By whom? Lynch's has been out for decades and is at 6.3:
* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/
Villeneuve's is currently at 8.0:
* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/
The RT for each are at 44% and 83%:
* https://www.rottentomatoes.com/search?search=Dune
Even with recency bias, do you think their scores will change much in 20+ years?
The recent one was so "indistinguishable" from recent sci-fi movies it won Best Original Score, Sound, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, and Visual Effects:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_...
How many other sci-fi films even get nominated (including Best Picture and Screenplay), let alone win? What were the accolades for Lynch's movie?
The reception of Lynch's version will continue to be colored by his overall ouvre, and it's all just so much more interesting and charming for anyone who has to see and write about movies all week long.
As a side note: does anyone take RT or the Oscars seriously anymore? That whole line of argument isn't very compelling to me, but I guess it is for some.
And as a final comment: note that I didn't say Dune 1984 was an amazing film, I just said it would be looked at more favorably than the current films because of its uniqueness. This tends to happen to older films: the solid-but-boring ones get forgotten, while the weird-but-unique ones develop a cult following and get re-evaluated positively.
Just like The Room is "weird and unique"? :)
> As a side note: does anyone take RT or the Oscars seriously anymore? That whole line of argument isn't very compelling to me, but I guess it is for some.
How much would you agree or disagree with this 'ranking' of Lynch's works?
I don’t like that list at all and think it’s basically a list of how “traditional” the Lynch film is. I’d put Mulholland Drive first personally.
"good" or "bad" is sort of irrelevant
To whether something is looked on favourably?
A big-budget Hollywood blockbuster will have a high RT score even if it’s kinda bland. A filmmaker like Lynch will have a lower RT score, but the people who connect with his movies are more likely have a deeper experience than someone who connects with the blockbuster.
What makes this a fact? Why are they so unremarkable?
I can remember plenty of interesting visuals from the Lynch one despite thinking many other aspects of it were horrible, and having seen it in my room 4 years ago.
Of course you're right, somehow Lynch did more in less time, but also maybe (hopefully!) part1-2 together will be a valuable take on Dune.
I have one vivid memory from the Lynch one. The Baron's blood torture contraption seared into my mind about 25 years ago, and I have some half faded ones about the last attack, the Imperial palace, and ... that's it probably.
For me Dune was more about vibe, atmosphere, scale, grand space opera mindfuck than concreteness and still images.
Off the top of my head:
* The arrival of the Imperial delegation for the 'signing ceremony'.
* The fight training sequence.
* The view from behind Paul's head, with the Gom Jabbar at his neck.
* The opening of the doors on arrival at Arrakis.
* The starting of the ornithopters' engines.
* The found hunter-seeker operator.
* The cockpit view dive of the ornithopter.
* The view of the spice harvester being swallowed from the ornithopter ramp.
* The bombs penetrating the ship shields and the contained explosions.
* Paul and Jessica on the top of the hill, viewing the aftermath of Arakeen.
* The wide dining room shot with the Barron on the left and the Duke on the right.
* Paul 'tripping' in the tent.
Villeneuve’s Dune looks like what a very advanced moviemaking ChatGPT would do: technically flawless, completely soulless, and an absolute snore fest. Lynch’s Dune is flawed, but full of character, and excitingly weird. It’s not a superb movie but then again the comparison isn’t either.
If you’re interested in seeing him put his skills to tell an actual impactful story, watch Incendies. By far his best movie.
About Gosling I’ll refrain from commenting as it can get ugly. :)
I think it's fair to say that any particular performance of Gosling may be good/er or bad/er, but his broad range is impressive: The Notebook, Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, Only God Forgives, The Big Short, The Nice Guys, La La Land, Barbie.
Also: Crazy, Stupid, Love and Drive came out in the same year.
But also canon vs fan fiction
Do you think villaneuve's dune is more fan service / tourism? Is it adding anything new to the world of dune?
(As much as I enjoyed it and want the answer to be "yes it's adding something," I'm worried the answer is no)
(Yes, I think it was solidly average otherwise and arguably the most boring of Villeneuve's work if watched conventionally).
The tone you describe is at odds with the story it presents (and its run time).
I agree that the story is lacking! But the world feels real
IMDB has a well known bias towards newer movies.
Of course, rankings on any platform should be taken with a grain of salt; if you like the film you like it, can't argue with taste or personal preference. Ranking tries to apply an objective fact (a number, an expert's say-so) to an inherently subjective question (did you enjoy it).
Most of the time the awards are just about rewarding relationships in the business. They have no bearing on movie quality.
I'm a huge fan of Lynch and enjoy the original Dune for what it is, but there has been plenty of time for the critical assessment of it to settle, and it doesn't look good.
I feel the opposite. Lynch's Dune did its own thing with meandering and confused direction. Villenuve's Dune complements the book much better. It respects Herbert's intelligence and understands the world building decisions Herbert made. I'm betting that the book and Villeneuve's Dune will stand the test of time better.
It has nothing to say cinematographically, and it has nothing to add to the messages that were written into Dune 50 years ago.
