Dune (2020) - Denis Villeneuve

@Steampunk

I read somewhere in Reddit there is another powerful faction like the BG but they're more dangerous an secretive? Can you shed some light please?

Is Jessica Paul's ally throughout? Is his daughter powerful/dangerous? How far does her story progress?

Is book 2 better than 1?
 
kakarott said:
@Steampunk

kakarott said:
I read somewhere in Reddit there is another powerful faction like the BG but they're more dangerous an secretive? Can you shed some light please?
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You'll have to be a bit more specific there, the Dune universe contains loads of factions. You might be speaking of the Honoured Matres, who appear well after book 4. They are a bastardised version of the Bene Gesserit mixed with the Fish Speakers (Leto II's female army/bodyguards) who have gone out in a diaspora after the rule of Leto II and come back centuries later. If the Bene Gesserit are spies and politicians, the Honoured Matres are assassins and soldiers.

kakarott said:
Is Jessica Paul's ally throughout? Is his daughter powerful/dangerous? How far does her story progress?
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Yes, Jessica supports Paul in every way, until she retires back to Caledan some years after he takes the Imperial throne.

Paul's daughter Ghenna is not particularly powerful. She plays an important part in Leto II's plans in book 3. Leto II becomes another superbeing and takes the place of the (now dead) Paul and forces humanity onto the Golden Path for 3500 years. Ghenna marries a Corrino prince (who wants out of his mother's machinations to get back the Imperial throne and kill Ghenna and Leto II), lives out a life and has children to continue the Atredies line (as Leto II has been mutated by sandfish to become the God/Tyrant/Emperor of Dune). Ghenna is really only in book 3.

kakarott said:
Is book 2 better than 1?
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I find book 2 a little weak. I like book 4 more every time I read it, but book 2 is the weakest of the first four, as it's really just a continuation of Paul's story from book 1 and goes from his victory over Baron Harkonnen, Emperor Corrino, and his taking of the Imperial throne, to his (assumed) death at the end of the Jihad. You could quite easily put book 2 on the end of book 1 and have it as a single volume and the single story of Paul's rise, disillusion with the Jihad and Imperial rule, and finally his death. It's not that book 2 is bad, I just think it could easily just have been part of book 1.
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Went to the IMAX in Manchester yesterday to see it, and I was blown away.

It's kind of funny; my sister and her husband went to watch it before I did, and they both absolutely hated it. Said it was boring, "nothing happens", it's like watching cardboard...I'm just thinking, "nothing happens"?! An entire house is betrayed and utterly blown to smithereens! You have all the intriguing plot points like "the voice", the Baron, the Sandworms, the witch group, the Fremen, Paul finding his footing...I haven't read the books nor seen any of the past adaptations, so I came into this completely fresh and not knowing anything about the actual story really, but I was absolutely captivated.

That said, there were a few things which were a bit weak, like I didn't really understand exactly why House Atreides is so feared exactly. They were supposed to be elite soldiers? That isn't very well established at all IMO. You don't see any evidence other than Paul and Gurney being pretty good. Duncan also escaped a bit too conveniently. It seemed like he got away because...he shouted intimidatingly? There were still 3-5+ enemies when he stole that Ornithopter, including Dave Bautista's character if I remember rightly, and his plane doesn't get disabled but Paul's did? And then he outmaneuvers the behemoth ship that can shoot hundreds of missiles somehow.

But that aside, I would happily watch this again (I actually might), and it cements in my mind that Denis is a masterclass director, not just "of our generation", but of all time. His world building and confidence to let you soak in the atmosphere and universe he's portraying through longer, establishing shots is on another level. I've gotten far more engrossed in both this and BR2049 than I did say, with Avatar. I feel like Denis' films/worlds have a tangibility that makes them easier to get lost in. With Avatar, there's just too much "and then there's this horse-thing with tentacles, and then a jaguar-like monster, then a funny looking bird" which is just a bit too cartoony

Easy 5/5 "would recommend would see again yes please" from me.

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but this is a great conversation:

 
kakarott said:
@Steampunk
Sorry I meant to sat Jessica's daughter not Paul's.
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Jessica's daughter (Alia) is powerful. She's basically a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother from birth combined with a Fremen Warrior. She's a female version of Paul, but a couple of steps away from being a Kwizatz Haderach. She can access her ancestors' genetic memories, but she isn't a mentat nor capable of seeing/creating the future. She eventually kills herself after giving in to being taken over by the genetic personality of Vladimir Harkonnen. This is pretty much due to the pressure of having to run the Empire in Paul's stead (after he walks into the desert to die), and the politics going on in the Fremen. At this point she becomes "abomination" ie taken over by the memories of an ancestor. Her story arc is actually quite interesting, and in the end tragic.
 
