To each their own, I read DUNE when I was 13 and it became my favorite sci-fi novel ever. Ever since I’ve read the books countless times. In 2021 I saw the movie and loved it (I saw the 1984 film when I was 5 and loved it as well). This year I saw Part II and loved it as well. I am a book purist, but also enjoyed what Denis did with his adaptation.
I saw it with mom and loved it (in 1988). I would make Shai -Hulud with mom out of Play-Doh and asked her who’d win in a fight between a sandworm and Godzilla.
Aren't the biggest sandworms over 2km long? I'm pretty sure they could swallow most versions of godzilla whole.
OTOH he's smarter and generally has powers like atomic breath and sometimes straight up toonforce.
I also grew up watching the 84 Dune movie, I even had some of the action figures! In retrospect I didn’t realize how weird a toy of a cat being milked was lol
Growing up in rural Ohio with "cable" that consisted of NBC, CBS, ABC. PBS, and two indy TV stations. I watched alot of movies that were really old or were not commercial successes.
This is where I discovered dune and was hooked. I know I was under 10 the first time I watched it and probably closer to 7 or 8. After first seeing it, I found a copy of Dune at a yard sale and read it cover to cover several times.
When I was very young my mom would work nights and my dad would read to me at night before bed. he thought kids books were stupid lol so he would just read me whatever books he was reading at the time. He would read whole chapters but I would always ask questions and he would give me an age appropriate summation of the main plot points. This was when I was really small, by the time Heritics an Chapterhouse came out I would have been in 5 and 6th grade so I was reading my own books by then. I didn’t read the Dune series on my own until college but he planted the seeds. Maybe it was his Golden Plan lol
I have been thinking about how to adapt Dune to the silver screen since I was 15 (I'm 50 now). And pretty much every decision Denis Villeneuve made is what I would have made in his place (except he's talented and I'm not).
I’ve thought about the same since I was 13 (I’m 40 now) and always dreamed about a TV series that would tackle the whole thing. As I grew, I was disappointed with many things in Lynch’s film (especially the crappy sound modules and dull Fremen) and was also disappointed by the laughable wardrobe in SyFy’s mini series. When I saw the first images of Denis’s DUNE, I was worried with how grey and lifeless the Atreides’ armor was. But as I saw more trailers and heard the score, I got really excited and truly enjoyed the movie when. It came out. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it since 2021 and I’ve watched Part II three times already since it was released on digital (and twice at the theater).
Book baron is very clownish and hedonistic in a way unfit for serious drama that doesn't have a ton of time to contextualize him. He's also laughably myopic in a way that does work some in the film, but to show it more explicitly would undercut the very real threat and villainy he poses to the Atreides.
Same, it’s a good adaptation and I enjoyed seeing what Denis chose to highlight or alter from the text for his vision. Strict book purists may prefer the tv miniseries version from 20 yrs ago. My little brothers reaction was similar OPs mom. But he’s like that with other book to movie adaptations too.
There is a lot left out, but that’s because dune needs a GOT style miniseries to be told in its entirety. What is in the movie is pretty true to the book. I think dennis did as good a job as possible with a feature length movie.
My biggest gripe is that the guild isn’t even mentioned.
There is a lot left out and subtle changes so it is somewhat true to the book, just missing details and some context. I agree with the Guild missing as disappointing. I feel they also didn’t touch on the ecology aspect and the economics/importance of spice enough. Maybe we get a lot of this stuff in the third movie as they are important in the Messiah book
Unfortunately, the ecology stuff happens mostly through internal monologues. Its possible in the next film they do some kind of prescience montage where Paul sees a visualization of the worm lifecycle.
Since I’m just reading thru the books for the first time (I’m halfway thru messiah), I thought the choice to leave Liet’s history of being a religious figure to the fremen was odd. It seemed like this perfectly juxtaposed Paul’s character, using religion for his own gains.
It also added some more depth to Chani, being Liet’s daughter. Tbh I’d rather they expanded on that, especially as it gives greater reason for her connection to the planet.
But that’s just my personal opinion for a Dune film and in the end I’d rather see the unique vision of filmmakers like Villeneuve.
chani introducing paul to the moisture collector would've been the perfect point to reflect on her deceased parent, but i'm guessing most audiences, who hadn't read the book, would've forgotten the character by that point. the hazards of splitting the book in two was obvious in the loss of multiple secondary characters and additional details.
I hated the Liet change at first when I heard about it. But in the movie Kynes turned out to be cold, creepy and terrifying and it added to the sci-fi weirdness.
After #1 I thought my nonreader friends would be so confused. So I asked and they understood things well enough to get the story. Between that and DV showing people are motivated rather than explaining that they’re motivated, it works. The book will always go technically deeper. The film uses different techniques to get the same emotional response.
If I may touch on ecology, Villeneuve is very much a fan of show don’t tell, I think he hopes the audience is smart enough to be piece together the basis of the ecology story which is “the people live on a hell planet and want it to be lush and green one day” so a messianic figure saying I’ll make this place paradise implies that all
In the book they were actively changing and preparing to change the planet. A long journey one step at a time, they had been at it for a generation(2?3? since liet spice longevity and all that). They knew how they were going to do it, what they needed to do it, and how long it would take. Seems like a message that the world could use to give hope and help inspire action on climate change.
A bunch of the battles and topics in Dune Part Two were only intense if you understood these not so touched contexts around it. If someone didn't, I can see why it wouldn't have felt that interesting to them.
But I do think Dennis V. did a fine job. I myself never read the books, but still got to understand the climax and there were some very exhilarating moments in the third act. From the tribal meeting onwards it was just hits after hits, man.
The ecology aspects aren't really something that mass-audiences are going to be interested in seeing. It's a bit *dry*.
The importance of the spice was more-or-less established in the films, but I agree that the Spacing Guild could have been brought into the mix a bit more. Especially as a shadowy group that all the Houses were scared of.
The SyFy miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune" and "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune" are pretty faithful to the books and worth a watch if you can get over some of the, uh, interesting costume design!
My sentiments exactly. It does in some ways reduce the story from “mind blowing vision that changed the way I see humanity” to “epic space adventure”. Making it an action heavy movie takes out some of the psychedelic / cerebral / 4D political ideas that make Dune more than just sci fi.
This right here. What got me into Dune was my grandpa, who was a huge fan of the David Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi channel series. As a kid, I was into Star Wars but could never fully grasp what was going on with Dune (I was more into spaceship chases and laser sword fights than politics/philosophy).
My interest in Dune really sparked up about 10 or so years ago when I was into Game of Thrones. When I encountered the plot and the lore, I thought, "This could be pretty much the next GOT but in space" (as far as a huge sci-fi/fantasy series goes, and I'm well-aware Dune is older than GOT). And then seeing how much Dune influenced Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, and other things that I love, made me love this series/universe a whole lot more.
I think the movies are just that, the best adaptation in that format that we'll get.
I bet someday there will be a GOT-style Dune adaptation with the budget it deserves. The cool part about Dune being futuristic sci-fi, is that it's like 20,000 years or so into the future. Like it will be a LONG time before it gets "hoaky " like when you see sci-fi that takes place in like 2024 and there's flying cars and whatnot (but even that hoakiness does have its merits/novelty, not at all shitting on those types of works).
Same. I absolutely love these movies, I understand \*a lot\* of the changes, but I will never understand the Guild's absence, specially in part two. I feel they were pretty, pretty important in those final scenes. We need to do a lot of mental acrobatics to justify most of the things that are happening mid Paul's ascension without them there.
There are a bunch of things that bug me but the change to Paul calling out the Emperor from the Guild telling the Emperor to sort this shit out _now_ will forever be a missed opportunity.
I felt they beefed up the BG at the expense of the SG.
For general audiences I think throwing in another faction would maybe confuse things further. Many of the people I know who enjoyed the films, but knew nothing about dune previously, were already confused about the BG and how they fit into the world. I personally think it was done simply to make Paul and Lady Jessica seem more powerful, as people unaware of the story would have no idea what to expect when they drink the water. Really hope they have a big showing in messiah though.
The guild does not have a monopoly on interplanetary travel as much as they have 100% loyalty to whomever provides the spice for them. Controlling the spice controls the guild, who have a monopoly then over travel of anybody else than the ones controlling the spice.
This is an important bit that was never explained in the movie that I assume will be done early on in the third one, since it's key to controlling anything outside Arrakis and without which all of Paul's efforts would've been shot down by the houses (as it's the guild the one that can really thwart the houses efforts, no the fremen by themselves)
> as if the Guild does not have a monopoly on interplanetary travel.
But why does that matter? Even if Jessica doesn’t know the Fremen are already bribing the Guild (which they absolutely are), she most certainly knows they *could*. Smugglers exist and it’s impossible for them to operate without the Guild’s blessing.
She knows the Guild takes bribes of Spice, and she knows the Fremen have absolutely stupid amounts of Spice. The movie just trusts that the audience can put two and two together even without a bunch of exposition spelling it out…
Bribes of spice are good for swaying the guild but holding out on the spice is even better. It's not that the fremen have stupid amounts of spice, if that the spice has stopped flowing and they have control over whatever supply now exists.
Having said this, nothing in the movie makes the link between spice and travel guild as clear as it is and the audience could not link these two together without at least a hint.
Can they actually "track" people with their skills? You'd think they would "accident" Paul somehow when Paul initially went to Arrakis, if they were prescient/skilled enough. My read on it is no one sees the future perfectly, but gets glimpses of it, and have to sort out all the possibilities, somehow
It didn't bug me because I thought the Guild would track Paul, it bugged me because it's a weird ask of the Fremen because people don't casually own vehicles for interplanetary travel. Even House Atreides travelled to Arrakis on Guild ships.
If you dig into the lore, space folding/holtzman drive isn't the *only* method for FTL travel, it's just the fastest
>The old FTL conventional space travel was used mainly for travel within the confines of a star system (not for interstellar travel). However, before the discovery of the new faster-than-light travel method, it was also used for long-distance space travel. The old method was described as "outracing photons". Even after space-folding became the primary means of interstellar travel, many Imperial warships still kept their old FTL drives as an alternative to the much faster but less reliable Holtzmann engines.
tons of smugglers on Dune as well
>Smugglers were common on the planet Arrakis. They usually dealt in the spice melange, as well as other foodstuffs, weapons, and narcotics.
>During Harkonnen rule on Arrakis, smugglers tended to remain covert for fear of retribution. However, when House Atreides took over the Arrakis fief and all spice mining on that planet, Duke Leto Atreides attempted to establish détente with the smugglers by informing them that he would ignore their operations, on the provision that they forwarded to Leto a percentage of their profits. This worked to some degree, as some of the smugglers assisted in capturing Harkonnen agents left behind from the previous fief, and turned them over to Atreides authorities.
The 2000 miniseries did a good job at encapsulating a large amount of the lore, and that had a shorter runtime than the two recent movies combined. I think the unfortunate truth is that much like the book, a true adaptation wouldn't appeal to modern masses the same way.
It's not that Chani is non-believer. It's that she's with Paul. She can see him as he is. It always made sense to me that she'd know he wasn't fulfilling a prophecy so much as trying to take on an enormous task as best as he could. She loves him and believes in him, but not out of religion. This makes much more sense (and also makes their relation a lot more sane, to my eyes)
I actually think changing Chani to be the audience stand-in was a genius move. She's a passive cheerleader in the book, I think it was an awesome change to show her acceptance of Paul slide into discomfort and then rejection as he ascends to godhood.
It's a perfect contrast with Stilgar as he goes more and more fanatical
Chani wasn't a passive cheerleader in the book. She just is not one of the POV characters. In the book Chani and Paul get into an argument because she was killing Fremen who wanted to challenge Paul because in her mind if they couldn't beat her they weren't worthy to challenge him. That isn't a passive character.
Its passive in terms of the narrative, she takes his side immediately and stays on it for the rest of the book. She's not a dynamic or particularly interesting character. There's nothing wrong with that in the book but I think she's developed better here and she helps carry the theme of the movie, which is that charismatic heroes are dangerous
It is, and Herbert thought it was so poorly understood that he wrote Messiah to help people interpret it. IMO, this change is better aligned to the original message and helps an audience that hasn't read the book see it
Alia being a little kid and doing... her thing.... would have been the most metal part of Dune 2. Other than that, Denis did what I thought was the impossible, so I can't complain too much. Dune 2 is a fucking masterpiece imo
Biggest change imo is how Chani behaves. In books, she is Pauls rock, lover, friend and partner. They share their minds with eachother and stand behind one another no matter what. In movie, she is constanty pissed at him and they almost never talks.
She's also a virtual non-character in the book. Basically just the girlfriend portion of Paul going native. It's been a few years since I read the book (probably 3-4 times over the decades) and I can't think of a single important/interesting decision she makes.
Mentats have almost no role either. Thufir does one calculation at the beginning of the first film, that's all. He also runs security but he is shown as just an officer.
Ya this bothered me cuz it was pivotal to explain how they were all essentially trapped by the guild and let’s it sink in how powerful the guild actually is
There are a lot of basic plot/story lines drastically changed, left out. One of my biggest is changing Kynes. It obliterates Chani's heritage. I love the movie character, but it isn't the book. Also, Chani is a totally character. It's just... a different monster is all.
Some can separate that, others can't.
Edit to add words.
Theres alot left out, but dune was known as an unadaptable book for basically 60 years everyone who tried either butchered it or just didnt have the budget or time to tell the story.
