Dune

Add another voice to the unintelligible speaking parts complaint chorus.  We have a pretty solid Onkyo surround sound system, and I had to crank the center channel up 8db to hear 7/8ths of the dialogue...  Tenet was just as bad....

dculberson said:

I almost slipped out after the kiddos bedtime to watch a midnight showing the other night. I'll have to figure out a way to see it in the theater. Hopefully an uncrowded one I'm still pretty sketched out by indoor crowds right now. 

We watched it last night at a drive-in theater.  Like you, I have some reservations about indoor crowds, and the drive in seems like a safer option than a normal theater.  Also, better seats and snacks than a normal theater.

Mezzanine said: But Dune? I'd be shocked if Dune was listed as difficult by 40% of readers. Some of the later books in the Dune universe get progressively more difficult to read and enjoy, but still not the same league as Ulysses. 

I usually tell people who are first experiencing Dune that they'll enjoy it more if they stop wherever they currently are. 

I loved the first book, and thought it was AMAZING....but honesty, I liked the setup  better than the conclusion.  I thought the first book was better than the second, the second better than the third, and the third better than the fourth.  The fourth one was annoying enough to me that I didn't even bother with five and six.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

Everybody is calling this Villeneuve release the New Dune.

That makes the David Lynch version Old Spice.

My wife loved this joke

Man, I was really hoping to like this movie. For everything they get right, which was a fair bit, they ruin it by just completely hitting you over the head with the plot at every turn. The change to the plot with Kynes seemed pointless, except that there was no shorter way of telling the audience about the Landsraad, apparently. Well, that and  Villeneuve felt the need to tell the audience that Idaho had locked himself out of a door. Thanks for spelling that out, Kynes, I never would've worked it out myself. Paul or Jessica couldn't have made that obvious? I guess if you pay Jason Momoa money, you want to use him for more than an hour.

Weirdly, for all the on-the-nose exposition of the plot, they never bother to explain to first-timers why everyone is still fighting with swords. Oh, and you can't hear or understand anyone half the time.

Leto was very good, Paul was okay. Jessica was good. The Baron could've been waaaaay better. He was too measured in the film. The aesthetic was great. Very epic and Dune-like (except for Villeneuve's "every missile is a rocket" thing).  

Saw Dune last night with the family.  My wife said it was "loud and weird."  And it was loud.  Like movie theatres usually have the volume cranked beyond what this old guy that kept most of his hearing finds comfortable.  This was a good bit louder than that.

Visually impressive.  For the most part well-acted.  While I have never finished Frank Herbert's Dune, I attributed the "weirdness" to the novel. 

My older son and I liked it okay.  My wife and younger son didn't think it was very good.

There were a couple of places where you could see where films had obviously borrowed from Herbert's Dune--notably "Tremors" and the big subterranean worms.

Saw it, loved it. Made myself giggle by singing "Weapon of choice" when they start the sand walk. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8

I think Villanueve learned from Blade Runner 2049. There was no way he wasn't going to force the studio to make the second movie-that ending is practically a season ending cliff hanger.

Turbo_Rev said:

Oh, and you can't hear or understand anyone half the time.

Glad you said that.  I thought it was just me destroying my hearing in the garage with angle grinders

JoeyM said:

Turbo_Rev said:

Oh, and you can't hear or understand anyone half the time.

Glad you said that.  I thought it was just me destroying my hearing in the garage with angle grinders

I think this is why the theatre experience was so very, very loud.  I guess they figure if they crank up the volume, you'll be able to make out the quiet dialogue at the cost of having the loud crescendos pushing sound pressure levels sufficient to rupture all of your cell membranes simultaneously.

I found the opposite true of the voices, though we saw it in Dolby Cinema where there are like umpteen channels of sound and the weirding voice has a subsonic component that telegraphs right through the taint...

sobe_death said:

...that telegraphs right through the taint...

Thanks for that quote of the day. 

Mezzanine said:

sobe_death said:

...that telegraphs right through the taint...

Thanks for that quote of the day. 

 

That's how the Bene Gesserit get you. 

One thing they did not explain, and was explained in the original is what the mentats are (the guys with the weird eyes).  
 

I was watching a YouTube about the movie and they were pointing out how the dune universe is effectively analog, there are no computers (as the result of an old Terminator SkyNet style uprising).  The mentats are made into human data and computation devices with the help of the spice and take the role of what might otherwise be done with computers.

Cool movie.

I'd read the book a long time ago, decided to re read it before seeing the movie just for fun, and ended up finishing it the day before going to the theater.

I enjoyed the movie, thought it tried to capture the essence of the story and overall vibe of the book in some interesting ways.

Saw it last night on HBO Max.

Meh.  Almost fell asleep in the middle, and the battle scenes made no sense to me.  The manipulation by the emperor never made sense, and I didn't get interested enough into caring how this plays out.  In that respect, I'm happy there are two parts.

