 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Apr 13, 2024 - 8:36 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Thor
(Member)
|
I love the first film, but it's really a a "small" film, despite its epic backdrop, with a more focussed narrative (exposition, attack and escape). The second film is much, much bigger, properly capturing the mythological scope of the story. There's no competition, as far as I'm concerned, DUNE 2 is a far superior film.
Score-wise, it's pretty even. Both needed serious whittling, however. They're great in my playlists.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Finally caught DUNE 2.
I didn’t think it was as good as the first film. Dense with various plots, as well as massive Expressionist crowd scenes, not to mention yet another cliffhanger ending, it just seemed too long. And, the passage of time in DUNE 2 seems considerably compressed, seeming to take only months, while the book makes it clear that several years have elapsed.
Also SPOILERS: No mention of the Navigators, who use the Spice to find hidden paths through deep space. Which is why everyone wants it. Without mentioning, let alone showing, the Navigators, the importance of the Spice is considerably muddied.
And, what happened to Paul’s sister, Alia? Much is made of Lady Jessica being pregnant when she is inveigled into drinking the Water of Life, and we even see her communicating with her unborn babe. But, after that, Alia completely disappears! Alia plays a major role in the latter section of tbe book. It’s weird to have the pregnancy with no mention of her birth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Apr 14, 2024 - 11:36 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Clark Wayne
(Member)
|
I liked the first part, but was disappointed with the changes made to the story in the second part. Especially because they did away with my favorite part of the book (Alia talking shit to Baron Harkonnen , the Emperor, and the old Reverend Mother then killing Harkonnen). It also made me very sad when I realized they made the Baron Harkonnen look like me. Except I have eyebrows and can get up off the couch under my own power.
It was done as an artistic choice so as to have the story from 1 lead directly into 2, without any time jumps, which the film makers felt were distracting.
Given the weird overdubbing of a creepy baby voice on the child in Lynch's Dune, I think it was the correct decision, as that scene was laughable.
It gave a better foreshadowing have her talk, as an adult, to her brother, in a prophecy, IMO.
I felt Christopher Walken was a bit understated if anything, he seemed like an old man confused by his choices, rather than a master manipulator who was foiled by a wild card. He didn't need to be a scenery chewing, turning, Al Pacino, but someone with an inherent sense of danger, like Sir Anthony Hopkins, may have played him better. Again, IMO.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Both parts are fantastic overall, but I would rather wait for some inevitable supercut to be made available on disc rather than get them separately.
They are, however, lacking in the one thing that makes Lynch's version shine: the phantasmagoria of the setting. Lynch's version really does feel "alien", posing as a true, albeit rushed, account of some future time. And despite being the film's invention, there's simply no beating the shot of Sting getting split in half by the voice of God. I don't hate the guy, but it's just... kewl.
The standouts of Part 2 are the ying-yang chemistry between Bardem's hysterical fanaticism and Brolin's stoic pragmatism. Walken does seem to have wandered his way on set, looking like Supreme Leader Snoke with hair, and not given much to do other than worry and hand over a knife. The one performance I actually pity is Zendaya's. In Part 1, she's given to slo-mo, over the shoulder shots as if posing for the Arrakis version of Vogue, while in Part 2, she gives cinema's greatest impersonation of an ignored Jigglypuff.
If I do have one, unrelated gripe, it's of a certain, recent phrase I've grown tired of hearing: "See this on the biggest screen possible!". I actually did that with Part 1 at an IMAX theater and... I have concerns:
1. I went to the Grand Rapids theater, where the "1.43 special edition" was playing, whereas most other plebian IMAXs got the 1.33 treatment. It was my first experience at an IMAX, and it may be my last. Granted, the screen is big, but like anyone meeting Snake Plissken would say... "I thought it'd be bigger". It only reminded me of an indoor drive-in theater, which made me miss that experience all the more, especially considering that I was faced with the prospect of watching a 4:3 movie. I thought we as a species were done with "full screen" movies. And as I watched the movie, the constant need to shift between "battle scenes" and "everything else" was whiplashingly apparent. Maybe Roger Ebert was right about championing an alternate camera system becoming the standard for this scale (whose name I can't recall... thanks The Internet).
2. The sound system was suitably grand, but it's not anything I hadn't heard equally as mindblowing from a regular theater back in 1984 when Egon turn on Ray's proton pack and the theater actually shook (which only added to the joke), or when I nearly had my eardrums blown out when seeing Die Hard with a Vengeance at a Manhattan theater in 1995. So it's not like it's impossible for regular theaters to acquire the Doc Brown model of jowel-blasting wonderment, they just need to not skimp on the privilege.
3. The seating arrangement was, to put it lightly, vertigo inducing, with the only "railing" available in this cliffside cramfest being the knee-high seat in front of me. It would be preferable to set loose any bowel movements right then and there, during such a lengthy runtime, than to go full "scuse me, pardon me" in the near darkness while keeping one's acrobatic balance in a race to the nearest latrine. Maybe it was just this theater, but as the younglings say, "the math ain't mathing up here". I'm still surprised I haven't heard of someone getting sneezed off to one's plummeted doom with such a setup.
4. I've been made privy that the Grand Rapids theater posed a 90 foot screen, as opposed to the typical 70 foot version, which begs the question: WHY ARE IMAX THEATERS OF DIFFERENT SIZES ALLOWED TO EXIST? I get that some brilliant engineer eventually thought "wait, maybe I can make this one bigger... to hell with the rest of 'em!". It's just a notion that insists the vast majority of normal theaters should die in a fire, promoting the inevitable trajectory of Hollywood's scheme toward "event" movies, with all others consigned to streaming hell.
So I'm in no hurry to repeat the experience, but should Fantasia ever be presented in such a venue, I wouldn't turn down the possibility.
I guess folks were right describing the book as unfilmable.
Translation = anything is filmable, but audiences may not want to watch it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