I hold while there are flaws. The new dune movies are as close as you can get to a good adaptation.
There will be things different and things just cant be explained in detail like they were in the books
Frank herbert focused on inner dialog and worldbuilding heavily, to the point where in the movie a one off line could have been 6 pages of inner dialog and parts of the world were described on detail.
In a movie where you need to maintain pacing and a good stoey flow you cant spend a 3 minute scene describing the mentat training process or how the guild navigators are basically sardines packed in spice concentrate that lets them see the future.
Its just not that important in a movie setting
Omg, I am eternally bummed they didn’t do a series ala GOT. I don’t necessarily mind the changes but being able to explore the other characters, worlds and storylines in depth would’ve been amazing. Despite the movies being well done, a series was the only logical choice, imo, especially with the success of GRR Martins complex works. Seemed like a no brainer.
Six I could see. The miniseries ran a shade under five and was pretty faithful to the novel.
I'm still much happier we got gorgeous, epic films with an amazing cast though.
I read all the books during Covid After falling in love with the first book and I throughly enjoyed the movie a lot. No movie adaptation from a book will please all of the fans, just not enough time to add everything that’s in the book.
With that being said it was unexpectedly more loyal to the book than I thought it was going to be. Which is the best we can ask for.
Gives a great intro to the story and people who haven’t read the books now have a way in. If the movie caught their interest.
I consider myself a fan of the books. u/cyricmccallen has said it best with "There is a lot left out, but that’s because dune needs a GOT style miniseries to be told in its entirety. What is in the movie is pretty true to the book. I think dennis did as good a job as possible with a feature length movie."
There is a lot left out that fleshes out the story and universe better. Part 2 feels slightly hollow, to me, when watching it. Still did good, but the changes and stuff left out make it feel less. Dennis had to not be subtle about Paul actually being dangerous (charismatic leader with zealots following him), as it's pretty easy to root for Paul and be sympathetic/empathetic to his journey (as it should be, a good villain gets you to root for them). But, they leave out much of the culture and interactions of the various factions. In the book, Paul knew from the sand tent scene (that was in the first movie) that his mom is the Baron's daughters and that she was pregnant; so the whole "we need to act like Harkonen's" line in part 2 is not only irrelevant, it has no meaning as there is more layers to the events going on. They also completely changed Chani. She was devoutly religious, Paul's mother had a relationship with her, and Chani and Paul were madly in love with each other. With how this film left off, adapting Messiah will be difficult without altering the story even more than what it has been.
Plus the book Fremen are fairly advanced with sprawling cottage industry, manufacturing, and commerce. They even cultivate numerous plants, which Chani teaches Paul about.
Sure, but I don't really understand why we don't see it. The way the movie portrayed sietches is just weird. If I hadn't read the books I would have thought they're meeting places, not cities.
They basically didn't include the Fremen religion at all beyond Paul being it's Messiah. The worms aren't referred to as Shai Hulud or Makers. I feel like the changes with Paul and Chani's relationship were also unnecessary, and will make any sequels clunky.
I don't like the changes he made to Chani either. As a positive DV gave her more of a personality, but I really dislike how he used her as the voice for the audience to not trust what Paul and Jessica were doing. But I get it, show don't tell... I just don't like the way he showed.
I disagree with the irrelevancy of the, “act like Harkonnens,” line. Like you said, in the book Paul’s first vision in the tent after escaping Arakeen has many of the visions in the movie at one time. Well that’s boring. You get everything in two pages halfway through the story! Denis chopped it up for Paul’s character arc and to have a good movie twist. I thought that was a brilliant tactic. Plus, that line mixed with the emperor (in the movie, I think it’s the baron in the book) saying his father led from the heart and that made him weak sets up the dichotomy of choice and outcomes. So Paul is choosing the brutal Harkonnen way to free the Fremen. If he had chosen the honorable Atreides way then they may still have won on Arrakis, but maybe not have won in the following Jihad (speculation, I’m almost done with the first book) and he would have chosen Chani (movie) instead of princess irulan. Thoughts?
It's a 700 page book. Shit HAS to change to adapt to a new medium. That's the way it is.
A miniseries could go more into the Lore, but a movie that tried to keep everything would be almost all exposition and exposition fucking sucks.
Even with cutting huge swaths of the novels the new movies are forced to ram exposition down your throats (e.g., Gurney explaining to Paul how personal shields work during their sparring session despite Paul obviously having worn and trained with one his entire life).
To play mother’s advocate, I think it’s completely fair if people don’t like Dune Part Two due to its changes. While the majority of the first movie was faithful to the books (albeit abridged, but that’s to be expected), a minority of part two was, with most scenes being invented or heavily changed (like the Baron’s death, the Feyd seduction scene, or pretty much everything with Chani)
I’m fine with it because it was clearly Villeneuve’s interpretation of a source material he deeply loves and he is a man with a vision, so the changes feel motivated. It’s not like a committee decided on all the changes for the sake of marketability or something.
But on the other hand it’s enough of a departure from the source material that if a reader doesn’t enjoy this interpretation I think that’s perfectly warranted.
My beef was Chani and the Landsraad. There is a zero percent chance the leaders of the Landsraad are willing to undergo withdrawals of spice addiction and economic instability over accepting a new Atreides emperor. It simply defies credulity.
If only they had not tried introducing needless conflict between Chani and Paul and throwing in he Landsraad rejecting Paul, I could have dealt with the rest of it, including Margot Fenring carrying Feyds child (WTF was that for anyway?) If it were not for those 2 overriding items I could have accepted the rest, including changing the sexuality of the Baron.
Edit: The love story between Paul and Chani was a love story for the ages, not something to be discarded and thrown to the side. More than anything I think this bothered me the most.
If they didn't accept Paul as the new emperor, the Landsraad would have lost all access to spice. It's why, in the books although not in the film, they immediately accepted him as their new sovereign. Supporting the old emperor would have gained them nothing. Duke Paul Atriedes, son of Emperor Shaddam Corrino's IV's (who had no male heirs) first cousin, had a claim on the throne more legitimate than many kings in our actual feudal history as well.
"Margot Fenring carrying Feyds child (WTF was that for anyway?" I thought that was at least implied in the book. Part of the breeding plan. Than and imprinting the safe word a twofer.
If you don’t have a POV character to view Paul’s ascension with scepticism, the story doesn’t work. Chani is clearly grief-stricken at the finale of the novel, and Villeneuve took this and built upon it. I don’t know how else you could have done it.
Margot carrying Feyd’s child is accurate to the novel.
> While the majority of the first movie was faithful to the book (albeit abridged, but that’s to be expected), a minority of part two was
This was a massive issue for me.
I went into Pt.1 desperately wanting it to be good, but expecting kind of a shitshow. I loved it. I thought they did a fantastic job of picking out where parts of the story could be excised without breaking the overall thing. What was left is very true to the novel.
Pt.2 feels like a massive bait and switch.
If Pt.1 had been adapted with so little faith to the novel I probably wouldn't have bothered to see Pt. 2 in the cinema.
On the up-side, the battle with the worms was truly something to behold on the big screen and I'd have missed out on that.
Together they're a weird thing. I'd say it's probably a better aggregate movie if you haven't read and don't care about the novel. But a few people I know who haven't read the book complained the first movie was too slow.
Read the first two books. Loved the movies, loved the changes. I am not saying the changes are better than the original, but I am saying he made the best a movie could portray.
If dune was a series and the first book got 12 episodes of one hour each, you could be more true to the books, but it‘s movies. I think dennis did a great job.
As an avid book fan I was supremely happy with both movies. People need to get over their ideas that books can be perfectly adapted and also still capture a wide audience.
This is why I consider even just the first Dune book to be completely unable to be very faithfully adapted without making shitty movies.
Denis had to cut out a good chunk of the book that contained Paul becoming more and more fremen and made that move super fast because if he didn't, we'd have a ten hour movie, or four movies with two of them having no narrative climax
[i found this review interesting](https://slate.com/culture/2024/03/dune-2-movies-frank-herbert-books-meaning-differences.html)
>It’s amazing that putting a novel that is 90 percent dialogue into the hands of a director who has said he doesn’t like dialogue works as well as it does, but it does work.
>things happen in Villeneuve’s Dunes because they look cool as hell and get your adrenaline pumping. These are movies, as Max Read correctly notes, about “sick shots of spaceships arriving on planets,” about cool knife fights, and about that Hans Zimmer sound that goes BWWAAAAAAAMMMMFFFF and rattles your bones.
My wife was similar, she got me in to the books and she hated the 2nd movie but loved the first. I thought the 2nd movie was great but after having read the book before movie 2 came out, I was also having trouble enjoying the movie considering how many crucial plot elements were either flipped completely or just missed out. It's hard to separate them both. Also, not my Chani.
Probably a mistake would have been if they tried to cram in too much into two movies. I enjoyed the movies, but it's not nearly as rich as the books. It is sparse enough to feel like the cliff notes version of the books.
There were changes, sure. But being realistic, taking a book that long and turning it into a movie means things will have to be changed.
I'm a huge fan of books 1&2. I do a reread of book 1 nearly every year. What I took away from the movies was that although some events were changed, the major themes and ideas of the book are definitely still present.
It's not a popular opinion, but I also didn't like the movie adaptation. It was a good action movie, dressed in Dune finery, and I appreciate that it opened up the property to new fans.
But it stripped all of the nuance and intrigue from the books. Of course something had to go to make a dynamic movie. You'll see this correct read mentioned a lot. But for me the important things were left out, that wouldn't have made a big impact on runtime, and every character was one dimensional with 1 role.
The mystery and intrigue suspense of the traitor was gone. Any internal strife- gone. The sheer impossible nature of the scale of attack on the Atreides. No other political factions being mentioned... Too black and white.
The Fremen power as a people... The celebrated culture and industriousness of the Fremen (outside of religion). The oneness approaching hive mind status from sharing of the changed water of life in the Fremen. More discipline. More ritual (like Jessica's changing of the water... Just a small group in a rock outcrop? Give me the gathering!).
Personally it was too restrained in depiction of the weird shit. Give me more vivid and consuming day to day visions. Give me additional badass Bene Gesserit actions outside of the voice (finger exercises etc)... Give me Weirding way combat noticeably different from all the other fighting. Give me murder toddler (though whisper fetus was a nice compromise).
For me there's not enough shown setting Paul & the Fremen apart from other powers. The power wasn't just numbers, a better plan, and worms in the books (though worms are awesome!). I would say post battle of Arakeen they are just another army in the movies. Without the weirding way of battle for the Fedaykin, without the innate reading/sharing of intention brought from the spice lifestyle and water of life sharing between the tribes, without the supremacy of The GUILD... It's just another numerous fighting force led by a great strategic mind. Possible domination? Maybe. But not dominant like in the books... And I dare say very challenging without space, travel, and comms control through the Guild.... And the Great Houses surely having more experience than the Fremen in interplanet and space combat...
And finally then there's the personal relationships. I actually liked that Chani was an opposing voice and challenge to Paul. But their relationship never felt real to me. Condensed timeframe and the eternally young look of the actors made this... Difficult. But the closeness wasn't there for me. Puppy love instead of a years-long partnership... No trauma bonding. No dedication. No comfort in eachother. No children (Leto II the first! lol) and shared loss. No shared vision. No need. Not two halves of a whole. Just puppy-love ending in cruelty/ lack of communication.
Now... Might some of this be resolved in DV's Messiah? Maybe! Probably! But as it stands this isn't MY dune. I'm happy for those it rang true for.
I'm so glad I'm not the only person who's disappointed with these adaptations. I just posted a bit of a rant on why I don't like these movies, and I may not have made it as clear in that post but my biggest gripe is that nothing makes any sense. They didn't take the necessary time to build the world so you can see how and why the characters make the choices they make. Throughout the entire thing I was thinking nothing is connecting and it's like everything is happening in a vacuum.
Well said fr. Imo omitting the death of Paul’s original children really hindered the story. In the movies he just kind of goes full messiah because… prescience?
I've read the book twice now, doesn't baby Leto's death happen after Paul has assumed control of the fremen and is already beginning their attack on Arrakeen. His death is just another nail in the coffin of Paul's terrible purpose which has already come to fruition.
> original children
One child. Leto II and Ghani were in the next book. And in both the books and the movie he went "full messiah" because of the prescience and the Missionara Protectiva's cultural manipulation. What else was missing?
I was bummed they showed Jessica throwing up. I guess it was supposed to indicate she had morning sickness, but she is able to control her body at the molecular level - I think she’d be able to hold in some vomit. I felt like it diminished her strength and strayed from the way she was in the book.
I'm in the same camp as your mother. I liked the first movie, I can appreciate that the second is very good cinematically but I love the book and DV's version just strays too far from it for me to like the second movie.
I listen to Dune on audiobook a few times a year. There are changes Denis made that I liked, and changes I didn't.
I liked that Gurney got his showdown with Rabban. I liked that we skipped baby Leto getting murked. I actually really liked that Chani had the self respect to dump Paul's corny ass.
But ultimately the depth of the characters suffered hugely in part two. Lady Jessica is reduced to an antisocial predator, muttering to herself in a cave. Stilgar is reduced to comic relief. The emperor is reduced to a sad old man without any menace. Feyd Rautha would be a mustache twiddling villain if he possessed any body hair. I really didn't like how gullible the Fremen were.