It's very competent, nothing else.
Dune isn't fully pure, either. It goes against the most frequent theme of the first book simply by 'shooting' scenes outside during the day. Caladan is much more fleshed out. It introduces new Bene Tleilax lore in the first film which is notable because Herbert himself didn't introduce them until there was a second book to write, omniscience to restrict and characters to resurrect. Looking at the trailers for the next film, Feyd Rautha is bald Elvis instead of a handsome Paul-like character and I'd be very surprised if all of the Baron's proclivities are retained.
I was stunned at how well done it was visually, and how well handled the tension and pacing are throughout the whole thing. It was just an impeccable cinematic experience.
I completely disagree, it does a few major plot points decently but the gender swap of Liet Kynes completely erases the point of that character as a parallel to Paul’s journey in relation to his determined destiny as outlined by the people before him. It completely wipes away any difference between the two invading armies as well they both come off as generic evil villains where in the book they have a purposeful lavishness and guadiness. Not to mention the entire obvious white washing of the entire jihad and Fremen who are clearly based off of Middle Eastern peoples.
I feel that removing the Arabic names from Fremen is to make it palatable for modern audiences. Herbert did respect Arabic cultures and (in my opinion) did not have an insulting representation of them. It is still a caricature of a people made by someone who is not of that people. We do give up some context, but we also avoid insult in our now-global world. I don't think there was any winning move here, but I think they gave it thought and made a careful decision.
https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
It's not even like the film is "slavish" to Herbert's narrative, either, like a few people have said. Having Kynes assassinated, rather than captured, removes a fun scene, but gives the audience a first hint of worm-riding, which is narratively useful.
My only regret, which I only arrived at after my third viewing, is that the actor playing Jamis should have played Stilgar, and Bardem should have played Jamis. I think Bardem is slightly mis-cast, but he's also enough of a name that the audience would have felt the same regret as Paul does at Jamis' death.
Perhaps the new Dune was so appreciated because it ignores the recent trend of over-complicated story telling with time jumps and mystification, and instead just tells it straight. But that's a pretty low bar.
There are some ridiculous changes to the story, and the end is so weird that it's funny, but the dialogues are so much better, the characters have substance. The scary ones are scary, the glorious ones are glorious. There is actual development in Leto. The whole world feels deep. Altogether, it feels like it was aimed at a more mature audience. The same audience that would also buy the books afterward if they didn't already read it.
New Dune however feels more like Young Adult Entertainment. It looks fantastic, but the rest doesn't really matter. I didn't feel anything for any of those characters. Some of the dialogues were really cringe worthy (the Hangar dialogue for example) I went there with someone who never read the books. They were confused also didn't bother with most of the characters or what has become of them.
I will go and see the second one though since it's Dune and I love Dune and this might also be the reason why this way of making movies works...the nerds still go in even if they complain and the "normal audience" gets something which won't be too challenging.
The old movies felt like a caricature of the books. The evil characters were ridiculous.
In the new movie, I only disliked Momoa for playing himself again.
Baron was fine if not better in the Lynch version.
Note that I watched the Lynch version in a theater in the 80s and recently rewatched it, and my feeling about the acting portrayal of these two characters was the almost exactly the same then and now — painful to watch.
If you don’t already know dune the original movie is really hard. If you do know it there are some changes.
It really is of its time however. It’s a kind campy art piece that makes it hard to take seriously. Though Sting.
The music in both movies is fantastic.
And yes, it is so gorgeous. It looks so breathtaking, but it feels hollow... I felt the same thing with the new Blade Runner. I really wanted to love that.
Jean Baudrillard would have something to say about all that.
Funny though that he brings up the new Dune somehow (hopefully?) positively, and there is even a fast shot of the new Blade Runner. I wonder if Dune makes the turn in the second part, but I doubt it since I haven't seen Villeneuve making it in any of his movies I've seen.
What I liked was "The Killer" vs. the whole John Wick thing. It was such a brilliant twist on the "revenge" trope. I doubt that I'll be able to watch another movie based upon this trope again. For me, it reached perfection with that.
But the last movie was.. sterile, dead. There was no warmth between the characters, little of interest in them. It was stark. I didn’t care for any of them and it didn’t seem much like they cared for each other.
The old Lynch movie isn’t a great film in that it doesn’t hold together well, and it’s not the best telling of Dune. But it has so much character, and it has characters, and they have meaningful interactions.
I worry that the money that has gone into the Villeneuve movies is the last time Dune will be able to attract that sort of funding, and the biggest budget telling of the story we will have is one in which the characters may as well be wax droids.
Paul Atreides (the main character) is 15 years old in Dune.
Most people that read and revered Dune probably did so during their young adult years.
I say this as someone that loves the Herbert's works, but it is really apparent that the first Dune book originated from an ecological article, and mushrooms (of the psychedelic kind).
One of the few uses of ever-improving "AI" bot generation of characters, faces, blending images, etc. I can imagine is the ability for fans to remix films and TV.
For example...
