Dune Official Trailer
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Prior to 9/11, I think the majority of the public probably had a very different association with the word “jihad.” It pretty much conjures the image of crazy bearded Muslims in Afghanistan strapping bombs to themselves and blowing things up.
That image simply does not describe precisely what happens in the book. I think the word “jihad” also creates a jarring interruption and a distraction also.
“What the hell, why is this white guy talking about jihad?” It feels like a non sequiter and a distraction. Do white people jihad things? What???
The media will jump on it and start calling this a racist tv show which perpetuates stereotypes. It’s also cultural appropriation by modern standards, which are crazy.
HBO has had a HUGE blowback to Game Of Thrones on this topic in a dozen ways. I think the blowback was so bad they changed their entire programming to be more diverse and inclusive (Watchmen, Lovecraft Etc). George Martin has been constantly pestered with questions from concerned audiences about white saviors and other such things.
Long story short, the term jihad is an unwelcome distraction, too loaded, opens HBO to criticism they don’t want and it doesn’t accurately describe precisely what happens in the book.
I think crusade is correct and doesn’t create this interruption.
Are jihad and crusade related?
PC: There is a family resemblance because they share roots in monotheism, where God is a jealous God. And both Crusades and Jihad offered martyrdom to those who die. But while they look alike, they have some important differences. Crusades were directed at the liberation of sacred land considered rightfully Christian, whereas Jihad was about rescuing souls.
SM: I personally don’t find any structural difference between the two. Jihad has an Islamic concept: religiously sanctioned aggression. The Crusades were precisely that.
What was the impact of the Crusades in the Muslim world?
SM: The legacy of the Crusades in the Muslim world is that a lot of Muslims think of where they are today in terms of Western encroachment. For some, the Crusades are seen not just as a medieval threat, but as a present one—a perpetual Western attempt to undermine Islam. It could be physical colonialism or cultural colonialism.
[1] https://www.history.com/news/why-muslims-see-the-crusades-so...
The idea that “jihad” has problems that “crusade” does not is pretty exactly the same problem that you point to HBO getting in trouble for in regard to Game of Thrones, so it is super ironic that you present the narrative you do as a defensive reaction to the blowback from GoT.
Jihad is just as accurate as crusade imo.
Jihad was also used to describe the past where thinking machines (AI) was destroyed in a tech smashing jihad which lead to the world of the books without AI.
While I liked the books 20 years ago .. I think that the previous Dune movies were really bad and I'm going to give the new movie a chance. Even without being true to the books and somewhat politically correct.
But I agree with you about the vocabulary. I recommend George Alec Effinger's Marîd Audran series for more of this..
I've had enough unfinished sci-fi epics for the year thank you.
The 'great enemy' that Leto tries to forestall is sometimes called Kralizec and isn't necessarily explained in detail, although there are hints it would be some kind of Ixian hunter-killer assassination machines which run out of control, and hunt down all of humanity which is within view of prescient sight. Hence, the Scattering and Leto's breeding program to create humans invisible to prescience so that humanity could never again be vulnerable to extinction from any such threat.
>JIHAD: a religious crusade; fanatical crusade.
>JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt)—the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G.
There are times when words change for PC reasons, but this isn't one of them. 'Jihad' is a very potent word in the modern lexicon and it would just be unnecessarily out of bounds to use it. It would have the wrong context and be a huge distraction.
'Crusade' is fine, and not 'unPC' because it has Christian connotations, so few care, and creatively perfectly fine ... but I feel is actually a little hypocritical in a sense to use it, in lieu of 'Jihad'. But it's a hard word to replace.
Already, the culture wars are starting, with industry people on Twitter indicating this is a 'move about Middle Eastern culture with no Middle Eastern Actors' type thing, comparisons to 'God's of Egypt' - when of course, this is definitely not a movie about 'the Middle East' rather, that's only one of many cultural artifacts borrowed for the setting.
As for the trailer:
The music is absolutely terrible, it's going to ruin the film for me.
