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Yawn. I made it about 1/2 through 2049 and just got bored. Where has all the creativity gone in film. It's just one remake / sequel after another.

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If you can't see the creativity in 2049 that's on you IMO.

Villeneuve is probably the best director in his area of film right now (not necessarily sci-fi), his work is emotionally mature and challenges audiences without mocking them, calling it uncreative is ridiculous.

Does this description also apply to his latest film (Dune)? Because I'd describe it as the opposite of that.

Dune is a visual masterpiece. Some people are just incapable of appreciating art.

I... I'm not so sure. I really like the universe of Frank Herbert's dune, but a lot of the set design on Dune is just... boring. The ornithopters are built like a Cybertruck, which doesn't make sense in an era where computers were destroyed long ago. The monolithic buildings and spaceships look more like a Quake 2 map than they do professional VFX. Having gone into the film with an open mind, I was severely let down by the visual side of things. Even the cinematography felt... fine. Surprisingly, I thought Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa were the strongest parts of the film.

Probably not, but that’s likely a problem with the source material more than anything, Dune is nothing but your typical fantasy story of boy discovers he has magic powers and saves the world.

Maybe it's just not your kind of film, or you weren't in the mood. There was _very_ little wrong with that movie.

Jared Leto

Too long, too slow.

IMO neither of those are flaws of it. It's a movie not afraid to let scenes breathe and not afraid to take time to set the tone. You do have to buy into it some though, if you're just counting the seconds until the next big thing happens it's not going to be a fun time.

It doesn’t take a full extra hour to let scenes breathe. It was poorly paced, the number one complaint. About as objective as a criticism gets.

Oh boy, you’d really hate Too Old to Die Young, which I loved.

Thank god for VLC and 1.25x speed. :-)

You might need 2x for that one

I absolutely loved 2049. Haven't seen the original, yet. hides under desk

But have you read the original novella? I enjoyed both films, but "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" has much more depth to its questions about humanity than either of them. It also illustrates Deckard's disfunctional nature better.

Mercerism is one of the weirdest things I've read about in any book. It makes sense it wouldn't be included in the movies, it's almost an unfilmable concept, I think.

PKD is one of my favorite authors. Nobody before or since has been able to more accurately capture the slippery nature of reality, in my opinion.

Mercerism is one of the best parts of the story. A lonely religion based on simulated shared Sisyphean suffering is just so symbolic of PKD’s overall view of life, it’s delicious to read. But I agree, it works better in prose than it would on film. Still, I kept hoping they’d Easter egg it into the films somewhere just as a nod to those who have read the story.

I very much enjoy PKD’s writing, though he gets hard to follow in his later stuff as he slipped further into drug abuse and mental illness.

The original is basically worse as a film than 2049.

However, it's better, because of the sheer power of the visuals and worldbuilding. Some things in it have not aged well (like the "love" scene), but it is still simply jaw-dropping. It's what Scott is just unmatched at doing. A villeneuve film probably makes more sense, but Ridley Scott does Ridley Scott better than anyone. Give him a good script and watch him fly.

They're both excellent, they don't need to compete. Be glad 2049 ever got made (similarly with Dune really).

2049 beats the original in cinematography imho - much better atmosphere and backdrops, despite the story being "simpler" (which, i actually prefer tbh). The original was a b-grade movie that was well made even with limited resources. 2049 is a Hollywood level high production value movie that can be enjoyed on the surface level, as well as have some intellectual meat in it.

The original is a masterpiece, but I wonder how much I’m reminiscing. Sean Young and Rutger Hauer we’re fantastic, though, so I do think there is something timeless about it. I have watched 2049 a couple of times now and still don’t see what everyone else sees as great about it. I’m willing to keep trying though.

I'm 34 and hadn't seen either of them until about two years ago. Fell in love with the original (well, the Final Cut) immediately. I watched 2049 shortly thereafter and, while I'm normally a, "Fuck remakes/sequels/franchises" curmudgeon, I actually thought it was pretty damn good.