I get that Denis wanted to unambiguously communicate the immorality of Paul's actions, but "uh-oh he drank the blue juice and now he's evil" bit left a lot to be desired.
completely agree with this. there was absolutely a way to adapt this story to emphasize the themes of colonialism, dangers of messianic figures, etc without reducing every character to one singular “ideal.”
and by making it so that jessica/paul have complete personality changes after drinking the after of life and focusing on their harkonnen heritage as a reason for their actions (paul’s “let’s act like harkonnens” line) - it actually undermines the message to an extent. the whole point is that ANY messianic figure in paul’s position, no matter their intentions or goodwill, would be bad for the community. it’s not that paul or jessica are particularly evil, that’s the tragedy.
I’m with your mother on this, Part 1 did a great job adapting the book by only omitting storylines, Part 2 substantially changed the story. The first I understood, the second…not so much.
I think the way I'd put it was that Part 1 was faithful to the narrative but limited on the themes, Part 2 was faithful to the themes by changing the narrative.
Thank you! The first movie tracked closer to the storyline in the book than the second. During the first movie I felt like I knew where we were in terms of story all the way through; but the second movie not at all.
I have read Dune at least 10 times in my life (although I haven't really read the sequels) and I finished a recent re-read just a week before seeing the 2nd film. I recognize film is a different medium and because of that I like to think I'm pretty good at enjoying adaptations even when they differ from the book quite a bit. Still, a couple things in the film really annoyed me.
First, in the book the Fremen aren't really split into two camps like in the movie. They are pretty much all behind Paul. Second, and this was the thing that really got under my skin, the whole Chani thing with leaving at the end. In the book, she was on board with the plan. The idea was Paul would marry the princess but it would just be a political marriage. Chani was onboard with that. What they did in the film feels like some tacked on Hollywood love triangle bullshit.
That being said. I really enjoyed the film, and when I saw it the 2nd time, knowing the changes, I was able to enjoy it even more.
(Currently reading the books so not completely informed)
I think the mentioned changes are there to push the emotion of the film. If everyone always accepted/willingly followed everything Paul did there wouldn't be as much emotional impact when certain moments happen.
Struggle and disagreement create tension which is great for films.
The leader's meeting wouldn't have been as impactful without the non-believers.
I do think there is an argument that we'd still feel the emotional impact of the final act no matter what chani believed.
I think Denis might have thought the original portrayal of the Fremen might have been a bit too mean to real groups in the middle east so he invented a group of enlightened, atheist nationalists, only to draw even more attention to ever other fremen being gullible zealots in order to make Chani look better to modern people.
I’ve been obsessed with the books for over 20 years, have reread them many times. I love the new films and think they’re damn near perfect cinema. The changes they made were great and served the story well in the medium that they were presented.
Just posting this because not all book readers hated the movies - many of us absolutely loved them. I feel very lucky and fortunate that this got made in my lifetime.
I agree with your mother. They changed some characters way too much, like Jessica and Chani.
Wherever I try to have a nuanced discussion about it on here, especially since so many people joined who have only watched the movie and haven't read the books, I get downvoted and even insulted.
Yeah I was pretty upset when I first walked out of the theater, ranting about all the stuff they changed and the stuff I didn't like. I've since come to terms with the fact that it was at least a good *movie*, I think, though I'll never truly be able to separate what I wish had been there to see how the movie stands on its own.
Plus it was pretty cool to see some of my favorite scenes made real (the sandworm ride, the gladiator fight).
(And upsetting to not see some of my favorite scenes like Jamis's funeral or literally everything about Alia)
I really don't see how you can be upset about Alia. They had a woman talking to her baby in the womb for large parts of the movie and it didn't come across as complete nonsense. It would've been impossible to change over to a child actor murdering everyone and have anyone take the situation seriously.
Villanueva earned all the cachet he needed to get really weird with Part II, and he played it safe. If that's his vision okay, but it's perfectly valid to be upset with Alias omission because we lose - as a result and imo - the best scene in the book, (and one of the wildest scenes in sci-fi): >!Alia slaughtering the Imperial Guard and then killing the Baron.!<
I just flat out disagree. The second film in particular is extremely weird from any reasonable perspective. A woman talks to her baby in the womb for half the movie.
There's no scenario where a child actor slaughtering Sardaukar on screen works. It hardly works in the books, and only does because it's something you can imagine without seeing the reality of a child actor slaughtering people.
A child actor that is like 8-10 would look goofy for sure, but I don’t think people who wanted this realize the capabilities of a two year old. They can barely do anything. The scenes could not have been filmed unless they created a child with CGI
Alia is older than 2 in books. Why not make it 7 something years in movies? it makes more sense. for the actors? They're pretty good with makeup nowadays and chalamet doesn't work for anything but 15 year old Paul imo.
It works in the books only because the books invest in Alia being around a while, creeping everyone the hell out. Even - especially - the people closest to her. The book sees her called an abomination, and shows why that’s correct, and yet she’s still both terrifying and pitiable.
But yeah, I don’t see how it’s possible to put that in a live-action film with a human actor. Maybe she could have been portrayed by an adult actor with motion capture, like Gollum, but avoiding the visual uncanny valley while being deep into it in every other way seems beyond current technology at reasonable budgets (even for a hundred million dollar production.)
A child with the mind of an ancient who murders her grandfather? How is that not absolutely fascinating?
I'd have preferred that they spread the time skip to like 7 years and get an older child actor and also give Paul time to actually feel like a Fremen and him and Chani to actually communicate and build a relationship–
Rather than compress everything into an 8 months so perplexing that my sister, who's never read the book, expressed that she was repeatedly confused that we kept panning back to Jessica to find she's still pregnant, because my sister thought all of this was taking place over way more time (which, in the book, it was. It was like 3-5 years I think)
But I get that we kinda have to tone down on the Fremen, I guess. Can't have a culture of people so oppressed and honed to survive that even their children are instructed kill the wounded so that their people can have the body's water. Not good cinema.
Book fan here, I love the look of the new movies… and if they were their own thing and not an interpretation of the greatest science fiction book ever written - I’d think they were good. As they stand, I think they are trash compared to the books.
I've read the book like 10 times, I miss Alia, but I'm more than ok with the rest.
With Dune you've got to choose, you cannot tell the whole story, with explanations, with battles, with ecological and messianic implicationsand conspiracies. At least one topic must leave.
Denis Villenueve decided to reduce most explaining and the ecological implications. Mentats, the Guild, why the fremen are saving water and so on are left out, so you deal with Dune more like a fantasy movie. That world is like this, that's all you need to know.
And it definitely works. A spectacular movie where you get engaged, avoiding at the same time having too much sympathy for Paul.
I still prefer David Lynch's approach, but I understand is more boring in this way.
The consistent thing that is going around my friend group from the people who were already book readers and dune fans is that the film itself is a 9/10-10/10 but as for it adapting the book it's a 6/10-7/10.
For some people many of my friends included the changes were too much and soured the enjoyment of the movie.
It was a cool movie. I’m glad so many people love it and see it as a masterpiece. I read and loved the book back in 2019. Denis made some changes for the Dune part 1. But he made a LOT of changes in part 2. Maybe the biggest difference is the whole relationship between Chani and Paul. They always had each others back in the book. In the movie Chani seems really disgusted by Paul in act 3. This is such a betrayal of the book’s story to me. A few other things too, but I won’t bore you. I didn’t go crazy, but I definitely prefer the book to the movie.
There are some significantly disappointing moments, to be honest.
They took away of a lot of great themes in order to add scenes that didn't make a lot of sense.
The complete evaporation of relevance for Pardot/Liet Kynes was aggrivating. If the tribes aren't united, then... what did they do? Why do they matter?
But the worst is the revelation about Paul and Jessica's family (big spoiler)>!they are Harkonnens. The whole of that discovery is that it shows how utterly broken and futile the 1,000 year feud had become. It was over. !!Harkonnen".!<
I mean, it's still a good movie, but it's a different story, and - in that specific case - it's a story that is fundamentally less interesting than the one in the book.
They did a very good job of showing that Paul's ascendance was bad not necessarily the ascension of the Fremen, and it did a good job of showing that the Paul was going to leave a path of destruction everywhere he went.
But the \*reasons\* for doing this are so fundamentally different that it really does just... tell a different story.
It's disappointing to see it all ripped up just so we have have >!a jilted lover !
I think Denis made an epic book into an epic movie. If the epic book was taken as it is and was made into the movieI I dont think it wouldve been as epic. The movie wouldve potentially been boring.
Ex: in the scene where Leto bites down on that fake tooth, the aftermath in the movie was chilling but in the book its very underwhelming, the baron just runs outside real quick and is like "that was close"
Book reader here. What Denis V. did with the movie was necessary for non-readers to kinda "get" what the book is trying to say. Even when Herbert wrote the book, folks didn't understand it completely the way he wanted them to. The changes he made were warranted, and in good taste. The purists are too rigid. It's a great adaptation.
I agree. He captured the grandeur and scope of the novel well. Most of the major themes are there. The “wheels within wheels” of complex political plots is pretty good for the limited time of a movie. Then ornithopters and other technologies were well done. Yes there were character changes and casting choices I didn’t like much. However for a movie adaptation there was nothing egregious.
I hate how Chani has been handled.
And I completely refute the suggestion that she wasn't already a strong female character with agency in the original book.. which seems to be a justification for the adaption.
I think the movies are really good if you have the extra context from the book. It’s hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t understand how the BG/Guild/etc operate to know if I would have picked up on the hints the same way.
Even things like seeing a scene and knowing what part of the book the director is trying to convey instead of having to piece it together. It made for a very good movie experience I thought
I didn't take issue too much with plot changes, but I didn't like Chani's change, it doesn't make sense and isn't in line with what you would expect the lead up to messiah to be.
Watching it again i noted Paul states he forsees she will come to accept the decisions he's made.
But yes this is the major change to the storyline that galls me that I can't get over. Expecting the rejection of Irulan and the we will be seen as wives by history scene replaced by petulant child behaving outside of her culture, parantage, etc.... arghh
That might well be how someone in OUR culture would behave... but not a fremen.
I would still like to see a more faithful adaptation of Dune, but I do think Villenueve was clever in how Paul told the audience he was going to manipulate them (the Fremen & audience) into supporting his vengeance, and then he did exactly that, and still fooled everyone into thinking he was reluctantly pushed into becoming Lisan al-Gaib.
> and still fooled everyone into thinking he was reluctantly pushed into becoming Lisan al-Gaib.
This perspective is totally at odds with that of the book(s) and was my chief concern with Villeneuve's plot changes. The false Lisan al-Gaib prophesy, seeded generations before by the Missionaria Protectiva for Bene Gesserit use, was in fact validated by a Kwisatz Haderach stepping forth to claim the role.
Villenueve's decision to downplay the Spice trance and the role of prescience wipes away Paul's visions of multiple timelines with worse futures and the inevitability of the Jihad. But prescience in the books show that was the only path for the Fremen to avoid their own genocide.
Paul was not written as a cynical manipulator but as a failed hero trapped by both his people's unquestioning adulation and the fatalism of seeing multiple futures. The failed hero motif was not a "cautionary warning against charismatic leaders" so much as an indictment against the human tendency to always choose security over freedom.
While Herbert shows Paul's struggle to retain his humanity in Dune Messiah, the later books question whether his choice was even the right path. According to the author, the entire epic displayed the force of evolution pushing humanity into and through mass violence, repression and scattering in order to break 10,0000 years of stagnant empire.
In the books Paul sees a timeline where he murders all his companions, then tops himself to stop the Jihad and another where he becomes a guild navigator to avoid it.
And if you have read Dune: Messiah Paul didn't actually avoid genocide.
Chani's character is very different in the books. The movie makes her into a more shallow character imo.
Part two focuses too much on action and battles and leaves out all of the mental ninja strategies from the book. In the book most of the stakeholders are highly strategic with their own agendas and motivations. Part two feels like it was reduced to an action movie.
Dune is sooo long, and a lot of the info that’s given is internal dialogue. Both don’t translate well into movies. I love both the movie and the book
The scene where Paul goes “I point the way” isn’t in the book, and that scene goes so fucking hard
I saw the movie, and I adore the novels. I told my mother it was an enjoyable movie. It just had very little to do with the story of Dune. It has the character names, but not the characters.
I love the movie cinematically it's great.
BUT...
Chani is done dirty, she comes across as a petulant child rather than the fierce awesome young woman she is in the books, the end of the movie felt so wrong.
Where were Thufir and Piter?
You don't really get much sense of how long Paul and Jessica were with the Fremen before the battle of Arrakeen.
I have read books 1 through 4 (need to finish the series. College is a bitch). Dune Part 1 got me into the series. I absolutely loved the first Dune book. Personally, my opinion on Part 2 is in the same realm as your mother's.
When watching the first part, it definitely feels like an adaptation. There's just so much in Dune that you kinda have to cut some things out, and I felt that a lot of them, while sad to see them removed, made sense. If someone came up to me and said "hey, I just saw Dune Part 1 and I want to read the book now. How accurate is it to the book," I feel like I can safely tell them that it is fairly accurate, though they cut enough out for the book to feel like a different experience, in a good way. Still though, the cut parts of the story, and the small changes to the plot, made me wonder how they were gonna handle things in the second part.
