Excellent review. Chani's character got completely ruined, and the final scene is the complete opposite of what Herbert wrote in the book. In the book Chani is loyal to Paul, and actually flaunts her love for him and his love for her, to the ridicule of Irulan. Yet, in the movie, she's your typical girlboss "voice of reason" and ends up abandoning Paul altogether. An absurd ending, totally unfaithful to the book.
Overall, while the movie had some wonderful sounds, visuals, and moments, I think it falls way short and its deviations from the book are to its detriment.
I did not bother with DIEDoon for all the reasons you mentioned above. This is just another example of a thought-provoking work of great value and deep genius being shit-up by the Wokester Commie Mob in Hollyweird. The WCMs are the orcs of modern culture; they smash the heads from the statues of Kings and replace them with rusted iron parodies of the Eye at the End of Time they both love and fear.
Dune deserves a proper film treatment. It ought to have the grandeur and impact of LOTR but until Hollyweird is purged of the WCMs, no such undertaking is possible.
Thank you. I truncated it considerably. I find, with the state of modern politics, I would rather re-read old stories than sicken myself with the present-day offerings. It's also why I have taken to writing children's books; they deserve better than the utter garbage on offer nowadays.
Presently, I am churning my way through Roald Dahl's Ghost Stories and A Daughter of the Samurai. I highly recommend both; particularly the second is very insightful into the Meiji Restoration and the last of Japan's truly feudal culture.
I gave up on expecting deep thought & understanding coming out of Hollywood. I figured this movie was yet another Woke, shallow mess. Thanks for helping me save my money, LOL!!
Always disappointing when artists become more enamored of mainstream politics as they grow older and more established. You would think that would be the time in ones' career to become more adventurous, although I suppose with a budget the size of Dune's you're never going to be able to go wild. Still, you could at least hope for the LOTR treatment and get a movie that doesn't actively subvert the source text.
I did enjoy the movie but I noticed that they made it simpler than the book and of course, highlighted the themes that suited them. The separation of the Fremen religion into progressives and fundamentalists didn't really make sense though and it seemed irrelevant after Paul drinks the Water of Life. I guess all art is a commentary on the culture of its time.
I’m not sure it ever should have been turned into a film. The religious and political systems were too complicated for the screen. A lot of the political stuff in the films seem to be a Rorschach test so I’m hesitant to comment on it, but I enjoyed the aesthetics immensely this time around. My issue was how the pacing was less like a film and more like a still of photographs. This worked during the moon scenes, but the rest of the film was just too slow to be captivating.
Great review, Johann. I knew the movie was in trouble when the audience laughed every time Stilgar said anything related to faith and prophecy. A whole theater full of people who obviously never read the book and will likely never realize what a complete mockery the filmmakers made of Herbert's vision.
DIE-Dune, indeed. Everything about the Fremen that made them a cohesive and terrifying warrior culture was jettisoned in favor of current-year politics. They even created distinctions between religiously fanatical "Southern Fremen" and religiously skeptical "Northern Fremen," in a not-at-all subtle nod to their strawman of the American political and religious landscape.
I noticed much of what you criticised here when I watched part 2, although just as with your last article you’ve expanded my perspective on the story a great deal. Perhaps it is because I am a zoomer, desensitised to how DEI and feminism poisons every bit of mass media it can touch, but I was still able to enjoy the movie.
I still suspect that Villeneuve has changed the portrayal of Chani for reasons that will not only make sense but make the story much better once Part III comes out. If you troll the wiki summaries of the sequels, you can get some hints as to what plot points/characters he might condense into her story into the next entry, given the very obvious departure from the book seen in the final scene of the second movie.
Overall, I would caution against judging this entry too harshly until part 3 comes out, given that Villeneuve has repeatedly demonstrated a very sincere, long-held, and deeply felt admiration of the books. Especially given his record (2049, Arrival), I am far more willing to attribute his alterations to an artistic vision as opposed to “DEI” reasons.
