I watched this a while back, but I wanted to give it some time for me to digest it so that I wouldn't be too hard on it. But the last few weeks were hectic and now I'm not too eager to go on one of my usual rants with 15 paragraphs. In short, I liked it. Kinda. There are some things I genuinely loved, some that I found acceptable, some that annoyed me.
- Aesthetic: Eh. I get what they were going for, brutalism is both easy to do and seems alien enough. Things like the "Space Popes" that arrive with the Emperor's Emmisary, were great. The guys next to them (dunno if they were supposed to be representatives of the Spacing Guild) with the PlayStation Wheel Controller stuck on their heads were... eh. The stillsuits were adequate but they lacked pizzaz. I liked all the ornate art, but I never believed those people were aristocrats. The whole thing felt like some Post-Apoc Sci-Fi where everything's breaking down and they're on their last legs. Everything was too empty. Arakis is a barren, harsh place, and I wasn't expecting Arraken to be anything special, but it was too empty. Like a videogame area where every building is closed and you only see 5 NPCs running around. I liked the Bene Gesserit, the Harkonnen outfits were cool albeit generic, but I didn't feel as if I was diving into a huge new world. Now, you can always overcomplicate things. One of the reasons why I don't much like Fantasy is that the Tolkien-influenced genre just goes overboard with all the belts and cloaks and sashes and you end up with a ridiculous look. PT SW had some genuinely great designs, but also a lot of things that felt straight out of an amusement park. Between overdesign and brutalism I'll choose the latter, which is why I never cared for Jodorowsky's version. To me, that movie looked like pure vomit. Lynch's had some good stuff with the Emperor's Throne Room, the Navigator and the such, but everything about the Harkonnens was too ridiculous and low-cost. DUNC's alright, it could've been better. More light, more flair, more in general.
- Harkonnens: I liked them well enough. They're brutal, greedy hoarding hateful *******s. Book Baron is like a fat **** Palpatine, this one is more "typical" but I get why they did it, PC things aside. It's better to sell your villain as a vile ******* closer to OT Sidious rather than a flamboyant psycho. I'm getting S&M vibes from them, which is fine by me, but again, they needed more flair and some light somewhere.
- Atreides: I liked all the casting choices, to an extent, but felt like a lot of things were left underdeveloped. I get that it was for running time, but it makes them feel a bit empty as well. I got that Leto was the "good guy" but the book makes it a point that he's better than the Harkonnens, he's honourable and everything, but he's still a cold aristocrat. Jessica was crying for about 3/4ths of her screentime. Yueh got nothing. Gurney got a bit Flandersised but Brolin's always cool. Hawat... eh. I like the actor, I've seen him in Fences and Lady Bird. But he comes off like an old teddy bear. I can't picture him interogating Jessica (another dropped plot point). Reading the book I imagined someone like My Cocaine or Brian Cox. A hard-assed old Brit with authority. Momoa Idaho was fun, not much more to say. If they're intending to do beyond DUNC 2 and into Messiah, Children, etc, they need to hurry. MOAR DUNCANS! Chalamet was pretty great, Paul was written more whiny, but that's not really his fault. He looks the part and has the chops. In general, I liked them more than the Lynch version. Lynch made some crazy decisions and everyone looked like they walked out of an all-ages comic book theatre production for sick kids. They were more subdued here, but they worked, for the most part.
- Liet Kynes: As a character, she wasn't annoying. I was expecting YAAAAAAS KWEEEEEN SLAAAAAY but she was fine. However, I still have a problem with the casting. Liet's gender and race were absolutely central to the character. Pardot was literally Lawrence (Of Arabia). The blond (British) Outsider who falls in love with the culture and goes native. Liet is his son who's got sandy hair and overcompensates for being half-Fremen by being hardcore into it. Max Von Sydow was great casting back in the day and the ideal cast would've been someone like Charles Dance. DUNC's Fremen are a majority black diverse group (more later) so if the actress is black, and from her looks a "pureblood" (she looks entirely unmixed and wholly Western African is my point, not like say, Will Smith or the such), then both her father Pardot and her Fremen mother would've been as black as Djmon Hounsou as well. So how the Hell would Pardot be an outsider prompting Liet to be hardcore into the lifestyle/culture? The Fremen are also highly patriarchal, which was also omitted from the movie, making the gender change again, a mistake. As a character I didn't mind her, but as a translation all the importance of the character of Liet was left behind. He was the tribute to T.E. Lawrence, and now that's gone.
