I had no trouble following the story and I had both never read Dune before (yeah I know) and English is not my first language. The story lets those who want to dive into it do just that, but it is never spoonfeeding the audience, which is just too common and throws me off in so many movies because instead of feeling something that has been motivated by some inner forces of the world I am watching it feels like something just done to tingle my feelings in often very predictable ways.
Just like in everyday life emotions are not a 100% explained but there is nothing arbitrary in that movie. E.g. the way Paul's mother acts is unexplained more or less, but it isn't unexplainable. By explaining this for example, the film would loose parts of what made it great to watch in my eyes. But tastes differ of course.
Whether Paul or his family works as a projection surface for the viewers or not seems to be a bit of an individual topic. I personally didn't feel unable to empathize with the protagonists. If anything the untypical impending doom (like in a greek tragedy) that is so rare in hollywood cinema nowadays made me care in a different way. Yeah, Paul is the hero, but you can't shake the feeling it is not gonna end well. Instead it made me ponder more about the world and society that produces such fates and where one would find parallels in our time (opiates in Afghanistan maybe?)
I like it when the filmic world is the protagonist before anybody in it and these films are sadly quite rare, especially with a decent production.
I think maybe you are used to a certain style of movie that Dune differs from, and thus have a hard time with it?
It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good.
> A better style of movie
> It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good.
I think it was great.
It felt like reading a Brian novel - a bunch of weird stuff that didn't have any heart or feeling.
I watched it and will watch it again and maybe I'll change my opinion but it wasn't the savior of the Dune world story. I'll even pay to see it in a theater even though I saw it free on HBO.
The new Dune relied on mostly the same key scenes, and lifted dozens of shots directly from Lynch's Dune. Villeneuve isn't enough of of an artist to imagine his own film, so we instead got a watered down version of Lynch's Dune.
Baron Harkonnen was properly villainous in Lynch's Dune. In Villenueve's Dune we got a fat guy in a mumu, and Gurney had to explain to us that the Harkonnen's are "brutal", because no actual brutality made it to screen.
The new Dune had way more expository talking heads than the old Dune, yet I still managed to lose the plot. The battle sequences looked like something you'd see on the history channel. They sent a full crew out to the Wadi Rum desert and somehow managed to make it look like the rear-projection set of The Mandalorian.
I loved Blade runner 2049, but I suppose with that film Villeneuve had an established style guide to work from, and understated performances fit with the tone of the film.
Dune is a different beast, and Villeneuve doesn't have the chops, unfortunately.
The novels were largely written by Kevin J. Anderson, who also was in the credits for the movie as a "Creative Consultant," so make of that what you will.
I agree with your feeling, though; the metaphor I keep coming back to is that it was a tapestry that was reduced to a thread: Paul's rise.
It felt like all the supporting characters and their motivations, which form a part of the tapestry of time that the entire Dune series covers, were reduced to steps that Paul is climbing to the top.
This is anecdotal evidence, but I found that online (Discord chat, reviews...), most people who had no prior knowledge of Dune, seemed to have enjoyed it more than the people who had prior book knowledge.
My main concern going in was the 3rd act (or lack of one) but I was already fully expecting it, so I had no issues knowing it was only part 1.
In my estimation what we end up missing as a result of this economy in storytelling is the feeling of "living" in the scene. There are few, if any, opportunities for the film to slow down and allow the viewer to immerse themselves in the gravity of each scene. What's missing is the opportunity for the viewer to reflect upon the information they are receiving and to figure things out as the characters are figuring them out, or before they do. There is little in the way of quiet moments that allow the viewer to process and come to certain realizations themselves. Unfortunately this is not a luxury that this movie is able to provide without making for a very long film.
That said, I still love it.
I love the setting, but it just doesn't translate very well to the big screen at all, and I agree with you a long form TV series in the GoT style would have been much better.
If a movie just throws you into a new place of course that new place feels foreign and might be hard to read, but if I wanted a known thing I wouldn't go and watch a new movie in the cinema, right?
For me the weak part was the casting of several of the supporting actors. Several of them just didn't work for me, and it felt like they were included more for their name than fitting the role.