LanreDune! what is happening everybody james hancock here there's a very good chance that my brain just might explode in a bloody mess right in the middle of this video, because I'm finally getting a chance to do my non-spoiler review of denny vale noobs adaptation of frank herbert's dune or I should say his part one because this movie is only half of that book.
If you've read the novel you already know the perfect spot where villeneuve could leave us hanging and sure enough, he did and I would have gladly sat there for two and a half more hours with a big giant smile on my face. But first danny valnev, he's gotta make part two so hopefully this first film. A wildly ambitious piece of science fiction will find the proper audience, I really have no idea how audiences are gonna respond many people are gonna feel like I did, like they've been under this hypnotic spell watching one of the most original science fiction films, that they've seen in years it's big it's sweeping it aspires to be both an epic entertaining story. As well as high art but I'm sure they're going to be plenty of folks out there who are totally bewildered scratching their heads completely unaccustomed to seeing any big budget movie that actually makes demands on their intelligence after my press screening, I heard a lot of people in the theater asking out loud if anybody could explain the movie to them the sad reality is that even amongst critics, is that most movie theaters are full of folks who chew with their mouths open while scrolling through their text.
The entire movie and these are the people who need to embrace dune in large numbers if Warner brothers is to give the green light to denny villeneuve to make his part two. it's sad but true the good news is that the movie is already performing relatively well in a lot of international territories during its slow rollout, but the big test is when dune finally gets its u.s release date on October 22nd dune fans will all need to whisper a small prayer to shy hallu that the movie will manage to connect with moviegoers. but until then all I can do is encourage people to go see it and for folks who like to get a little deeper into the weeds on the subject of dune.
I'll be circling back for a deeper breakdown of the movie once the movie's in wide release plus, I really want to see the movie again whenever I watch an adaptation of a book that I love, initially I really have to wrestle with the movie that I hope to see versus the movie that I actually saw and the second viewing will absolutely help me appreciate villeneuve's unique vision without being distracted by details, that I wish had been included or done differently for now let's just talk big picture the best comparison I can make for what denny valeneuve has done with frank herbert's dune is by reminding people of the challenges faced by peter jackson.
When he was making certain creative decisions on how to handle his adaptation of the fellowship of the ring the first movie in the lord of the rings trilogy while we can discuss until doomsday whether or not we agree with all of villeneuve's creative decisions what he chose to include how he visualized it and what material sadly had to be left out in the end there's no denying that this movie is villeneuve's own unique interpretation of the material because the movie doesn't feel like it was written by a committee it makes a minimum of commercial concessions dumbing down the material for better for worse this is a movie directed by an artist bringing to life a novel that I think is one of the greatest feats of the human imagination of the 20th century and keep in mind that the book has the luxury of feeding the audience so much information across hundreds of pages a luxury that villeneuve simply doesn't have in a lot of ways it's an impossible task inevitably certain plot details get streamlined and certain key characters have been outright removed but I'm assuming they're going to make an appearance in the eventual part too my biggest criticism of the movie is the absence of one key villain but more on that later but having now been immersed in his vision for two and a half hours I can assure all of you that denny vale new has used every technical and dramatic trick in this toolkit to try and deliver a movie that just feels special as it turns out this movie is that rare thing that I hoped it would be the kind of grand spectacle that hollywood used to make a movie that aspires to be a hit and a classic all at once think lawrence of arabia think apocalypse now this is a grand piece of entertainment created with the best artistry that the director is capable of and I'll gladly watch the movie a few more times before I make my final decision on how it compares to those epics of the past but very clearly danny valeneuve is aspiring to greatness with this project but the big question though for the rest of this video is what can I discuss without giving anything away as I was riding home on a bicycle I waged this internal debate over what details about the story should be considered spoilers because frank herbert's novel which I have right here over my shoulder it's been thrilling millions of readers for decades at this point so a lot of people out there obviously know the story we also had david lynch's movie adaptation in 1984 which I caught in the theater as a kid which was my first introduction to this world and we also had the popular mini series dune in 2000 and then of course there's one of my all-time favorite documentaries jodarowski's dune a brilliant look inside alejandro jodorowski's attempt to make in the film back in the 1970s and that movie might be the best love song to the creative process that I've ever seen my point is that a lot of people out there already know the story and I'd like to believe that most science fiction fans have a