- Fremen: I don't know what they're going for. Book Fremen embraced the struggle as a way to strengthen their faith. Book Fremen had huge stockades of spice that they bribed the Guild with to leave them alone. Portraying them as opressed puppies is just weird. And once again Hollywood takes an opportunity for actual diversity and just casts African-Americans in everything. Every single important Fremen we see, apart from the token Bardem Stilgar, is black. Mapes, Kynes, Jamis, most of the crowd and so on. I don't have a problem with making them a collection of "darker skinned peoples", from MENAs, to Sub-Saharan Africans, Latinos, to sell the "far-future desert people" bit. My problem is that they flew to the Middle East to shoot, they took a book with explicit MENA influences, and while Hollywood's still crying about the impact of 9/11 on American Muslims, they still refused to cast actual Arabs in major roles. Look closely and the Arab guys are in the back as extras during the Jamis fight. Chani could've been an Algerian girl with red hair as she's in the book, but now she's Zendaya. Mostly, I dislike Zendaya. Couldn't they have at least gotten the GoT girl, Nathalie Emanuel? I don't even know if she's supposed to be Kyne's daughter or if they're merging her with Stilgar's daughter. I don't think there's a possibillity where Kynes is her mother and Zendaya is the daughter, unless there's a pale Albino Fremen running around, or she got it on with a visiting VGH NORDIC ARYAN ALIEN (if you thought Hoteps were bad, Nordicists do the exact same We Wuz Everythang but they also believe they descend from Blonde Aryan Alien Gods...). I liked Jamis, his small scene with the "mystery of life" bit actually made me sad when Paul killed him. But still, the demographics make little sense. Either make the Fremen all-black, evenly distributed or just make them as they should be; majority Arabs. In the far future I don't get how you can have a relatively small group of people yet have such insane phenotypical diversity that half of them are darker-skinned Caucasians and the others make Seal look like Shaun King. It's just not possible. Of course we've got the white guy as the leader, but they gave him a tan because Americans can't tell such things apart. It's not really a deal breaker, it just irks me because it shows how hypocritical Hollywood is and how dumb the Twittertards are.
- Politics: Dune's got political undertones, but people always miss the major themes. There's ecology, there's the deconstruction of the Messiah, but most either get stuck there or the usual suspects turn it into a white saviour thing. The actual message of the books is never reported because it's pretty un-PC nowadays. Which brings me to my actual point, that Dune can't be adapted properly in this climate. So what they did with DUNC was turn it into a basic bitch opression story. Zendaya's monologues, the Harkonnens became bald albinos, it's a mixture of the ME Oil and African Diamond/Colonisation allegories, with them building up to a deconstruction of the Messiah with a white saviour critique tacked on. I get why they did it, it's an easier sell, but I think it's a bad choice to waste Dune on such a tired trope.
- Plot Points: Tons and tons of bits were dropped and the world-building was almost non-existent. I get that they had time restraints, but how am I supposed to care for Yueh being a traitor (what a tweest!) when they cut his scene with Jessica? Why did the cut the dinner scene, the very thing that shows us just how politics are played in this universe and how dangerous this place is? Salusa Secundus is supposed to be this ultra-hush-hush secret prison planet that breeds monsters, but Piter just rolls up to it. They even drop the whole "Sardukar pretending to be Harkonnens" bit. The meetings that showed Leto's abillities were dropped, we lost the Hawat/Jessica standoff and so on. I hope they at least release a 5hr DC.
- Writing: Actually my biggest gripe. It's amateurish. Things like Paul greeting Hawat by running and screaming "THUFIR HAWAT" were embarassing. Gurney basically shouting "THESE HERE SHIELDS WORK BY SLOWLY PUTTING YOUR KNIFE INTO THEM" the same. They could've had Paul start off extremelly aggressive wanting it to be over and Gurney bark a simple "slower". Hell, they explained it at the start of the scene too. Jessica does nothing but cry all the time, which is weird since they made a fuss about "muh stronk womyn" but then refused to actually make her half as strong as she was in the book. Mostly, I never got the impression that these were ultra-intelligent nobles bred for politics. You could've told me they were 14th century Feudal Lords or rich people from [current day] and I'd have believed you. Paul's never shown as he should be, a terrifying mind. He's just a moody teen. Book Paul is gung-ho about his birthright and does political manuevering at the very start. DUNC Paul is a "relatable" dark-haired whiteboy prince for the women in the audience to fall in love with. Kyle's Paul was more commanding towards the end, but he had such a wholesome face that I never found myself immersed in what he was supposed to be. The whole thing was played straight and lacked the commentary. Chalamet I can see the brooding and darkness under his eyes, even if he didn't get many chances to do it.
Well, I wrote more than I thought I would. I liked it, more than the Lynch version. Verdict's not out on the Mini-Series yet. The Lynch one had some good stuff, and while it was my entry to Dune back when I got into film and thus Lynch, I don't much have an attachment to it. It had some good bits, it told a relatively complete story, but it wasn't really Dune and it was too barren to start a franchise. I did like the Stillsuits more, though they lacked the cloaks and headcaps. But the designs were goofy, the Harkonnens were ridiculous, all the bright green was distracting, it did feel like an underbudget production. DUNC may not have gotten everything perfect, but at the very least I am invested. Am I 100% happy? Not really, but I'm not foaming at the mouth either. I've found much better fan-art online, and DUNC's not "muh Dune", but I do hope it does well enough to spawn some new merch. I don't give two ***** about Brian's abortions though, so apart from a cool videogame and some toys, I'm not intrested in any "Expanded DUNCverse".
When I become God Emperor myself I'll finance my own, perfect vision of Dune. Until then, I'll be fine with DUNC. But I dream of this Dune:
Oh, I liked the music, but it was kinda basic. Good, but I was thinking something like Peter Gabriel would've fit more.