And I can not really tell if Paul and his family are good or just a different version of bad, since they were going to a planet to exploit  natural resources.  (a +1 for them using normal names, and being from Idaho, funny for that to be a last name).

For people who easily move from planet to planet (who knows how far apart they are) the lack of accompanying tech makes no sense.  The only "tech" that was available was the force field that had a very convenient Achilles heel.  Kind of reminded me of the scene in Raiders where the one dude was juggling a sword to Indy, so Indy just shot him.  Duh.  A good mention of the confusion- the anti-aircraft guns that were slow, slow, slow to move, and could barely get off any rounds.  Let alone accurate ones.   You can cross the galaxy but you can't hit the side of a huge slow moving barn when there were multiple ones to aim at.

I also thought it was odd that the worms were such a big deal, rhythms were such a big deal, but when the two important characters needed to get away, their normal running speed was enough.  Huh.

Essentially, most of it didn't make sense.

Edit- I thought the score was good, but the dynamic range made it impossible to keep up.  My ears are like my eye- when I hear something loud, they start tuning out, so that to be followed up by quiet talking- I could not follow what was going on quite often.  But with the score to just repeat over and over again, yea...  I'm sure it will do well, but it's not my thing.  

Cinematography was amazing.  So whoever did the shoot research should get an extra case of Champagne.

alfadriver said:

And I can not really tell if Paul and his family are good or just a different version of bad, since they were going to a planet to exploit  natural resources.  (a +1 for them using normal names, and being from Idaho, funny for that to be a last name).

That's really kind of the point of the series. They're meant to be sympathetic characters, but it's really meant to be sort of a warning about the danger of following charismatic leaders. Even though the Atreides aren't really evil like the Harkonnen's, ultimately Paul ends up causing exponentially more horror and suffering.

The tech stuff is explained in more detail in the book. But the movie still needs to be able to stand on its own. Dune is kind of a rare niche of Science-Fantasy. Thought of best in those fantastic terms, like Star Wars. But Herbert puts a lot of thought into hard explanations for how/why things like the shields work, when ultimately they're an excuse to have heroes getting into sword/knife fights instead of shooting at each other with guns. So it arguably does itself a disservice by inviting us to pick apart those logical gaps instead of just going, "Noble houses and space wizards getting into sword fights. Cool."

Beer Baron said:

alfadriver said:

And I can not really tell if Paul and his family are good or just a different version of bad, since they were going to a planet to exploit  natural resources.  (a +1 for them using normal names, and being from Idaho, funny for that to be a last name).

That's really kind of the point of the series. They're meant to be sympathetic characters, but it's really meant to be sort of a warning about the danger of following charismatic leaders. Even though the Atreides aren't really evil like the Harkonnen's, ultimately Paul ends up causing exponentially more horror and suffering.

The tech stuff is explained in more detail in the book. But the movie still needs to be able to stand on its own. Dune is kind of a rare niche of Science-Fantasy. Thought of best in those fantastic terms, like Star Wars. But Herbert puts a lot of thought into hard explanations for how/why things like the shields work, when ultimately they're an excuse to have heroes getting into sword/knife fights instead of shooting at each other with guns. So it arguably does itself a disservice by inviting us to pick apart those logical gaps instead of just going, "Noble houses and space wizards getting into sword fights. Cool."

But because they were going to another planet to basically loot it, it's hard to have sympathy for them.  Even though they said that they were going to team up with the natives- the correct play would be to just let the natives control the trade of their stuff.  They seem nice enough and all, and them being ambushed for some reason helps, I still can not tell if he's a good guy or just another bad one in a different form.  And because of that, it would not upset me if he and his mom died.   Heck, seeing the witch that controlled mom- what in the world is her motivation, as it *seemed* that they were grooming for an overthrow to take control.  Good or bad intentions?

And, yea, the tech seemed to just be what it was to be an excuse for things happening.  The ambush was successful because simple defensive tools were worthless.  And the drone killer was successful because it somehow survives an impact with the force field.  Most of that just didn't make sense, other than being that way for dramatic purposes- which means that outcomes were predictable- you knew someone was going to die from slow things.

In reply to alfadriver :

The idea behind the shields is that they stop or deflect fast moving objects, but things can pass through if moving slowly enough. Hence, custom bombs falling through shields, but AA canons don't work for crap because they have to fire slowly enough to penetrate.

And yeah, they're heroes but they're not the good guys. There is a lot of interpretation that much of that is political critique. Hrm... Dune was published in 1965. What if the noble houses were countries? Who would this evil red nation be? What about this "good" blue nation? The evil red nation is occupying a desert land that controls the resources to be able to bend space and make distances shorter. The blue nation comes in with promises of how they're going to liberate and uplift the locals, but really they're just going to be nice because it's ultimately the efficient way to draw resources from this land. What could that possibly be a metiphor for?