pretty firm grasp of the basics of the story even if they have not yet done the deep dive and if you haven't done the deep dive I strongly urge you to check out all the above especially frank herbert's [adace-ad id=”5497″]novel which I find to be endlessly rewarding each time I reread it but in very broad strokes here is the backdrop of the story for people who know nothing about dune dune is the tale of two warring houses in the far future the atreides and the harkonnens I've been pronouncing them the harkonnens for decades but the movie refers to them as harkonnens in any event these two bloodlines have been at war for centuries and their feud only intensifies when their emperor decides that the atreides should take over spice production on the desert planet arrakis a role previously held by the harkonnens the spice melange is the most valuable resource in the universe with the navigation of space being one of its many uses so naturally any family serving this role for the emperor faces enormous political pressure in addition to the incredible challenge of harvesting the spice on a world where the sun kills you the sandstorms kill you and of course the big giant sand worms will absolutely kill you in the harkonnens they chose to abuse the people of arakas squeezing the planet like power mad despots while they trade his family they hope to form an alliance with the people of arrakis the fremen living in harmony alongside them while still serving the needs of the empire and at the center of this giant political conflict is the young paula tradies played brilliantly by timothy chalamet who's rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors of his generation my first instinct is always to despise any kid who's that good looking but I've seen enough of his movies now to know that he has some serious chops as an actor in any event the story of dune is what happens to paul when he goes to arrakis paul's the son of duke lado atreides brought to life by the legendary oscar isaac as well as the lady jessica played by the lovely rebecca ferguson who really shines in her role the lady jessica is a member of the bennet jesuit the secretive organization armed with quasi-mystical abilities as well as vast political influence and their organization manipulates the bloodlines of the major houses hoping one day to produce the quizets how direct a man who can wield their terrifying power and one of my favorite ingredients of the story is that eledo and jessica have chosen to surround paul with advisors trainers and companions who can arm him with the mental disciplines and physical skills that he'll need to survive in the war against the harkonnens we've got the great salty veteran gurney haleck played to perfection by josh brolin even if I still privately prefer patrick stewart in the role there's the mentat thuffier hobbit played by stephen mckingley henderson and a mentat is basically a human computer in a universe that has shunned the use of actual computers ever since the butlerian jihad a war that I won't be getting into here but it's tons of fun to discuss and last but not least we have the swordsman duncan Idaho played with tons of zest and enthusiasm by jason momoa aquaman himself who in many ways is like a big brother to paul I wasn't necessarily the world's biggest fan of some of the new dialogue cooked up for his character and that it completely clashes with the tone of herbert's original text but jason momoa he's so damn likable in the role I will gladly give the movie a pass on this front because across the board the cast is just first-rate it's one of the best casts that we've ever seen in a giant movie like this my only lingering questions are with those characters who we really haven't seen in action that much yet namely the fremen who just like in the book don't really take center stage until later in the story apart from the characters lead kinds in the shout out mapes and even though javier bartom is one of my favorite actors on planet earth at this time I'm going to need to see more of him as stilgar before I render my final verdict because that is a character with very big shoes to fill but I have every confidence in the world and javier bartom but once again we just need to see more of them and zendaya she's got tons of screen time as chine but mostly in the form of these mysterious visions and dreams that paul is having and speaking of which one of those dreams is so earth-shattering and cool that I'm going to give myself a heart attack by not discussing it but it is the spoiler of all spoilers I can't get to it now but let's just say that paul has the power to foresee possible outcomes and one of them happens to be my favorite scene of the movie but getting back to zendaya I like her the role but her juiciest dramatic scenes will be coming up in part two also all sci-fi nerdery aside just seeing timothy chalamet and zendaya on the screen together every single teenager on the planet is just gonna squeal with delight but the characters that we see plenty of in this movie are paul's enemies the harkonnens as they launched their attack on the tradies trying to rip control of arakas back from them I can't really go into the nuances of this political struggle without spoilers but the harkonnens are the bad guys of course they're gonna fight our heroes and the harkenings are some of the most sinister villains imaginable I love the way their homeworld of gidi prime was depicted the architecture the uniforms everything just the tone was perfect and dave bautista he's pretty cool as the beast drabon and the way polka dot man himself is the men piper devries but the biggest show stealer of the whole movie is of course stellan skarsgard as the baron vladimir harkonnen a character who I regard as arguably the best villain written in the history of the science fiction.