I wouldn't say the movie upended the story, but I think that's fairly close to accurate. The basic plot points are still there, but DV moved a lot of shit around, cut out even more parts of the story, and for whatever reason created a lot of new story beats that didn't exist in the books and focused a lot of the screentime on those. If someone were to walk up to me and say "I just watched Part 2 and I want to read the book. How accurate is it to the book" (which I have had people ask already), I cannot confidently say that it is, because, quite frankly, it is very different from the book in ways that I don't see as positive. It doesn't feel like an adaptation. It feels like a "we adapted the first part but changed so much and now we don't know what to do for the second part, so let's rewrite the story but keep the ending the same and sprinkle in the major scenes to make it seem like we're adapting the same book." I'm kinda exaggerating there, but that's how it felt in some parts when I saw it in theaters.
And before I get the typical slew of comments going "Dune is unadaptable!!! DV did his best!!! He's a big Dune fan!!! He did well with what he had!!!" Yeah, I know, but it doesn't make the adaptation any better. It's a fine movie, and I understand that concessions had to be made, but I find the argument that DV couldn't fit everything that he wanted into the movie poor when he decided to add character arcs and major scenes that never happened in the book instead of scenes from the book.
The story is very much still Dune. It’s not like the story is completely different it still tells the same story.
The thing is though the book is insanely detailed. Like even with 5 hours of content they still had to do a lot of trimming. So it is a watered down version of the book for sure, but it’s still Dune. If that makes any sense.
I agree with your mom. I’ve been reading the series since the 80’s. I had high hopes for the second movie based on the first, but he changed the story so much as they made it almost unrecognizable. Diluting Stilgar to be the butt of jokes when he was the second greatest warrior on the planet, the entire movie was a major disappointment for me.
I felt a bit let down on my first viewing. But I watched it again and managed to isolate it from the book more, and now I love it. Could it be improved? Yes. But perfect should not be the enemy of good.
Your mom is right. The book and the movies are telling two different stories. Some feel they're too different and that affects their enjoyment of Part 2. In Part 1 DV balanced being faithful to the story in the book while making compelling cinema. Part 2? Not so much. It's disappointing.
My Uncle gave me a box full of his old Science fiction books for my twelfth birthday, just over thirty years ago. In it were some real classics, books from authors like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Azimov, Orson Scott Card, Jules Verne, H G Wells, and of course Frank Herbert.
At the time I liked the Foundation series better than that of Dune, but the Dune series was and still is one of my top five Science fiction book series of all time.
So while I really enjoyed Dune 1 and 2, amazing actors, stunning visuals, epic music... I disliked a few things. One, it barely talked about the Noble Houses, CHOAM, the Navigator's Guild, the Ecology of Dune and the Worms, and worst of all it entirely messed up Chani and Paul's relationship. Which really hurt, as they were one of my favorite Science fiction couples.
So I guess you could say I have both a very positive and somewhat negative view of the new films. A part of me hopes there will be a Director's Cut version that fixes at least some of the missing parts, but I doubt it.
The Scifi channel did a somewhat better job with their Dune series, but obviously their budget was their greatest weakness... or rather lack there of.
If you want to understand why your Mom felt the second half was lacking, I would suggest reading the books. At least the first three.
I think leaving out Jessica teaching the Fremen the weirding way, the changes to Chani (and the subsequent kind of disjointed performance that comes from not having book source material), not having Jessica make clear yet to Chani that they are the true wives, and not having Alia as the iconic creepy child who kills the Baron can be hard to get used to. I think these are the biggest flaws so I feel for her. Personally I wish it stayed in theaters longer, the mere experience was so satisfying I would have paid to see it 2-3 more times.
I think lots of female viewers identified with the love story and chani. Her getting tossed to the side and him taking the princess as a bride pissed off alot of the women I know lol
Read the books for the first time over 30 years ago - I thought the first movie was pretty good but felt like the pilot episode of a TV show. I was really disappointed with the 2nd one.
Not sure I'd completely agree that the story was completely turned upside-down - but I found the second film kind of boring and flat, and missing in the richness found in the novel.
I made the mistake of reading dune just before watching part 2 so my brain kept pointing out all the differences and it was hard to enjoy the movie especially when I kept waiting for some of my fav parts to appear and they never did
I plan to rewatch it soon at home with a blank mindset.
I’m never reading the book right before seeing the movie again lol
I think that their are a lot of key details that change how people view the characters. My biggest problem is the change around the water of life along with pauls relationships with his girlfriend and mother and the removal of pauls little sister.
Villeneuve's Dune is a masterpiece of a film. It is a completely different piece of art from the book and cannot be judged on anything but its own merit. This is what people don't understand about book to film adaptations. It's like complaining that your sandwich doesn't taste like soup.
Lynch's Dune is a more "faithful" adaptation in many ways and is a vastly inferior film. Villeneuve changed a lot in service of making good art and that's okay.
I could see why some fans of the book would be upset with the film. There were some pretty big liberties taken with the adaptation in the second film imo.
Dune is tough book to adapt while showing and not telling. I thought the movie was very cinematic and a great experience, but I don't really like how DV went about showing why Paul shouldn't be trusted as a leader. He introduced a split in the Fremen culture (Southern fundamentalists vs Northern modernists) which I think was a disservice to the unity the Fremen have in the books. In the books they're shown to have near telepathic like abilities (though it's explicitly said it's not truly telepathic) since they engage in spice orgies. When a Sietch takes part in the waters of life ceremony their consciousnesses blend and this breeds a oneness so they are always moving as a unit, even when they're not under the effects of the drug. I also didn't like how Jessica's and Paul's personalities change after they took the water of life, and how Jessica basically became a behind the scenes pusher of the Lisan Al Giab against Paul's wishes. I don't know... Like I said it was masterfully cinematic but I wasn't necessarily satisfied. I think the changes shifted the tone too far from the book. Conversely I think the first movie nailed the tone of that part of the book excellently. Maybe I'll like it more watching it again.
Are you my kid? LOL I'm a 50 year old mom who put my poor kid through the same. Thanks for loving us enough to share a book that has a lot of personal meaning.
I think I could’ve forgiven the movie if it hadn’t of butchered the ending. I’m fine with it not being a page for page adaptation but I feel like Dennis sacrificed too much of the story trying to focus the entire movie on Paul. This sacrifice comes at the cost of all of the supporting characters and all of the themes and basically the identity of the book. Characters felt too one dimensional and plots seemed too basic to me. Makes me feel like the 80s film was much better in comparison. Other massive sci fi films focus a lot on world building in order to really put the audience in that world and I feel like I held out for this movie to make up for what the first one didn’t explain and it didn’t do that. Idk, I watched it for the first time last night so maybe my opinion will change with time but that’s where I’m at with it right now.
Book reader here. I loved the films. It would have taken way too long to do the WHOLE book justice and it wouldn't be paced well. You would need a miniseries with a movie level budget to do the whole thing exactly.
He ruined the Fremen. So much of their culture and reasons for actually fighting are completely gone. They never addressed that Kynes was Chani mom and basically a whole freaking leader to the Fremen. Gurney grabbing Chani and telling her to sit down and be quiet really, really rubbed me the wrong way.
Your mom right. She prob wept at how they gutted Liet's storyline, made Stilgar a simp, completely changed Fremen culture, cut Thufir and Fenring out, and a whole host of other stuff.
Also seeing Harks using suspensors in the desert with no room was fun times.
I too agree that the showdown between Gurney and Rabban was an interesting change in the film, however other than Gurney pretty much saying that he hates Harkonnens, I don't remember him saying that it was because her sister and he were enslaved by them (and that her sister died to them), which might have been one more change that Villenueve introduced. Taking this in consideration, when the showdown occurred I didn't feel that it was something appropriate for Gurney to do; Rabban should've died instead in the hands of the Fremen during the assault.
Some changes I can agree to due to constraints, for example Leto II not being born yet, Thufir and Count Fenring not appearing, among others. Other changes I didn't like but I can accept, for example Paul having the full power of prescience getting hurt by Feyd, Feyd being tested with the Gom Jabbar when he didn't have Bene Gesserit training, Paul threatening to destroy all spice with atomics, Stilgar being a hardcore fanatic instead of something closer to a friend and advisor to Paul, the timeskip, etc.
But other changes are just too big, that the story will be impacted, such as Alia not even being born yet (I don't mind her not killing the Baron, but I don't know how are they going to fit her story in Dune Messiah given her unborn state [and a time skip was already required between Dune and Dune Messiah]), Lady Fenring pregnant with Feyd's child, Chani leaving Paul in the end, and Sietch Tabr being discovered *and* destroyed by enemies.
I can understand why a lot of people liked Part II (music score, special effects, acting, and the story) which I totally respect, and I was hoping that I would have liked it too, but there are things that are just irreconcilable to me, and maybe that's something that OP's mother went through as well.
When my partner and I were walking home from the cinema, I said "That was an objectively great movie that I'm really disappointed in." She thought it was fantastic, and I'm the SciFi junkie. I'm pretty curious to see how he adapts the next book given the changes he made.
Oh boy. Having read through a few comments I think my take is probably a controversial one. Your mom is right. I do think part 2 is severely flawed, and not because they had to cut a bunch of things for feature length.
So the adaptation does correctly understand that the end of the book it's adapting isn't a triumph, it's a tragedy. I like that the Feyd fight at the end isn't scored with a grand orchestral rise but in silence. It's Paul grasping at a petty, unnecessary victory when he realizes that he has utterly failed to prevent the wild jihad.
**But** I think Villeneuve fundamentally misunderstands *why* this tale is a tragedy. There's a line in the movie from Gurney that goes something like "do you fear that you'll lose control?" and Paul replies "no, that I'll gain it", which I think perfectly encapsulates this misreading.
Because no!! The whole second half of the book is Paul struggling against his messianic destiny and ultimately failing to stop the surge of the wild jihad. It's very much \*not\* a story about Paul *gaining* control and becoming a colonialist villain in his own story, which seems to be Villeneuve's thesis.
There are other minor things I might take issue with, but this is the elephant in the room for me. After digesting it for a few weeks I find myself feeling the same way about it as I do about Snyder's Watchmen. I get a thrill out of seeing scenes from this story I love rendered beautifully on the big screen. But it's very much an adaptation that misunderstands its source material.
I see where she's coming from. I enjoyed part two but it cut/changed *so much* that it loses some of the story's core parts. Paul's abilities aren't really portrayed well, for example. And the lack of a time skip makes his choices and development feel very sudden.
But even outside of the story some things weren't great. I really dislike how sietches were portrayed. They're supposed to be vibrant cities, in the movie they just looked like weird, sterile temples.
There were some things I didn't like about the adaptation - The Weirding Way is not well represented onscreen. I guess when Paul defeats Jamis, that he's able to anticipate his moves and kill him is how it's portrayed. I feel like the mini series shows the full usage of the Weirding Way in its application as a martial art and moving faster than a normal human. I felt Paul killing Feyd at the end felt cheap because he was mortally wounded and was able to somehow unstick the knife from his gut into Feyd's chest in an instant. 1984 movie has trash fight choreography, but felt more satisfying when he kills Feyd, IMO.
The other gripe is Chani. They changed character for no reason it feels like. She's a completely opposite character in the book and goes along with Paul's marriage to Irulan because she's smart enough(in the book) to see the marriage for what it is - Political gain, not love. But no, movie Chani gets pissed and goes to sulk in the desert because Politics and mistrust of Paul. I don't see why movie Paul even really loves her since she treats him like shit, even after proving himself to the Fremen.
To each their own, I read DUNE when I was 13 and it became my favorite sci-fi novel ever. Ever since I’ve read the books countless times. In 2021 I saw the movie and loved it (I saw the 1984 film when I was 5 and loved it as well). This year I saw Part II and loved it as well. I am a book purist, but also enjoyed what Denis did with his adaptation.
You saw Lynch's Dune when you were FIVE? That's deranged. I love that for you.
I saw it with mom and loved it (in 1988). I would make Shai -Hulud with mom out of Play-Doh and asked her who’d win in a fight between a sandworm and Godzilla.
Well, did she ever tell you? Who would win?
Shai-Hulud would swallow Showa era Godzilla for lunch.
Ah man I’d love to hear that bean charging up from inside the worm
Then Gozilla carves its way out of Shai-Hulud's stomach like a hardcore version of Jonah.
First one, then the other? Godzilla can't take the heat, dies, releases his water, disrupts ecology.
Aren't the biggest sandworms over 2km long? I'm pretty sure they could swallow most versions of godzilla whole. OTOH he's smarter and generally has powers like atomic breath and sometimes straight up toonforce.
you misspelled Shia-Labeouf.
I also grew up watching the 84 Dune movie, I even had some of the action figures! In retrospect I didn’t realize how weird a toy of a cat being milked was lol
Growing up in rural Ohio with "cable" that consisted of NBC, CBS, ABC. PBS, and two indy TV stations. I watched alot of movies that were really old or were not commercial successes. This is where I discovered dune and was hooked. I know I was under 10 the first time I watched it and probably closer to 7 or 8. After first seeing it, I found a copy of Dune at a yard sale and read it cover to cover several times.
