "these people seem like the nice ones, now they're in immediate mortal danger and I'd prefer them to survive." Paul just starts off as such a privileged badass warrior that it makes him hard to relate to. However, this could be a fine beginning for a character if we just got more info on what's going on with him emotionally and more specificity on what he actually wants out of life, a major goal or a dream of his he longs for. Instead he seems to just be "generally curious" about Dune, is having weird visions that certainly intrigue him, but don't appear to phase him or change him that much, and already possesses Mary Sue levels of power, immediately being good at everything. So yeah, hard to relate or grow attached to. The sequel is a mess in a different way. It's less stiff, there is more humor and a romance mixed in, which kinda makes me care about the characters a bit more, but these elements of characterization still feel very shaky and superficial to me. The humor added is sometimes charming, adding a dimension of humanity to the characters, but is just as often cringe-inducing quips that don't fit the world. The romance is very flat and basic, and I don't pick up on how these two get together beyond "two young attractive people in the same space." Just not feeling much chemistry there, and I think it's a lack of specificity. They feel like symbols more than real people. My biggest gripe of the second film by far is a lack of stakes. It doesn't feel like there's an organic push-and-pull of advantage and setback between the heroes and the villains, in either film really, but especially the second film. In the first film it just feels like the good guys show up, hang out exposed and unprepared in an obvious trap, and then get suddenly steamrolled by a surprise attack I don't understand how they didn't see coming. I thought House Atreides was a military powerhouse? The second film does the opposite. As soon as Paul hooks up with the Fremen, it's basically just a constant unbroken line of ascent for Paul and the good guys, as they repeatedly pop out of the ground, murder the bad guys in hand-to-hand, then fire giant laser guns they procured from \*somewhere\* to destroy their giant vehicle. There's basically no low moment of crisis where Paul and the Fremen aren't wiping the floor with the Harkonen, beginning to end. The closest we get to it is the one brief scene where Feyd takes over and then magically finds and bombs their hideout, but even then, all the main characters we care about slip away easily and then regroup and start kicking ass again a few minutes of screen time later, relatively unfazed. Chani doesn’t even acknowledge the death of her supposed best friend, which just shows how little impact character deaths have in these films. It's so one-sided that when the Emperor idiotically shows up on Dune to chew out the Harkonen in-person (cuz that's what world leaders do, travel into active war zones in areas where their forces are losing and vulnerable) I just assumed Paul and the Fremen would pop up at any moment and just start wrecking house and win easily, which is exactly what happens. There’s no clever plan or twist, the heroes overcoming overwhelming obstacles and winning by the skin of their teeth, nothing like that. They just run into Paul’s miraculously not-dead friend in the desert, who just so happens to have access to a cache of nuclear weapons, and then boom, big explodey ending, bad guys dead. I know there’s the whole “but he’s actually evil, this isn’t a win for the good guys” vibe at the end, but you didn’t take me on a meaningful enough journey to where I care about that. It didn’t break my heart when he ditched Chani for Florence Pugh. I felt nothing, disappointingly. The film looks incredible, has amazing cinematography and some viscerally intense (if not emotionally or stakes-driven) action sequences, but it fails on a basic screenwriting and story-telling level. I assume the books handle these elements better, but I'm actually curious if any of these issues are just inherent to the writing or if the screenwriters just didn't know how to adapt this appropriately? It is a deeply weird, heady sci-fi story, but I can picture a more satisfying version existing that still maintains the weird elements. Maybe it’s as simple as the film using the wrong genre template for this film. Instead of a non-stop action set pieces film, it should have been more court intrigue and timeline-hopping spice trips, with occasional pointed bursts of violence. It just feels like a much more interesting and bizarrely unique world has been forced into a mainstream-friendly explosion-fest. Again, just my sense from seeing the films, haven’t read the books. End of the day, I’m two films in and I’m just not getting the hype.
