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Pedro De Heredia
May 30, 2006

moths posted:

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Turning Yueh's wife into a spider (then feeding him to her) to satisfy their reunification end of the deal (or body-horroring them together into a Cronenberg nightmare) would be more keeping with the expected Harkonnen excess.

It would be in keeping with the expected Harkonnen excess. That you expect, because of the book, in which the thing you are describing, does not happen at all. That's your argument?

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moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



That they'd be portrayed in the spirit of the book rather than the letter? Yes.

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
Throughout the showing I was in my own Gom Jabbar, which as my increasingly panicked internal insistence that I recognized the actor for Baron Harkonnen. Here, at work, a day later, I finally remembered who he is and I can breathe again.

Eason the Fifth
Apr 9, 2020
He did a fine job reading the news in Rome

Tankbuster
Oct 1, 2021
Scene with the baron and the matriarch I thought he was Stephen Fry.

Rabelais D
Dec 11, 2012

ts'u nnu k'u k'o t'khye:
A demon doth defecate at thy door

Pedro De Heredia posted:

There is nothing particularly original or interesting about the Harkonnens being extra cruel or rapey. Its as "run of the mill" as you can get in this kind of story, especially in the year 2021, there's like a billion of these characters on GoT.

The Harkonnens in 1984 Dune have these sort of milkshake boxes filled with beetle creatures that compress them into juice to then be drunk through a straw (Rabban drinks one and licks his lips, tosses it into a gutter and then shares an evil laugh with Baron Harkonnen, because I'm assuming people on Geidi Prime think littering is hilarious), and let's not forget that Thufir's antidote required him to milk a hairless cat with a rat strapped to its back (?).

2house2fly
Nov 14, 2012

You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!

moths posted:

It was also reinforce the notion that the Harkonnans sort of keep their word.

"Here's your wife, she's a spider now" would also foreshadow dumping Paul and Jessica in the desert because look we didn't kill them.

Just a missed opportunity I guess.

The film as-is reinforces that notion already. "We said she would be freed and you could join her. So join her."

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Pedro De Heredia posted:

We are shown the Harkonnens are cruel when they are shown murdering hundreds of people, including unarmed prisoners. Did you miss that part of the movie or something?

The Harkonnens were going down the line summarily executing people with quick beheadings. What we're shown on the prison planet with people strapped upside down and bled out in the rain seemed more cruel and more in line with the Harkonnans. Honestly, if you showed me the two scenes without context, I would have assumed the roles were reversed (Sardukar doing quick executions while the Harkonnans torturing people in the rain).

SHISHKABOB
Nov 30, 2012

Fun Shoe

Police_monitoring posted:

Thought this was pretty bad, I think it's time to stop adapting Dune

Dune is a sieve through we sort the humans from people.

Randalor posted:

The Harkonnens were going down the line summarily executing people with quick beheadings. What we're shown on the prison planet with people strapped upside down and bled out in the rain seemed more cruel and more in line with the Harkonnans. Honestly, if you showed me the two scenes without context, I would have assumed the roles were reversed (Sardukar doing quick executions while the Harkonnans torturing people in the rain).

The harkonnens are brutal, inefficient monsters. So just killing people in an animalistic display of power makes sense.

The sardaukar were taking part in some kind of ritualistic prayer ceremony to prepare them for war or something. Those people they sacrificed for the blood could have been anything from prisoners taken in their last raid, or an entire caste of chattel slave who are raised purely to be sacrificed as part of this planet-wide war religion. I'm making stuff up, but it's based on what I saw on screen.

SHISHKABOB fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Oct 25, 2021

Polo-Rican
Jul 4, 2004

emptyquote my posts or die

Hashtag Banterzone posted:

...and the jihad visions were underwhelming.