* to edit together the original BBC TV Hitch hikers' Guide to the Galaxy with the better SFX of the otherwise poor film.
* to create extra episodes or installments of beloved serials where the text exists but the actors are dead
* Or, in this instance, to mix Lynch's visuals and characters with Villeneuve's less scenery-chewing version which sticks closer to the text.
One could even imagine editing Villeneuve's Arrival to stick closer to the text of Ted Chiang's sublime "the Story of your Life", where the way the aliens write is pivotal to the story but the screenwriters didn't understand.
In 10-15 years, hopefully we can just input this script as a prompt, and get a full film in the style of David Lynch.
The same thing happened with Society of the Snow: a technically beautiful movie with nothing to say other than being more “faithful” and using native actors. All that is appreciated but Alive was a flawed but much more exciting telling of the story.
Can you expand? I've read and watched, but don't recall anything similar. I watched the movie first, could be why.
Whereas the movie, the writing was a simpler circular design with slight filaments hanging off and no mention of the encapsulated message as a whole IIRC. The movie design reminded minded me of the Lucent Technologies logo [1] (worked for them a short while, back long ago).
I really liked the story and the movie but different media formats have different aims and constraints so it's hard to compare. I wish the movie industry would tackle more original content (like Arrival) rather than endless sequels.
In order to learn to write the aliens' script, the interpreter must learn what Douglas Adams called "defocussed temporal perception". To write the language you need to be able to see into the future. Learning the script teaches her to do this.
Seeing into the future she watches her own daughter die and there's nothing she can do to stop it.
The scriptwriters didn't understand any of this so they made the aliens spray-paint stencils on glass and inserted a terrible irrelevant subplot about stopping a war.
1. It's not a book. It's just a short story. It's only 16pp long or something.
2. The central point of the story is: brilliant linguist learns to write an alien script and it teaches her to see the future. That is the core plot in a sentence. The film loses that.
Don't get me wrong: I liked the film, as a modern SF film: i.e., brain damaged into mindlessness, but still quite pretty.
It's like a version of Hamlet in which he lives happy ever after, though. It is missing the point in the most profound possible way.
It's funny though, I do feel a bit the same way about Dune. It's a Cliffs Notes of the book, and doesn't add anything new and thought provoking. Mindless but beautiful.
Still, I wouldn't say it missed the point. Just that it wasn't really necessary.
Anyway, free to disagree.
I did say:
>> Don't get me wrong: I liked the film, as a modern SF film
I agree about Dune. If you know the book, it's a very pretty retelling. If you don't, it's a sort of weird summary with no signs of why so many people love it so much.
And yet, when I think about Dune 2021, I feel like it lacks a lot of interesting context and explanation from the novel. But I know plenty of people who didn't read it and loved the film. I suspect DV takes more care to lay out the important details than I'm able to perceive knowing the book.
It's a 16pp short story. Read it, then reply. It takes about 15min if you're a slow reader!
Watched Arrival then read it, and loved the movie.
Read Dune and then watched it. Underwhelmed by the film.
If anyone is interested in the ridiculous amount of potential that Villeneuve threw away by becoming Hollywood’s generic sci-fi director, watch Incendies.
I'm not a huge fan of Arrival but I would not have said it's empty and soulless. I do think it's a good movie though.
The short story is essentially a story about grief using time travel as a metaphor but not actually having time travel in it. The movie has the character changing the past in a critical moment which kind of undermines the whole soul of the story imo.
To be clear, i still think arrival is a great movie, just rather different from the source material in terms of meaning and "soul"
Strange what we can learn about ourselves through association
Villeneuve's dune is an enjoyable film, it conforms to expectations, and easily lauded. As such it is somewhat anodyne and flat. It is only rich where it borrows from Lynch. The scale feels small like tilt-shift does.
(For context, I read and enjoyed the Dune books as a child, I've seen the Lynch film several times and find it broadly comical, I love Twin Peaks, and I think Villeneuve is arguably one of the best mainstream directors working right now.)
Because the qualities you're describing sound very much like other Lynch films but not like Herbert's Dune.
Prometheus and Interstellar look nothing like these movies though. The production design is completely different even though there might be similarities in the color grading.
I give you that the super washed out colors has been a very common aesthetic in the past 15 years or so but I wouldn't say all scifi movies adopt it. Some examples: District 9, Avatar 1 and 2, Inception, Tenet, Ex Machina, etc.
In fact, most recent well-received sci-fi films were.
In contrast, Lynch's doesn't look anything like his other films.
Color grading is a huge part of what makes movies look like they do, but beside that there is a sterility and cleanliness, a monotony in how the images are handled.
Well because this was the only big budget film Lynch ever worked on and produced by none other than Dino De Laurentiis.
> beside that there is a sterility and cleanliness, a monotony in how the images are handled
Not sure what you're referring to. Maybe you're missing the analog feel of shooting in film? Dune 2021 was shot in digital (the newer digital Arri IMAX cameras) and Dune 1984 was shot in 35mm.
It's totally fine to not like digitally shot movies.
Either that or most of us will be dead. It's hard to know at this point.