Just going in and commenting before I've listed to the podcast, but I have to admit, I wasn't impressed with Dune part 2. Every movie adapted from a book is going to make changes from the source material. If nothing else, the difference between print and film require it. Dune, for instance, narrates most of the action through the interna…
Just going in and commenting before I've listed to the podcast, but I have to admit, I wasn't impressed with Dune part 2. Every movie adapted from a book is going to make changes from the source material. If nothing else, the difference between print and film require it. Dune, for instance, narrates most of the action through the internal monologues of characters, you see their thoughts and reaction to action 'offstage', an approach that is ridiculous to put on the big screen. And of course there are usually going to be subplots that are cut for time, and even with doing that, this was a hefty 2:45 runtime.
But they also make serious, in fact I would say fundamental changes to the book in ways that I really think hurt the overall project and do so unnecessarily. The romance between Paul and Chani is a pretty minor subplot in the book, the movie elevates it to front and center. Feyd-Ruatha gets some weird and in my opinion unnecessary character flattening, turning from a smooth and deadly anti-Paul to just a lunging psychotic . The culture of the Fremen is very sanitized and the movie leads out all their unnecessary feuding among themselves, wife swapping, and cultural institutions of things like raising the children of a guy you killed because that happens so frequently they need to institute rules about it.
But the absolute worst in my opinion is the whole nature of Paul's visions and how they guide his actions. Movie Paul gets vague glimpses of a future and of the strife and war he could unleash if he brings in the "Southern fundamentalist tribes" (no such thing in the books) and goes full force against the Harkonen, so tries to halfass things and get his revenge without going full force, only to gradually realize he needs to stop holding back once he's taken the Water of Life and sees more clearly.
Book Paul gets his clarity of prescience simultaneously sooner than in than in the movie but also too late. By the time he's killed Jamis he's ALREADY set the Fremen loose upon the universe, and his major goal and conflict in the book isn't whether or not to unleash the storm, but how to ride it once he's already unwittingly unleashed it.
Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but as visually stunning as Villeneuve's work is, I can't get behind this.
I have a theory that some of the changes in part 2 exist to combat the critique that Dune is a "white-savior" narrative.
You heard that critique a lot in the lead up to the first film, and it's understandable. Dune is fundamentally an "anti-messianic" story, but you don't really reach that point until the second book. If all you read was the first book, it would be easy to get the impression that Paul is both protagonist and hero. I suspect Villeneuve made a lot of the changes he did to make that message more obvious.
Just going in and commenting before I've listed to the podcast, but I have to admit, I wasn't impressed with Dune part 2. Every movie adapted from a book is going to make changes from the source material. If nothing else, the difference between print and film require it. Dune, for instance, narrates most of the action through the internal monologues of characters, you see their thoughts and reaction to action 'offstage', an approach that is ridiculous to put on the big screen. And of course there are usually going to be subplots that are cut for time, and even with doing that, this was a hefty 2:45 runtime.
But they also make serious, in fact I would say fundamental changes to the book in ways that I really think hurt the overall project and do so unnecessarily. The romance between Paul and Chani is a pretty minor subplot in the book, the movie elevates it to front and center. Feyd-Ruatha gets some weird and in my opinion unnecessary character flattening, turning from a smooth and deadly anti-Paul to just a lunging psychotic . The culture of the Fremen is very sanitized and the movie leads out all their unnecessary feuding among themselves, wife swapping, and cultural institutions of things like raising the children of a guy you killed because that happens so frequently they need to institute rules about it.
But the absolute worst in my opinion is the whole nature of Paul's visions and how they guide his actions. Movie Paul gets vague glimpses of a future and of the strife and war he could unleash if he brings in the "Southern fundamentalist tribes" (no such thing in the books) and goes full force against the Harkonen, so tries to halfass things and get his revenge without going full force, only to gradually realize he needs to stop holding back once he's taken the Water of Life and sees more clearly.
Book Paul gets his clarity of prescience simultaneously sooner than in than in the movie but also too late. By the time he's killed Jamis he's ALREADY set the Fremen loose upon the universe, and his major goal and conflict in the book isn't whether or not to unleash the storm, but how to ride it once he's already unwittingly unleashed it.
Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but as visually stunning as Villeneuve's work is, I can't get behind this.
I have a theory that some of the changes in part 2 exist to combat the critique that Dune is a "white-savior" narrative.
You heard that critique a lot in the lead up to the first film, and it's understandable. Dune is fundamentally an "anti-messianic" story, but you don't really reach that point until the second book. If all you read was the first book, it would be easy to get the impression that Paul is both protagonist and hero. I suspect Villeneuve made a lot of the changes he did to make that message more obvious.