I feel like a lot of things were underplayed, even if they were present. the biggest ones imho:

• The scale of Paul's jihad visions. Without having read the books I wouldn't think of it as a galactic jihad that sweeps across the entire universe, engulfing planets, etc. Ultimately I think this is the film's #1 biggest problem since the film ends at Paul's decision to accept his bloody future.
• The danger of Arrakis itself. Water conservation is mentioned but severely underplayed, as are the sandstorms. In the books, Arrakis fuckin sucks! Being in the desert is a guaranteed death sentence, and water conservation makes life uncomfortable for everyone, all of the time. In the movie, it feels more like a "just a standard desert environment, like one you'd find on earth (except with big worms)"

These two might feel nitpicky, but they have big implications for the story, stakes, and impact. There's more stuff I think was underplayed: the politics, the weirdness of the universe (guild navigators, mentats, etc), Paul's relationship with his farther; but these things would have less of an impact on the film as it was made

steinrokkan
Apr 2, 2011



Soiled Meat
Love to see the same people arguing that the Lynch Dune was stupid or some such poo poo coming up with galaxy brained ideas like "the Baron should turn Yueh's wife into a spider and then barbecue the spider and then eat the spider"

This is the dismal face of the crimes the Villeneuve sycophants and sociopaths want to perpetrate on culture

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

steinrokkan posted:

Love to see the same people arguing that the Lynch Dune was stupid or some such poo poo coming up with galaxy brained ideas like "the Baron should turn Yueh's wife into a spider and then barbecue the spider and then eat the spider"

This is the dismal face of the crimes the Villeneuve sycophants and sociopaths want to perpetrate on culture

:ok:

Pretty sure it's the Lynch fans that want more gross stuff in DUNC for the most part.

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



They didn't even get bug juice boxes, they all just seemed cranky and tired.

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
Regarding the Harkonnen, I don't think wanting All of the Money and living in a culture that prizes an appearance of austerity are mutually exclusive.

Crespolini
Mar 9, 2014

Randalor posted:

The Harkonnens were going down the line summarily executing people with quick beheadings. What we're shown on the prison planet with people strapped upside down and bled out in the rain seemed more cruel and more in line with the Harkonnans. Honestly, if you showed me the two scenes without context, I would have assumed the roles were reversed (Sardukar doing quick executions while the Harkonnans torturing people in the rain).

The trailer paints it like that I think, showing the sacrifices while talking about how the Harkonnens are beasts.

Crespolini fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Oct 25, 2021

I.G.
Oct 10, 2000

I just watched it again, and on the second viewing still really liked it. The only part that I felt started to drag a little bit was the scene at the ecological testing station, between Paul and Jessica's rescue by Duncan and when they escape in the thopter. There's not really any exposition or plot development here that couldn't have been moved somewhere else. Mostly it seemed like a set piece for Duncan to die, and I think his death would have been more effective if it happened more abruptly.

Pedro De Heredia
May 30, 2006

Polo-Rican posted:

I feel like a lot of things were underplayed, even if they were present. the biggest ones imho:

• The scale of Paul's jihad visions. Without having read the books I wouldn't think of it as a galactic jihad that sweeps across the entire universe, engulfing planets, etc. Ultimately I think this is the film's #1 biggest problem since the film ends at Paul's decision to accept his bloody future.

This does not happen at the end of the film.

Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 25, 2021

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



SHISHKABOB posted:

The harkonnens are brutal, inefficient monsters. So just killing people in an animalistic display of power makes sense.

The sardaukar were taking part in some kind of ritualistic prayer ceremony to prepare them for war or something. Those people they sacrificed for the blood could have been anything from prisoners taken in their last raid, or an entire caste of chattel slave who are raised purely to be sacrificed as part of this planet-wide war religion. I'm making stuff up, but it's based on what I saw on screen.

But it wasn't really inefficient or animalistic? It looked like they had lined up the prisoners and were starting to go down the rows beheading people. Possibly brutal, but quick and relatively painless.

That we're shown something that DOES look cruel, brutal and animalistic, and it's not the group specifically known for their cruelty is where the issue lies. The movie has a nasty habit of telling us how bad the Harkonnans are, but we're never really shown them being cruel. They come off as generic baddies with nothing to really stand out compared to the Sardukar. Honestly, looking back on it, they came off more how I would expect a callous corporation that maximized profits over everything else to be portrayed rather than a group that are notoriously cruel.

stratdax
Sep 14, 2006

Mega Comrade posted:

I liked it but not as much as I thought I would.

Definitely feels incomplete (cos it is) but I'm looking forward to re-evaluating it once the second one is out.

