Finally watched Dune. This is going to sound insulting but it's not meant that way. My favorite aspect right now is where they choose to stop the movie. I think for a half story they choose a great spot to stop. Visually it's definitely the best looking of the Dune adaptions. Timmy makes for a great Paul. I don't care for him as an actor but he was solid here. He might be the best of the actors who have played this character, and I went into this movie expecting to hate him. I think it's my least favorite Yom Gobber scene though. Ironically for something that should be front loaded they still ended up trimming so much. Still it was mostly there and though not a lot happened. I think it's a good setup.
Duke Harkkonen was just honestly not gross enough imo. The man is supposed to be the pinnacle of slovenly excess and here he's just bald. Dune (the first book of the series) is still such a dense book it's really hard to adapt without narration. Points to this movie for doing that. That said there are important parts of the story that are trimmed out. And that's beyond the stuff that was removed for adaption purposes.
The pacing of the movie is very solid. It moves at a measured pace never feeling rushed or dragging. Which looking back at a 2.5 hour movie is kinda impressive especially once that minimizes the sort of explosive spectacle you typically get from a blockbuster. But like Sea Beast I'm not especially wowed by it with the exception of the really terrifying scale. The sandworms of Dune like the monsters in Sea Beast are terrifyingly huge and the movie does an effective job of showing that scale. But with this pacing being SO even you don't really get excited for anything. It makes the movie feel more passive. There are main characters that die some of them played but rather decently known actors and yet I didn't care. It just felt like something that happened "next". Not like something I'd look forward to seeing on rewatches. Even the final scene which ends with Paul having to fight a freman a pivotal point in the book and one filled with dramatic tension but here its just sort of happens. The fight isn't dragged out and there is some lip service to the fact that Paul unknowingly signed up to a death only fight and has never done that before but this was a scene that was supposed to be a transition nexus. A point where Paul could go one way but goes another and yet it just felt like.. oh another conflict. In part because the movie doesn't have time to really set it up. Everything is setting up the next movie. Giving context to the next era of Pauls life. Which isn't awful. The drama that's coming should be fun and hopefully make up for that.
In my opinion the real meat and potatoes of drama was trimmed out mostly because there's just so much story to tell there wasn't time not even in 150 minutes of half story. That's just how again dense Dune is as a story. While the movie was good, it didn't wow me but it also didn't bore me to the point where I didn't want to see the obligatory sequel. Rather instead I think it hit a nice peak. While I didn't feel the drama in the first half there's still plenty to explore in the second half. I look forward to seeing this iteration of Dune fully mature. We'll see if it can top my favorite version of Dune, the miniseries, in more than just budget. Though darn it those worms were very pretty.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2023-04-07T19:47:37Z
Finally watched Dune. This is going to sound insulting but it's not meant that way. My favorite aspect right now is where they choose to stop the movie. I think for a half story they choose a great spot to stop. Visually it's definitely the best looking of the Dune adaptions. Timmy makes for a great Paul. I don't care for him as an actor but he was solid here. He might be the best of the actors who have played this character, and I went into this movie expecting to hate him. I think it's my least favorite Yom Gobber scene though. Ironically for something that should be front loaded they still ended up trimming so much. Still it was mostly there and though not a lot happened. I think it's a good setup.
Duke Harkkonen was just honestly not gross enough imo. The man is supposed to be the pinnacle of slovenly excess and here he's just bald. Dune (the first book of the series) is still such a dense book it's really hard to adapt without narration. Points to this movie for doing that. That said there are important parts of the story that are trimmed out. And that's beyond the stuff that was removed for adaption purposes.
The pacing of the movie is very solid. It moves at a measured pace never feeling rushed or dragging. Which looking back at a 2.5 hour movie is kinda impressive especially once that minimizes the sort of explosive spectacle you typically get from a blockbuster. But like Sea Beast I'm not especially wowed by it with the exception of the really terrifying scale. The sandworms of Dune like the monsters in Sea Beast are terrifyingly huge and the movie does an effective job of showing that scale. But with this pacing being SO even you don't really get excited for anything. It makes the movie feel more passive. There are main characters that die some of them played but rather decently known actors and yet I didn't care. It just felt like something that happened "next". Not like something I'd look forward to seeing on rewatches. Even the final scene which ends with Paul having to fight a freman a pivotal point in the book and one filled with dramatic tension but here its just sort of happens. The fight isn't dragged out and there is some lip service to the fact that Paul unknowingly signed up to a death only fight and has never done that before but this was a scene that was supposed to be a transition nexus. A point where Paul could go one way but goes another and yet it just felt like.. oh another conflict. In part because the movie doesn't have time to really set it up. Everything is setting up the next movie. Giving context to the next era of Pauls life. Which isn't awful. The drama that's coming should be fun and hopefully make up for that.
In my opinion the real meat and potatoes of drama was trimmed out mostly because there's just so much story to tell there wasn't time not even in 150 minutes of half story. That's just how again dense Dune is as a story. While the movie was good, it didn't wow me but it also didn't bore me to the point where I didn't want to see the obligatory sequel. Rather instead I think it hit a nice peak. While I didn't feel the drama in the first half there's still plenty to explore in the second half. I look forward to seeing this iteration of Dune fully mature. We'll see if it can top my favorite version of Dune, the miniseries, in more than just budget. Though darn it those worms were very pretty.