The new Dune movie.

[Lang Spoon]

It would be nice if someone was brave enough to launch a film without promotion, but it won't be this one, too much money involved (even though I doubt actor interview stuff will do much for its box office). About half the budget of a big movie is shite like promotions.

[Ginger Yellow]

Seems weird with a film like Dune. How many people are going to go "Huh, I didn't want to watch the second part of this sci fi tone poem before, but now I know Chalamet is in it, I'm sold!"

[Hot Pepsi]

I wouldn’t be shocked if it gets punted again. Perhaps to Christmas 2024. I’m not confident these strikes will be resolved this year.

They’re delaying films because they need the actors to promote them.

[Patrick Thistle]

Dune part 2 delayed until March 2024.

[Discordant Resonance]

I thought the criticism of the movie when it came out was that it was impenetrable to anyone but the fanboys.

(As I've said previously, I'm fine with that.)

As HP says, seemed fairly straightforward to me also - evil Galactic Emperor pursues vendetta against his main rivals, who belong to an ancient political/religious sect that employ various mental training exercises, and whose chosen one must solicit aid from a desert people in a thinly-veiled Arabian analogy.

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m not sure.
There’s a lot to keep track of, but I’ve only read the book once and I followed it ok.
If you’ve never read it, it is helpful to read the summary of the first half on Wikipedia first.

[Patrick Thistle]

I thought the criticism of the movie when it came out was that it was impenetrable to anyone but the fanboys.

(As I've said previously, I'm fine with that.)

[Hot Pepsi]

Finally got around to seeing part one on Amazon - probably not granular enough in plot detail to satisfy the devotees of the novel, and it sets up part two to highlight Paul fulfilling his destiny, but all the scenes of Chalamet staring pensive and broodingly into the distance seemed rather gratuitous after the first explainer, and Villeneuve could have made more use of the all-star cast at his disposal, given the running time.

Hollywood is having a really hard time creating new movie stars. Surveys show that the actors people are most likely to name as stars are people in their 50s or older.

So they are all the way in on Chalamet, as they should be. He’s a great actor. And he is funny on SNL.

Villaneuve does indulge a bit of Terrance Malik-style lingering shots. I don’t mind it. Just don’t give us another scene of sunlit wheat.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah.
This is a major challenge for Hollywood now.

They use IP because they want to get buzz going with fans of the source material, but a distressingly large numbers of those people are in serious need of psychiatric help. And even a lot of them that are functional adults, have no concept of how a screenplay is different than a novel.

This wasn’t a problem in the pre-social media age. I’m sure if we had twitter in 1972, there’d be lots of people saying The Godfather is an affront to God because Al Pancino is too short. Or whatever.

They didn’t have to put up with that and, helpfully, the people who thought that just complained about it to a bartender somewhere and that was the end of that. They got on with their life.

[Lang Spoon]

The last thing they should be for is making a film for the fanboys though, it would be unwatchable. I thought it was pretty good considering the plot and dialogue preposterousness of the source material (I do love at least some of the books, but Herbert as Philosopher or decent writer is ridiculous).

[Discordant Resonance]

Finally got around to seeing part one on Amazon - probably not granular enough in plot detail to satisfy the devotees of the novel, and it sets up part two to highlight Paul fulfilling his destiny, but all the scenes of Chalamet staring pensive and broodingly into the distance seemed rather gratuitous after the first explainer, and Villeneuve could have made more use of the all-star cast at his disposal, given the running time.

[Hot Pepsi]

Looks awesome. They seem to be expanding the role of the female characters a bit. Lea Seydoux’s character is barely in the book, but she’s too famous to not have many lines.

[danielmak]

Trailer for part 2. Obviously, skip it if you want 100% spoiler free.

[Eggchaser]

Yes, when I recently watched it the audio was terrible - apparently this is the cinema mix, which is why it's crap on the telly.

[San Bernardhinault]

I finally got around to watching this last night. On TV, rather than in the cinema. Which was probably a mistake. Because the audio mix was just really, really weird. I've noticed it more and more, where the dialogue seems to be mixed down so quiet as to be almost inaudible, but the rest of the stuff is up so high that you can't turn the volume up to hear the dialogue without making your ears bleed and pissing off the neighbours. This seems to have taken it to an absolute extreme. Perhaps the cinema mix is better. And for someone who read the books (or at least several of them) 35 years ago, I needed all the reminders and cues I could from the script to remember what everyone was.

