Yeah, it's interesting, I've sometimes wondered if folks who haven't read the books could really follow what was happening (I get the sense the answer is frequently "no"). But it's hard to disentangle the two, at least in part because the movie is also very clearly in conversation with the book.
Yeah, it's interesting, I've sometimes wondered if folks who haven't read the books could really follow what was happening (I get the sense the answer is frequently "no"). But it's hard to disentangle the two, at least in part because the movie is also very clearly in conversation with the book.
I can't directly speak to this as I have read the books, but at least for a very small anecdotal sample size, the answer was "somewhat". I had a buddy who saw the first part and quite enjoyed it. Ironically, two of his biggest complaints were things that were addressed in the book:
A) He thought that Paul was gearing up to be an action figure/fighter type, and that Timothy Chalamet looked "a bit scrawny" for that role. Book Paul is noted to be small for his age and very thin.
B) He asked where all the rest of the Atriedes were, that they seemed to just be the ruling family and soldiers in their service. He was a little surprised to hear me tell him that in the books, the Great Houses were basically occupying armies and considered themselves distinct from the people of the planets they're on.
But he did very much follow what was going on in the film and who was on which side, why characters were acting the way they did, etc.
Yeah, it's interesting, I've sometimes wondered if folks who haven't read the books could really follow what was happening (I get the sense the answer is frequently "no"). But it's hard to disentangle the two, at least in part because the movie is also very clearly in conversation with the book.
I can't directly speak to this as I have read the books, but at least for a very small anecdotal sample size, the answer was "somewhat". I had a buddy who saw the first part and quite enjoyed it. Ironically, two of his biggest complaints were things that were addressed in the book:
A) He thought that Paul was gearing up to be an action figure/fighter type, and that Timothy Chalamet looked "a bit scrawny" for that role. Book Paul is noted to be small for his age and very thin.
B) He asked where all the rest of the Atriedes were, that they seemed to just be the ruling family and soldiers in their service. He was a little surprised to hear me tell him that in the books, the Great Houses were basically occupying armies and considered themselves distinct from the people of the planets they're on.
But he did very much follow what was going on in the film and who was on which side, why characters were acting the way they did, etc.