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Director Denis Villaneuve and producers must have realized that such an epic tale couldn't be condensed into a single film, tried in 1984 with David Lynch directing. That effort was so condensed that the story was reduced to unfollowable comic action. Lesson learned I think.
This film, part one (of how many?) takes us through the betrayal and slaughter of the House Atreides clan on Planet Arakis by the Harkonnens and the Emperor. The son Paul, Atreides heir-apparent, hooks up with the Fremen folks, getting ready for Part Two. They were careful to not bite off too much here.
This film has the advantage of nearly forty years of movie technology. The effects are terrific; the settings are great, the tools of Herbert's universe are awesome. You will clearly be in a different time and place with this film. Big money spent on this version.
The investment must have warranted big actors to sell it. We have Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, and Javier Bardem as big stompin' warriors. We have Charlotte Rampling as the cult witch (with her face covered all the time; never a beauty queen, age must be working her over).
Then we come to the heroes, the son Paul Atreides, and the lead romantic interest of the Fremen, Chani, not a big player in the story yet. These two are played by Timothee (that's correct) Chalamet, and Zendaya (just). Kind of weak links here. Who? Chalamet is a skinny twig of a dude who looks and sounds like Nicholas Cage's little brother. Zendaya ... I don't know, nothing stands out here. All the big name cast supporters, and these two are the leads? I don't get it.
The best for last -- Paul's mother, is played by Rebecca Ferguson, she the speechless wonder. Everything she says is a mumbled breathless undercurrent. Can't hear or understand a goddam thing she utters. She does it in every film some sucker is stupid enough to cast her in.
Sci-Fi critics have blasted this film for having too many wrong science thingies and concepts, and for not having computers showing as part of Herbert's technology. But he published his book in 1965, so go figure. The plot is a bit thick still, even with the Part One cutoff, a little hard to follow. A lot of emphasis is placed on Paul's visions, which frankly confuse the hell out of me.
But I liked it. It finally hit Comcast pay-per-view at a fair price, so maybe now is the time if you are a Dune fan. If so, then the discontinuities and Ferguson's crap won't bother you much. You're shown a different universe with glorious settings and sharing Herbert's vision. Enjoy the ride.
The sand worms are super creepy.
As it was, it was enjoyable and true to my recollection of the Herbert books. Thanks to someone for mentioning the mentats. Forgot about them. I think its 8.1 rating at IMDB is a point high. And a huge downvote for Lynch's version. Drug the wife and kids to it back in the day and I don't think they've forgiven me yet nor I Lynch. Skarsgard a fine Baron H.
----------------------
"E Burres Stigano?"
Trouble is there are not many, if any, in his age group to step forward.
And felt that the 2021 version was about as true to the book as could be possible for a film intended for mass audiences. Enjoyed it much.
Not sure what's meant by:Sci-Fi critics have blasted this film for having too many wrong science thingies and concepts, and for not having computers showing as part of Herbert's technology.
There were no artificial computation devices in the universe Herbert created. Apparently in the past there had been a "rise of the machines" that nearly wiped out humanity...many decades before "The Matrix" explored a similar idea. The Bene Gesurit "witch" caste was supposed to be some kind of guiding force after the uprising among their other roles. Another caste of humans, "mentats" performed computational functions in their heads when needed esp when their capabilities were greatly enhanced by consumption of the red staining "juice of saphoo". I beg mercy if I've gotten some of the details wrong here...going off memory and can't find my copy of the book.
I saw the current film twice, first time an IMAX presentation, second time in a top notch home theatre setting, supposedly a 4K stream with "Atmos" audio. My experience was that much of the film's sensual impact was lost in the HT as good as it was. Dialogue intelligibility wasn't as good either. Dune 2021 is very definitely a film that should be seen in a big screen high quality theatre setting. Unfortunately, that's not going to be the case for the vast majority of viewers.
Nerding out here:
In Dune, all computing machines are outlawed, destroyed in the Butlerian Jihad (historical fact in the book). Human computers "mentats" are used instead. Space navigation (no Nav Computers!) by Spacing Guild, using Spice to gain an extradimensional view of time and space to safely go from point A to point B. When Paul Atreides takes spice, his breeding (overseen by Bene Gesserit over hundreds or thousands of generations) makes him super sensitive to Spice, allowing him to see into the future.
After I saw the latest. To Mr. Lynch, I must say, "WTF"? (About as I remembered it.)
It was a decent film translation of the book. I haven't read it since the 70's, but this seemed fairly true to the story(so far). Needless to say, any book that comes with it's own glossary is going to be difficult. I hated the Lynch version.
The cast seems OK, but I never heard of Chalamet, and Zendaya is a former Disney star probably brought on to pull in a younger crowd. I'm looking forward to part 2, which should be better since it has the meat of the story.
Jack
P.S. It's also available on Prime in 4K
Edits: 01/28/22
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