The lack of explanation of all the lore, of much of the backrgound, left me gasping. It left my wife who's not into SF and who'd never read the books utterly bored. For her it was merely pretty to look at but otherwise thoroughly unengrossing. I was more into it than that, but I think you need to be even more of a fan of the source material than me, or have a better memory, or have read it more recently, for it to really work.

[hobbes]

So, finally got around to watching this at the cinema yesterday. I bloody loved it. It was beautiful to look at, sounded great, I found the pacing very well done.
But by golly, had I not read the book I'd have had no idea what was going on. Without having a full grasp and understanding of the text, it would have been the equivalent of watching an abstract foreign film without any subtitles. So a love letter to people who know the story, a baffling 150 minutes of eye candy for everyone else.

I read the Foundation trilogy ages ago and am really not arsed about it. Never read Wheel of Time but I know 3 people who are massive nerds for it and so I have heard a lot about the content of the books. None of it has persuaded me to give them a go. I've read the Expanse books and like them. I've got a couple of series on blu-ray but not got round to watching them.

I haven't read the Foundation books but I found the show to be a very decent and diverting hour a week. Well worth my time.
Watched the first 3 wheel of time eps (having come in completely cold to it and not really liking the whole sword of dobber genre at all.) It was fine. It certainly wasn't any more annoying that Game of Thrones, but then I gave that up midway through season 2. Both were too dry and dour. It's certainly no "The Witcher" which has a nice background levity to it.

The Expanse however, is an absolute masterpiece of television. The best Sci Fi show since the first 3 seasons of Battlestar Galactica. Season 1 starts slowly but from about episode 5 it just flies.

[Patrick Thistle]

I read the Foundation trilogy ages ago and am really not arsed about it. Never read Wheel of Time but I know 3 people who are massive nerds for it and so I have heard a lot about the content of the books. None of it has persuaded me to give them a go. I've read the Expanse books and like them. I've got a couple of series on blu-ray but not got round to watching them.

[Hot Pepsi]

It could be turned into some kind of space fantasy epic war series ... but that isn't really Dune.

We have a few books-turned-into-shows going now like Foundation and Wheel of Time, which I just started. They're kinda hard to get into.
The Expanse is awesome, but I had to watch the first few episodes a few times to understand what was going on. Then I read the books and that helped.

I suspect Dune will have an extended edition at some point that fills in some of the details that are just glanced over in the original. That's fine.

[Patrick Thistle]

It could be turned into some kind of space fantasy epic war series ... but that isn't really Dune.

[Hot Pepsi]

There was a series a little while back. It wasn't a huge hit but it might mean the rights are hard to get.

However much the film can't capture the depth of the book, I'm not sure serialising the book would work either.

Yeah, I'm not sure a broad audience is interested in all the back story, etc, either.

[Patrick Thistle]

There was a series a little while back. It wasn't a huge hit but it might mean the rights are hard to get.

However much the film can't capture the depth of the book, I'm not sure serialising the book would work either.

[Hot Pepsi]

My feeling is I know all that stuff and don't need it explained and - very selfishly - I don't care if other people who have never read the books didn't get all the details.

This probably makes me a bad person.

I think if they were starting the project today, it would be an HBO show. But even a few years ago, they couldn't have gotten the director or many of the stars they got to do a series.

[Patrick Thistle]

Checked wiki and they reckon it is Messiah, but he's an important character in Children because of his relationship with Alia.

It's a long time since I read the sequels. Wiki probably has it right.

[Patrick Thistle]

Interesting to know how non-book readers felt about Hawat and the whole mentat thing. Not explained at all in the film. Or Gurney's character development? Or the Baron and Pitor DeVries (the Harkonnen twisted mentat)? Or Dr Yueh and why his betrayal of the Atreides is so shocking as Suk school doctors are supposed to be incorruptible?

I dont want to be too hard on the film as it covered the basics. But so much of the world building, character building and plot building was missing. The Dune saga should really have been HBO's next big show. It could, and should, have been the next Game of Thrones, particularly in the way that it should be character and plot driven.

My feeling is I know all that stuff and don't need it explained and - very selfishly - I don't care if other people who have never read the books didn't get all the details.

This probably makes me a bad person.

[BallochSonsFan]

I think it's in Children of Dune because then it's a plotline in God Emperor where Leto II has a string of them but keeps having to deal with them rebelling against him.

Checked wiki and they reckon it is Messiah, but he's an important character in Children because of his relationship with Alia.