Amph "The Sleeper Has Awakened" - DUNE DISCUSSION-

Rebecca with a toothpick there reminded me of a nice subtle detail with the Fremen that I really liked, you see so many of them using miswak in scenes where they are sitting around chatting in stilltents.

It's one of those little cultural things that makes it all the more obvious the cultural and religious influences upon the Fremen.

 

Does anyone else find the Harkonens cartoonishly bad mustache-twirling villains? I could discern no noticeable motivations other than Rule The Universe and Be Evil For The Sake Of Being Evil.

 

"A war in my name!"
- Paul

 

I agree, but that seems to be intentional in order to make the Atreides initially look good by comparison (instead of on their own merits) - but without completely earning the hero status, since that’s one of the themes. I think it’s even implied that humanity over the millennia has started to diverge into sub-races, with some of it planned by the Bene Gesserit eugenics programs, and the Harkonnens definitely seem more similar to fantasy Orcs than full humans, another comparison being Morlocks versus Eloi (just in the sense of human divergence and one seeming much better yet hiding the faults of the other by comparison). Very similar to Game of Thrones, which it probably helped inspire. But that kind of depiction of the other side is often the case when the victors write the history books. At least Dune deconstructs to show that even if the Harkonnens are evil, that doesn’t mean the Atreides are heroes even if they’re better.

 

Heretics of Dune delves into the Harkonnens more, and painted them as a more obvious, banal type of evil - decadent, power-hungry and addicted to their own pleasures.

However, the Baron was certainly aware - his plot when he got Arrakis back was to sacrifice his relative, "Beast" Rabban, by pushing him to be as brutal and terrible as possible - and then send his nephew Feyd as a 'savior'.

 

Epic TV spot. Josh Brolin sounds like Thanos when he says, "Holy Mother."

 

Mostly agree and that is one thing I will give the TV miniseries, the Harkonen are the bad guys but not over the top monsters, like in the Lynch film.

One oddity, in the film, the Harkonen had their own language it seemed, the soldiers etc. But the Baron, Feyd and Rabban talked english to each other. Did I miss something?

Overall I would say that Dune 2 is a good film, very cinematic, the acting, directing, effects are all on point.
Greatest film of all time? No.
Best SF film ever? No.
Best film for the last 30 years? No.

It is better than part one and it will be interesting to see if Dune Messiah happens and what happens there.
Quite a bit was cut from Dune.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

It's one of the problems I have with Villeneuve's Dune, his depiction of the Harkonnens as these hairless monsters from the Baron on down to their grunts. He clearly liked the grotesque depiction in Lynch's Dune, and it is an easy way to say "the Harkonnens are nasty" while avoiding Herbert's "the Baron is a pederast and a glutton" that really wouldn't fly in 2024. Instead they just randomly kill their plastic garbed servants.

Geidi Prime looks like it would be a harsh environment akin to Arrakis or Selusa Secundus and should, using the internal logic of Herbert's world, forge just as fierce a fighting force as the Sardaukar or the Fremen.

 

I don’t mind the harkonens being hairless/ cartoonishly evil. They come from a black and white planet, so that sorta look/ culture kinda makes sense.

 

Makes sense with their brutal culture.

 

It works on film, it's just not the impression I ever got from the novel.

 

The Mother;
So did anyone else feel that the Paul-Jessica relationship, which was at the core of part 1, was oddly missing in part 2?
They quickly establish that Jessica needs to drink the water of life to give both a chance, and after that she mostly acts possessed, and just wants Paul to drink from the water too. And then when he’s done that, that’s it. If anything, it’s like her true care for Paul just went completely into Alia. And the core relationship of this movie was Paul-Chani … which also makes sense, but I still feel like we could have used more Paul-Jessica moments. Maybe discussing her transformation and what the water of life was like, before he does it.

The Father
I feel Paul also needed some more callbacks to his father and their relationship too, or even more on how much the revenge is driving him. He says he believes in revenge, and we see a picture of Leto burning, and his nuclear stockpile is a plot point - but that’s it. Again, after part 1 really established how this would probably be a driving force for him going forward, it’s just not touched on as much again.

