Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, March 1st, 2024) • Page 51

Shaq-Hulud

 

'Dune: Part Two' Was Shot Using Vintage Soviet Photo Lenses

 

Dune Part Two: Five Things We Learned From Denis Villeneuve

"With Part Two kicking ass and taking names at the box office – not to mention an overwhelmingly positive critical reception – there must be a fair amount of pressure on Villeneuve to dive straight into adapting Dune Messiah, the next instalment in the series. Not so fast. “I did both movies back-to-back, which makes absolute sense for me,” he says. “I felt that it was a good idea to move forward right after Part One. We were already designing, writing et cetera. But it also meant that for six years I was on Arrakis non-stop, and I think it will be healthy to step back a little bit. First, make sure that we have a strong screenplay. The thing I want to avoid is not having something ready. I never did it, and now I feel it could be dangerous because of the enthusiasm. We need to make sure all the ideas are on paper.” And then comes a mouthwatering pledge, of sorts. “If we go back, it needs to be real, it needs to be relevant, if ever I do Dune Messiah, [it’s] because it’s going to be better than Part Two. Otherwise, I don’t do it.” Fingers crossed. If you see Villeneuve, use The Voice on him to try to hurry things along a little."

 

Finally got a chance to see this. All of the praise I have seen and read of it is fully merited. Incredible movie. Absolutely epic in every sense of the word. Some of the visuals here are legitimately breathtaking.

Just a few random thoughts:

Something about the way they did the explosions in these movies is different than all other movies I have ever seen - they have an almost fluid quality that is hard to explain / put your finger on, but it is incredible and so cool looking.

Up until watching this movie, Austin Butler has just gotten on my nerves. He's a very good looking dude, obviously, but I've never been impressed by any of his performances, and he's always struck me as very over-hyped . His Feyd-Rautha completely and utterly blew me away. Full stop. And to stand out in this cast is a pretty impressive feat.


There is something that I've sorta struggled with since seeing Part One a couple years ago. I remember back before 2001, The Lord of the Rings was always referred to as 'unfilmable'. Nothing about that story ever really struck me as unfilmable though. Astronomically expensive, extremely long, and a little nerdy / silly / goofy? Yes, absolutely, but not unfilmable. Challenging and very expensive and risky. The 'unfilmable' thing always struck me as a special effects problem and a question of huge budgets vs. risk of financial flop, and we all know how that one worked out. Dune though? So much of what makes particularly the first book, but also the rest of the Frank Herbert Dune books, so amazing is the universe he creates and the themes he explores, not so much the plot points.

Now I loved both of these movies, but I am a huge fan of the books, so I am watching them play out on screen with all of the knowledge of the books and what is happening in the universe. These movies are incredibly well made with absolutely top tier talent across all departments, and they are both extremely entertaining and amazing to watch, but even after watching them I still feel like Dune is basically unfilmable. I don't think the story of Dune translates to the screen. Just watching the plot points of this version of Dune leaves you with a very entertaining but surface level and slightly problematic story, even if they did try to mix in a few white Fremen to soften the blow.

 

Yeah I've been thinking that lately, how good the Butler performance is. I wasn't expecting much but he's just tearing up the screen up there

 

This cast is absolutely STACKED with A-listers and his performance really does stand out as particularly amazing.

 

think how hard it is to act without eyebrows blud

 

Felt the same way about the fire/explosion effects in this movie. When they shoot down the ornithopter and it crashes behind them I was just thinking to myself jesus christ this is the best looking cgi ive ever seen.

 

when I think of an 'unfilmable' book, I think of Cloud Atlas

 

It's been many years since I read Cloud Atlas, but I did read it along with many other David Mitchell books at that time, and this is a similar case to what I was describing earlier: what I remember loving so much about reading those books was his writing, not so much the plot points themselves. I didn't enjoy the Cloud Atlas movie at all really, but I remember loving the book.

I will say that the climax thru the end of Dune Part Two echoed Frank Herbert's writing for me in the way the sequences were presented. A lot of the plot of Dune happens between the pages of what's actually written, and for the last stretch of the movie it felt to me like Denis Villeneuve doing the same thing absolutely perfectly in deciding what to show on screen vs what not to show.

 

infinite jest

 

infinite deez

 

Looks like this could potentially hit $700 million globally by the end of it’s run

 

Hoping I was right!

 

Releasing on digital on April 16th

 

Not complaining but seems quick considering the word of mouth train on this is really choo choo-ing along.

 

Best Bday present!!