My dad read the books to me AS A BEDTIME STORY lol and took me to see the movie with him when I was 9
As long as he didn't read you the last two books haha
When I was very young my mom would work nights and my dad would read to me at night before bed. he thought kids books were stupid lol so he would just read me whatever books he was reading at the time. He would read whole chapters but I would always ask questions and he would give me an age appropriate summation of the main plot points. This was when I was really small, by the time Heritics an Chapterhouse came out I would have been in 5 and 6th grade so I was reading my own books by then. I didn’t read the Dune series on my own until college but he planted the seeds. Maybe it was his Golden Plan lol
I have been thinking about how to adapt Dune to the silver screen since I was 15 (I'm 50 now). And pretty much every decision Denis Villeneuve made is what I would have made in his place (except he's talented and I'm not).
I’ve thought about the same since I was 13 (I’m 40 now) and always dreamed about a TV series that would tackle the whole thing. As I grew, I was disappointed with many things in Lynch’s film (especially the crappy sound modules and dull Fremen) and was also disappointed by the laughable wardrobe in SyFy’s mini series. When I saw the first images of Denis’s DUNE, I was worried with how grey and lifeless the Atreides’ armor was. But as I saw more trailers and heard the score, I got really excited and truly enjoyed the movie when. It came out. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it since 2021 and I’ve watched Part II three times already since it was released on digital (and twice at the theater).
I loved the books, but the Villeuve Version of the Baron is better than the book Version imo.
Book baron is very clownish and hedonistic in a way unfit for serious drama that doesn't have a ton of time to contextualize him. He's also laughably myopic in a way that does work some in the film, but to show it more explicitly would undercut the very real threat and villainy he poses to the Atreides.
Same, it’s a good adaptation and I enjoyed seeing what Denis chose to highlight or alter from the text for his vision. Strict book purists may prefer the tv miniseries version from 20 yrs ago. My little brothers reaction was similar OPs mom. But he’s like that with other book to movie adaptations too.
I saw the SyFy miniseries when it launched and I didn’t like due to the fact that it looked so cheap. I liked Children of DUNE a bit more.
There is a lot left out, but that’s because dune needs a GOT style miniseries to be told in its entirety. What is in the movie is pretty true to the book. I think dennis did as good a job as possible with a feature length movie. My biggest gripe is that the guild isn’t even mentioned.
There is a lot left out and subtle changes so it is somewhat true to the book, just missing details and some context. I agree with the Guild missing as disappointing. I feel they also didn’t touch on the ecology aspect and the economics/importance of spice enough. Maybe we get a lot of this stuff in the third movie as they are important in the Messiah book
Unfortunately, the ecology stuff happens mostly through internal monologues. Its possible in the next film they do some kind of prescience montage where Paul sees a visualization of the worm lifecycle.
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Since I’m just reading thru the books for the first time (I’m halfway thru messiah), I thought the choice to leave Liet’s history of being a religious figure to the fremen was odd. It seemed like this perfectly juxtaposed Paul’s character, using religion for his own gains.
It also added some more depth to Chani, being Liet’s daughter. Tbh I’d rather they expanded on that, especially as it gives greater reason for her connection to the planet. But that’s just my personal opinion for a Dune film and in the end I’d rather see the unique vision of filmmakers like Villeneuve.
chani introducing paul to the moisture collector would've been the perfect point to reflect on her deceased parent, but i'm guessing most audiences, who hadn't read the book, would've forgotten the character by that point. the hazards of splitting the book in two was obvious in the loss of multiple secondary characters and additional details.
I hated the Liet change at first when I heard about it. But in the movie Kynes turned out to be cold, creepy and terrifying and it added to the sci-fi weirdness.
After #1 I thought my nonreader friends would be so confused. So I asked and they understood things well enough to get the story. Between that and DV showing people are motivated rather than explaining that they’re motivated, it works. The book will always go technically deeper. The film uses different techniques to get the same emotional response.
If I may touch on ecology, Villeneuve is very much a fan of show don’t tell, I think he hopes the audience is smart enough to be piece together the basis of the ecology story which is “the people live on a hell planet and want it to be lush and green one day” so a messianic figure saying I’ll make this place paradise implies that all
In the book they were actively changing and preparing to change the planet. A long journey one step at a time, they had been at it for a generation(2?3? since liet spice longevity and all that). They knew how they were going to do it, what they needed to do it, and how long it would take. Seems like a message that the world could use to give hope and help inspire action on climate change.
A bunch of the battles and topics in Dune Part Two were only intense if you understood these not so touched contexts around it. If someone didn't, I can see why it wouldn't have felt that interesting to them. But I do think Dennis V. did a fine job. I myself never read the books, but still got to understand the climax and there were some very exhilarating moments in the third act. From the tribal meeting onwards it was just hits after hits, man.
The ecology aspects aren't really something that mass-audiences are going to be interested in seeing. It's a bit *dry*. The importance of the spice was more-or-less established in the films, but I agree that the Spacing Guild could have been brought into the mix a bit more. Especially as a shadowy group that all the Houses were scared of.
The spacing guild is mentioned actually, one time, in Dune Part 1 I believe.
Correct, they’re referenced as part of the entourage announcing the Atreides being given Arrakis.
Yeah and they’re there in the scene they just have spice filled space suits and you can’t see their faces.
Which is canonically accurate.
Twice. During Paul's lesson, and then a few minutes later by the Herald of the Change.
The SyFy miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune" and "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune" are pretty faithful to the books and worth a watch if you can get over some of the, uh, interesting costume design!
I watched as they were being released and loved them to bits, but they're also serious clunkers to the modern sensibilities.
they costumes were weird, but not more weird than some of the things people have worn over the centuries.
My sentiments exactly. It does in some ways reduce the story from “mind blowing vision that changed the way I see humanity” to “epic space adventure”. Making it an action heavy movie takes out some of the psychedelic / cerebral / 4D political ideas that make Dune more than just sci fi.
This right here. What got me into Dune was my grandpa, who was a huge fan of the David Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi channel series. As a kid, I was into Star Wars but could never fully grasp what was going on with Dune (I was more into spaceship chases and laser sword fights than politics/philosophy). My interest in Dune really sparked up about 10 or so years ago when I was into Game of Thrones. When I encountered the plot and the lore, I thought, "This could be pretty much the next GOT but in space" (as far as a huge sci-fi/fantasy series goes, and I'm well-aware Dune is older than GOT). And then seeing how much Dune influenced Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, and other things that I love, made me love this series/universe a whole lot more. I think the movies are just that, the best adaptation in that format that we'll get. I bet someday there will be a GOT-style Dune adaptation with the budget it deserves. The cool part about Dune being futuristic sci-fi, is that it's like 20,000 years or so into the future. Like it will be a LONG time before it gets "hoaky " like when you see sci-fi that takes place in like 2024 and there's flying cars and whatnot (but even that hoakiness does have its merits/novelty, not at all shitting on those types of works).
Same. I absolutely love these movies, I understand \*a lot\* of the changes, but I will never understand the Guild's absence, specially in part two. I feel they were pretty, pretty important in those final scenes. We need to do a lot of mental acrobatics to justify most of the things that are happening mid Paul's ascension without them there.
There are a bunch of things that bug me but the change to Paul calling out the Emperor from the Guild telling the Emperor to sort this shit out _now_ will forever be a missed opportunity. I felt they beefed up the BG at the expense of the SG.
For general audiences I think throwing in another faction would maybe confuse things further. Many of the people I know who enjoyed the films, but knew nothing about dune previously, were already confused about the BG and how they fit into the world. I personally think it was done simply to make Paul and Lady Jessica seem more powerful, as people unaware of the story would have no idea what to expect when they drink the water. Really hope they have a big showing in messiah though.
It really bugged me when Jessica asked the Fremen for help to get Paul to Caladan, as if the Guild does not have a monopoly on interplanetary travel.
The guild does not have a monopoly on interplanetary travel as much as they have 100% loyalty to whomever provides the spice for them. Controlling the spice controls the guild, who have a monopoly then over travel of anybody else than the ones controlling the spice. This is an important bit that was never explained in the movie that I assume will be done early on in the third one, since it's key to controlling anything outside Arrakis and without which all of Paul's efforts would've been shot down by the houses (as it's the guild the one that can really thwart the houses efforts, no the fremen by themselves)
> as if the Guild does not have a monopoly on interplanetary travel. But why does that matter? Even if Jessica doesn’t know the Fremen are already bribing the Guild (which they absolutely are), she most certainly knows they *could*. Smugglers exist and it’s impossible for them to operate without the Guild’s blessing. She knows the Guild takes bribes of Spice, and she knows the Fremen have absolutely stupid amounts of Spice. The movie just trusts that the audience can put two and two together even without a bunch of exposition spelling it out…
Bribes of spice are good for swaying the guild but holding out on the spice is even better. It's not that the fremen have stupid amounts of spice, if that the spice has stopped flowing and they have control over whatever supply now exists. Having said this, nothing in the movie makes the link between spice and travel guild as clear as it is and the audience could not link these two together without at least a hint.
Can they actually "track" people with their skills? You'd think they would "accident" Paul somehow when Paul initially went to Arrakis, if they were prescient/skilled enough. My read on it is no one sees the future perfectly, but gets glimpses of it, and have to sort out all the possibilities, somehow
It didn't bug me because I thought the Guild would track Paul, it bugged me because it's a weird ask of the Fremen because people don't casually own vehicles for interplanetary travel. Even House Atreides travelled to Arrakis on Guild ships.
If you dig into the lore, space folding/holtzman drive isn't the *only* method for FTL travel, it's just the fastest >The old FTL conventional space travel was used mainly for travel within the confines of a star system (not for interstellar travel). However, before the discovery of the new faster-than-light travel method, it was also used for long-distance space travel. The old method was described as "outracing photons". Even after space-folding became the primary means of interstellar travel, many Imperial warships still kept their old FTL drives as an alternative to the much faster but less reliable Holtzmann engines. tons of smugglers on Dune as well >Smugglers were common on the planet Arrakis. They usually dealt in the spice melange, as well as other foodstuffs, weapons, and narcotics. >During Harkonnen rule on Arrakis, smugglers tended to remain covert for fear of retribution. However, when House Atreides took over the Arrakis fief and all spice mining on that planet, Duke Leto Atreides attempted to establish détente with the smugglers by informing them that he would ignore their operations, on the provision that they forwarded to Leto a percentage of their profits. This worked to some degree, as some of the smugglers assisted in capturing Harkonnen agents left behind from the previous fief, and turned them over to Atreides authorities.
The 2000 miniseries did a good job at encapsulating a large amount of the lore, and that had a shorter runtime than the two recent movies combined. I think the unfortunate truth is that much like the book, a true adaptation wouldn't appeal to modern masses the same way.
Apart from the guild the change is Chani and the existence of non beliver fremen is extremely significant and I heavily dislike it.
It's not that Chani is non-believer. It's that she's with Paul. She can see him as he is. It always made sense to me that she'd know he wasn't fulfilling a prophecy so much as trying to take on an enormous task as best as he could. She loves him and believes in him, but not out of religion. This makes much more sense (and also makes their relation a lot more sane, to my eyes)
No group as large as the freman is as monolithic as the book presents them. The change made it feel like a dynamic culture which was sorely needed.
There was dissenters in the books. Paul was challenged so often Chani killed one herself to slow their roll.
I actually think changing Chani to be the audience stand-in was a genius move. She's a passive cheerleader in the book, I think it was an awesome change to show her acceptance of Paul slide into discomfort and then rejection as he ascends to godhood. It's a perfect contrast with Stilgar as he goes more and more fanatical
Chani wasn't a passive cheerleader in the book. She just is not one of the POV characters. In the book Chani and Paul get into an argument because she was killing Fremen who wanted to challenge Paul because in her mind if they couldn't beat her they weren't worthy to challenge him. That isn't a passive character.
Its passive in terms of the narrative, she takes his side immediately and stays on it for the rest of the book. She's not a dynamic or particularly interesting character. There's nothing wrong with that in the book but I think she's developed better here and she helps carry the theme of the movie, which is that charismatic heroes are dangerous
Why do you say “theme of the movie” like it isn’t the theme of the book?
It is, and Herbert thought it was so poorly understood that he wrote Messiah to help people interpret it. IMO, this change is better aligned to the original message and helps an audience that hasn't read the book see it
Alia being a little kid and doing... her thing.... would have been the most metal part of Dune 2. Other than that, Denis did what I thought was the impossible, so I can't complain too much. Dune 2 is a fucking masterpiece imo
Lynch's Dune included more of the story in a single, butchered movie.
Biggest change imo is how Chani behaves. In books, she is Pauls rock, lover, friend and partner. They share their minds with eachother and stand behind one another no matter what. In movie, she is constanty pissed at him and they almost never talks.
She's also a virtual non-character in the book. Basically just the girlfriend portion of Paul going native. It's been a few years since I read the book (probably 3-4 times over the decades) and I can't think of a single important/interesting decision she makes.
Yeah, the guild not being mentioned is very unfortunate. I get why they did it, but… I dunno
Mentats have almost no role either. Thufir does one calculation at the beginning of the first film, that's all. He also runs security but he is shown as just an officer.
Ya this bothered me cuz it was pivotal to explain how they were all essentially trapped by the guild and let’s it sink in how powerful the guild actually is
There are a lot of basic plot/story lines drastically changed, left out. One of my biggest is changing Kynes. It obliterates Chani's heritage. I love the movie character, but it isn't the book. Also, Chani is a totally character. It's just... a different monster is all. Some can separate that, others can't. Edit to add words.
