Excellent movie. Highly recommend. Slow but beautiful. Great performances, music, cinematography. Gonna go read the book now. I had no problem following the movie but someone I went with got lost so ymmv.
It was a spectacle, but all of the futuristic engineering felt functional and natural. Shit like Blade Runner looks cool, but it felt like buildings were big and covered in lights because, hey, it's the future. Dune had big buildings and ridiculously massive vehicles and machinery, but you really felt like they were that big because they had to be, because of the sheer scale of the spice-mining operation. And that Imperium egg-shaped ship at the start was ridiculously ginormous, but it was obviously such to show that, hey, you're getting an important email from the goddamn emperor of the universe.
Felt the same about the Guild ship. Absolutely massive, but you're transporting planets worth of goods so it makes sense. Fits the book, Duke Leto says the entire Atreides fleet is just a small part of a Guild Ships manifest.
The Guild also holds a monopoly on interstellar travel so there's a degree of flaunting going on.
My biggest complaint was that it was half of a story, but that's because it was. It was slow, but not plodding. Sparse on detail, but not lacking at the same time.
God damn was it pretty though.
House Atreides represents the kinder, liberal wing of imperialism, e.g. the Democrats. Paul's father expressed concern for the safety of his workers and was polite to the face of the indigenous Fremen, but ultimately unwilling to heed their demands that they leave. They don't question the extractivist model, but at least they feel bad about it.
House Harkonnen represents MAGA Trump imperialism. They simply ordered the Fremen to be exterminated. "You have to kill their families".
I haven't read the books so I don't know if this analogy continues to hold.
This is basically the thrust of the book, yeah. I've seen the "white savior" take a lot since Dune is back in the news, and it's just such a trite reading with zero analysis attached. The themes of colonialism, prophecy (and invention/co-optation thereof), imperialism, eugenics, etc. (and how all those things interweave) are way more interesting than the Wikipedia plot summary everyone appears to be basing their hot takes on. It doesn't help that Frank Herbert can build a world like no other but can't write prose to save his fucking life.
They don't even consider that Paul is Greek-coded and therefore not white
I thought the point was the Atreides basically appropriated Greek Culture wholesale to shore up their power base, much as western European countries do today. They're implied to be the descendants of Agamemnon, a literal Bronze age monarch...which is uh...highly unlikely to be true.
Naming my son Atreus and only giving him an inheritance if he names his own son Agamemnon so my family can climb the ranks of space nobility and claim direct descendency from the Myceneans at Troy as a bit.
Which as I recall the founder of the Great house actually did while also claiming to be a direct descendent from history's most famous asshole rapist maurauder.
No it totally does. Ultimately House Atreides "wins" but are revealed to be fascists as well on a potentially worse scale than House Harkonnen ever could be.
Yeah you're totally right, the contradictions became too much and it all had to explode sometime.
Oh no the Fremen Jihad is explicitly the worst thing that has happened to the universe to date, they're pretty clear about that.
You're on the money. I wish they had been more explicit about the duke wanting to basically exploit the Fremen for his own gain. In the book he plans to use them as an army believing that they could match the sardukar in battle. It's why he walks into the obvious trap. He's not trying to wipe them out, but like you said he's not going to leave them alone like they want.
Pretty much exactly. Leto is the noble reasonable ruler and gets his shit kicked in because the hegemon feels threatened by him. All his courtesy and decorum amounts to exactly dick, the Harkonnens win a complete victory and go back to brutalizing the population. The term "Slave pens of geidi prime" gets used a lot. Then Paul spends some time in the desert with Ibn Wahhab and things get real Jihadi.
the sardukar ritual scene + throat singing has been living in my head rent free since I saw the flick a week ago.
incredible flick.
Paul is a cute twink.
The shirtless scenes tho. :bottom-speak: :hexbear-bi-2:
Big fan of the book. This was a better Dune than I ever thought we'd get. Can't wait for pt 2.
I thought it was ok, not a masterpiece but very enjoyable. I'm excited for part 2.
The weather balloon should have been able to lift the mining crawler with three of the four cables attached if they were designed with proper safety margins IMO.
proper safety margins
You should read up "safety" as it pertains to OPEC oilfields.
I don't think they even knew if the second half would be greenlit until like a few days ago
<Paul Atreides pain box vocal track riff plays>
I need memes about this now
It was fine. I wish that they had done more to show how truly monstrous and essentially inhuman the Harokonnen have become due to years of wealth accumulation due to spice trading. In the film they really come off as more generic bad guy assholes. But in the books they are incredibly depraved body and gene mutilators.
Which why when house atriedes eventually wins and somehow becomes worse, it's such a shock.