Otherwise, it looks 'contemporary' i.e. it will be 'good' but not 'timeless'. David Lynch's version was a 'flawed masterpiece' - the characters really embodied the 'realpolitik baroque noir' of the book. David Lynch used a lot of serious actors with stage backgrounds, who could also evoke and embody the very cold 'old world' callousness of the nobility. Jason Momoa does not.
In the trailer there are just too many standard Hollywood, familiar faces, Timothy Chatalet feels like a 'regular gen Z kid', relatable, but doesn't have the 'weight of the soul' on his mind.
The aesthetic is 'of the Villeneuve style' but it's definitely not exciting or novel, I feel Villeneuve & Co. have 'operationalized' their schtick and it lacks enthusiasm.
If we can judge from the trailer it will be 'passable' for most fans and regular people, but it won't be great at all.
I predict this will be about as good as his Blade Runner remake.
I am disappointed because there is huge opportunity for creative expansion - instead of 'standard remake for 2020' they could have actually tried some art.
Music can be very polarizing, but once I recognized the Pink Floyd I thought it was a perfect track for the trailer.
Lynch distanced himself publicly from it, because it was an economic disaster bad on many levels, but I'll bet $100 that with some afterthought, people can recognize what is 'good' about it.
It's a genre defining feature, almost entirely unto it's own, the creative design was 'otherworldly' to the point it probably has not been matched in SciFi ever. Baron Harkonen's scene where he murders of his aid ... the scene where Paul sends his ultra-creepy sister Alia in, alone to 'face the emperor' and she murders Baron ... the representation of the Gild Navigators - just so well done.
Almost everyone but possibly Feyd (ie Sting) and maybe Duncan Idaho, maybe the Padishah Emperor was perfectly cast.
Lynch bit off more than he could chew, and there were too many characters in too little time.
You know when a creative representation just 'feels so right it's right'? For example with the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy? Frodo, Gandalf, the Elves - it was 'perfect' - it seemed to 'everyone' that 'this is right'.
I feel the creative direction with Lynch's Dune was that. Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam from Lynch? I think this image is etched into our minds as 'exactly what she is like'. Our comparisons in the future will be in reference to her.
There was a very interesting version by Jorodowsky that looked really fun, however, I feel it was way too corny, and would have ended up more like Barbarella [1].
For those interested: Jurodovsky's Dune [2].
The missing ingredient in everyone else's Dune is the acid! I would say to Villeneuve "Ok, now take what you have done, and remake it while you are on an acid trip". It's a psychedelic movie about transcendence, God, realpolitik etc.. Hardcore stuff.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella_(film) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune
High concept sci-fi is consistent box office poison and while this new version of Dune looks good, and I want to see it, I don’t think it will set the world on fire. It seems to feel like YA fiction more than I’d like it to be and borrows heavily, stylistically, from Lynch’s Dune but doesn’t seem to have the same design impact as the original. The YA tone in the trailer for me feels like studio meddling. But we’ll see how good the actual movie is. Blade Runner 2 was a fine film but not quite a home run and I expect the same from Dune.
This is a 'remake' of the 'everyone is doing remakes' theme, and it's designed to make money first.
There's so much money at stake, it's hard to tell who is pushing for what and how and it's really 'something else' to ask a Director (+ team, remember, he has his own 'team' for every flick) to 'risk everything' on some high concept stuff.
So we get Lynch translated into Avengers with some modern styling and that's that.
I'm hoping that a Billionaire Herbert fan will give a project like this to someone willing to make a go of it and 'let them lose' - or - more practically - after this film is a success (and it probably will be) - we'll get the Netflix series for the remaining books, made in the UK by people who know what they are doing and at least it will be 'good TV'.
Deal makers need to be forbidden from creative decisions. One of the major studios should consider adopting a Blumhouse business model where new talent are given a very small budget to prove themselves with zero restrictions or meddling and if they can turn a profit on the Low stakes film then they are promoted to a new budget tier using the previous films profits to bankroll the next film. I truly believe the cream would rise to the top under this model and a new golden era of groundbreaking pictures would occur. Or not, we’ll never know until someone tries. I’m really hoping Blumhouse keeps going in this direction and take bigger risks.