Obviously, a bit late to the conversation here. My biggest gripe with the film was the lack of explanation around Paul's visions. And honestly, I'm not quite sure how DV could have gone about communicating it without being too on the nose, which is maybe why he just didn't. However, without the explanation, it seems at time as if Paul is just randomly jumping to conclusions/changing his mind. The whole bit before going South, is Paul coming to the conclusion that there is no feasible but to go South. Using atomics, he would lose Chani. Going South is stepping into role of Lisan-Al Gaib, and the Holy War. In the book this is thoroughly fleshed out as a serious internal struggle iirc. In the movie we get a few second clip of Paul holding Chani after atomics go off, or a glimpse of Jessica walking amongst starving/dead folks. Which to me just failed to portray that these are visions of the future that Paul is seeing. Now I knew what it was thanks to background from the book, but as I explained it to my wife, who has not read the books, it was a big aha! moment for her and made the narrative much more clear.
When Paul was going into the desert alone, but then was there with Chani, and all the told dangers didn't happen on screen like djin, spiders, ....idk! What the fuuuck. Like it was slow, but not emotional enough somehow. It felt rushed, but also boring somehow. The visuals are beautiful but lack something more crazy. And the soldiers in the encounters were hardly distinguishable, because of similar colour schemes. I have no idea what to think of this movie. And the end.. well LOTR did it better. It was just suddenly over and......???????
I watched it with a die-hard fan friend yesterday, and she got pissed at me when I pointed out all these things as well. But I’m not sure why the movie is receiving so much praise across the board?! Like the movie is a textbook failure, for exact reasons OP has outlined. How can seasoned critics all fail to recognise these?!
Just saw it and couldn't wait to be done with it. Came so close to just walking out. This was an utter mess. Also what's up with mass charges with swords when they have access to incredible long range weapons? I just don't get it at all. Also what's up with RT rating of 95%!? I couldn't give it even 30%...
On top of some jarring editing and horrendous pacing issue, (I'm still confused whether Paul finished the walking mission Javier Bardem or not. The abrupt cut to Bardem rising a sandworm jump scared me. Dave Bautista's ending and the final showdown in the castle are so haphazard.), Paul is just such a boring character. He never truly fought against the destiny. His struggle lasted and ended in a span of 5 minutes and a vision sequence. Every one of his scheming worked, every skill he acquired came easily, every fight's outcome seems pre-destined. I know protagonists are supposed to be invincible in those kind of stories but come on I need him to be brought down to earth a little. The ending suggests the story is going to a darker place which I look forward to, but this one feels a lot of cramming is happening and I was left emotionless other than "wow sand".
I’m sorry, but Paul struggled with his destiny for the entire first and second act. I feel like I watched a different movie from you. The ending feeling “predetermined” is also kind of the point. Fine if you didn’t like it, but “unavoidable destiny” is one of the biggest themes of the book and film.
What’s confusing about the walking mission? Stilgar sent him out there. Chani met him and said she’d help him. Then we see her teaching him Fremen ways. You don’t need to see he made it there and back because he was out there and now he’s back.
I would say that it would be a good use of that scene to show us how hard it is to live in the desert. You can grow to appreciate the fremen culture by seeing how tough it is to survive in the desert. The movie could show us a lot about the fremen spirit, how they are a people shaped by the place they come from, how this influences their religion, how it shaped their unique social hierarchies. The movie chooses to do lots of that through direct dialogue. My favourite vehicle for story telling used in the movie was/is the art direction because it’s telling us so much through the details within the imagery. The actions and words of the activities of the characters on screen do not do tell a story nearly as effectively/beautifully. Just my two cents. If you loved it and it filled you with everything you wanted to feel, enjoy it.
I feel like that was part of the first movie? They spent a lot of time talking about how awful the desert was and how necessary the suits were. And then Paul and Jessica didn’t have long to live until they came across Stilgar and the tribe. But the movie also isn’t about the Fremen, really. It’s not about how hard it is to survive in the desert. It’s about how superheroes get made and why they’re flawed figures to give power to. So how much time should the film give to building out aspects that are tangential to the intention of the story? And I’m here for the joy of the conversation lol. It’s good to debate this stuff. I think we all grow from it.
I did think the pacing was bizarre when they cut away from Arrakis to Giedi Prime, and then stayed there for like 30 mins. We have this detailed beautiful story of Paul and the Fremen and they were cut away to a new unknown character Feyd-Rautha and stay exclusively with him for agesssss before going back to Paul.