A movie that's part of a series still needs to be able to stand on its own, and this doesn't. It's internally incomplete, hollow and empty at its core.

I don't know if it's the acting or what, but the idea of Paul seeing his terrible purpose and wrestling with it and accepting that fate did not come through at all, so at the end of the movie it just felt like all the setup was finally finished and we could actually start the story now, when it should have been a moment, to paraphrase Villeneuve himself, like Michael Corleone becoming the Don.
And with everything else in this world completely sanded down to a mere mention or cursury scene, the movie - and world within the movie - just felt empty.

Fart Car '97
Jul 23, 2003

I thought mass ritual sacrifice, genetic spider humans, & beheading prisoners of war did a quick & efficient job of showing that the Harkonnens are hosed up dudes but I guess not

As others have pointed out, by modern standards they're pretty standard villains so it seems like a waste of time trying to ram it home much more than they did

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



stratdax posted:

A movie that's part of a series still needs to be able to stand on its own, and this doesn't. It's internally incomplete, hollow and empty at its core.

I don't know if it's the acting or what, but the idea of Paul seeing his terrible purpose and wrestling with it and accepting that fate did not come through at all, so at the end of the movie it just felt like all the setup was finally finished and we could actually start the story now, when it should have been a moment, to paraphrase Villeneuve himself, like Michael Corleone becoming the Don.
And with everything else in this world completely sanded down to a mere mention or cursury scene, the movie - and world within the movie - just felt empty.

There were one or two points earlier in the film that felt like they were intended as the original ending point (I want to say when Paul and Jessica escape and see the devastation of the city and after they "die" in the sand storm, either way, it was two parts that had a hard cut to black) but the part they ended it at... I get why they ended it there, it just feels wrong, like that should be the end of the first act of a movie, rather than the end of a movie.

Fart Car '97 posted:

I thought mass ritual sacrifice, genetic spider humans, & beheading prisoners of war did a quick & efficient job of showing that the Harkonnens are hosed up dudes but I guess not

As others have pointed out, by modern standards they're pretty standard villains so it seems like a waste of time trying to ram it home much more than they did

Mass ritual sacrifice wasn't the Harkonnans, and the spider thing was... a pet. No idea if it was a genetic spider human, or just a freaky creature. So you have... beheading prisoners.

Randalor fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Oct 25, 2021

Pedro De Heredia
May 30, 2006

Randalor posted:

But it wasn't really inefficient or animalistic? It looked like they had lined up the prisoners and were starting to go down the rows beheading people. Possibly brutal, but quick and relatively painless.

Congratulations on digging yourself into such a hole that you have to argue that beheadings are actually nice.

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



I went back to the book, and Yueh's wife had been kept in pain amplifiers- which was how the Harkonnens broke his imperial conditioning.

So yeah, they kept her in the box until she died. Here they had just dispassionately killed her at some point.

In the film, we only see one person suffering for the Harkonnens' pleasure, and it's the spider pet. I guess that's where I drew the connection.

Maybe connecting those dots means I watch too much horror, but it seems weirder to me that they didn't.

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos

stratdax posted:

A movie that's part of a series still needs to be able to stand on its own, and this doesn't. It's internally incomplete, hollow and empty at its core.


This is a big part of the reason the whole thing came off like a very long episode a modern 'prestige' sci-fi show. The movie never made an attempt to be interesting on its own merits.

Baron von Eevl
Jan 24, 2005

WHITE NOISE
GENERATOR

🔊😴

moths posted:

I went back to the book, and Yueh's wife had been kept in pain amplifiers- which was how the Harkonnens broke his imperial conditioning.

So yeah, they kept her in the box until she died. Here they had just dispassionately killed her at some point.

In the film, we only see one person suffering for the Harkonnens' pleasure, and it's the spider pet. I guess that's where I drew the connection.

Maybe connecting those dots means I watch too much horror, but it seems weirder to me that they didn't.

When they brought up yueh's wife I actually thought this was where they were gonna go with it but I'm glad they didn't explicitly say that. There's nothing saying it wasn't yueh's wife, they just didn't sit you down to say "oh, this hosed up spider person thing? Why, just a bit of collateral!" while flying around the room cackling against the sound of an organ fugue.

