D U N C: suks to be yueh - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > D U N C: suks to be yueh

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

This movie is dark. I mean literally dark. Every scene is poorly lit. Duke Atreides is one of the richest men in the Universe, surely he can afford to add a few lamps here and there.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 20:28

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# ¿ May 25, 2022 10:53

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

The first scene where we get a good look at a sandworm is at night. How disappointing.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Sep 18, 2021

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 21:01

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Arglebargle III posted:

Lynch movie had the same problem.

This movie is basically Villeneuve trying to fix the Lynch movie. You might prefer the 2000 miniseries. If not good, it at least has its own feel.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 17:40

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Spylde posted:

Also loved how they've changed the pronunciation of Harkonnen so it more closely resembles the pronunciation of Finnish surname Härkönen which I seem to remember is the origin of the name. Or this last part can be just my Finnish brain hearing things weird.

Wikipedia backs you up.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 20:53

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Spermando posted:

Re: the plot twist in the middle in the book it's hilarious how everyone dismisses every red flag regarding Yueh over the course of like 6 chapters. It works better in the movie because he only has four lines before that part. Also strengthens Thufir Hawat's main character trait which is being bad at everything

I read an analysis somewhere that this was deliberate, to show off the arrogance of the Atreides. Thufir Hawat thinks Yueh is supposed to have unbreakable mental conditioning that makes him incapable of harming anyone, but the Harkonnens broke it, proving Hawat wrong. Jessica, for her part, thinks she understands Yueh emotionally, and she consequently overlooks the signs that he's a traitor. This is more apparent in the books, but the movie is forced the cut out a lot of this nuance. Hawat is overconfident in his logical reasoning, Jessica is overconfident in her empathy, neither of them used both logic and empathy to see through Yueh.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Sep 19, 2021

# ¿ Sep 19, 2021 05:51

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

I think Mentats are amusing because Frank Herbert didn't foresee that we'd have compact computers on our desks and integrated into our phones, our televisions, our cars, our airplanes, etc. Dune came out in 1965 and the first pocket calculator came out in 1971. Computers in Herbert's day were big and heavy things that filled rooms.

Pedro De Heredia posted:

These type of analyses are just trying to rationalize what is a pretty lame plot line that attempts to pass off the most obvious thing in the world (blackmail a guy) as some act of amazing cunning that only the most twisted fella could come up with.

Well for what it's worth, here's the analysis. This guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2021 15:18

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Jewmanji posted:

"Taraza leaned forward in her chairdog and scanned the Records Relay projecting its condensed Bene Gesserit glyphs above the tabletop for her eyes only. "Darwi Odrade," the display identified the standing woman, and then came the essential biography, which Taraza already knew in detail. The display served several purposes- it provided a secure reminder for the Mother Superior, it allowed an occasional delay for thought while she appeared to scan the records, and it was a final argument should something negative arise from this interview".

Sounds like a computer to me.

From Heretics of Dune, which came out in 1984. I guess by then Frank Herbert realized that the future wouldn't make sense if all machine computers were banned.

As I understand it, in the past, human starships used AI supercomputers to navigate foldspace, but then the war with the machines happened and AI was banned by religious decree, so human switched to navigators and became dependent on the spice for interstellar travel. It's a premise that I'm skeptical of. No real-world religion bans technology. I imagine a religion that tried to ban something as useful as supercomputers would get cast aside quickly once humans got over the emotional trauma. Religions are usually shaped by the practical requirements of the cultures that spawn them.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Sep 19, 2021

# ¿ Sep 19, 2021 16:46

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Jewmanji posted:

I never really assumed that the Jihad was strictly religious in nature (despite the word "Jihad"). I took it much more to be a labor uprising, like the Luddites. It probably took on quasi-religious proscriptions, but it seemed to me that it could be thought of much more like an arms treaty.

And likewise I bet the ban on AI wasn't effected overnight, but a gradual process of phasing out machine navigators.

The thing is, this had enormous consequences for human civilization. Many people chafe under the yoke of the Spacing Guild, which has a monopoly on navigators and therefore space travel. Surely some worlds might try to re-invent machine navigators so as to break this monopoly?

# ¿ Sep 19, 2021 17:10

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

AnEdgelord posted:

My dude have you ever heard of the Amish?

And there aren't very many Amish around, aren't there? It's not exactly a very popular way of life, is it?

