dex14

story

Good, because I was too tired Monday and canceled my A-List ticket!

tanman

So I watched this on HBO Max the day it left. I didn't know a single thing about Dune. In fact for a long time I confused it with Mad Max just because of the desert setting.

So here are my thoughts as a virgin duner. As many people have already mentioned it's a visually stunning movie. The acting was really great and everyone really fit their part well, as far as I can tell. It left me feeling pretty lost and confused though and here's why. I was really happy that the plot itself was actually very simplistic when you really boil it down. So yeah in that regard it was a very easy movie to follow. But I could tell that there was a lot of subplot that I was not picking up on. There was a lot of world building that I did not pick up on. That's not to the detriment of the movie. Actually the opposite, since it does exist in such an established and vast universe I appreciate that the details didn't bog down the entire movie. However, it always felt like I was missing something. A good example was the scene where Paul is being tested by that religious figure that threatened to kill him with a sewing needle. I understood the very basic reasons for the scene; he needed to be tested if he's THE ONE. But who is this lady and why does she hold so much power with the Emperor and why does he kind of fear her. All that is lost. Which is fine because I know they can't explain all that but it still contributes to this sense of being lost. I don't see why anyone would want to jump on a bandwagon and say they weren't able to follow a movie.

I really loved the ornithopters. Those were really cool ships and seem like they would almost work in the real world. You guys keep saying Leto and I keep thinking if I missed that Jared Leto was in the movie . Was it kind of a dig at Justice League that Momoa's character kept saying "My Boy!"


I was wondering that. I did think it was a bit odd but just accepted it as part of the universe.

That would have helped a bit. I thought spice was a fuel.

Overall I think the movie did stand on it's own and served as a great entry point into the Dune universe. I don't know if it grabbed me so much that I want to watch all the other iterations of it or even the book. But I'm definitely looking forward to the 2nd movie. Will it just be one movie at this point? How much story is left?

That's also one thing that was totally lost on me. The motivations of the emperor. It didn't seem like it made much sense for him to leave the planet to the Atreides just to slaughter them. They looked pretty capable of slaughtering them without giving them the planet. So yeah while the plot was really pretty simple the nuances behind why these things were happening were totally lost on a newcomer. I would have appreciated more world building and backstory but then that would have bogged the movie down.

Dr. DVD

The sequel has been greenlit and is scheduled to start shooting this coming summer for a Fall 2023 release. How they are going to pull off the scale they need in so little time is beyond me, but hopefully they can. I remember seeing the Alan Smithee/TV version of the Lynch movie without having read the book and while it was still confusing, it had a prologue that explained what was going on and why. I then asked for the book that Christmas and proceeded to read both it and the sequel. While I don't know if you're a sc-fi aficionado or not, I would recommend giving the first book a shot. It will definitely enhance future viewings of the movie, and they are pretty good on their own.

Giantrobo

If i remember from the book, its been a while, it was just that simple. The Emperor was a jealous conniving petty ass bitch who saw Leto becoming too popular and he felt he was threatening his throne. The thing is...it wasn't Leto who was the true threat. It was Paul....

Dr. DVD

They Lynch movie pretty much lays out everything in the first 10 minutes, but somehow still manages to make it incomprehensible because, well , it's Lynch.

Movie is still doing well , and the most successful financially for Villeneuve. Nice to see it had some legs to it theatrically, curious what the streaming numbers would bring it to with the "voodoo math" they use. I'm also glad they decided to bring it back to IMAX theaters, as I am sure several who saw it only on HBOMax would be willing to give that format a try.

Jay G.

The motivation was simple, the setup was supposed to be more complex. The Emperor couldn't make a direct move against House Atreides, or else the other houses would team up to oust him. Also, the Harkonnens couldn't successfully attack the Atreides' home planet of Caladan; the Atreides had been on the planet for generations and had it heavily fortified. Only by luring Leto to Arrakis could they be made vulnerable.

Likewise, the assistance The Emperor gave House Harkonnen was supposed to be entirely secret, with the Emperor's troops disguised as Harkonnen troops. This movie undercuts that subterfuge in favor of showing special shock troupers in different armor dropping silently from the sky.

But the basic premise was to lure Leto out of his secure homeworld to somewhere far more vulnerable, and frame the attack as merely an inter-house struggle.

The Spacing Guild was aware of the threat, which is why in the 1984 movie they ask the Emperor to kill Paul.

tanman

That helps a lot. I didn't pick up on that at all. I didn't even know the Baron was the Emperor until the tooth scene. It didn't (still doesn't if you just take the context of this movie) make sense that House Atreides would be loyal to the emperor and willingly go to Arrakis if they knew it was a trap.

milo bloom

The Emperor is a separate character, not seen in this version.

