AG Monday!
Dune-a-Palooza concludes.
Dune-A-Palooza concludes with Denis Villeneuve’s Dune parts I and II. Wait a second, we said. Someone is going to adapt Dune to the screen, and give enough screen time to do it right? We were excited, but also cautious. After all, there was an earlier adaptation, as we covered in the last episode. And it wasn’t great. Would the new movies meet our expectations? Or would our hopes for a top-notch Dune adaptation disappear like a mirage? Hear our reactions in this episode. And also hear our musings about what, in general, makes a good movie adaptation of a novel.
CGI sandworms! Religious fanatics! Baron Harkonnen dipped in motor oil! Oversized, empty living spaces! Oscar Isaac’s beard! It’s all here.
Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!
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I’ll just get the snark out of the way. it isn’t even my own.
As a movie director, Villeneuve is a first rate cinematographer.
One of these days, I should rewatch Arrival and judge whether the snark was justified. His other two films I’ve seen, Dune and the Blade Runner sequel, both had long, long, long shots of vast landscapes done very well, only on screen for too long a time.
All that said, here’s a little trivia:
Cinematography was deemed so important for making Citizen Kane, that Orson Welles, the director, placed the name of the cinematographer, Gregg Toland, alongside his own in the opening credits. Usually the director’s name appears by itself, and it’s always the last credit.
As always, writing before actually listening to the podcast…
Enjoyed the 2 parts, overall.. cinematically breathtaking and narratively fine.
Feyd is certainly much less.. striking in this version.
While the Fremen are more authentically Arab in casting, I’m pretty sure they could have found an Arab actor for Stilgar as well.
Two elements of design that both movies follow but surprisingly the TV adaptation got right… the Sardaurkar are disguised as Harkonnen soldiery to avoid the Great Houses learning of the Emperors complicity in the attack, but in the movies they maintain their distinct uniforms. And given that the head radiates a lot of heat, it’s amusing that the Stillsuits seem to leave the head uncovered.
Some scenes were complete reproductions of the Lynch movie, which was amusing, as well as a few of the jokes in a not-very-humorous few hours of movie (“Usul, try to call a big one” indeed).
At least Kynes gets to go out like a boss in this version!
One thing that would have been appropriate to post in the discussion of the book was that I always found Count Fenring a very intriguing minor character, especially when Paul realizes at the end that he’s blind to what Fenring may do and may very easily be killed by him, should Fenring decide to engage. I was pleased to see the character in part 2, even if gender-swapped.. but according to Wikipedia it’s not actually a gender-swapped Fenring but supposed to be his wife?