Now, do I think it needed a sequel? No.

i prefer 2049, but i only saw the original a year before. i thought there was a lot of cringeworthy stuff that hasn't aged well. some of the soundtrack, dialog etc.

The original stands up with 2049. Highly recommended

Whaaaaat 2049 was a masterpiece

Your username gives away a subtle disposition leaning towards Denis Villeneuve...

I was watching Dune 2021 on Microsoft Teams streaming (virtual company Christmas party from Youtube Movies), and the auto-diction translated Arrakis to Iraqis.

Suddenly the whole story make sense to me.

Would that mean watching the movie on YouTube via teams? As in crappy youtube quality through teams? Awful.

I'm annoyed you basically have to pirate a movie or go through the faff of actually buying a Blu-ray to watch things in uber-HD properly.

I think they mean they rented/bought Dune to watch, via YouTube's movie platform[1]. The host of the Microsoft Teams video meeting then likely shared their view of the YouTube screen (I don't know how it works in MS Teams, but, for example, I know Jitsi allows a meeting participant to embed a YouTube video for all to watch+listen to. It's surprisingly good quality)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd2DrxUi4H8

That doesn't mean they're wrong. 2049 is a very good movie.

It's a decent film but aesthetically it leans way too heavily on the original. When you have allusions to the Soviet Union and flying cars in a film in 2020 it just seems retro-futuristic and anachronistic rather than like science fiction.

To me, the Soviet aspect makes sense. There was a fear in the US in the 80s that Japan would surpass the US to become the dominant world economy, which was reflected in the original film. In 2049, the Japanese aspect hasn't been erased, but it also exists alongside imagery of Russia, which, if we consider the actions of the Russian government in the years leading up to this film, it fits from the same perspective of a fear of the US being dominated.

I'm not sure why the original film seemed to only focus on Japan, PKD's vision also included the USSR. In that sense, 2049 almost feels more faithful to the book.

As for the flying cars...they had flying cars in the original film, why would they get rid of that? Or do you mean that you expect they wouldn't look so much like our cars? (If the latter, I kinda agree.)

My comment is too old to edit now, but I just thought of something:

I saw a video on youtube awhile back about the making of the original Blade Runner. In it, they said that PKD did not live to see the film in theaters, but they were able to show him a 10-15 minute "highlight reel", which included shots of the flying cars. PKD said it was like they were reading his mind, it was so accurate.

So at least to PKD, the original Blade Runner's flying cars were canon. Not that I think the lack of design evolution between the two films seems too realistic, but given the events that occurred between the two films [0][1], I can see lots of technological progress being lost. Consider the scene in 2049 where K brings in the sample for Rachel and the desk employee says that they lost a lot of data during the blackout, and to not expect much for anything this old. Had all that not happened, I'd completely agree that the design of 2049's flying cars seemed too retro, that they would have pioneered new vehicle layouts by then.

[0] https://collider.com/blade-runner-timeline-explained/

[1] https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

Edit: Found the video where PKD seeing the highlight reel is mentioned: https://youtu.be/EByNb7F-A34?t=1556 (the whole video is worth a watch, the entirely-analog techniques they used are incredible)

2049 was an incredible film in my opinion. Hooker sex scene and the baseline test were pretty fantastic.

The second time I watched 2049 I thought it was great. First time not so much. Not sure why I didn't like it the first time.

It was a remake / sequel, alright. A remake / sequel of Her

2048 was a fantastic depiction of modern male loneliness; unloved and invisible, yet with beautiful commercialized girls at one's finger tips.

"Her" didn't capture this well, and frankly I don't think Spike Jonze is the type of author who can. He's too popular to be that pathetic! The movie is great for other reasons, but behind its sci-fi lies a traditional romance movie plot.

