It seems like a lot of y'all liked it, and it felt pretty reactionary to me so I'd love to hear an alternative perspective.
Beyond the idea that it's a film about imperial colonial extraction from which we only get the perspective of the empire, it really feels like the presentation of the lifestyle of the royals seems very sycophantic, very deferential.
Like the royals don't experience lavish personal consumption or luxury, no sex slaves, no hedonism, no fun at all really, they're all just earnest and stoic hard workers. The representation of the ruling class is that maybe your bedroom might be a little bigger, but they're just as put upon as the rest of us because of all this duty they're so concerned with. It seems like the take-home message is that any material benefit of being in the ruling class is trivial, but the accompanying responsibly is a terrible burden.
(I haven't read the books and don't plan to btw.)
So can someone explain why they liked it as a leftist?
I mean I liked it for the usual movie reasons, its compelling and it looks great and it sounded big and oscar isaac is such a good duke Atreides. I think a leftist reading of it gets more obvious in part 2 (trying not give any book spoilers) but also, I dont really think its that "leftist" of a story. It seems to be saying imperialism is bad (the good white saviors are just as bad as the bad white enemies really) and the book does get into how the Atreides do a ton of propaganda but are still in it for resource extraction (this is in part 1 and was cut from the movie for time).