There’s no reason why Dune couldn’t make a great movie, or any other SF book classic but it seems like once SFX and money enter the picture you get deal makers injecting weird love triangles, buddy sidekicks, Rihanna songs, whatever it takes to ruin everything. Hollywood is also super arrogant about how they have mastered storytelling so whenever they adapt something good, like let’s say the Sandman comics, they need to “fix” everything to make it really good.
The 'lowest common denominator' on planet earth is actually significantly lower than merely just a US audience.
Stories have to be simple and stupid (think Transformers) in order to make a run in theaters.
They have to work across cultures.
Something like 'The Joker' can work - but that was relatively low budget - and still risky.
Avengers are basically the perfect format for today because they are fun characters, a big fanbase, and with some 'smart writing' all they need then is 'good production'. That's it. It doesn't have to be great.
Star Wars and Star Trek should fit this model but they screwed it up.
Dune and many other stories are just 'out of bounds' given the risk involved.
A lot of actors are lamenting this, and it's why we are only seeing 'remakes'. Comedies, RomComs - dying.
I think the only hope is Netflix, Disney+ etc..
Unless the theatre model changes.
Take Starship Troopers for example. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who dislikes that movie. It almost seems like everyone between the ages of 10 and 20 when the movie came out has seen it in some form. But it seems like a movie such as Starship Troopers would be impossible now, especially with its satire intact. I often feel like we are regressing in many ways as a population of mature adults and the overall state of the film industry suggests exactly that. I remember hearing Spielberg talking about how he can’t get funding to make theatrical releases anymore. Even Spielberg has become high risk. What are we even becoming as people?
But I digress. I hope the trailer for Dune is slightly misrepresenting the film. I want fantastic cinema to make a comeback.
(Seriously, Lynch "Alan Smitheed" it ... at least on the Blu Ray I recently rented.)
Really liked Lynch's, even though it's a bit off in a few aspects(weirding way changes, trying to 1:1 a book:movie, etc). But just the amount of passion and effort that went into it(costumes, practical effects, sets, etc). How strange and unique everything was and looked.
This really just feels like a SciFi paintjob on a modern SuperHero movie. Kind of sterile.
Also not really feeling the StillSuit's looking like motorcycle and airsoft gear slapped together. Versus the old rubber looking ones in the original.
The Pink Floyd cover doesn’t work for me either.
Lynch's version also had an unbeatable cast: the Baron, the Reverend Mother, both mentats, Sting in his finest moment as Feyd Rautha, Kyle MacLachlan, etc. Throw in the sets and costumes and it's a tough act to follow. It would have benefitted from another hour, but so it goes.
Plus, those sandworm teeth in the trailer just don't look like they'd make a good crysknife.
It would have been nice to see what Lynch made of Return of the Jedi, which he apparently turned down for this, but I'm glad he made Dune.
Just from the trailer, this seems like it will at least be more faithful to the source than the Lynch version.
Lynch's Dune can be bewildering coming at it without the context of the book, but that aspect of it is frankly just something you get used to with Lynch's works, and like you said its filled with so much oddness and detail. The hulking Heighliner spacecrafts, the mutated ghoulish guild navigator, the fascinating cave-like imperial palace set, the manic cyst-covered Harkonnens. I've never understood why it gets a bad rap, I think it's a hugely underrated film that did a wonderful job capturing the strange universe of Dune.
1. Everything with the Harkonnens is gross, it wasn't like that in the books. This aspect alone made the movie hard to take serious.
2. the stupid blaster guns that were added
3. the ending was complete nonsense and did not come from the book
Not sure how you can say this new movie is missing stuff, it appears to be a much more accurate retelling of the book to me.
In Tarkovskian terms, they have no soul.
This looks to be more of the same.
Incendies, Enemy, and Prisoners are all quite emotional in distinct ways. Although, I personally feel Arrival was definitely emotional in its own way.
Isn't that basically true of every modern mainstream director? I can't think of anyone I would call Tarkovskian.
> whilst technically impressive, lack something fundamental and come across as sterile.