The Atreides knew it was a trap but didn’t have any other choice but to go. Their thought was probably that if they knew it was a trap, they could deal with it. They never thought Dr Yueh would be the one to betray them.

Jay G.

The Baron isn't the Emperor. The Baron is the head of House Harkonnen, who have a generations-old feud with the Atreides.

The Emperor isn't seen in the 2021 movie, maybe he'll show up in part 2. He's one of the first characters to appear in the 1984 version.

If Leto had refused, the would've been considered a rouge house and sent into exile. The Atreides didn't yet have enough support from the other houses to overthrow the Emperor. So either they refuse, go into exile, lose their power, and are no longer a threat, or they accept and walk into a trap. To the Emperor, it's a win-win situation. As milo bloom noted, Leto thought that by knowing it's a trap they could stay one step ahead of it, and they didn't know the extent of the betrayal. In the book, there's suspicion of a mole/traitor in their midst, with Lady Jessica being a prime suspect. Dr Yueh was supposed to be literally incapable of betrayal due to his conditioning, so was overlooked.

The 2021 film boils the plot down to the barest of essentials, but the novel has a lot more nuance and detail about everything.

tanman

This is what I was talking about. Yeah the plot is really easy to follow on the surface but the motivations aren't really fleshed out very well if just watching this movie.

So if the Baron isn't the Emperor then why was the Emperor helping the Harkonnen family (race? are they all human?). And how were the Harkonnen able to attack the Atreides so openly if they were commanded by the emperor to take over spice mining in Arrakis? Wouldn't it make the other families rebel if they knew the Emperor sent a whole family to their doom? And wouldn't they then not trust the Harkonnen?

Jay G.

Well, if you're interested in the details, you could read the book, or even watch the 1984 film to get some additional detail. There's also various wikis and such to explain the details.

Yes, the other houses would rebel against the Emperor if they knew he sent a whole house to their doom. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. It's why the Emperor's involvement is secret, so it appears only that House Harkonnen, alone, attacked Arrakis and killed the Atreides. The Emperor is only helping the Harkonnens as a means to an end: he wants Leto dead because he's popular enough that he could possibly rally all the other houses to overthrow the Emperor. Aiding the Harkonnens in secret with their blood feud get the Emperor what he wants, Leto dead, with plausible deniability about being involved himself in Leto's death.

As to why houses are able to feud with each other, it's largely an artifact of the feudal structure of the Empire. It's really just a very loose alliance of various kingdoms ruled by houses. The Emperor himself is the ruler of one house. It's sort of semi-democratic, in that the Emperor is only as powerful as the number of houses he can rally behind any action. This has historical precedence, in that ancient feudal systems often had various blood feuds going on between houses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Bands

Game of Thrones is another example, where a very tentative peace between various houses is destroyed when the king dies, and House Baratheon, the house of the late king, goes to war against House Lannister, the house of the supposed heir, with various other houses choosing sides, and the northern houses rallying behind House Stark.

In Dune, there's also a council the houses belong to, and vote on issues. There's even a formal process of declaring blood feuds:
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Landsraad
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Kanly

So while the Harkonnens technically went against the Emperor's public orders, to the other houses it looks like the resolution of a blood feud between houses. As such, they may simply not want to get involved, since it's not their feud. So while the Emperor may publicly condemn the attack, he can also appear to have his hands tied and unable to do anything more than a public chiding. What's more, Spice is so critical to all houses and interstellar commerce, and the Atreides takeover had already disrupted Spice production, and attempting to route out the Harkonnens by force will disrupt it further, the houses may just want things to go back to normal as fast as possible for Spice production to resume again, and that means just letting the Harkonnens have Arrakis, at least for now.

Finally, all of these people are human. There's no extraterrestrial intelligences in the galaxy in the Dune universe. The sandworms are extraterrestrial life, but they're not considered intelligent. Even the Fremen are just human settlers who arrived and "went native" long before the benefits of Spice to FTL navigation was discovered and the Empire and its various houses thus became interested in Arrakis. Before that, it was basically a worthless desert world of little interest.

milo bloom

One thing to add is that aside from all the political maneuvering that’s happening, Paul is beginning to see visions of his future which includes leading the Fremen army off planet. This is a really important thing that Part 2 will get into, that the politics is about to get a religious war thrown into the mix.