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 04:35

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Martman posted:

In the world of Dune the Amish might run a whole planet or something, proportionally.

I know you're just joking, but I'll say that human societies (and everything in general, really) don't function the same way at different scales. A society of 10 billion people is not going to resemble a society of 10 million people, nor a society of 200 people. Size matters, things of different size work differently.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 04:51

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Gargamel Gibson posted:

That Jamis guy was such an idiot. I bet he felt like a total dipshit when he died.

The duel felt so cliché. Paul runs into some Injuns in the desert, they think he's a pussy, so to earn their respect he must beat one of them in a duel.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 07:07

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

porfiria posted:

Someone here pointed out that Dune plays like a Young Adult novel and...it's kinda true.

It reminds me of those old novels where a white guy joins some tribe of natives and then masters their skills in record time and they are so impressed with his white awesomeness that they make him their leader. Like how Tarzan becomes a superior bushman than the native Africans because he is of British aristocratic stock. The white man can totally outclass the savages at their own game if he ever deigned to dabble in the savage ways.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Sep 20, 2021

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 07:32

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Or maybe you could just roll with the retro-futuristic vision that Frank Herbert had. You could have starships that are all mechanically analog with Mentant pilots regulating everything.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 09:30

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Libluini posted:

The duel is an execution. Thanks to his visions, Paul already knows he will kill the guy. Up to that point, he thought he could avoid the vision setting him on the path of becoming Space Hitler, but when Jamis just doesn't want to quit and threatens his mother, he gives in and becomes the killer with blood on his hand he saw in his visions. Quite poetic, really.

Sometimes clichés are a good thing!

And the duel is also weird because in most traditional societies, outsiders weren't eligible to fight in duels of honor. And you often had to be of equal status to your opponent too. Like, in medieval England, only aristocrats had the right to duel other aristocrats. A peasant had no such right to challenge an aristocrat, the aristocrat instead sent his servants to beat up the impudent peasant. So Paul is an outsider to the Fremen, meaning he's nobody to them, possibly even an enemy.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 16:57

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Forktoss posted:

Thinking about what this movie picks up from the Lynch version that isn't from the books, the Baron flying around with his floaters is a Lynch thing, isn't it? In the book he has them to make him lighter, but I don't remember him straight-up hovering in midair at any point.

He hovers in the air after he dies.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 17:25

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

pointsofdata posted:

I'm sure that that opening voiceover must have been edited after the events in Afghanistan, it was so on the nose.

How do you think it connects to Afghanistan?

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 11:05

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Does Villeneuve hate light and color? Dune looks a lot like Sicario and Blade Runner 2049.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 11:25

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

This movie felt a little decompressed. I was told that it's to be in two parts because Dune is too deep to fit into just one movie, but this movie felt a little decompressed to me. If I were making Dune, I'd pack in more stuff.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 13:55

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Ihmemies posted:

I did not know anything about it beforehand, except the name dunc and the director, Villenöö.

"Villeneuve" (pronounced vil-nuv) means "new town" in French.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 17:37

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Is it just me, or is the scene when we first get a good shot of a sandworm much darker in the movie than in the trailer? In the trailer it seemed to be early evening so you could still clearly make out the sandworms features, but in the theater the sandworm was a shadowy blob.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 17:51

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Then maybe I was wrong to criticize the movie's darkness, maybe my local cinema is at fault.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 19:03

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Mikojan posted:

My number one take-away from the movie that Warhammer 40k is basically DUNE and I love the everloving poo poo out of WH40k worldbuilding so yes, I think I'm gonna like this.

WH40K cribs a few things from Dune but they deal with very different themes.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2021 18:38

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

A thing to note about the Cold War comparisons is that the United States was not a classic imperialist. If the Americans were meddling in other countries, it was usually for security, not resource extraction. The Americans wanted to contain the spread of communism, which terrified them. That's true even for oil. People forget that America already has vast reserves of oil, and with the shale oil revolution America is now self-sufficient when it comes to energy.

The Atreides are definitely nicer than the Harkonnens because we see that in their private conversations. Leto is not going to bullshit his son and heir the way he bullshits the peasants.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2021 20:18

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Jessica in this movie always seems anxious. Is she like this in the book?

