My son and I just saw it today and really liked it! I thought it was really well done and I don't really have any criticisms of it. It will be really interesting to see what happens in part three. I haven't read the books, so it will all be new to me. I had only see the 1984 version and I was surprised that the little sister wasn't born yet in this version.

So what did you like?

Tony.

So I'm guessing Paul and his mother knew his new bride was with child by his cousin? Since, you know, he sees all?

I haven't read the books either. It's nice to see a story with a messy ending. Paul and Chani don't get to ride off into the sunset.

They did make some changes from the book- how the baron died, the fact that Paul's sister wasn't born during the final battle in Arrakeen. None of the Harkonnens had red hair!

It was still good, though.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
So I'm guessing Paul and his mother knew his new bride was with child by his cousin? Since, you know, he sees all?

I haven't read the books either. It's nice to see a story with a messy ending. Paul and Chani don't get to ride off into the sunset.

No, that wasn't the emperor's daughter (Princess Irulan/Florence Pugh) that got pregnant. It was Lady Margot Fenrig (Léa Seydoux, the Bond girl and the prison guard in The French Dispatch), that got pregnant from Feyd. She appears to be Bene Gesseret as well. So according to the first Dune thread, her father would have taken control of Caladan when Leto left for Arrakis.

Tony.

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
My son and I just saw it today and really liked it! I thought it was really well done and I don't really have any criticisms of it. It will be really interesting to see what happens in part three. I haven't read the books, so it will all be new to me. I had only see the 1984 version and I was surprised that the little sister wasn't born yet in this version.

So what did you like?

Tony.

There's already several threads about this.....

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
My son and I just saw it today and really liked it! I thought it was really well done and I don't really have any criticisms of it. It will be really interesting to see what happens in part three. I haven't read the books, so it will all be new to me. I had only see the 1984 version and I was surprised that the little sister wasn't born yet in this version.

So what did you like?

Tony.

There's already several threads about this.....

I know there are. Someone requested a spoiler thread so they don't inadvertently read something they don't want to know until they see the movie. That's why I put SPOILER in the title.

Tony.

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
My son and I just saw it today and really liked it! I thought it was really well done and I don't really have any criticisms of it. It will be really interesting to see what happens in part three. I haven't read the books, so it will all be new to me. I had only see the 1984 version and I was surprised that the little sister wasn't born yet in this version.

So what did you like?

Tony.

They compressed the amount of time between the time that Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother (while pregnant) and when Paul/Muad'Dib springs the trap on the Harkonnens and the Emperor. That was a time of three or four years (IIRC) in the books. The sister was born well before the final battle.

This is a detail, but not one that does tremendous violence to the story. In the novels, the sister (named Alia) kills the Baron (and killing wounded and incapacitated enemies is the duty of Fremen children). Maybe the movie-makers didn't think audiences wanted to see a 4 year-old knife her uncle, even when they are fully conscious and possessed of genetic memories of all their female ancestors.

A change that seemed unneeded was to make Chani be a semi-doubter and mild rebel in the movie. She wasn't in the novels. She wasn't a Paul sycophant, but she didn't doubt his position in the world. She fully accepted that Paul had to marry Irulan (princess), but also fully knew Irulan was to be the Empress only in name.

The movie made Stilgar a little more blind in his religious belief in Paul than the novel. He was a true believer, but not blinded by it.

Again, these are not really too important, and movies need not duplicate the source anyway.

Is there a part three coming? The material is there, of course.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
... A change that seemed unneeded was to make Chani be a semi-doubter and mild rebel in the movie. She wasn't in the novels. She wasn't a Paul sycophant, but she didn't doubt his position in the world. She fully accepted that Paul had to marry Irulan (princess), but also fully knew Irulan was to be the Empress only in name.

The movie made Stilgar a little more blind in his religious belief in Paul than the novel. He was a true believer, but not blinded by it. ...

I was going to post the same thing. Chani wasn't an angry atheist and Stilgar wasn't a fundamentalist.

@benny6

Ok, you're right. It wasn't the Emporer's daughter.

Let me ask those that read the books, does Paul in the movies match the description of Paul in the books?