The Water of Life
The movie makes clear why Paul doesn’t want to go south, and how he finally does not only because of Jessica or his own death but because his followers would refuse to go and just die with him if he stays. BUT… while Paul thinks it’s inevitable it will all play out as it does once he goes south, he’s a little too quick to drink from the water of life the moment he goes South. He could have gone down, but still had more resistance to drinking the water of life until the pressure and circumstances really forced it. But instead it’s like he just resigns to it. It just feels like we missed a step.
I did have an issue with the inevitability feeling of it all once Paul does drink from the water of life, and after reading a post here earlier I’m more ok with it now… but that just underlines why there should have been another step to really show why he decides to drink from the water of life. He was accepting his own death, but didn’t want to be the cause of death for those following him. So once he’s south and they’re safe, why drink it? If he thinks he might die, he’s already accepted that. Is it revenge for his father that takes over? (To relate to a point above) Are conversations with his mother that convince him, underlining the potential while also showing that there is still Jessica in control there? (To relate to the other point above). Does he maybe get the blessing of this version of Chani, who’s convinced that it would aid in the liberation of her people and assured he’d stay true to himself, disbelieving the superstition it would turn him into the god-king savior figure and just thinking of winning the war? There should have been something else there, or if there was something else then make it more clear and decisive.
And if drinking the water of life did make everything else pretty inevitable from that point on, and did change Paul enough to accept the holy war, then why wasn’t he shown to have undergone a more drastic transformation, like his mother?

Besides a struggle for the Water of Life, and its consequences if that really was his turning point like it was for Jessica, I feel him adapting to the Fremen could He. Had more struggle, and after the water of life that at least the lesser names (like Gutney vs Rabban) had more struggle too. And just that the Emperor seemed a little stronger, especially during the attack, even if we knew he wouldn’t survive as emperor in the struggle.

I’m also curious if you all thought the Muadib = Paul reveal could have had a little more emotional reaction for catharsis?

Anyways, like I already said - great film, cinematic masterpiece, will probably be the best movie of 2024. But more than discussing the adaptation changes, how it works as its own two-part (so far) series is what I’m most interested in. Especially if anyone agrees or disagrees or also has feelings on these points?

 

They are indeed painted very broadly in the way many Greeks painted the Persians - as degenerate, slothful, yet tyrannical demons, prone to arbitrary mass violence and without anything but evil designs and intentions. But they’re so frightening and visually interesting that it doesn’t matter, and they’re also not really the central point of the story (as we see with the way they come to an end). What matters is the dangers of Paul’s messianic quest, and of the manipulators of that budding galactic jihad, the Bene Gesserit. The Harkonnen are just there to provide a clear justification for the Fremen revolt, and the Atreides-led jihad, keeping the audience clearly on their side. And then realizing, too late, that the fire of Paul’s justice may burn the whole galaxy down. I think that’s central to the story, and why this sequel works so viscerally well. We’re fully on Paul’s side against these horrifically evil people, only to start questioning our feelings about his cause, and where he’s leading it, near the end. Setting up very intriguing questions about where we’ll be taken in part 3 (for those who haven’t read the books, at least).

I personally would have fleshed them out a bit more, but honestly, I don’t think that’s necessary or even desirable, given the above. It makes for a more mythological vs. historical tone, and I generally prefer the latter, but…yeah, I don’t think it was the wrong choice.

 

They still remember who hitler is that far in the future?

 

Yup. And the Fremen, for example, trace their background to Arabia (Al-ouroba) as well as a specific culture in the Caucuses (Circassian knights who spoke the secret language of Chakobsa), and to a syncretist Sunni Muslim-Zen religion (zensunni). So our Earth history is still alive and present in this galaxy, though there have been major fusions and transformations.

 

Inspiration for the Fremen

 

Herbert was way into the idea that other religions would merge with highly specific variants of Buddhism of all things, incidentally, a decent chunk of the Orange Catholic Bible is based on “Mahayana Christianity.” The 60s, man.

 

Paul's entire arc through Dune deep into Dune Messiah is one where he has these horrific visions of the future that come about as a result of his actions, but he can't see any alternate route. There's a deep sense of inevitability from the stilltent to the Water of Life and beyond that Paul just can't escape, much as he would like to.

I don't think Villeneuve communicates that well before Paul goes south in the film. Nothing Paul can do disabuses the Fremen of his messianic potential, not because they are superstitious ignorants so much as because he can't find a single step that leads anywhere else.

It's not until Messiah that he finds a way to break away, and by then is a far too late.