You can say this is the only real horror they show from the Harkonnen but you should keep in mind that it's profoundly hosed up. It's either a genetically engineered human-like abomination or a recreational surgical abomination that wears a gimp suit and drinks from a water bowl. It was clearly human-based. This is a really incredibly hosed up thing! I think saying "oh it's just their pet" kind of undersells it on the level of calling chattel slavery "just a job."

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

Baron von Eevl posted:

When they brought up yueh's wife I actually thought this was where they were gonna go with it but I'm glad they didn't explicitly say that. There's nothing saying it wasn't yueh's wife, they just didn't sit you down to say "oh, this hosed up spider person thing? Why, just a bit of collateral!" while flying around the room cackling against the sound of an organ fugue.

You can say this is the only real horror they show from the Harkonnen but you should keep in mind that it's profoundly hosed up. It's either a genetically engineered human-like abomination or a recreational surgical abomination that wears a gimp suit and drinks from a water bowl. It was clearly human-based. This is a really incredibly hosed up thing! I think saying "oh it's just their pet" kind of undersells it on the level of calling chattel slavery "just a job."

"It understands" was a brilliant piece in a scene that did a lot of exposition. Clarification that the thing is human and sentient, wrapped up in a neat exchange where the Harkonnen lie to the Reverend Mother and get caught in the lie, showing the nature of their relationship.

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos
The lynch version does a better job at demonstrating that humans have mutated themselves into very weird shapes out of their own volition, that the bene gesserit are not the only ones playing with human genetics and that other factions have went beyond generational breeding programs, the spider thing is really a blink and you'll miss it moment in the context of the movie and it's really not clear enough what purpose it does serve, it's just a creepy spider human thing, we don't even know if this is a form of torture or just a kink.

A Buffer Gay Dude
Oct 25, 2020

stratdax posted:

A movie that's part of a series still needs to be able to stand on its own, and this doesn't. It's internally incomplete, hollow and empty at its core.



No it doesn’t

And no it isn’t

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



I'd say it's incomplete in that it's half of the first part of a story.

The film explicitly tells you this at the end. ("It's just the beginning" or words to that effect.)

It's silly to hold that against the picture, though.

Polo-Rican
Jul 4, 2004

emptyquote my posts or die

stratdax posted:

A movie that's part of a series still needs to be able to stand on its own, and this doesn't.

I agree and one of many things that bugs me about Dune (2021) is that it isn't part of a series. Sure they slapped "part one" on the title card (but strangely, not any of the promotional materials), and the film MAY at some point work as the brilliant introduction to a series of films, but at the moment that hypothetical series literally does not exist... it hasn't been filmed or even greenlit. This isn't like Lord of the Rings... there is nothing else at the moment and given how hosed up the economy still is, there's a nonzero chance there will never be a Villeneuve sequel

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Polo-Rican posted:


• The danger of Arrakis itself. Water conservation is mentioned but severely underplayed, as are the sandstorms. In the books, Arrakis fuckin sucks! Being in the desert is a guaranteed death sentence, and water conservation makes life uncomfortable for everyone, all of the time. In the movie, it feels more like a "just a standard desert environment, like one you'd find on earth (except with big worms)"

Being sent out into the desert in Arrakis is literally used as a death sentence in the movie. These people are drinking their sweat and piss routinely and we see that there are huge fuckin vehicle-eating worms out there. How much clearer does it have to be?

Pedro De Heredia
May 30, 2006

moths posted:

I went back to the book, and Yueh's wife had been kept in pain amplifiers- which was how the Harkonnens broke his imperial conditioning.

This is a very literal interpretation of what happens. But I don't think it's entirely clear in the book.