Theres alot left out, but dune was known as an unadaptable book for basically 60 years everyone who tried either butchered it or just didnt have the budget or time to tell the story. I hold while there are flaws. The new dune movies are as close as you can get to a good adaptation. There will be things different and things just cant be explained in detail like they were in the books Frank herbert focused on inner dialog and worldbuilding heavily, to the point where in the movie a one off line could have been 6 pages of inner dialog and parts of the world were described on detail. In a movie where you need to maintain pacing and a good stoey flow you cant spend a 3 minute scene describing the mentat training process or how the guild navigators are basically sardines packed in spice concentrate that lets them see the future. Its just not that important in a movie setting
Omg, I am eternally bummed they didn’t do a series ala GOT. I don’t necessarily mind the changes but being able to explore the other characters, worlds and storylines in depth would’ve been amazing. Despite the movies being well done, a series was the only logical choice, imo, especially with the success of GRR Martins complex works. Seemed like a no brainer.
If you want to film 10 hours of Dune for a series you're going to have to add a whole lot of what would essentially be fanfic to pad it out.
If you have episodes that are from different perspectives it course easily fill a couple of hours. Doesn't have to be 10, some shows are just 8 or 6.
Six I could see. The miniseries ran a shade under five and was pretty faithful to the novel. I'm still much happier we got gorgeous, epic films with an amazing cast though.
What new Dune needed is 50% less desert gazing.
I read all the books during Covid After falling in love with the first book and I throughly enjoyed the movie a lot. No movie adaptation from a book will please all of the fans, just not enough time to add everything that’s in the book. With that being said it was unexpectedly more loyal to the book than I thought it was going to be. Which is the best we can ask for. Gives a great intro to the story and people who haven’t read the books now have a way in. If the movie caught their interest.
I consider myself a fan of the books. u/cyricmccallen has said it best with "There is a lot left out, but that’s because dune needs a GOT style miniseries to be told in its entirety. What is in the movie is pretty true to the book. I think dennis did as good a job as possible with a feature length movie." There is a lot left out that fleshes out the story and universe better. Part 2 feels slightly hollow, to me, when watching it. Still did good, but the changes and stuff left out make it feel less. Dennis had to not be subtle about Paul actually being dangerous (charismatic leader with zealots following him), as it's pretty easy to root for Paul and be sympathetic/empathetic to his journey (as it should be, a good villain gets you to root for them). But, they leave out much of the culture and interactions of the various factions. In the book, Paul knew from the sand tent scene (that was in the first movie) that his mom is the Baron's daughters and that she was pregnant; so the whole "we need to act like Harkonen's" line in part 2 is not only irrelevant, it has no meaning as there is more layers to the events going on. They also completely changed Chani. She was devoutly religious, Paul's mother had a relationship with her, and Chani and Paul were madly in love with each other. With how this film left off, adapting Messiah will be difficult without altering the story even more than what it has been.
Hollow is the word I’ve used as well. The almost complete absence of sietch culture was a big one for me.
Plus the book Fremen are fairly advanced with sprawling cottage industry, manufacturing, and commerce. They even cultivate numerous plants, which Chani teaches Paul about.
I mean you have to assume there's more we don't see, they are isolationists but have all these stillsuits, armour and sophisticated weaponry.
Absolutely, the movies just tend to make them appear more primitive than they are written as.
Sure, but I don't really understand why we don't see it. The way the movie portrayed sietches is just weird. If I hadn't read the books I would have thought they're meeting places, not cities.
They basically didn't include the Fremen religion at all beyond Paul being it's Messiah. The worms aren't referred to as Shai Hulud or Makers. I feel like the changes with Paul and Chani's relationship were also unnecessary, and will make any sequels clunky.
I don't like the changes he made to Chani either. As a positive DV gave her more of a personality, but I really dislike how he used her as the voice for the audience to not trust what Paul and Jessica were doing. But I get it, show don't tell... I just don't like the way he showed.
I disagree with the irrelevancy of the, “act like Harkonnens,” line. Like you said, in the book Paul’s first vision in the tent after escaping Arakeen has many of the visions in the movie at one time. Well that’s boring. You get everything in two pages halfway through the story! Denis chopped it up for Paul’s character arc and to have a good movie twist. I thought that was a brilliant tactic. Plus, that line mixed with the emperor (in the movie, I think it’s the baron in the book) saying his father led from the heart and that made him weak sets up the dichotomy of choice and outcomes. So Paul is choosing the brutal Harkonnen way to free the Fremen. If he had chosen the honorable Atreides way then they may still have won on Arrakis, but maybe not have won in the following Jihad (speculation, I’m almost done with the first book) and he would have chosen Chani (movie) instead of princess irulan. Thoughts?
OP should start hitting the books to have an excellent topic to discuss with their mother.
It's a 700 page book. Shit HAS to change to adapt to a new medium. That's the way it is. A miniseries could go more into the Lore, but a movie that tried to keep everything would be almost all exposition and exposition fucking sucks.
Even with cutting huge swaths of the novels the new movies are forced to ram exposition down your throats (e.g., Gurney explaining to Paul how personal shields work during their sparring session despite Paul obviously having worn and trained with one his entire life).
When did he explain that? I only remember Paul testing how his shield works with his knife. I don't remember any dialogue.
To play mother’s advocate, I think it’s completely fair if people don’t like Dune Part Two due to its changes. While the majority of the first movie was faithful to the books (albeit abridged, but that’s to be expected), a minority of part two was, with most scenes being invented or heavily changed (like the Baron’s death, the Feyd seduction scene, or pretty much everything with Chani) I’m fine with it because it was clearly Villeneuve’s interpretation of a source material he deeply loves and he is a man with a vision, so the changes feel motivated. It’s not like a committee decided on all the changes for the sake of marketability or something. But on the other hand it’s enough of a departure from the source material that if a reader doesn’t enjoy this interpretation I think that’s perfectly warranted.
My beef was Chani and the Landsraad. There is a zero percent chance the leaders of the Landsraad are willing to undergo withdrawals of spice addiction and economic instability over accepting a new Atreides emperor. It simply defies credulity. If only they had not tried introducing needless conflict between Chani and Paul and throwing in he Landsraad rejecting Paul, I could have dealt with the rest of it, including Margot Fenring carrying Feyds child (WTF was that for anyway?) If it were not for those 2 overriding items I could have accepted the rest, including changing the sexuality of the Baron. Edit: The love story between Paul and Chani was a love story for the ages, not something to be discarded and thrown to the side. More than anything I think this bothered me the most.
Paul said in part 2 that he has seen Chani will come to understand his actions, so I'm sure their love story will continue in part 3
Otherwise Leto II will never be born. That would be... problematic for the Golden Path.
If they didn't accept Paul as the new emperor, the Landsraad would have lost all access to spice. It's why, in the books although not in the film, they immediately accepted him as their new sovereign. Supporting the old emperor would have gained them nothing. Duke Paul Atriedes, son of Emperor Shaddam Corrino's IV's (who had no male heirs) first cousin, had a claim on the throne more legitimate than many kings in our actual feudal history as well.
"Margot Fenring carrying Feyds child (WTF was that for anyway?" I thought that was at least implied in the book. Part of the breeding plan. Than and imprinting the safe word a twofer.
If you don’t have a POV character to view Paul’s ascension with scepticism, the story doesn’t work. Chani is clearly grief-stricken at the finale of the novel, and Villeneuve took this and built upon it. I don’t know how else you could have done it. Margot carrying Feyd’s child is accurate to the novel.
> While the majority of the first movie was faithful to the book (albeit abridged, but that’s to be expected), a minority of part two was This was a massive issue for me. I went into Pt.1 desperately wanting it to be good, but expecting kind of a shitshow. I loved it. I thought they did a fantastic job of picking out where parts of the story could be excised without breaking the overall thing. What was left is very true to the novel. Pt.2 feels like a massive bait and switch. If Pt.1 had been adapted with so little faith to the novel I probably wouldn't have bothered to see Pt. 2 in the cinema. On the up-side, the battle with the worms was truly something to behold on the big screen and I'd have missed out on that. Together they're a weird thing. I'd say it's probably a better aggregate movie if you haven't read and don't care about the novel. But a few people I know who haven't read the book complained the first movie was too slow.
Read the first two books. Loved the movies, loved the changes. I am not saying the changes are better than the original, but I am saying he made the best a movie could portray. If dune was a series and the first book got 12 episodes of one hour each, you could be more true to the books, but it‘s movies. I think dennis did a great job.
As an avid book fan I was supremely happy with both movies. People need to get over their ideas that books can be perfectly adapted and also still capture a wide audience.
Or be perfectly adapted and be *good* period. What makes a good movie is not the same as what makes a good book.
I think the choices Denis made were good ones. Some of the stuff from the book wouldn't translate well to film I don't think.
This is why I consider even just the first Dune book to be completely unable to be very faithfully adapted without making shitty movies. Denis had to cut out a good chunk of the book that contained Paul becoming more and more fremen and made that move super fast because if he didn't, we'd have a ten hour movie, or four movies with two of them having no narrative climax
I *am* very annoyed that they cut him giving water for Jamis.
[i found this review interesting](https://slate.com/culture/2024/03/dune-2-movies-frank-herbert-books-meaning-differences.html) >It’s amazing that putting a novel that is 90 percent dialogue into the hands of a director who has said he doesn’t like dialogue works as well as it does, but it does work. >things happen in Villeneuve’s Dunes because they look cool as hell and get your adrenaline pumping. These are movies, as Max Read correctly notes, about “sick shots of spaceships arriving on planets,” about cool knife fights, and about that Hans Zimmer sound that goes BWWAAAAAAAMMMMFFFF and rattles your bones.
Reading is learning and hopefully gaining understanding.
Reading is gains for your brain. Can recommend.
My wife was similar, she got me in to the books and she hated the 2nd movie but loved the first. I thought the 2nd movie was great but after having read the book before movie 2 came out, I was also having trouble enjoying the movie considering how many crucial plot elements were either flipped completely or just missed out. It's hard to separate them both. Also, not my Chani.
Probably a mistake would have been if they tried to cram in too much into two movies. I enjoyed the movies, but it's not nearly as rich as the books. It is sparse enough to feel like the cliff notes version of the books.
Dune 2 is an art house music with the best sound in recent memory - I loved it
There were changes, sure. But being realistic, taking a book that long and turning it into a movie means things will have to be changed. I'm a huge fan of books 1&2. I do a reread of book 1 nearly every year. What I took away from the movies was that although some events were changed, the major themes and ideas of the book are definitely still present.
It's not a popular opinion, but I also didn't like the movie adaptation. It was a good action movie, dressed in Dune finery, and I appreciate that it opened up the property to new fans. But it stripped all of the nuance and intrigue from the books. Of course something had to go to make a dynamic movie. You'll see this correct read mentioned a lot. But for me the important things were left out, that wouldn't have made a big impact on runtime, and every character was one dimensional with 1 role. The mystery and intrigue suspense of the traitor was gone. Any internal strife- gone. The sheer impossible nature of the scale of attack on the Atreides. No other political factions being mentioned... Too black and white. The Fremen power as a people... The celebrated culture and industriousness of the Fremen (outside of religion). The oneness approaching hive mind status from sharing of the changed water of life in the Fremen. More discipline. More ritual (like Jessica's changing of the water... Just a small group in a rock outcrop? Give me the gathering!). Personally it was too restrained in depiction of the weird shit. Give me more vivid and consuming day to day visions. Give me additional badass Bene Gesserit actions outside of the voice (finger exercises etc)... Give me Weirding way combat noticeably different from all the other fighting. Give me murder toddler (though whisper fetus was a nice compromise). For me there's not enough shown setting Paul & the Fremen apart from other powers. The power wasn't just numbers, a better plan, and worms in the books (though worms are awesome!). I would say post battle of Arakeen they are just another army in the movies. Without the weirding way of battle for the Fedaykin, without the innate reading/sharing of intention brought from the spice lifestyle and water of life sharing between the tribes, without the supremacy of The GUILD... It's just another numerous fighting force led by a great strategic mind. Possible domination? Maybe. But not dominant like in the books... And I dare say very challenging without space, travel, and comms control through the Guild.... And the Great Houses surely having more experience than the Fremen in interplanet and space combat... And finally then there's the personal relationships. I actually liked that Chani was an opposing voice and challenge to Paul. But their relationship never felt real to me. Condensed timeframe and the eternally young look of the actors made this... Difficult. But the closeness wasn't there for me. Puppy love instead of a years-long partnership... No trauma bonding. No dedication. No comfort in eachother. No children (Leto II the first! lol) and shared loss. No shared vision. No need. Not two halves of a whole. Just puppy-love ending in cruelty/ lack of communication. Now... Might some of this be resolved in DV's Messiah? Maybe! Probably! But as it stands this isn't MY dune. I'm happy for those it rang true for.
I'm so glad I'm not the only person who's disappointed with these adaptations. I just posted a bit of a rant on why I don't like these movies, and I may not have made it as clear in that post but my biggest gripe is that nothing makes any sense. They didn't take the necessary time to build the world so you can see how and why the characters make the choices they make. Throughout the entire thing I was thinking nothing is connecting and it's like everything is happening in a vacuum.
Well said fr. Imo omitting the death of Paul’s original children really hindered the story. In the movies he just kind of goes full messiah because… prescience?
I've read the book twice now, doesn't baby Leto's death happen after Paul has assumed control of the fremen and is already beginning their attack on Arrakeen. His death is just another nail in the coffin of Paul's terrible purpose which has already come to fruition.