The Water of Life transformation accurately marks a shift in Paul, but I don't know if the film quite rises to depicting why it does so. I honestly don't think it was particularly effective at reiterating what happens to Paul or Jessica when they transform the Water of Life for that matter.

 

The transformation struck me as very drastic. I mean, was he supposed to grow horns and spit fire?

 

Agreed, or his reluctance was a pretense to win over Chani's faction, which makes him even more a villain at the end. His affirmations of love for Chani were a lie. Irulan and the throne had always been his goal and the holy war was always going to be his mechanism for vengeance against the empire in its entirely.

 

Seeing the movie in a few. Be back with my thoughts

 

So in Dune (2021) when Kynes says "Coffee service" and basically in the next shot the help is spitting in a little boiling tin pot, is that the Coffee service?

 

So I watched the film, I've been thinking it over the past few hours.

Compared to the first part, this is MUCH better to me. I don't know, the first part didn't sit as well to me for some reason. I still prefer the 80s movie to the first part lol. But watching this, like in a mini Imax theater really emphasizing the sound and scope of the visuals, there were times I was overwhelmed and felt like this might be the best film I've ever seen. But being able to think about it past few hours, I could say that's true but that I'm still necessarily liking everything about it.

The best thing it helped me with was seeing the theme of Control. So many things kept talking about control, control, control, yet it didn't click till this film about it being the biggest thing in it. Trying to control everything to the point that you no longer can...if you ever could which I guess is the themes of the next books. (Not read the others besides the first but I know of what happens.)

The Good:
Visuals, score, pacing (compared to the first), acting: All great. Especially Butler playing Feyd, I instantly hated him but loved that. In a film with lots of spectacle, the arena scene being shifted to black and white felt an intriguing change that made it actually better for me. Arguably the best part of the movie in a way. Including Lady Fenring from the novel was good to have as not even the miniseries went into that really. Also, it wasn't until I got back that I realized it was Javier Bardem playing Stilgar, I didn't realize that this whole time in the two movies watching. I could see next year there being acting awards for several in this.

The Bad:
Not that I was against Christopher Walken being the Emperor, but literally anyone could have played that. I feel like he didn't get a big of role compared to what this was really for. I've seen the same comments for Irulan, but I feel she was adequate for the time given to her. Hard to give the character much without her speaking throughout like in the original theatrical cut of the 80s film.

There were scenes cut for the film, those being Thufir and another character not named. I doubt little it wasn't Count Fenring. Yes, Lady Fenring was important, but the Count would of added another layer to all the control issues and its ramifications that Paul would have seen. Also Gurney not trying to go after Jessica...why was not included?

I'm glad the Bene Gesserit got screentime, but the Guild had...nothing? Nothing at all? The Guild have just as much impact on the galaxy as the Bene Gesserit do yet there was nothing in this film of even mentioning them? It's just like...why? They're confederate with the BG while also being opposed to them, they have influence on the Emperor, the houses, and space travel itself. How do you not say anything about them??

My biggest gripe was the ending. Why end there? No comments from Jessica about wives and such? That was literally the ending of the book. So to end on Chani's face without any comment was...odd. I mean I know what happens but it made it look like she was trying to kill herself by a worm...so uh...why?

The I don't know:
Possibly, my overall biggest issue I can't make which way, is Jessica. I...hated her in this. The book version (and 80s film I'd say), didn't really make it seem she was siding with her BG ideals when it came to Paul, that when he became the KH she was scared of him and had no control anymore. Yet, it still seemed she was trying to control everything still in the film. Yeah, she had that mental conversation with the Reverend Mother at the end, but all throughout it felt like she was still trying to control things like a BG and not in loyalty to him.

Honestly, this made me feel like she was a villain throughout it all. The more witch side of the BG stayed through as supposed to separate like how I think book-wise she was. Although I think that this foreshadows for later on if I'm correct? How she acts in the later books to what she really is after? I'm not sure really, I just got a very untrusting take from all this about her, which if that was the intention to set up later on then fine, but...I don't know.

I'm actually planning on seeing this film again to understand it better. I'd give the film a 9 out of 10, but it's a weak 9...more like an 8 but feels like I can't fully say 8. Again, I'll have to see it again to get my thoughts in order to reevaluate

Plus, my brother wants to see it again to try to understand it again too, he had lots of questions afterwards that I'm having to explain about the universe and everything lol