I try not to be curmudgeonly about big-budget filmmaking - I don't think there's anything inherently bad about it, but surely there's some truth to the idea that Villeneuve "sold out" starting with Sicario, right? I'd say Prisoners, Enemy, Incendies, and Polytechnique are all extremely good films, but they're precisely the ones that most people haven't seen. I don't think there's any way you could call those films "sterile", though Enemy certainly has a dry intellectual air to it.
I think what you might be latching onto is the aesthetic of Villeneuve's films. They tend to be gritty and realistic, which can read as soulless but I don't think it's quite the same thing. Calling a movie soulless speaks to its (lack of) spiritual / emotive vision, and while none of his films have the slow pacing of a Tarkovsky or their sense for atmosphere, I would say his early movies (and probably BR2049) don't lack a vision. They have something they want to say, and that message isn't a nihilistic or misanthropic one.
Also worth noting that afaik, all his movies post-Arrival just consists of BR2049.
1984 version looks better, even in the side-by-side trailer. I'll just watch that one again.
0. https://twitter.com/David_Rudnick/status/1249834809138053121
People are much less serious and more affable, gregarious than they were even 50 years ago - and it comes out in everything, dialogue, disposition. You can tell immediately, before they say a line, it's how they stand, and in their faces.
Go and look at 'Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin' - the big baddie from from Star Wars who very confidently dismissed and told off Darth Vader ("Enough of this. Vader, release him!"). This guy would embody the quasi-aristocratic head of say, the East India Company Governor back in the day. A kind of cold, callous, calculating CEO, who's involved in war, blood, serious repercussions etc.. English stage actors have the ability to do this. Most of the cast of Lynch's Dune were well trained actors, and Kyle MacLachlan just had a very special air about him.
It suffers in terms of elements that are traditionally used to judge a novel, as do all of the other books in the series. (plot, characters, etc...)
Absolutely!! 2-6 draws a much bigger picture of the universe then just that one single story of book 1.
Lynch’s film production design was pulled out of nowhere and it isn’t any more accurate than Villeneuve’s. It just has a more direct relation between the subject - a future space feudal society - which most people correlate with pomp and elaborate visual motifs.
In fact, if you consider the only visual work based on Dune that Herbert himself endorsed, it recalls the the newer film more than the baroque aesthetics of the former - the work of John Schoenherr for an illustrated edition of the novel: http://ski-ffy.blogspot.com/2010/08/illustrated-dune.html
Control of the galaxy is determined by intergalactic space travel, and to do that, you need “The Spice”, which is the shit from these giant sand worms, that are tamed by the locals of that planet.
Then, to add further suspension of disbelief, you have a guild of these space folding specialists that uses the power of their brains to conjure up the space warp travel, because apparently a computer system couldn’t handle the complexity of the physics of space travel. The whole premise falls apart, and dwells in nonsense.
I can’t imagine what is so good about this story, except that it is some space soap opera from a lost generation trying to make its mark.
The spice prolongs life, in a way they are unable to replicate or otherwise export production of. Production of the Spice also is devastating to the ecology of Arrakis (nee Dune). The natives haven't tamed the worms - but do co-exist with them. The Houses exploit both however, and the planet itself.
The guild navigators value is NOT they can perform computations machines cannot - it's NOT a complexity problem. Some spoilers so I will be oblique, but their ability is tied directly to what the Bene Gesserit are trying to breed. And to what Paul is/his abilities are. It's inherently an "organic"/meat-puppet power - as it is implied it's tied to forebears and progeny...
And finally, as noted, there is a deeply held proscription against "thinking machines" due to an... event. This actually isn't HUGELY relevant, but allows Herbert to eschew futorology in favor of his allegory.
The story's GREAT :) (especially up to and including Book 4, which completes a full arc.)
Also the whole setup is obviously allegorical. There was an oil shortage in the 70s, so the setup was a play on that.
IIRC there is a reason for that: most computer systems were destroyed and their use, banned.
It was interesting and very different to imagine a far future where there is great technology but no "thinking machines" due to a previous human machine war (Butlerian Jihad). You see this concept reused in later sci-fi (Terminator, The Matrix). Then exploring how you could replace computers with the human mind given some help (spice).