RichC2

Yeah, the line akin to "a holy war in my name" was probably the most intriguing one to me as a non-Reader. Suggested to me that Paul will gain sway and likely abuse it.

milo bloom

Found on Reddit

Dr. DVD

Precisely. That is why all of the "white savior" criticisms of the first movie will start to lose credence if more movies (beyond the greenlit sequel) are made. I kind of wish they had gone a little further in the first movie, because there was a moment where they could have ended on a "love will conquer all" kind of note that contrasts greatly with the end of the book itself .

tanman

Obviously I know that's an option. But I think I just want to go with just these movies first so the rest of the story isn't spoiled. Then go back and read the book. Thanks for the explanation that helped a lot with the various faction's motivations. Again it's a balance between really getting in to the politics and keeping it accessible for newcomers but I wish they explained what you did just a little bit in this movie.

Oddly enough I really like the political side of Scifi movies. I know it's ragged on a lot but I liked seeing how the Emperor came to power from a lowly senator in the prequel trilogy. Vs. the First Order who popped out of nowhere the same yet also completely different then the Empire who then destroyed the nameless central planets.

Jay G.

Well, I could give you a page number to read up to.

More seriously, the movie follows the book's chronology almost exactly, so you would know exactly when to stop reading, since it's where the 2021 ends: the fight with Janis. For the 1984 film, since the Janis fight was cut from theatrical, you'd stop watching once Paul and Jessica have fled the worm.

This film basically simplifies the plot to its basics and makes it easy to follow, but it loses the details and nuance that better explain the actions and developments that otherwise can seem crude when thought about. I think Vinlleneuve was far more interested in the characters and visuals than the political machinations though. Hence the dozen or so visions Paul has sprinkled throughout the film.

Regarding the Emperor's rise to power, it's not so much that political machinations can't be done in a sci-fi film, but it's more not a great fit for a Star Wars film, which is more about fast-paced adventure. If Lucas had deliberately crafted the prequels as a different creature, a long-form serialized epic about the fall of Anakin Skywalker and the rise of Vader and the Emperor, it maybe would've worked, but instead he tried to shoe-horn his story into the pre-existing episodic, all present time (no flashbacks), action-adventure template of the first 3 Star Wars films. The Phantom Menace was the most egregious of them, as it spends two hours to get accross two satient points: Anakin has separation issues, and Palpatine managed to become Chancellor. The former could've been served via flashback, and the latter could've been skipped entirely, a politician being elected to Chancellor really isn't that noteworthy.

As for the First Order, the basics of what people needed to know was in the opening crawl of The Force Awakens:
https://screencrush.com/star-wars-th...opening-crawl/
More detail is given in supplementary books, I'm given to understand, and maybe that's the best place for more complex political maneuverings. What's more, The Mandalorian has touched a bit on it too, where remnants of The Empire have managed to survive in the outer worlds. Of all the sequel trilogy's faults, I'm not at all upset they glossed over the First Order's rise to power, although it does seem a bit absurd that they were able to assemble a planet-sized weapon without anyone even knowing about it.

fujishig

It kinda feels like those guys were dead even if they weren't betrayed. I mean the battle was completely one sided as it was, but even if they had to send in spies or something to take down the shields during the day, it doesn't seem like the Atreides were setup to defend against any kind of force that big.

The earlier point about the emperor's troops being in disguise would've benefited the plot of the movie a ton, though, because everyone and their mother knew what happened.

What was the novel's explanation for the Harkonnens feeling ok drawing the ire of the other houses? Or is it ok for the houses to annihilate each other as long as the emperor doesn't take sides? And if so, wouldn't the fact that they are openly defying imperial decree cause the emperor to act? I mean he took it from them, gave it to someone else, and they took it back. If the emperor were impartial wouldn't he have to do something?

story

There's one thing I didn't understand. Did Lardass have to pay to get in the contest?

milo bloom

Do you mean the Baron Harkonnen?

He had to put money in to hire the Saurdaker and bring his people back to Arrakis, so he did have to put in some money, but it would be considered an investment since it gets House Atreides out of the way for good.

Jay G.

It's a reference to Stand By Me:

Likely meant as a joke about all the continued questions about the story.

rocket1312

Of everything that has been laid out in this thread re:the book, this is the only part that I think was unclear and would have proved beneficial to the movie.

jpcamb

[inserts Captain America "I got that reference" meme]

milo bloom

Great article about Dune and the director

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...on-1235052084/

Apparently they almost bumped into the crew of The Rise of Skywalker while scouting desert locations.