It's established multiple times that Yueh does not know if Wanna was killed by the Harkonnens or if she was tortured:

quote:

The old feud had trapped him in its web, killed his Wanna or--worse--left her for Harkonnen tortures until her husband did their bidding.

quote:

The ways of the Harkonnen cruelty were devious. Wanna might not be dead. He had to be certain.
Yueh says that he'll be able to know if she's alive or dead if he sees the Baron:

quote:

My poor Wanna taught me many things, and one is to see certainty of truth when the stress is great. I cannot do it always, but when I see the Baron--then, I will know.
It is unclear whether he would have seen the Baron before. It's established that Piter is the one who comes up with this plan, and:

quote:

When I see him, I'll know. When I look at the Baron, then I will know. But I'll never enter his presence without the price. You're the price, my poor Duke. And I'll know when I see him.
Then when he finally sees the Baron,

quote:

He had seen the subtle betrayals in the Baron's manner. Wanna was indeed dead--gone far beyond their reach. Otherwise, there'd still be a hold on the weak doctor. The Baron's manner showed there was no hold; it was ended.
So when this line is said:

quote:

That was how we bent the Imperial Conditioning. You couldn't endure seeing your Bene Gesserit witch grovel in Piter's pain amplifiers.
The 'seeing' part isn't literal. It's very likely that she was always dead and never actually tortured. What breaks him is that he can't stand the uncertainty.

That's psychological cruelty. Not "turning someone into a spider."

Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Oct 25, 2021

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



That's fair, it's been a while and I may have misremembered. They certainly enjoyed running Yueh's emotions through a cheese grater, regardless.

Has the Benne Gesserit HBO series not been confirmed?

moths fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Oct 25, 2021

A Buffer Gay Dude
Oct 25, 2020

Polo-Rican posted:

I agree and one of many things that bugs me about Dune (2021) is that it isn't part of a series. Sure they slapped "part one" on the title card (but strangely, not any of the promotional materials), and the film MAY at some point work as the brilliant introduction to a series of films, but at the moment that hypothetical series literally does not exist... it hasn't been filmed or even greenlit. This isn't like Lord of the Rings... there is nothing else at the moment and given how hosed up the economy still is, there's a nonzero chance there will never be a Villeneuve sequel

From the first post in this thread from 18 or so years ago

Arglebargle III posted:


Villeneuve plans to adapt Dune into two movies, split probably at the same time the novel time-skips to two years in the future, about halfway through the narrative.

A Buffer Gay Dude
Oct 25, 2020

flashy_mcflash posted:

Being sent out into the desert in Arrakis is literally used as a death sentence in the movie. These people are drinking their sweat and piss routinely and we see that there are huge fuckin vehicle-eating worms out there. How much clearer does it have to be?

I think people should stop responding to that guy, he’s either trolling or incapable of comprehension. I made the mistake of responding to one of his posts before realizing he’s been gumming up the thread quite a bit. Better to ignore him.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Pedro De Heredia posted:

Congratulations on digging yourself into such a hole that you have to argue that beheadings are actually nice.

Compared to the stuff that we're told or shown as options in the movie? Being beheaded is nicer than them flying you out to the middle of the desert and letting you die from dehydration or sliced to ribbons in a sandstorm (I'm assuming on that one. They "only" talk about the sandstorms being able to cut through metal) or shackled upside down and bled out.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Dr. Fishopolis
Aug 31, 2004

ROBOT

Polo-Rican posted:

I agree and one of many things that bugs me about Dune (2021) is that it isn't part of a series. Sure they slapped "part one" on the title card (but strangely, not any of the promotional materials), and the film MAY at some point work as the brilliant introduction to a series of films, but at the moment that hypothetical series literally does not exist... it hasn't been filmed or even greenlit. This isn't like Lord of the Rings... there is nothing else at the moment and given how hosed up the economy still is, there's a nonzero chance there will never be a Villeneuve sequel

It's absolutely part of a series, whether sequels get made or not, and everything points to "they're definitely getting made". I do not blame WB for hedging their bets with this property considering the history.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

I find it odd that things which are in the film in multiple scenes are getting cast as 'blink and you'll miss it' moments.

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Polo-Rican
Jul 4, 2004

emptyquote my posts or die

A Buffer Gay Dude posted:

From the first post in this thread from 18 or so years ago

I have no doubts that Villeneuve wanted to, and planned to, make two films from the beginning... I just think that's a risky and potentially bad idea to make your first film dependent on your second film if your second film isn't greenlit in advance! Doubly so if your first movie has the bad fortune of being released during a once-in-a-generation pandemic ayyyy

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