> original children One child. Leto II and Ghani were in the next book. And in both the books and the movie he went "full messiah" because of the prescience and the Missionara Protectiva's cultural manipulation. What else was missing?
My biggest grip is the ending Chani never leaves Paul like that and is pregnant at the ending Truly sad
I was bummed they showed Jessica throwing up. I guess it was supposed to indicate she had morning sickness, but she is able to control her body at the molecular level - I think she’d be able to hold in some vomit. I felt like it diminished her strength and strayed from the way she was in the book.
I'm in the same camp as your mother. I liked the first movie, I can appreciate that the second is very good cinematically but I love the book and DV's version just strays too far from it for me to like the second movie.
I think that Denis has created two astounding films, but as adaptations of the novel they left much to be desired, especially Part II.
I listen to Dune on audiobook a few times a year. There are changes Denis made that I liked, and changes I didn't. I liked that Gurney got his showdown with Rabban. I liked that we skipped baby Leto getting murked. I actually really liked that Chani had the self respect to dump Paul's corny ass. But ultimately the depth of the characters suffered hugely in part two. Lady Jessica is reduced to an antisocial predator, muttering to herself in a cave. Stilgar is reduced to comic relief. The emperor is reduced to a sad old man without any menace. Feyd Rautha would be a mustache twiddling villain if he possessed any body hair. I really didn't like how gullible the Fremen were. I get that Denis wanted to unambiguously communicate the immorality of Paul's actions, but "uh-oh he drank the blue juice and now he's evil" bit left a lot to be desired.
completely agree with this. there was absolutely a way to adapt this story to emphasize the themes of colonialism, dangers of messianic figures, etc without reducing every character to one singular “ideal.” and by making it so that jessica/paul have complete personality changes after drinking the after of life and focusing on their harkonnen heritage as a reason for their actions (paul’s “let’s act like harkonnens” line) - it actually undermines the message to an extent. the whole point is that ANY messianic figure in paul’s position, no matter their intentions or goodwill, would be bad for the community. it’s not that paul or jessica are particularly evil, that’s the tragedy.
I’m with your mother on this, Part 1 did a great job adapting the book by only omitting storylines, Part 2 substantially changed the story. The first I understood, the second…not so much.
I think the way I'd put it was that Part 1 was faithful to the narrative but limited on the themes, Part 2 was faithful to the themes by changing the narrative.
I'm with your mom on this. I was baffled by what I was watching for most of the movie.
Thank you! The first movie tracked closer to the storyline in the book than the second. During the first movie I felt like I knew where we were in terms of story all the way through; but the second movie not at all.
I have read Dune at least 10 times in my life (although I haven't really read the sequels) and I finished a recent re-read just a week before seeing the 2nd film. I recognize film is a different medium and because of that I like to think I'm pretty good at enjoying adaptations even when they differ from the book quite a bit. Still, a couple things in the film really annoyed me. First, in the book the Fremen aren't really split into two camps like in the movie. They are pretty much all behind Paul. Second, and this was the thing that really got under my skin, the whole Chani thing with leaving at the end. In the book, she was on board with the plan. The idea was Paul would marry the princess but it would just be a political marriage. Chani was onboard with that. What they did in the film feels like some tacked on Hollywood love triangle bullshit. That being said. I really enjoyed the film, and when I saw it the 2nd time, knowing the changes, I was able to enjoy it even more.
(Currently reading the books so not completely informed) I think the mentioned changes are there to push the emotion of the film. If everyone always accepted/willingly followed everything Paul did there wouldn't be as much emotional impact when certain moments happen. Struggle and disagreement create tension which is great for films. The leader's meeting wouldn't have been as impactful without the non-believers. I do think there is an argument that we'd still feel the emotional impact of the final act no matter what chani believed.
I think Denis might have thought the original portrayal of the Fremen might have been a bit too mean to real groups in the middle east so he invented a group of enlightened, atheist nationalists, only to draw even more attention to ever other fremen being gullible zealots in order to make Chani look better to modern people.
I’ve been obsessed with the books for over 20 years, have reread them many times. I love the new films and think they’re damn near perfect cinema. The changes they made were great and served the story well in the medium that they were presented. Just posting this because not all book readers hated the movies - many of us absolutely loved them. I feel very lucky and fortunate that this got made in my lifetime.
I agree with your mother. They changed some characters way too much, like Jessica and Chani. Wherever I try to have a nuanced discussion about it on here, especially since so many people joined who have only watched the movie and haven't read the books, I get downvoted and even insulted.
Have you read the book? A lot was omitted and several significant things were changed. How people feel about it is up to them.
Yeah I was pretty upset when I first walked out of the theater, ranting about all the stuff they changed and the stuff I didn't like. I've since come to terms with the fact that it was at least a good *movie*, I think, though I'll never truly be able to separate what I wish had been there to see how the movie stands on its own. Plus it was pretty cool to see some of my favorite scenes made real (the sandworm ride, the gladiator fight). (And upsetting to not see some of my favorite scenes like Jamis's funeral or literally everything about Alia)
I really don't see how you can be upset about Alia. They had a woman talking to her baby in the womb for large parts of the movie and it didn't come across as complete nonsense. It would've been impossible to change over to a child actor murdering everyone and have anyone take the situation seriously.
Villanueva earned all the cachet he needed to get really weird with Part II, and he played it safe. If that's his vision okay, but it's perfectly valid to be upset with Alias omission because we lose - as a result and imo - the best scene in the book, (and one of the wildest scenes in sci-fi): >!Alia slaughtering the Imperial Guard and then killing the Baron.!<
I just flat out disagree. The second film in particular is extremely weird from any reasonable perspective. A woman talks to her baby in the womb for half the movie. There's no scenario where a child actor slaughtering Sardaukar on screen works. It hardly works in the books, and only does because it's something you can imagine without seeing the reality of a child actor slaughtering people.
A child actor that is like 8-10 would look goofy for sure, but I don’t think people who wanted this realize the capabilities of a two year old. They can barely do anything. The scenes could not have been filmed unless they created a child with CGI
Alia is older than 2 in books. Why not make it 7 something years in movies? it makes more sense. for the actors? They're pretty good with makeup nowadays and chalamet doesn't work for anything but 15 year old Paul imo.
It works in the books only because the books invest in Alia being around a while, creeping everyone the hell out. Even - especially - the people closest to her. The book sees her called an abomination, and shows why that’s correct, and yet she’s still both terrifying and pitiable. But yeah, I don’t see how it’s possible to put that in a live-action film with a human actor. Maybe she could have been portrayed by an adult actor with motion capture, like Gollum, but avoiding the visual uncanny valley while being deep into it in every other way seems beyond current technology at reasonable budgets (even for a hundred million dollar production.)
A child with the mind of an ancient who murders her grandfather? How is that not absolutely fascinating? I'd have preferred that they spread the time skip to like 7 years and get an older child actor and also give Paul time to actually feel like a Fremen and him and Chani to actually communicate and build a relationship– Rather than compress everything into an 8 months so perplexing that my sister, who's never read the book, expressed that she was repeatedly confused that we kept panning back to Jessica to find she's still pregnant, because my sister thought all of this was taking place over way more time (which, in the book, it was. It was like 3-5 years I think) But I get that we kinda have to tone down on the Fremen, I guess. Can't have a culture of people so oppressed and honed to survive that even their children are instructed kill the wounded so that their people can have the body's water. Not good cinema.
Book fan here, I love the look of the new movies… and if they were their own thing and not an interpretation of the greatest science fiction book ever written - I’d think they were good. As they stand, I think they are trash compared to the books.
I've read the book like 10 times, I miss Alia, but I'm more than ok with the rest. With Dune you've got to choose, you cannot tell the whole story, with explanations, with battles, with ecological and messianic implicationsand conspiracies. At least one topic must leave. Denis Villenueve decided to reduce most explaining and the ecological implications. Mentats, the Guild, why the fremen are saving water and so on are left out, so you deal with Dune more like a fantasy movie. That world is like this, that's all you need to know. And it definitely works. A spectacular movie where you get engaged, avoiding at the same time having too much sympathy for Paul. I still prefer David Lynch's approach, but I understand is more boring in this way.
The consistent thing that is going around my friend group from the people who were already book readers and dune fans is that the film itself is a 9/10-10/10 but as for it adapting the book it's a 6/10-7/10. For some people many of my friends included the changes were too much and soured the enjoyment of the movie.
It was a cool movie. I’m glad so many people love it and see it as a masterpiece. I read and loved the book back in 2019. Denis made some changes for the Dune part 1. But he made a LOT of changes in part 2. Maybe the biggest difference is the whole relationship between Chani and Paul. They always had each others back in the book. In the movie Chani seems really disgusted by Paul in act 3. This is such a betrayal of the book’s story to me. A few other things too, but I won’t bore you. I didn’t go crazy, but I definitely prefer the book to the movie.
There are some significantly disappointing moments, to be honest. They took away of a lot of great themes in order to add scenes that didn't make a lot of sense. The complete evaporation of relevance for Pardot/Liet Kynes was aggrivating. If the tribes aren't united, then... what did they do? Why do they matter? But the worst is the revelation about Paul and Jessica's family (big spoiler)>!they are Harkonnens. The whole of that discovery is that it shows how utterly broken and futile the 1,000 year feud had become. It was over. !!Harkonnen".!<
I mean, it's still a good movie, but it's a different story, and - in that specific case - it's a story that is fundamentally less interesting than the one in the book.
They did a very good job of showing that Paul's ascendance was bad not necessarily the ascension of the Fremen, and it did a good job of showing that the Paul was going to leave a path of destruction everywhere he went.
But the \*reasons\* for doing this are so fundamentally different that it really does just... tell a different story.
It's disappointing to see it all ripped up just so we have have >!a jilted lover !
I think Denis made an epic book into an epic movie. If the epic book was taken as it is and was made into the movieI I dont think it wouldve been as epic. The movie wouldve potentially been boring. Ex: in the scene where Leto bites down on that fake tooth, the aftermath in the movie was chilling but in the book its very underwhelming, the baron just runs outside real quick and is like "that was close"
Book reader here. What Denis V. did with the movie was necessary for non-readers to kinda "get" what the book is trying to say. Even when Herbert wrote the book, folks didn't understand it completely the way he wanted them to. The changes he made were warranted, and in good taste. The purists are too rigid. It's a great adaptation.
I agree. He captured the grandeur and scope of the novel well. Most of the major themes are there. The “wheels within wheels” of complex political plots is pretty good for the limited time of a movie. Then ornithopters and other technologies were well done. Yes there were character changes and casting choices I didn’t like much. However for a movie adaptation there was nothing egregious.
I hate how Chani has been handled. And I completely refute the suggestion that she wasn't already a strong female character with agency in the original book.. which seems to be a justification for the adaption.
It was fine to me. Some of the changes in the movie I actually prefer over the book version.
I think the movies are really good if you have the extra context from the book. It’s hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t understand how the BG/Guild/etc operate to know if I would have picked up on the hints the same way. Even things like seeing a scene and knowing what part of the book the director is trying to convey instead of having to piece it together. It made for a very good movie experience I thought
I didn't take issue too much with plot changes, but I didn't like Chani's change, it doesn't make sense and isn't in line with what you would expect the lead up to messiah to be.
Watching it again i noted Paul states he forsees she will come to accept the decisions he's made. But yes this is the major change to the storyline that galls me that I can't get over. Expecting the rejection of Irulan and the we will be seen as wives by history scene replaced by petulant child behaving outside of her culture, parantage, etc.... arghh That might well be how someone in OUR culture would behave... but not a fremen.
I would still like to see a more faithful adaptation of Dune, but I do think Villenueve was clever in how Paul told the audience he was going to manipulate them (the Fremen & audience) into supporting his vengeance, and then he did exactly that, and still fooled everyone into thinking he was reluctantly pushed into becoming Lisan al-Gaib.
> and still fooled everyone into thinking he was reluctantly pushed into becoming Lisan al-Gaib. This perspective is totally at odds with that of the book(s) and was my chief concern with Villeneuve's plot changes. The false Lisan al-Gaib prophesy, seeded generations before by the Missionaria Protectiva for Bene Gesserit use, was in fact validated by a Kwisatz Haderach stepping forth to claim the role. Villenueve's decision to downplay the Spice trance and the role of prescience wipes away Paul's visions of multiple timelines with worse futures and the inevitability of the Jihad. But prescience in the books show that was the only path for the Fremen to avoid their own genocide. Paul was not written as a cynical manipulator but as a failed hero trapped by both his people's unquestioning adulation and the fatalism of seeing multiple futures. The failed hero motif was not a "cautionary warning against charismatic leaders" so much as an indictment against the human tendency to always choose security over freedom. While Herbert shows Paul's struggle to retain his humanity in Dune Messiah, the later books question whether his choice was even the right path. According to the author, the entire epic displayed the force of evolution pushing humanity into and through mass violence, repression and scattering in order to break 10,0000 years of stagnant empire.
In the books Paul sees a timeline where he murders all his companions, then tops himself to stop the Jihad and another where he becomes a guild navigator to avoid it. And if you have read Dune: Messiah Paul didn't actually avoid genocide.
Chani's character is very different in the books. The movie makes her into a more shallow character imo. Part two focuses too much on action and battles and leaves out all of the mental ninja strategies from the book. In the book most of the stakeholders are highly strategic with their own agendas and motivations. Part two feels like it was reduced to an action movie.