Well when you put it that way, that just makes 2049 a remake / sequel of Drive

The flashbacks to the original were extremely lame. And I didn't love the story. But visually it was great, it's packed with really compelling images.

Highly superior to Dune which has a boring plot and mostly lacks compelling images. Seriously, where were the guild steersmen? The dragonfly vessels were okay but do you even remember a spaceship from Dune? Stellan Skarsgard was unrecognizable and boring in the villain role. Plus the fight scenes were horrible.

> Highly superior to Dune which has a boring plot and mostly lacks compelling images. Seriously, where were the guild steersmen? The dragonfly vessels were okay but do you even remember a spaceship from Dune? Stellan Skarsgard was unrecognizable and boring in the villain role. Plus the fight scenes were horrible.

What movie did you watch? I am so confused.

The _fight scenes_ were horrible? In what way? Even just the first fight scene with the shields was cool and well done.

The thopters were just _okay_? They were _brilliantly_ done, had really interesting special effects, etc.

The spaceship of note in the film would probably be the guild ship, whatever they're called, the hiliners? Looked nice to me. Dune doesn't really have a ton of spaceships, it's planet-centric which makes sense really.

And the plot was boring? I don't even know what to say, that story is very well loved and the movie didn't change too much.

> The _fight scenes_ were horrible? In what way? Even just the first fight scene with the shields was cool and well done.

The fight scenes are people slapping each other really fast. There's no weight to it.

> And the plot was boring? I don't even know what to say, that story is very well loved and the movie didn't change too much.

A more significant consideration than what happens is how it is relayed to the audience. The way the story in Dune unfolds is linear and boring. It is chracters in rooms having conversations to fill the audience in before the real plot starts. It's not exciting or interesting and few risks are taken.

One of the cool ideas in Dune is that there are no computers so people take a psychedelic drug to pilot spaceships. Maybe this is explained in some boring monologue or text flash but there's no reason it couldn't be shown and it certainly isn't.

It doesn't help that Timothy Chalamet and Zendaya are awful. The only notably good performance is Rebecca Ferguson (Jessica).

> One of the cool ideas in Dune is that there are no computers so people take a psychedelic drug to pilot spaceships. Maybe this is explained in some boring monologue or text flash but there's no reason it couldn't be shown and it certainly isn't.

The guild navigators I'd expect will be in the next movie, as the spice and its effect on Paul are explored more.

This concept though was well done with the mentat(s) in this one though IMO, they didn't explain it, just showed it. I'd expect they'll do similarly with the navigators when it comes up.

> It doesn't help that Timothy Chalamet and Zendaya are awful.

Zendaya's character is barely in this one. Maybe you know her from elsewhere.

I didn't have any real complaints on Timothy Chalamet's performance myself, but it didn't particularly stand out to me either.

> The guild navigators I'd expect will be in the next movie, as the spice and its effect on Paul are explored more.

Sure but don't you think it would give more weight to the story if we understood viscerally, visually how spice enables space flight? It would be challenging to show but that kind of challenge should excite a talented director, it's an opportunity to do something experimental.

> Zendaya's character is barely in this one. Maybe you know her from elsewhere.

I've only seen her in trailers and in Dune. I didn't find her credible as a desert-hardened bedouin woman. Whether it's her voice or physical acting, she seemed too much like a teenage girl.

> Sure but don't you think it would give more weight to the story if we understood viscerally, visually how spice enables space flight? It would be challenging to show but that kind of challenge should excite a talented director, it's an opportunity to do something experimental.

At this part in the story? IMO, no. It's enough that they started to show it for mentats and a bit for Paul and etc. The navigator part of spice becomes important for the story once it affects our main character directly and once we need to get into the galactic politics more. It's a big part of what will be the finale for the next movie. I'm fine with it not being spelled out yet.

> I've only seen her in trailers and in Dune.

I'd say give her more time. Her character is just barely even in this movie, she'll be a huge part in the next. What did she even get, like 5 lines?