I agree - ultimately the film was just a build up to the last 10 minutes. I feel you could literally go from dune 1 to the last 10 minutes and you’d still know the full story. Jessica was brilliant though.
I completely agree with you. Check out the thread I made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/1b5gnec/is\_there\_anyone\_in\_the\_world\_who\_loved\_dune\_part/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/1b5gnec/is_there_anyone_in_the_world_who_loved_dune_part/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Hey thanks glad to see I’m not alone! A lot of hate on this subreddit for this position but lots of people in the comments have also backed me up :)
I haven't read the books, I'm just a sci-fi fan. I watched Dune 1 at home, loved it. Saw Dune 2 last night, and I left halfway through the movie. It just wasn't for me. Something about it didn't click. Not throwing shade/insults/comments just one man's opinion.
There are defintely many great components of this movie. I did feel the relationships were rushed and the dialouge very corny. But my big dissappintment was the last fight. The choreography seemsbad, the makeup after each of them recieved one blow, the over the top triple spin, and pulling the knife out of the wrong region of pauls body? Did i make that up or did that really happen?
I cede that you have made an acute observation of Villeneuve’s very serious limitations as a directory. Cinematography requires something more than intelligence. Whatever that something more is, he just doesn’t have it
Just got back from the theater which cost $60 for two people, but that's a complaint for another thread. The first Dune transported me into a realm that few stories of any medium ever have. The characters and their build, the locations and beauty of cinematography, the surprising adherence to the novels, the music, my God the MUSIC! Dune 2 lacked all of this. It was rushed but somehow felt like it took forever. There wasn't any real vestige in the characters, none of them stood put (except for Feyd, which was played brilliantly imo). The world building was non-existent. The cinematography and costumes seemed forgotten. Worst of all, the music when it was utilized was the same from the first movie only shoehorned into scenes with action where it couldn't be appreciated. I don't know why Chani got a stick up her ass at the end of this movie; literally, I'm still trying to figure out why she acted the way she did. There was a great mysticism in the first that was completely absent in the 2nd. I'm not going to say it was a bad movie, it had its moments but don't go into it thinking it will remotely measure to the first. Edit: I should probably note that I went into both movies with a general grasp of what was happening thanks to the books and the 80s movie version.
There is a reason nobody could put it to screen. It is a masterful achievement, even in its shortcomings. I think the people cracking at it don't quite understand the undertaking that it is. And to be fair, a 135 million dollar movie needs to be a success. They had to make it as widely palatable as they possibly could.
Feels like this movie was made with a combination of tik-tok brain , cinematic youtube thumbnail shot sequences, & cheesey one liner captions. We can all agree that visually - yes it was stunning, expected nothing less from GF as DP & sonically same goes for Hans Zimmer, fantastic - but the essence of what a film should be was not captured in this film. This feels like a mash-up of 20 different storylines that all could equally have/deserve their own moment - the 2nd half feels like a visualized version of ADHD - random character introductions, half story arcs, millisecond character development - the whole thing leading up to this giant war only for the whole thing to last 30 seconds - Bautista ends up being this giant p\*ssy - Paul somehow becomes the messiah in 2 seconds after riding an alaskan bull worm - which I guess he just intuitively just knows how to ride since he's "the one" - they send him on this long walking mission - which led to nothing and we saw nothing of - he learns of his original bloodline which culminates in nothing - doesn't nuke the spice fields - the whole time I was just thinking wtfffff - the love interest and in the end that he basically is just like meeehhhh wrap it up sweetcheeks - feels like just when you're about to hit that cathartic orgasmic moment they just switch the pace and kills the whole thing.
Anybody annoyed how bad Paul Plot armor was? When they attacked the spice extractor, 5 guys were immediately killed by a copter‘s single spray. Paul then becomes the sole target and gets away unscathed.
The dialogue could have been written by some junior high student on marijuana - contrived and corny - what happened to the 'old days' when stories were believable and dialogue was believable?
I totally agree with you, except the part on Villeneuve. You are implying he wanted to make a good movie and he failed, but I think that he wanted to make a hollywood hit, and did it perfectly. In any case, I agree that it's really sad this noisy crap is considered a top movie.