Beer Baron said:

In reply to alfadriver :

The idea behind the shields is that they stop or deflect fast moving objects, but things can pass through if moving slowly enough. Hence, custom bombs falling through shields, but AA canons don't work for crap because they have to fire slowly enough to penetrate.

 

No, they need to travel slowly at the point they reach the shield.  They should have been able to fire off hundreds of them, blanket the ship, and slowly blow it up.  If the person killing drone can do that, then simple weapons should be able to.

That's one of my frustrations with scifi- they have some amazing tech right along side with missing some very obvious ideas.  IMHO, you can't have both.  Travel across the galaxy that quickly, but have no way to know ships are coming in from overhead?  Let alone even shooting them in a reasonable time frame.  How can you have so many amazing ideas and miss simple ones?  (this is 100% ignoring actual physics)

In reply to alfadriver :

Your critiques of how ultimately despicable Paul and the Atreides are is one of - arguably THE - point of 'Dune'. The universe *would* have been better if the evil Harkonnen's had just killed Paul and Jessica and dumped their bodies in the desert.

The most dangerous and terrifying leaders in this universe aren't the cruelly capitalistic Harkonnen's; nor the blatantly selfish, detached political old Emperor. The greatest danger is the charismatic and likeable Paul Atreides who makes people feel like he *sees*, *understands*, and *cares* them as individuals because he's a common person *one of them*. Except he wraps himself in mythology so that ONLY HE can lead them from their wasteland into a green paradise.

It's a warning about every charismatic social, political, and religious leader who people lionize. They're warning how the political, religious, and business powers don't care about you, so you should follow *him* because *he* cares. Maybe he even does genuinely care, but he's still manipulative and dangerous.

alfadriver said:

That's one of my frustrations with scifi- they have some amazing tech right along side with missing some very obvious ideas.  IMHO, you can't have both.  Travel across the galaxy that quickly, but have no way to know ships are coming in from overhead?  Let alone even shooting them in a reasonable time frame.  How can you have so many amazing ideas and miss simple ones?  (this is 100% ignoring actual physics)

I don't disagree. I think this is a problem when SF tries to come up with hard explanations for everything it's doing. If the point is to present and explore themes and ideas, going too into detail on the tech opens up room for holes that can get in the way.

I arguably think storytelling is usually better when taking the Star Trek approach of not bothering to try to explain how things work. If the tech isn't the point, handwave it. Have someone throw out some technobabble on why the teleporters suddenly can't be used in this particular situation.

In reply to Beer Baron :

And that's the leading reason I'm not really compelled to see how it ends.  There are a lot of others, but not caring about the apparent heroes is a big problem.  Even makes me wonder if I should have even watched.

Beer Baron said:

alfadriver said:

That's one of my frustrations with scifi- they have some amazing tech right along side with missing some very obvious ideas.  IMHO, you can't have both.  Travel across the galaxy that quickly, but have no way to know ships are coming in from overhead?  Let alone even shooting them in a reasonable time frame.  How can you have so many amazing ideas and miss simple ones?  (this is 100% ignoring actual physics)

I don't disagree. I think this is a problem when SF tries to come up with hard explanations for everything it's doing. If the point is to present and explore themes and ideas, going too into detail on the tech opens up room for holes that can get in the way.

I arguably think storytelling is usually better when taking the Star Trek approach of not bothering to try to explain how things work. If the tech isn't the point, handwave it. Have someone throw out some technobabble on why the teleporters suddenly can't be used in this particular situation.

I very much agree with your second point.  I'm not a Star Trek fan at all - I don't think I've ever watched an entire episode.  But I do see that the basic concept ideas someone came up with actually have become reality in some way.  It's also a lot easier to not have the tech spoon fed in a way that you 100% knew that it would be a major factor in the movie- you knew at a very early point that someone was going to die in a creative way of getting around the shield so that when it happened (a few times)- yup, knew that would happen.

In reply to alfadriver :

*Shrug*

I put it up there with things like 'Fight Club', 'Game of Thrones', 'Breaking Bad', and Verhooven's take on 'Starship Troopers'.

I think Paul is still a sympathetic, heroic character, but he's a deeply flawed one more like a Tragic hero than a classic Epic hero. Except that his tragic flaw manifests more in the damage it does to others than himself.

In reply to Beer Baron :

And none of those shows were appealing at all, either.  They seemed drama for the sake of drama, violence without point, long droning action scenes. etc.  (FWIW, I hated LotR)

To me, it does not matter how heroic paul is, if his intention was to loot the planet.  Let alone what in the world is he being groomed for, as the groomers were less than good people.   Doom ends up being just another coming of age movie.

At least with Star Wars, there are indicators that the "Luke" side are trying to keep people alive, and we knew the dark side just wanted control to the point of killing people.  It's a lot more cut and dried.

With the amount of effort that it takes to watch Doom- the sound, the mumbling, the odd tech, etc- it should be easy to pick out a reason to keep watching.  Instead you have to deal with all of that, and not even give a crap about the characters.