> The copters

Ornithopters.

> the hiliners?

Heighliners.

Thanks. I fixed copters, just a typo, I've leave the other alone.

Denis Villeneuve actually has a fairly distinctive style when it comes to having slightly glowing objects floating very slowly through the frame, so yes I do remember the spaceships.

Honestly the first thing I thought when the throat-singing started was why the fuck does anyone watch star wars (Not that the originals are bad, but the universe has no depth). Dune isn't perfect, but it's just so much more intriguing and obviously from a smarter author than it's competitors in the space opera genre.

One of the things we watch movies for are the characters. And Star Wars has good characters.

Jar-jar Binks?

I'm a massive Dune fan. I've read every one of Frank Herbert's books in the series and a few of his son's and honestly... I kind of agree with you. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the movie, and it was definitely a faithful adaptation to the book, but it could have been SO MUCH better. The potential for beautiful scenes and captivating stories was there but it never reached the point I thought it could. Maybe it's because I was watching it at home and not at a theater. They could have made the Baron so much more disgusting and villain-like.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the movie Baron was much more threatening. We only see a little glimpse of what he's like, but what we see is terrifying, and our imagination feels the gaps.

I'm reading the book again recently - I had forgotten that we actually get to see what the Baron is thinking, and when it happens, he looks almost human, like an executive in an evil corporation - like weighing about his potential successors, ranting about the cost of the war, or fretting over how the Sardaukar may see him as incompetent.

That's true. Maybe my desire for a "disgusting" Baron comes from watching the David Lynch adaptation one too many times.

There's only so many scripts/stories you can tell. With the ability to access all filmed media at your fingertips, you can watch Star Wars from 1977 any time you want, you couldn't watch old buck rogers serials whenever you wanted in 1977 so when George Lucas modernized them it blew your mind.

Star Wars was borrowing heavily from Seven Samurai not just western films. Thus swords vs blasters works the same way swords vs arrows do in those films etc.

There are basically infinite ways to remix old stories like that. Hell even just the editing significantly improved Star Wars over the original script.

Yeah point is it was heavily derivative, as are most of the films during the last golden age of film (1970s-pick when?), but the technological advances were dramatic enough and audiences didn't have home entertainment systems and access to every film ever so these films were incredibly novel culturally speaking.

I think two things are going on, everyone remembers movies they watched as a kid/teen and thinks they where unusually good. It’s not that there was a golden age of movies, it’s that you personally had seen fewer movies.

That said, the ratio of original movies to sequels/franchises changed. Fast forward 20 years from Star Wars to 1997 and sure yet another Titanic, Jurassic Park 2, and a James Bond film but also, Men in Black, The Fifth Element, Liar Liar, As Good as It Gets etc so still mostly original movies.

But fast forward to 2017 and the top 10 movies included: Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Harry Potter 5, Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, National Treasure 2, The Simpsons Movie, and Transformers. I Am Legend based on a book and 300 based on a comic. So only Ratatouille was actually new.

These days, you would need an official fan-restoration / fan-edit to see the Star Wars from 1977 - and that would legally be a bootleg.

> These days, you would need an official fan-restoration / fan-edit to see the Star Wars from 1977

You could try Harmy's despecialized edition.

I'm not going to mention where you can get it, but there is a Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition

I love 2049 and it took me 3 tries to finish the original without falling asleep. I still think the original is a mediocre film made cultish by its genre definition cyberpunk worldviews.

Different strokes for different folks.

No, see, you have to watch every different cut of the original to really understand it

(kidding, of course... it's really slow and I have to be in the right mood to enjoy it)

Blade Runner is a total madcap romp compared to Tarkovsky's Solaris, though.

(I love that movie, but the threat of punishing my friends with it is a standard joke...)

Make them watch the Mirror instead. It's a much better introduction to Tarkovsky. (Solaris is much more of Crime and Punishment than Sci-Fi anyway)

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