But then again, I could be wrong, and he could pull a “somehow, Palpatine returned” nonsense in part 3. Yet I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
Personally, I thought the film was a first-rate technical marvel. The scene with the emperor’s ship shielding activated against the desert storm as it hovered above the pyramid was jaw-droppingly beautiful, along with all of the worm scenes of course. And the imagination shown in the scenes with Irulan and her father on their home planet! Even if you disliked the story, visually, Part Two was undoubtedly a feast for the eyes…
This new installment of Dune felt drawn out and labored. My overall feeling was it was top-heavy on style and lacking in substance. You cannot argue that it was visually-stunning, yet that's how you could describe basically ANY movie today.
Outstanding review. I've been a Dune fan since the mid 1980s and I had hopes that Denis would do right by the original vision, but those hopes were admittedly dented by the utterly useless race/gender swap of Kynes. I agree that Jessica is well-portrayed, and I'll go further and say that the Duke and even Paul are well-portrayed. But indeed Chani is a masculinized plank, Stilgar is diminished, and I'll never understand the casting choice for Duncan Idaho, to say nothing of the tan-to-black Skittling of the Fremen which I always thought was a bit of a stretch. All of this from Dune: Part I. I've little interest now in Part II.
See also the monocultural ubiquity of the Harkonnen. It is impossible for the Fremen to be this "diverse" (thus anti-ethnic) without the Harkonnen, their enemy, being so ethnic. What is this meant to illustrate but the struggle of the righteous post-racial against the disgusting, necessarily inbred "racial"? Yet, of course, as soon as one is removed from the context of making the film, precisely the ethne of those playing the fremen are the most honourably distinct. It is a joke. Or in a other words, a sacrifice. The more treasured the media that can be made to bend the knee and eradicate its own ethne, the better. We are thus between a deliberate rivalry of anti-ethnos with HYPERWHITE ethnos, and the sacrifice of something meaningful in a not exclusively ethnic sense to the so-called underprivileged collective ethnos when we talk about Dune II. If this seems contradictory, perhaps that is the point. Hyperracism and antiracism crest and kiss in the middle of a horseshoe. Is this how the world works?
Excellent review. Chani's character got completely ruined, and the final scene is the complete opposite of what Herbert wrote in the book. In the book Chani is loyal to Paul, and actually flaunts her love for him and his love for her, to the ridicule of Irulan. Yet, in the movie, she's your typical girlboss "voice of reason" and ends up abandoning Paul altogether. An absurd ending, totally unfaithful to the book.
Overall, while the movie had some wonderful sounds, visuals, and moments, I think it falls way short and its deviations from the book are to its detriment.
I did not bother with DIEDoon for all the reasons you mentioned above. This is just another example of a thought-provoking work of great value and deep genius being shit-up by the Wokester Commie Mob in Hollyweird. The WCMs are the orcs of modern culture; they smash the heads from the statues of Kings and replace them with rusted iron parodies of the Eye at the End of Time they both love and fear.
Dune deserves a proper film treatment. It ought to have the grandeur and impact of LOTR but until Hollyweird is purged of the WCMs, no such undertaking is possible.
Thank you. I truncated it considerably. I find, with the state of modern politics, I would rather re-read old stories than sicken myself with the present-day offerings. It's also why I have taken to writing children's books; they deserve better than the utter garbage on offer nowadays.
Presently, I am churning my way through Roald Dahl's Ghost Stories and A Daughter of the Samurai. I highly recommend both; particularly the second is very insightful into the Meiji Restoration and the last of Japan's truly feudal culture.
I gave up on expecting deep thought & understanding coming out of Hollywood. I figured this movie was yet another Woke, shallow mess. Thanks for helping me save my money, LOL!!
Always disappointing when artists become more enamored of mainstream politics as they grow older and more established. You would think that would be the time in ones' career to become more adventurous, although I suppose with a budget the size of Dune's you're never going to be able to go wild. Still, you could at least hope for the LOTR treatment and get a movie that doesn't actively subvert the source text.
It has been some years since I last read the book, so I don't remember the physical descriptions well enough to get the race right.
But I do recall that the Fremen were the descendants of Zensunni wanderers. That kind of points to a Central Asian origin.
I did enjoy the movie but I noticed that they made it simpler than the book and of course, highlighted the themes that suited them. The separation of the Fremen religion into progressives and fundamentalists didn't really make sense though and it seemed irrelevant after Paul drinks the Water of Life. I guess all art is a commentary on the culture of its time.
they basically made chani into a guy. and not a cool , one, an ass. the harkonnens, became skinheads.