Genre how about that big claim on my part, but that's how I feel he is just diabolically evil completely at peace with being an utter monster and still in skarsgard he leans all the way in on bringing this legendary character to life physically revolting in every way his grotesque appearance is only exceeded by his cunning and his intelligence making him potentially the most dangerous person in the universe the only thing missing is the person that is grooming as his heir and from my point of view the story of paula tradies is incomplete without being able to compare and contrast his journey with his evil counterpart in his rival house batman has the joker sherlock holmes has professor moriarty and paula tradies has fade ralpha and I am just slack-jawed with disbelief that his character was not included in this movie which we've all known for well over two years is not a spoiler but this is my one major criticism of the movie and yet be that as it may my criticism might totally vanish and evaporate into thin air if villeneuve manages to give fade rather some killer scenes in part two or a killer introduction he might be saving that character to inject some new blood into the follow-up movie so to be continued for now all we can do is just enjoy sting and a silver man can name the david lynch film and the last character I want to praise is charlotte rampling as the reverend mother gaius helen mohem a character just as terrifying and ruthless as baron harkonnen but she has her own agenda one that completely transcends the bitter feud between the harkonnens and the atreides and sean phillips she's a very tough act to follow but charlotte rampling gives it her all and once again if I haven't said so enough this cast is the stuff that dreams are made of at any rate I'm leaving out a few other characters related to some very plot-specific spoilers but I'll get to them in my next video so let's leave the cast behind for now and talk about the crew first and foremost the dp greg fraser he has shot a stunning movie but it's more raw and rugged as opposed to beautiful dennyville news last movie blade runner 2049 was beautiful but dune it's harsh it's a visual approach that reflects the challenges that paul must endure on his journey and they're going to be a lot of people who prefer david lynch's much more stylized depiction of arrakis and that's totally valid but dennyville news clearly trying to strip away the romanticism of the visual language of the movie han zimmer's music it's solid not necessarily a home run but close enough my only real technical criticism is with the adaptation of the book admittedly a herculean task one of the biggest challenges in adapting the book is how to handle all the interior thoughts and monologues of the characters because in the book these thoughts are almost like a second set of dialogue running parallel to the character's spoken words and david lynch he chose to just include some of these thoughts but in a movie these thoughts can come across as pretty clunky so this particular screenplay leaves them out entirely but as a result a lot of the scenes in the movie they feel incomplete without a visual component to fill in the missing information and as I mentioned before I wasn't a fan at all the more conversational dialogue that's been thrown into the movie I know it makes the movie more accessible to some people but a lot of this dialogue sounds like it was cooked up by the fellas at a nearby gymnasium and it doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the dialogue that is very true to the spirit of frank herbert's original text and my last critique is with some of the action while some of the action scenes are just gorgeous to behold especially in the early scene where gurney hallick is training paulo tradies a scene that teaches the audience a key mechanic in how war is waged in this fictional setting many people might wonder why no one uses a friggin blaster in this story well that's because people use shields for protection and in the book shooting a laser at a shield causes an explosion that can kill both parties in the exchange so now everybody uses knives and swords like it's medieval times again and only a slow blade can penetrate the shield that's being used in combat leading to this really cool and unusual fighting style mixing attacks and faints at different speeds but there are times in this movie where it appears as if it all just became too much effort to keep this style going and when you're talking about desert combat it doesn't really matter because no one can use the shield because it'll attract a worm but there's still tons of fight scenes with shields where irrespective of the speed of the blow they seem to be killing people all the same a detail that I think is going to seem increasingly contradictory to the rules of the movie on second and third viewings that said I did enjoy the combat overall especially when we see the small subtle differences between the fighting styles of the tradies the harkonnens the fremen and the sarda card but more on the sadder car in my spoiler review now I'm rapidly running out of non-spoiler things to discuss but I guess I can close with the depiction of life on arrakis the steel suits are functional but not necessarily the slickest in appearance a lot of the uniforms in this movie can get a little tough to tell apart when people are rolling around in sand stabbing each other but the movie does do a good job of exploring just how quickly the sun the wind and the worms can kill you especially if you don't possess any of the skills of the fremen who live deep deep deep in the desert but in spite of all that danger the movie manages to make the fremen way of life seem so beautiful in so many ways even if it is a life full of struggle and death I guess this is all a long-winded way of saying that I like the movie I really enjoyed the movie perhaps I even loved the movie but I kind of had to write down all my thoughts just to get an idea of what I really felt about it so is it the dune that I would wish to see if I could just pluck a perfect movie right out of my head as I'm reading the book no but it is an incredibly worthy adaptation and a welcome addition to the family of film and television adaptations of this colossal story that we've seen so far speaking of the story personally I've only read the first four books for some reason I keep rereading the first book instead of going any further but one of these days.
I'm going to crack open book five, but for now I'm going to wrap up this video I look forward to discussing this flick with everyone over the next few months and once again all of us dune freaks need to band together like paul and jessica joining stillgar in order to make sure the warner brothers hears us loud and clear that we want to see part two but I hope you enjoyed listening to my point of view, if so remember to like and visit our website for more review and more entertainment movies but I hope everyone loves the movie but more importantly as always onwards and upwards
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