No offense to Timothee Chalamet, but he doesn't seem to have the build I would think a person in his position would need to survive. He's a bit scrawny in my opinion.

quote:

A change that seemed unneeded was to make Chani be a semi-doubter and mild rebel in the movie. She wasn't in the novels. She wasn't a Paul sycophant, but she didn't doubt his position in the world. She fully accepted that Paul had to marry Irulan (princess), but also fully knew Irulan was to be the Empress only in name.

I thought I read somewhere that the director wanted Chani to play the part of Paul's conscience.

I think he's being true to Herbert's vision of Paul as an Antihero

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
@benny6

Ok, you're right. It wasn't the Emporer's daughter.

Let me ask those that read the books, does Paul in the movies match the description of Paul in the books?

No offense to Timothee Chalamet, but he doesn't seem to have the build I would think a person in his position would need to survive. He's a bit scrawny in my opinion.

IIRC, Paul was about 15 at the start of the book. His part was cast correctly.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
@benny6

Ok, you're right. It wasn't the Emporer's daughter.

Let me ask those that read the books, does Paul in the movies match the description of Paul in the books?

No offense to Timothee Chalamet, but he doesn't seem to have the build I would think a person in his position would need to survive. He's a bit scrawny in my opinion.

The Fremen were a desert people, and probably not too well fed. In the novels, they called Paul "water fat" but to off-worlders he would have probably seemed thin and a little stringy. Does a knife fighter and desert wanderer need to be bulked up? I would think not. As Mark said, he was very young.

As to being Paul's conscience: Paul has no conscience and has no need for a conscience. Once he becomes the Kwistaz Haderach, he has contact with all of his ancestors, and even more importantly, becomes perfectly prescient - he can see the future in perfect detail. He has very little ability to change it, in fact. That is why he was reluctant to assume the mantle of the Mahdi, because he knew that would unleash war on the galaxy. However, he comes to see that war on that scale is inevitable, and all he can hope to do is keep humanity on the Golden Path he mentioned so humanity does not extinguish itself. The Golden Path is a thousands of years process, which Paul's son, Leto II saw even more clearly, and which he also worked to maintain.

But someone for whom the future holds no surprises and is more or less immutable really needs no conscience. Paul acted only as he had to. Chani, perhaps played the role of keeping Paul closer to his ordinary humanity, but did not serve as a conscience.

These are subtle distinctions, and hard to convey in a film without a lot of exposition.

in part one, when Gurney approaches Paul on Caladan and instigates a fight , and Paul does not want to, the scene ends with Gurney on the floor with a blade ready to kill him, and yet he has a blade ready to end Paul,


the scene at the end, when Paul bests Feyd, was similar, as replace Gurney with Paul, and Paul with Feyd,



I guess he found the mood,,,

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
But someone for whom the future holds no surprises and is more or less immutable really needs no conscience. Paul acted only as he had to. Chani, perhaps played the role of keeping Paul closer to his ordinary humanity, but did not serve as a conscience.

These are subtle distinctions, and hard to convey in a film without a lot of exposition.

Much better summation than what I posted

I didn't think Paul could "see the future" so much as he can see all possible paths and their outcomes? Which path is taken is still subject to his whims/desires/etc.

As I hear/read more about the changes DV made to the source material, the less excited I become about seeing it.

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInAR:
I didn't think Paul could "see the future" so much as he can see all possible paths and their outcomes? Which path is taken is still subject to his whims/desires/etc.

That was before he purified the Water of Life. Now he can see the future and has become trapped by prophecy.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInAR:
I didn't think Paul could "see the future" so much as he can see all possible paths and their outcomes? Which path is taken is still subject to his whims/desires/etc.

That was before he purified the Water of Life. Now he can see the future and has become trapped by prophecy.

Exactly. Once he becomes the Kwisatz Haderach, he is trapped by his own visions of the path of the future.

The changes from the novel are not very significant. And, as I always like to say, a film should be judged on its own merit and not by whether it is a Xerox of a book it came from.

An adaptation has to maintain the spirit of the work and for the most part, the two Dune movies have. You also have problems like with Starship Troopers. If they called that movie Space Marines, I'd love it, but it completely trashes the source material.

Oh I'm with you on Starship Troopers. If I ever see Verhoeven on the street, I'm kicking him square in the balls.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
… The Golden Path is a thousands of years process, which Paul's son, Leto II saw even more clearly, and which he also worked to maintain. …

I thought Paul, being unwilling, rejected his role in the Golden Path which left it for Leto II to fulfill.