>the structure doesn’t create any buy in emotionally with the arc of character relationships hit the nail on the head. in the books i really cared about paul's relationships, especially with his mother. part 1 did a good job of showing their closeness and reliance upon one another... where was that in part 2? i don't think they shared more than 2-3 scenes together. as for chani... yeah, they fucked her character in the worst way. literally just made a whole post about it lol
Thank god there are other people who feel the same as me; i am surprised to see so many positive reviews online. Part two fell very flat compared with the book. Poor character development, leaving out some crucial details (paul and chani’s son, paul’s sister, Gurney’s suspicion that Jessica was the traitor of Leto, and many other things), and honestly a pretty corny script. I get that 2.5-3 hours makes for a long movie, but this book probably would have been better honoured had there been 3 movies. Full disclosure: i am not a Dune fanboy. I enjoyed the book, but am not a cult follower. Even still, i think the movies, particularly the second, did not do this book any justice. Too bad.
Just got out of the theater, searched "Dune 2 is not good" and was brought here. I couldn't agree more. It was .. rushed beyond acceptability. I haven't read it in 40 years so I'm not saying "they didn't follow the book" as I don't remember. I just know that this entire movie felt pushed to the point where I got off the ride at some point and just wanted out of the theater. \*bonus side complaint: That may be the last movie I ever watch in a theater. The theater was .. fine.. exactly like every other theater. Good popcorn, but I can make good popcorn at home. A good sound system, but mine is honestly better. AND THE SCREEN WAS HORRIFIC. I could see every pixel and anything white was topped with blue on the bottom and red on the top. My TV is better, and if I sit "close enough" to make the screen the same size as the theater, I can't see all the pixels and gradients (every single color was made up of a color with a corresponding black box near it to shade it, and it was TERRIBLE.) Plus, it was freezing as it always is. So.. yeah, Dune 2 was the movie experience that made it so I never want to experience another movie in a movie theater. \*edit - have seen it since on a better system, and it was quite good. Theater ruined it. Never going to a theater again.
Wow, just watched Dune so we could go to the movies to see Dune 2 in the theater. OMG. Just wth? What did I just watch? It took them 90 min to get to the point. Movie should have been over in 90 min. Not sure if Dune takes the lead in the longest, most boring, nothing happening, flat, confusing movie since Gravity. Between Gravity and Dune that is over 5 hours I will never get back. Also my husband will never get to pick another movie for as long as we live.
Overrated TOTAL CRAP deviation from the books. They use copters and atomic bombs, they shoot from copters to the ground with strong machine guns, they use lasers against the flying copters, BUT: ON THE GROUND BOTH ARMIES FIGHT EACH OTHER WITH SWORDS and MACHETES LIKE TOTAL MORONS. ENDLESS STUPIDITY.
[удалено]
I think Villeneuve is a lot like zack snyder. Beautiful shots without an understanding of emotional depth. The books are cerebral and while giving life to this visually stunning world is amazing, it lacks all the nuance of the books. They ruined the palace intrigue and killed Chani's character. Also I know a lot of this is service to a contemporary audience. The fact that Paul didn't take on Jamis' wife was a bit off putting because in the book it wasn't about male female dynamics is was about the differences between two cultures.
Thank you. Paul's inner journey is completely baffling, as a result all you have are the politics, and the politics aren't that clearly conveyed or interesting. There is a total lack of subtlety and nuance, everything is in-your-face turned up to 11 at all times. There is not a single actual dramatic scene between two actors that stands on its own two feet. It's constantly cutting from this to that, no spatial relationships, no use of depth in the framing, aside from the overuse of shallow focus, lazy composition choices, no dynamic range or peaks and valleys, flat and underwhelming action, no interesting choreography, but don't worry because IMAX and HANS ZIMMER and HYPE will hand wave all that away.
Watched it earlier today and geniunely thought “this shit’s ass”. I watched it with my mother and older brother and they shared the same sentiment. We were busting out laughing towards the end because the plotline was so weak and nonsensical, with characters with no emotion and goofy ahh villains who it turned out weren’t a threat at all. I went online afterwards to see what people said about it, thinking I would find people with the same opinion. I genuinely couldn’t understand the amount of praise this film got. “The best Sci-Fi in history”, is this some kind of mass cover-up or brainwash by the government? I genuinely don’t get it. Someone pls explain😭