I’m not sure it ever should have been turned into a film. The religious and political systems were too complicated for the screen. A lot of the political stuff in the films seem to be a Rorschach test so I’m hesitant to comment on it, but I enjoyed the aesthetics immensely this time around. My issue was how the pacing was less like a film and more like a still of photographs. This worked during the moon scenes, but the rest of the film was just too slow to be captivating.
Great review, Johann. I knew the movie was in trouble when the audience laughed every time Stilgar said anything related to faith and prophecy. A whole theater full of people who obviously never read the book and will likely never realize what a complete mockery the filmmakers made of Herbert's vision.
DIE-Dune, indeed. Everything about the Fremen that made them a cohesive and terrifying warrior culture was jettisoned in favor of current-year politics. They even created distinctions between religiously fanatical "Southern Fremen" and religiously skeptical "Northern Fremen," in a not-at-all subtle nod to their strawman of the American political and religious landscape.
I noticed much of what you criticised here when I watched part 2, although just as with your last article you’ve expanded my perspective on the story a great deal. Perhaps it is because I am a zoomer, desensitised to how DEI and feminism poisons every bit of mass media it can touch, but I was still able to enjoy the movie.
I still suspect that Villeneuve has changed the portrayal of Chani for reasons that will not only make sense but make the story much better once Part III comes out. If you troll the wiki summaries of the sequels, you can get some hints as to what plot points/characters he might condense into her story into the next entry, given the very obvious departure from the book seen in the final scene of the second movie.
Overall, I would caution against judging this entry too harshly until part 3 comes out, given that Villeneuve has repeatedly demonstrated a very sincere, long-held, and deeply felt admiration of the books. Especially given his record (2049, Arrival), I am far more willing to attribute his alterations to an artistic vision as opposed to “DEI” reasons.
But then again, I could be wrong, and he could pull a “somehow, Palpatine returned” nonsense in part 3. Yet I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
Personally, I thought the film was a first-rate technical marvel. The scene with the emperor’s ship shielding activated against the desert storm as it hovered above the pyramid was jaw-droppingly beautiful, along with all of the worm scenes of course. And the imagination shown in the scenes with Irulan and her father on their home planet! Even if you disliked the story, visually, Part Two was undoubtedly a feast for the eyes…
This new installment of Dune felt drawn out and labored. My overall feeling was it was top-heavy on style and lacking in substance. You cannot argue that it was visually-stunning, yet that's how you could describe basically ANY movie today.
I made some similar points in my video on the movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xncQnfFADGM
(a video version of a substack essay)
Outstanding review. I've been a Dune fan since the mid 1980s and I had hopes that Denis would do right by the original vision, but those hopes were admittedly dented by the utterly useless race/gender swap of Kynes. I agree that Jessica is well-portrayed, and I'll go further and say that the Duke and even Paul are well-portrayed. But indeed Chani is a masculinized plank, Stilgar is diminished, and I'll never understand the casting choice for Duncan Idaho, to say nothing of the tan-to-black Skittling of the Fremen which I always thought was a bit of a stretch. All of this from Dune: Part I. I've little interest now in Part II.
See also the monocultural ubiquity of the Harkonnen. It is impossible for the Fremen to be this "diverse" (thus anti-ethnic) without the Harkonnen, their enemy, being so ethnic. What is this meant to illustrate but the struggle of the righteous post-racial against the disgusting, necessarily inbred "racial"? Yet, of course, as soon as one is removed from the context of making the film, precisely the ethne of those playing the fremen are the most honourably distinct. It is a joke. Or in a other words, a sacrifice. The more treasured the media that can be made to bend the knee and eradicate its own ethne, the better. We are thus between a deliberate rivalry of anti-ethnos with HYPERWHITE ethnos, and the sacrifice of something meaningful in a not exclusively ethnic sense to the so-called underprivileged collective ethnos when we talk about Dune II. If this seems contradictory, perhaps that is the point. Hyperracism and antiracism crest and kiss in the middle of a horseshoe. Is this how the world works?