John R Davis
Hero
It is very good. There are hints at Paul's turn to antihero and it is very very set up for a part 3
Yes, antiheroes are having a moment.It is very good. There are hints at Paul's turn to antihero and it is very very set up for a part 3
I'll forgive a bit of license taken for spectacle, when converting a work from literary to cinematic. What I don't like is massive story elements being fabricated out of whole cloth to justify turning a nice, compact story into 9 hours of money-grubbing.While I agree that some of PJ’s additions were awful (like the giant worm drills during the Battle of the Five Armies), a decent amount of it was taken from the LotR (both the main story and the appendices). I enjoyed getting to see that more fleshed out version of the Hobbit with its clearer ties to LotR.
Except they seem to have skipped a lot of that detail in favor of long awkward pauses and lengthy shots of submerged spaceships rising out of the water for no explicable reason and so on. I think the movie would’ve been better with more character development, especially between the likes of Paul and Duncan. And they never let Gurney be the minstrel he’s meant to be! Nor did they bother to explain the mentats.
My understanding is that the third film would cover Dune Messiah, which has never been filmed before. I’m curious to see how they’d do it, since it turns Paul into more of an anti-hero.
With the runtime I think there is a lot of nuance that is getting skipped. For the film, its a focus mostly on the ambiance and delivering dramatic moments. I think this is what Dennis does well, so I still enjoy it, while also missing some of the novel's details.Saw it. Overall, I liked it a lot. The cinematography, acting, and special effects were all great. Overall, though, I would say that I think I liked part 1 just a little bit more. That's not really a complaint, though, because I was really surprised with how much I liked part 1.
Spoiler tags for more details:
The expanded romance with Chani and Paul did little for me. I can understand why they added it. It helps explain Paul's journey on multiple levels, it helps modernize the gender roles a lot, I'm sure it increases relatability (especially among teens and the non-sci-fi market) etc. And the acting for it was quite good. But inventing drama around the obviously political marriage was weak, and in genreal I find forced romance scenes boring.
The guild was all but non-existent. I can see why this was done. It helped keep the complicated political plotting more manageable, and let them focus more on the details of the Landsraad. But they're one of me favorite part of the books and Lynch movie, so their absense was notable. It will be interesting to see how they show up if there are more movies.
On a related note, there were a lot of minor but meaningful changes to the political narrative. I'm not sure how I feel about those changes yet.
And on a final critical note, I found the soundtrack a little underwhelming. Not bad. It was particularly good in the scenes where Paul first rides the worm and Feyd's colliseum battle. But it was definitely a not as good as part 1.
Im looking to be the outlier here (what else is new) but enjoyed part II more than the first. I think the writers and especially the director went for atmosphere and ambiance which was spectacular with the visuals and score. Of crouse, this meant straying a little from the novel in ways I dont think were major. The one area I seem to agree with some critics is that I miss the elements left out, but I dont think this film could include it all and feel this good at such a runtime.I liked Part I more. Most of the changes there felt basically cosmetic in nature, while in Part II changes felt deeper and not in line with the book (or even with Part I). I get that there’s lot of stuff that is difficult to condense even in a 5+ hour movie, and I’m fine with leaving stuff out, but some of the characters dynamics felt completely out of place respect to how they were presented in the book. That said, it’s still a spectacular movie, I just had somewhat different expectations based on Part I.