# ¿ Oct 22, 2021 17:23

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Here's something I would have changed in the story: So the Fremen messiah myth is a false prophecy planted in the Fremen culture by the Bene Gesserit for potential manipulation. I would have emphasized this point by making Paul an imperfect fit for the prophecy. For instance, when Kynes inspects Paul's stillsuit, she sees that he put it on properly yet he claims to have never done it before, and Kynes recalls the legend saying the messiah would know the Fremen ways "as if born to them". I would have changed it so that Duncan Idaho had taught Paul how to wear a stillsuit back on Caladan, and Paul practiced putting it on, but he lied about that to Kynes in order to appear clever. And further on in the story, Paul would have to falsify other details of his life to fully fit the Fremen prophecy.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2021 22:29

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Xiahou Dun posted:

The knife fights were a solid B- generic flippy thing in an otherwise great film. They weren’t terrible but the words that come to mind are things like “serviceable” and “fine I guess”.

What do you mean by "generic flippy"?

# ¿ Oct 27, 2021 19:00

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

I don't know if it has been brought up in this thread already, but a lot of Warhammer 40,000 fans on various Reddit boards are saying that Dune is totally WH40K. I think the similarities are superficial. WH40K cribbed a few things from Dune but not the core themes. Sure, WH40K has navigators and a ban on AI, but they don't tie in to the core themes of WH40K the way they do in Dune. In Dune, FTL travel is impossible without the navigators, and the navigators need the spice, which is why everyone is fighting over the one source of spice in the Universe. Whereas navigators in WH40K are just there, you could excise navigators from WH40K without destroying the setting. Similarly, in Dune, the ban on AI is the reason why humans must use navigators in the first place (and also Mentats). The ban on AI didn't even appear in WH40K until the second edition, it is not key to the setting.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2021 13:18

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

How were the Harkonnens going to cover up the fact that the Emperor orchestrated the whole thing to eliminate the Atreides? There were Sardukar on Arrakis.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 09:54

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Inspector Gesicht posted:

We didn't see any worms cough up any spice yet.

The worms themselves don't make the spice, it's the poop of their larvae.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 11:26

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Failed Imagineer posted:

In the book, they're Sardaukar in Harkonnen uniform. In the film I guess it's just leave no survivors and then if there's any rumours just claim FAKE NEWS

Eh, I've put up with worse. The Force Awakens would have us believe the First Order could build a planet-sized superweapon without the Resistance ever knowing about it.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 14:50

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Shouldn't those stillsuits be colored white instead of black so as not to absorb sunlight? In the Dune miniseries, they had a light color.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 15:34

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

LampkinsMateSteve posted:

Herbert used the phone book to find the name.

Where did you learn this?

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 16:19

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

XX chromosomes can carry more information than XY. Maybe that's it.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 16:43

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

The fact that Paul Atreides happened at all showed that the Bene Gesserit were serious about their project. If they were really just power-hungry, they would have aborted their project when they sensed they were getting close to the goal.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2021 17:07

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

gohmak posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWe9f-dwcbI

Dune is the perfect representation of patriarchy take

I was told that Frank Herbert was a feminist.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2021 12:43

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

david_a posted:

The shields do look pretty goofy but I think it adds a baroque, inelegant quality to them. The clunkiness kind of helps sell that they don’t have computers in this setting.

Isn't the whole point of those shields that they are unobtrusive? Like, an aristocrat can walk around shaking hands, kissing babies, eating hors d'oeuvres, and his shields only kick in when an assassin in the crowd tries to shoot him. In that case, the shields we see in the 1984 movie fail in that regard. If you approach me looking like a trippy Minecraft monster, I will freak out.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2021 14:12

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

It occurs to me that a warrior who combines those shields with conventional body armor would be unstoppable. The Sardaukar wore body armor when they attacked Arrakis, but Duncan had no trouble knifing them. Do they not have Kevlar gorgets in the far future?

# ¿ Nov 17, 2021 14:32

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

Part Two should mention the Butlerian Jihad and the ban on thinking machines. A key plot point of Dune is that the spice is essential for space travel, but how then did humans get to Arrakis in the first place if Arrakis is the only source of spice?

# ¿ Nov 17, 2021 15:29

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

I think the Baron is gay in the books.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2021 17:30

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# ¿ May 25, 2022 10:53

Kurzon: May 10, 2013

So nobody wants to use lasguns on someone with a shield because that would cause a nuclear explosion. But wouldn't suicidal terrorists love this option? It sounds like a relatively low-cost way of creating massive destruction. I don't think it occurred to Frank Herbert that terrorists would love doing this.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2021 08:58

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