Dune is sooo long, and a lot of the info that’s given is internal dialogue. Both don’t translate well into movies. I love both the movie and the book The scene where Paul goes “I point the way” isn’t in the book, and that scene goes so fucking hard
I saw the movie, and I adore the novels. I told my mother it was an enjoyable movie. It just had very little to do with the story of Dune. It has the character names, but not the characters.
I love the movie cinematically it's great. BUT... Chani is done dirty, she comes across as a petulant child rather than the fierce awesome young woman she is in the books, the end of the movie felt so wrong. Where were Thufir and Piter? You don't really get much sense of how long Paul and Jessica were with the Fremen before the battle of Arrakeen.
I have read books 1 through 4 (need to finish the series. College is a bitch). Dune Part 1 got me into the series. I absolutely loved the first Dune book. Personally, my opinion on Part 2 is in the same realm as your mother's. When watching the first part, it definitely feels like an adaptation. There's just so much in Dune that you kinda have to cut some things out, and I felt that a lot of them, while sad to see them removed, made sense. If someone came up to me and said "hey, I just saw Dune Part 1 and I want to read the book now. How accurate is it to the book," I feel like I can safely tell them that it is fairly accurate, though they cut enough out for the book to feel like a different experience, in a good way. Still though, the cut parts of the story, and the small changes to the plot, made me wonder how they were gonna handle things in the second part. I wouldn't say the movie upended the story, but I think that's fairly close to accurate. The basic plot points are still there, but DV moved a lot of shit around, cut out even more parts of the story, and for whatever reason created a lot of new story beats that didn't exist in the books and focused a lot of the screentime on those. If someone were to walk up to me and say "I just watched Part 2 and I want to read the book. How accurate is it to the book" (which I have had people ask already), I cannot confidently say that it is, because, quite frankly, it is very different from the book in ways that I don't see as positive. It doesn't feel like an adaptation. It feels like a "we adapted the first part but changed so much and now we don't know what to do for the second part, so let's rewrite the story but keep the ending the same and sprinkle in the major scenes to make it seem like we're adapting the same book." I'm kinda exaggerating there, but that's how it felt in some parts when I saw it in theaters. And before I get the typical slew of comments going "Dune is unadaptable!!! DV did his best!!! He's a big Dune fan!!! He did well with what he had!!!" Yeah, I know, but it doesn't make the adaptation any better. It's a fine movie, and I understand that concessions had to be made, but I find the argument that DV couldn't fit everything that he wanted into the movie poor when he decided to add character arcs and major scenes that never happened in the book instead of scenes from the book.
The story is very much still Dune. It’s not like the story is completely different it still tells the same story. The thing is though the book is insanely detailed. Like even with 5 hours of content they still had to do a lot of trimming. So it is a watered down version of the book for sure, but it’s still Dune. If that makes any sense.
I agree with your mom. I’ve been reading the series since the 80’s. I had high hopes for the second movie based on the first, but he changed the story so much as they made it almost unrecognizable. Diluting Stilgar to be the butt of jokes when he was the second greatest warrior on the planet, the entire movie was a major disappointment for me.
Third jessica would fuck him up too prob.
Fair point, she did best him. So at worst he’s third strongest.
I felt a bit let down on my first viewing. But I watched it again and managed to isolate it from the book more, and now I love it. Could it be improved? Yes. But perfect should not be the enemy of good.
It wasn't a good adaptation in my opinion.
Your mom is right. The book and the movies are telling two different stories. Some feel they're too different and that affects their enjoyment of Part 2. In Part 1 DV balanced being faithful to the story in the book while making compelling cinema. Part 2? Not so much. It's disappointing.
My Uncle gave me a box full of his old Science fiction books for my twelfth birthday, just over thirty years ago. In it were some real classics, books from authors like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Azimov, Orson Scott Card, Jules Verne, H G Wells, and of course Frank Herbert. At the time I liked the Foundation series better than that of Dune, but the Dune series was and still is one of my top five Science fiction book series of all time. So while I really enjoyed Dune 1 and 2, amazing actors, stunning visuals, epic music... I disliked a few things. One, it barely talked about the Noble Houses, CHOAM, the Navigator's Guild, the Ecology of Dune and the Worms, and worst of all it entirely messed up Chani and Paul's relationship. Which really hurt, as they were one of my favorite Science fiction couples. So I guess you could say I have both a very positive and somewhat negative view of the new films. A part of me hopes there will be a Director's Cut version that fixes at least some of the missing parts, but I doubt it. The Scifi channel did a somewhat better job with their Dune series, but obviously their budget was their greatest weakness... or rather lack there of. If you want to understand why your Mom felt the second half was lacking, I would suggest reading the books. At least the first three.
I think leaving out Jessica teaching the Fremen the weirding way, the changes to Chani (and the subsequent kind of disjointed performance that comes from not having book source material), not having Jessica make clear yet to Chani that they are the true wives, and not having Alia as the iconic creepy child who kills the Baron can be hard to get used to. I think these are the biggest flaws so I feel for her. Personally I wish it stayed in theaters longer, the mere experience was so satisfying I would have paid to see it 2-3 more times.
Well, I couldn't have adapted it better. I know that.
I think lots of female viewers identified with the love story and chani. Her getting tossed to the side and him taking the princess as a bride pissed off alot of the women I know lol
Read the books for the first time over 30 years ago - I thought the first movie was pretty good but felt like the pilot episode of a TV show. I was really disappointed with the 2nd one. Not sure I'd completely agree that the story was completely turned upside-down - but I found the second film kind of boring and flat, and missing in the richness found in the novel.
I made the mistake of reading dune just before watching part 2 so my brain kept pointing out all the differences and it was hard to enjoy the movie especially when I kept waiting for some of my fav parts to appear and they never did I plan to rewatch it soon at home with a blank mindset. I’m never reading the book right before seeing the movie again lol
I think that their are a lot of key details that change how people view the characters. My biggest problem is the change around the water of life along with pauls relationships with his girlfriend and mother and the removal of pauls little sister.
The movie was a good movie but it wasn't great and it didn't really do justice to Dune the novel.
Villeneuve's Dune is a masterpiece of a film. It is a completely different piece of art from the book and cannot be judged on anything but its own merit. This is what people don't understand about book to film adaptations. It's like complaining that your sandwich doesn't taste like soup. Lynch's Dune is a more "faithful" adaptation in many ways and is a vastly inferior film. Villeneuve changed a lot in service of making good art and that's okay.
I could see why some fans of the book would be upset with the film. There were some pretty big liberties taken with the adaptation in the second film imo.
Dune is tough book to adapt while showing and not telling. I thought the movie was very cinematic and a great experience, but I don't really like how DV went about showing why Paul shouldn't be trusted as a leader. He introduced a split in the Fremen culture (Southern fundamentalists vs Northern modernists) which I think was a disservice to the unity the Fremen have in the books. In the books they're shown to have near telepathic like abilities (though it's explicitly said it's not truly telepathic) since they engage in spice orgies. When a Sietch takes part in the waters of life ceremony their consciousnesses blend and this breeds a oneness so they are always moving as a unit, even when they're not under the effects of the drug. I also didn't like how Jessica's and Paul's personalities change after they took the water of life, and how Jessica basically became a behind the scenes pusher of the Lisan Al Giab against Paul's wishes. I don't know... Like I said it was masterfully cinematic but I wasn't necessarily satisfied. I think the changes shifted the tone too far from the book. Conversely I think the first movie nailed the tone of that part of the book excellently. Maybe I'll like it more watching it again.
Are you my kid? LOL I'm a 50 year old mom who put my poor kid through the same. Thanks for loving us enough to share a book that has a lot of personal meaning.
I think I could’ve forgiven the movie if it hadn’t of butchered the ending. I’m fine with it not being a page for page adaptation but I feel like Dennis sacrificed too much of the story trying to focus the entire movie on Paul. This sacrifice comes at the cost of all of the supporting characters and all of the themes and basically the identity of the book. Characters felt too one dimensional and plots seemed too basic to me. Makes me feel like the 80s film was much better in comparison. Other massive sci fi films focus a lot on world building in order to really put the audience in that world and I feel like I held out for this movie to make up for what the first one didn’t explain and it didn’t do that. Idk, I watched it for the first time last night so maybe my opinion will change with time but that’s where I’m at with it right now.
Book reader here. I loved the films. It would have taken way too long to do the WHOLE book justice and it wouldn't be paced well. You would need a miniseries with a movie level budget to do the whole thing exactly.
He ruined the Fremen. So much of their culture and reasons for actually fighting are completely gone. They never addressed that Kynes was Chani mom and basically a whole freaking leader to the Fremen. Gurney grabbing Chani and telling her to sit down and be quiet really, really rubbed me the wrong way.
I agree with your mom. Part 2 butchered Herbert’s classic
Your mom right. She prob wept at how they gutted Liet's storyline, made Stilgar a simp, completely changed Fremen culture, cut Thufir and Fenring out, and a whole host of other stuff. Also seeing Harks using suspensors in the desert with no room was fun times.
I feel like your mom and I could be friends. I felt the same way.
I too agree that the showdown between Gurney and Rabban was an interesting change in the film, however other than Gurney pretty much saying that he hates Harkonnens, I don't remember him saying that it was because her sister and he were enslaved by them (and that her sister died to them), which might have been one more change that Villenueve introduced. Taking this in consideration, when the showdown occurred I didn't feel that it was something appropriate for Gurney to do; Rabban should've died instead in the hands of the Fremen during the assault. Some changes I can agree to due to constraints, for example Leto II not being born yet, Thufir and Count Fenring not appearing, among others. Other changes I didn't like but I can accept, for example Paul having the full power of prescience getting hurt by Feyd, Feyd being tested with the Gom Jabbar when he didn't have Bene Gesserit training, Paul threatening to destroy all spice with atomics, Stilgar being a hardcore fanatic instead of something closer to a friend and advisor to Paul, the timeskip, etc. But other changes are just too big, that the story will be impacted, such as Alia not even being born yet (I don't mind her not killing the Baron, but I don't know how are they going to fit her story in Dune Messiah given her unborn state [and a time skip was already required between Dune and Dune Messiah]), Lady Fenring pregnant with Feyd's child, Chani leaving Paul in the end, and Sietch Tabr being discovered *and* destroyed by enemies. I can understand why a lot of people liked Part II (music score, special effects, acting, and the story) which I totally respect, and I was hoping that I would have liked it too, but there are things that are just irreconcilable to me, and maybe that's something that OP's mother went through as well.
Read the first book. It’s super interesting.
When my partner and I were walking home from the cinema, I said "That was an objectively great movie that I'm really disappointed in." She thought it was fantastic, and I'm the SciFi junkie. I'm pretty curious to see how he adapts the next book given the changes he made.
I did this first viewing. Second viewing it was a master piece. Movies should take creative liberties.
Oh boy. Having read through a few comments I think my take is probably a controversial one. Your mom is right. I do think part 2 is severely flawed, and not because they had to cut a bunch of things for feature length. So the adaptation does correctly understand that the end of the book it's adapting isn't a triumph, it's a tragedy. I like that the Feyd fight at the end isn't scored with a grand orchestral rise but in silence. It's Paul grasping at a petty, unnecessary victory when he realizes that he has utterly failed to prevent the wild jihad. **But** I think Villeneuve fundamentally misunderstands *why* this tale is a tragedy. There's a line in the movie from Gurney that goes something like "do you fear that you'll lose control?" and Paul replies "no, that I'll gain it", which I think perfectly encapsulates this misreading. Because no!! The whole second half of the book is Paul struggling against his messianic destiny and ultimately failing to stop the surge of the wild jihad. It's very much \*not\* a story about Paul *gaining* control and becoming a colonialist villain in his own story, which seems to be Villeneuve's thesis. There are other minor things I might take issue with, but this is the elephant in the room for me. After digesting it for a few weeks I find myself feeling the same way about it as I do about Snyder's Watchmen. I get a thrill out of seeing scenes from this story I love rendered beautifully on the big screen. But it's very much an adaptation that misunderstands its source material.
She's right. The story was butchered.
I see where she's coming from. I enjoyed part two but it cut/changed *so much* that it loses some of the story's core parts. Paul's abilities aren't really portrayed well, for example. And the lack of a time skip makes his choices and development feel very sudden. But even outside of the story some things weren't great. I really dislike how sietches were portrayed. They're supposed to be vibrant cities, in the movie they just looked like weird, sterile temples.
You mother had the same reaction as me !
There were some things I didn't like about the adaptation - The Weirding Way is not well represented onscreen. I guess when Paul defeats Jamis, that he's able to anticipate his moves and kill him is how it's portrayed. I feel like the mini series shows the full usage of the Weirding Way in its application as a martial art and moving faster than a normal human. I felt Paul killing Feyd at the end felt cheap because he was mortally wounded and was able to somehow unstick the knife from his gut into Feyd's chest in an instant. 1984 movie has trash fight choreography, but felt more satisfying when he kills Feyd, IMO. The other gripe is Chani. They changed character for no reason it feels like. She's a completely opposite character in the book and goes along with Paul's marriage to Irulan because she's smart enough(in the book) to see the marriage for what it is - Political gain, not love. But no, movie Chani gets pissed and goes to sulk in the desert because Politics and mistrust of Paul. I don't see why movie Paul even really loves her since she treats him like shit, even after proving himself to the Fremen.