We don't deserve it at all, TBQH

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43319822)

Even tho her role is small in part 1, I can’t stand zendaya as chani. I can’t wait for part 2 but the thought of zendaya constantly on screen makes me cringe.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43311083)

the worst token casting choice BY FAR was turning liet kynes into a woman, and then making her black. liet is supposed to be half fremen.

spoiler below

just to vent about zendaya some more...we know chani is the mother of leto2 and ghanima, and so we are bound for more "multiracial token" casting choices if he makes dune messiah.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43313012)

It's like Land Power, but with sand.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43311100)

Villanueve literally shot half the movie with no promises the second half would ever be made. Oddly the fact that this DUNE (2021) is only half the story has not featured in the marketing. “Come see half of this movie so we can decide if we’ll pay for the rest.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43315006)

The spare sets lacked the decor, personal effects, and style suggestive of habitation by actual people with aesthetic interests. Even the pretty landscapes were sterile and lacking awe-inspiring grandeur.

Every scene was constructed on a computer app, which saps the finished product of aesthetic inspiration.

Jessica Ferguson was the standout as Paul's mother, but she wept in a quarter of the scenes, which made no sense when she was a witch of of the Bene Gesserit, which equips its members with strong self-control. The best scenes involved Paul and Jessica using Bene Gesserit mind control to compel people to follow their commands when spoken in a particular voice.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43322486)

What did you expect? Fremen art and underground gardens?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43323775)

jessica reacts to him in this way in this scene because she is shocked and awed by this transition and is instinctively drawn to his newfound masculine presence and frame. contrast this scene with the breakfast scene at the beginning of the film where jessica moms him around with asking him to do the voice for her (which he is unsuccessful in doing)

i see that we don't have many dune scholars here

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43326941)

it's palpably worse than Lynch's flawed-but-memorable version in every way. Bland, paint-by-numbers, aimless, not even particularly slick in its presentation.

- It brings nothing new to the table, every scene is familiar and invites comparison to the 1984 version: sword training with Gurney, the pain box, the floating hunter killer, the sandworm evacuation, the death of Leto, anyone who has seen the older movie is constantly going to be thinking "well, time for this bit, let's see how they did... OK, I guess that box is checked". Lynch's movie had personality and inventive flourishes (the "weirding modules" weren't in the book), literally the only invention here is the affirmative action casting. It makes it tough to discuss without frequently referencing the Lynch version, even acknowledging that that movie definitely has its flaws.

Production values were worse than I expected. Costumes and props were unimaginative and mostly wouldn't have looked out of place on Netflix. Washed-out colors and monochrome palettes abounded (sure it's set in a desert, but Lynch's movie was plenty colorful). Interiors were most notable for how sparse and barren they were, apparently in the future all our interior designers will be harsh cubist minimalists (think Wallace Corp in BR2049). There were some decently grand large-scale panorama shots of ships landing and so forth, and the ornithopters did look great, but it never made me sit back and go "damn, that was cool". The swordfights were fine I guess, if anything the shield effects made it a bit tough to clearly follow the action. Anyway the old movie actually had surprisingly good fight scenes, especially considering that Kyle MacLachlan and Sting aren't exactly Jackie Chan.

The music was decent but unmemorable, not Zimmer's best. Again, nothing nearly as striking as the menacing grandeur of the 1984 main title theme.

Casting was about as bad as we all knew. Even the relatively OK ones (Gay X-Wing Man, Stellan Skarsgard, Javier Bardem) lacked 3 dimensions, and the bad ones (Paul Atreides the glowering anorexic Jew, Rebecca Ferguson's weepy, boyish Lady Jessica, whoever the black bitch playing Kynes is) compare unfavorably to cosplayers. It's been a year since I last saw Lynch's Dune but I can vividly recall even minor characters like Reverend Mother Mohiam, the Shadout Mapes, Doctor Yueh, and Piter de Vriess. I just finished this movie 20 minutes ago and I could barely pick any of those people out of a lineup right now. I can't think of a single character who was better here than in the older movie. And yes, it's very blacked up, pretty sure Bardem was the whitest of the Fremen by a deep desert mile.

It was weird how many things weren't included: you never see the Emperor, you never see a Guild Navigator, Feyd-Rautha isn't even mentioned. Even Zendaya is only actually onscreen for like 5 minutes with < a dozen lines (if you've seen the trailer you've seen pretty much all her scenes). It feels weirdly rushed despite only being half the story; canonically I think the Atreides were on Dune for weeks before the Harkonnens attacked, this feels like they landed early one afternoon and got BTFO that very night, which also makes them seem hilariously incompetent.

It smacks into the predictable challenges of telling this story: it requires tons of worldbuilding to orient the viewer, so they cram tons of "as you know, your father, the king" dialogue into the first half hour so we all know what Spice, Bene Gesserit, Kwisatz Haderach, Fremen, etc are (in fairness Lynch did this too). They never touch on the Butlerian Jihad and mentats (IIRC neither term is ever used) despite these being major features of this world. Many important things are either unexplained or barely mentioned in passing, and I expect a lot of viewers are going to be wondering what the hell "Shai-Hulud" is or why Paul keeps tweaking out and hallucinating or even just why everyone fights with swords instead of guns or lasers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43326901)

"literally the only invention here is the affirmative action casting"

Lol

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43328283)

do you know how far into the books before one character is mentioned as having seen one of them? IIRC its Messiah, though they are referenced earlier

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43328341)

never read the book and those are all questions I had

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#46717176)

Leto II a goofy space worm hybrid people will hate it. Honestly hope they just say fuck it and give him the Warhammer god emperor aesthetic

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4947145&forum_id=2#43326960)