Dune

[France]

I loved this even if  for my taste there was too much CGI though the battle scenes were spectacular. It's a long film, over 2 1/2 hours and I was really surprised when the credits came up, it felt like I'd been there an hour and a half. The pace doesn't lag and the actor playing Paul is excellent.

 

I'm not sure why it isn't advertised that this is Part 1, Part 2 will be the second half of the book and there should be a third film based on Dune Messiah. However I think Denis Villeneuve was quite right, it's a very long book with a lot of content and needs the extra time

 

I read Dune when it first came out and absolutely loved it, re-reading it several times shortly afterwards but haven't picked it up for many years so I can't comment on how close the film is to the book but somehow it just felt as if it had got all the important bits.

[Raven]

Isn't Children of Dune the direct sequel to Dune? 

 

(Just wondering if I've got that wrong, or if they are skipping a book!)

 

[Brian.]

I went to watch Dune last night and came away impressed but I can imagine some general movie watchers will find it boring due to the pace. I think Villeneuve does a great job of portraying the scale and 'epicness' of the story and I also thought that all the actors were really good. Personally I have no problem with the pace but I think that comes down to the fact that I like Sci-Fi and I wanted as much detail to the story as possible. I am going to get a hold of Dune Messiah at some point in the next few weeks because I've only read Dune so far.

[timebug]

I read all six of Frank Herberts original Dune series years back, and have a soft spot for them. I saw the 1984 film by David LYnch, and while it was visually spectacular, it was very condensed (compared to the book). They did however, manage to cover the entire first book in one film. I watched the new film last week, and agree that people unfamiliar with the book(s) will be quite perplexed by it; especially as it only shows the first half of the first book!

Edited October 30, 2021 by timebug

[KEV67]

Just watched it. It struck me as being like Lawrence of Arabia on another planet. It was more coherent than David Lynch's version. I think I remember hearing David Lynch wanted to make a four hour film, but was ordered to cut an hour, and the thing descended into an incoherent mess. The baddies look better in this film; they were a little over the top in the Lynch film. It is quite a complicated plot, and I noticed there was quite a lot of exposition, which I hear is a film sin. However, it is necessary. The Bene Gesserit sisterhood are practically telepathic through their body language skills, which is a difficult thing to get across in film. They have not brought much attention to that part of their powers in the film. They also did not say much about the space guild, and even less about that technology planet, Ix, which was probably a good idea, because it would have taken too long and got too confusing. One thing I thought was better in the David Lynch film were the space travel scenes.