Last night we headed down to the Silver City in Richmond and caught the last evening showing of Denis Villeneuve's Dune in IMAX before the big movie machine switched the screen over to The Eternals, the latest Marvel would-be blockbuster.
It was an interesting comparative experience, because Karli came to the movie with no knowledge other than a brief introduction to the Dune universe that I'd given her a couple of weeks previously, whereas I've read all the Frank Herbert* novels in the series and am on my third copy of Dune, having worn out two copies over the years since I first read the book sometime in the mid-70s.
As a result, my experience of the movie was comparative and anticipatory, whereas Karli judged it completely on its own merits.
For readers who haven't seen the movie, here's the same basic background that I provided to Karli - I don't think it's possible to discuss the film without having some kind of reference point.
The most precious commodity in the universe is spice, which is mined on the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. House Harkonnen, one of the many royal houses in the Empire, has been in control of Dune for 80 years and has reaped incredible profits from its oppressive control over spice production. The Emperor has decided to transfer control of Arrakis to House Atreides - apparently a gift from the Empire, but Duke Leto Atreides suspects that it's a trap. However, the Duke cannot refuse the Emperor, so House Atreides reluctantly relocates to Arrakis, where the Atreides forces hope to forge an alliance with the Fremen, the natives of Arrakis, and escape whatever ambush awaits them.
The Duke is accompanied by his Bene Gesserit concubine, the Lady Jessica, and their son, Paul. The Bene Gesserit are a powerful religious order not unlike the nuns of the Catholic Church, and Jessica has trained her son in the manipulative, mystical and militant skills of her order. Paul's frequent prophetic visions lead his mother to hope that he could be the Kwisatz Haderach, who will have the ability to bridge space and time with their powers.**
I have to admit to some issues with Villeneuve's treatment of the story. I was astonished by the degree to which explanation and backstory were stripped away from the storyline, to the point where I'm not even
sure that the names of some of the supporting characters, such as Piter
de Vries, the Baron Harkonnen's twisted Mentat, were ever spoken aloud -
not to mention explaining what a Mentat even is, or that the Atreides
Master of Assassins, Thufir Hawat, is also a Mentat. However, I'm also sympathetic with the challenges of balancing explanatory narrative with the natural flow of a story, and Karli didn't seem to see any of these omissions as barriers to following the plot,
There were also a couple of alterations in sequence from the novel, alterations that seemed to serve no purpose. Most notably, Paul's testing by the Bene Gesserit Mother Superior is the first scene in the novel, whereas Villeneuve pushes their interaction to a later moment in the narrative. Villeneuve also choses to transfer the repetition of the Bene Gesserit mantra against fear in that scene from Paul to his mother.
One of the problems with adapting Herbert is that as a writer he relies heavily on internal monologues to reveal what his characters are thinking as opposed to what they're saying, an approach which doesn't lend itself to film, although it might have been interesting to see how the story played out with the addition of some of those unvoiced revelations. As an example, the scene where the Fremen housekeeper, the Shadout Mapes, presents the Lady Jessica with a knife made from the tooth of a sandworm loses its significance when Jessica's unspoken speculations on the significance of the word "Maker" and the Shadout's unexpectedly extreme reaction to it are lost.
The question is, did I enjoy the movie, in spite of my issues with the adaptation?
It's a challenging question, to be honest. I
appreciated the film's scale and scope, the cast delivers excellent
performances, the epic nature of the story is well represented, and the
visual presentation of the film is undeniably monumental, but I found that
it lacked the depth of the novel. To be fair, that's the great
challenge of adapting any novel, let alone something like Dune: finding a way to transfer a complex, layered written narrative to a visual medium. To Villeneuve's credit, I was able to lose myself in his interpretation of the story, in spite of its variations from the source material, and I look forward to the sequel - which has reportedly been greenlit by Warner Brothers for a 2023 release.
As per Karli's useful format, some other thoughts:
Karli refers to Paul Atreides as "the chosen one" whereas I would never have described his role in that way. It's interesting that there have been enough science fiction "Chosen Ones" over the years, ranging from Neo in The Matrix to several Star Wars Force practitioners, that the idea feels like a cliché. That being said, there's an element of White Saviour to the story which is is more evident in a visual adaptation of the novel.
I found the soundtrack overpowering at points in the movie where I would have preferred silence and the sound of the wind on sand. (And when you're watching in IMAX, an overpowering soundtrack is OVERPOWERING.)
Villeneuve seems to have a minor landing gear fetish, there seemed to be a lot of lovingly detailed shots of landing gear unfolding and planting itself on the ground. That being said, I quite liked his version of the loosely described thopters from the book.
As far as I know, the last time Jason Momoa shaved his beard for a role was his 2011 appearance as Conan the Barbarian - let's hope it works out better for him this time.
Sorry, Karli, but Rebecca Ferguson just didn't work for me, although the vision of her as an illustrated Fremen madonna was intriguing.
Why does everyone want the Baron Harkonnen to fly around? In the book,
he's an obese man who uses suspensor technology to take some of the
weight off his feet, he's not Superman.
Although, as Karli says, never trust a villain. Especially a weird gross floating one - it's good advice.
- Sid
* I tried a couple of the prequel novels by Herbert's son Brian and
Kevin J. Anderson, and no offense, but they're not up to the standard set
by Frank Herbert in the other books.
** I'm quite proud of this as
an outline, because it appears to be quite informative but actually
leaves out so much important information - much as the movie does, come
to think of it.
