Discussion Stellan Skarsgård (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen) in Dune

He's got the look of Lynch's Baron.

 

Hopefully, the futuristic society will depict an ability to treat acne. Lynch's Baron just had a mess of a complexion.

This one is supposed to be even meaner than Lynch's, which is saying something given the way he pulled those grisly plugs out of people...

 

This how the director described him: House Harkonnen, led by the monstrous Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård), a mammoth with merciless appetites. The baron, created with full-body prosthetics, is like a rhino in human form. This version of the character is less of a madman and more of a predator.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywoo...look-at-timothee-chalamet-zendaya-oscar-isaac

 

He was so creepy in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I'm so excited to see what he could as the Baron.

 

This could be a planetary alignment.

 

Baron was a madman only in Lynch version. In the book, he's as cunning as it gets.

 

It's admittedly been a while since I've read the book, but that is my recollection also (I may have to re-read it before the movie also, or listen to the audio book on the way too and from work if I don't have time). At least Lynch made him a good lunatic- that's a kind of character Lynch doesn't seem to have a hard time doing well. I don't recall the acne treatments being in the book, but I could have forgotten; I've read lots of similar books.

Sometimes characters are notably changed from the book- another example being the main bad guy (who owns the island) in Jurassic Park; he was much more cold and calculated, far less the loving grandfatherly type in the book.

 

Anthony Breznican has seen a picture of Stellan as the Baron and described his look as extremely unsettling.

 

Perfect casting choice. Stellan has experience playing a "monstrous" character. He played Bootstrap Bill Turner from the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Although, I'm sure this one will be much more frightening.

 

The effect of revulsion is maximized if there is no extenuating circumstance, such as madness, to tax one's pity. Madness is volatile and unpredictable, and the fear of the random unknown pulls from the budget that is normally set aside for Man versus Nature. Who wants that? That's what teen scream is for. It's cheap to tell narratively, because anyone can kick a can down the road by blaming action on madness. You the viewer are hijacked along for the ride with low-effort content. The result is irreproducible in a lab setting, unfalsifiable, and so you just have to take it at face value that the product has value. But it's inflated value. I'll take Skarsgård executing liquid cooled calculated malice. That takes writing. That's gold standard. Hans Gruber is a good example.