Steampunk said:
Jessica's daughter (Alia) is powerful. She's basically a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother from birth combined with a Fremen Warrior. She's a female version of Paul, but a couple of steps away from being a Kwizatz Haderach. She can access her ancestors' genetic memories, but she isn't a mentat nor capable of seeing/creating the future. She eventually kills herself after giving in to being taken over by the genetic personality of Vladimir Harkonnen. This is pretty much due to the pressure of having to run the Empire in Paul's stead (after he walks into the desert to die), and the politics going on in the Fremen. At this point she becomes "abomination" ie taken over by the memories of an ancestor. Her story arc is actually quite interesting, and in the end tragic.
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Thanks, we should see her in the next movie? Assuming there will be time jumps?
 
kakarott said:
Thanks, we should see her in the next movie? Assuming there will be time jumps?
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If the next movie is the end of the first Dune book (as seems likely) you will see her a bit as a little girl, and her at the final confrontation between the Emperor and Baron Harkonnen (but still as a little girl). She kills the Baron at the end before Paul nukes the Arakeen shield wall and sweeps into Arakeen to depose Emperor Corrino. So she'll be in there a little, but she's still a little girl at the end of book 1 and presumably at the end of the next film.

IIRC she's still young in the second book, and that book concentrates on Paul for the next ten years between the end of the first book and the end of the second, and I don't remember her character doing much until the third book when she's basically a young woman and her real story gets going.
 
Sankari said:
This movie felt like it was constantly leading up to something that never happened.
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Leading up to part two.

Now if they had left it at one movie...that would have been a wtf, pointless making just the first part.

Bloody film/TV studio's need to commit to a series instead of cutting it off at the fist sign of a a drop in viewers etc.
 
alchal said:
Now if they had left it at one movie...that would have been a wtf, pointless making just the first part.
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They could have set themselves up for a perfectly decent sequel while still covering the scope of the first book. There is more than one book, after all...
 
@Steampunk

So I've been watching some YouTube vids (Quinn's Ideas),
does Paul's son live on like centuries?
Is he a tyrant? He merged with a worm? Did Paul end up a tyrant?
Does Paul's daughter play an important role?
When does Jessica die?
Did the BG want Paul's sister killed because she was an abomination?
What role does Paul's wife play after his death? Not chani.
Did the whole story end at book 6? [\SPOILER]
 
kakarott said:
@Steampunk

kakarott said:
So I've been watching some YouTube vids (Quinn's Ideas),
does Paul's son live on like centuries?
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Leto II lives 3500 years.

kakarott said:
Is he a tyrant? He merged with a worm?
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That is correct. He is absolute ruler of the empire, and merged with sandfish (baby sandworms).

kakarott said:
Did Paul end up a tyrant?
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No, he's a messianic figure that leads the Fremen and the empire, but Leto II rules, where Paul leads. Leto II has the mental strength to live that long and force the evolution of mankind to be immune to superhuman prescience, and see humanity through to a safe future (ie the Golden Path), where Paul does not.

kakarott said:
Does Paul's daughter play an important role?
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Not really. As I explained upstream, she's unknowingly part of Leto II's plans in Book 3, but her main function is carry forward the Atredies bloodline where Leto II cannot because he's merged with the sandfish.

kakarott said:
When does Jessica die?
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Her last appearance is in Book 3, and the wikis say she lives to 102 years old. She outlives Paul and Alia, but not Leto II.

kakarott said:
Did the BG want Paul's sister killed because she was an abomination?
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Yes. To go through the waters of life and become a Reverend Mother in the womb is totally abhorrent to the Bene Gesserit, and they would never take the waters of life pregnant (as Jessica was). The unborn baby's mind would be destroyed by their ancestral memories, their bodies by being unable to convert the waters of life (babies having a distinct and different body chemistry, despite being joined to their mother's). Jessica does this in desperation to consolidate her power among the Fremen to safeguard Paul. The fact that Jessica is able to protect the unborn Alia and that she survives the process is enough for the Bene Gesserit to consider her an abomination to be destroyed.

kakarott said:
What role does Paul's wife play after his death? Not chani.
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Not a huge one. Irulan basically becomes the imperial biographer, and in the first book every chapter starts with a quote from her history of Paul's life. After the failed attempt to prevent Chiani conceiving heirs, she's pretty much a spent force.

kakarott said:
Did the whole story end at book 6?
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No. Paul's story ends at Book 2, and again at Book 3. Alia, Ghenna, Jessica, Irulan end at Book 3. Leto II story ends at Book 4.

Book 6 is Chapter House Dune, and takes place far in the future. Although it has Bene Gesserit, Honoured Matres, and old empire, sandworms, etc, none of the characters from the first four books are there. I think it is the last Frank Herbert book and it does become a possible end point for the reader, although there are other stories out there. Book 6 is basically a rebirth of a new planet taking the place of a destroyed Arakkis, and the machinations of the Bene Gesserit (and those who oppose them).

At this point it's not the same story as the first books, it's another story set in the same universe but with some new themes and characters. It still has a lot of the original tropes (like the Kwizats Haderach).
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kakarott said:
Thanks again. Is the TV series worth a watch?
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There's two Sy-Fy TV series and I think they are worth a watch just to see a different adaptation. While the TV shows don't have the budget of the two movies, they are very faithful to the first three books and have their own visual style.
 

i really wish this new version had a bit more "guild"

Villeneuve's style and choices has definitely put the orange back in the Catholic bible.
Will be cool to see just how far that style goes in the second part.
 
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