17 votes

Dune: Part Two | Official trailer

29 comments

  1. [23]
    mat
    Link
    OK I will admit to being tentatively quite excited for this now. Still annoyed it's being limited to a couple of relatively short films when it really deserves several seasons of TV. Movies are...

    OK I will admit to being tentatively quite excited for this now. Still annoyed it's being limited to a couple of relatively short films when it really deserves several seasons of TV. Movies are not really the best thing to adapt novels into.

    5 votes
    1. [13]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Meh. Dune is my all-time favorite scifi novel series and I have read the whole thing (including Brian Herbert's) dozens of times over the years. The first book is only 890 pages, and IMO the 3...

      Meh. Dune is my all-time favorite scifi novel series and I have read the whole thing (including Brian Herbert's) dozens of times over the years. The first book is only 890 pages, and IMO the 3 episode miniseries (265 min) did a fine job of covering pretty much everything in it. So I don't see why 2x150min+ movies would be any different. If you include Messiah and Children then it would be multi-season TV series worthy though. However, God Emperor is one of those books that I don't think can ever be properly adapted to film or TV, since it's far too heavy on the religion and philosophy.

      2 votes
      1. [11]
        Wes
        Link Parent
        I agree about God Emperor. It's a fantastic book, but it would just not work on the screen. So much of it is spent navel gazing, and without going into spoilers, there's really only a small...

        I agree about God Emperor. It's a fantastic book, but it would just not work on the screen. So much of it is spent navel gazing, and without going into spoilers, there's really only a small handful of action scenes that could be translated.

        Funny enough, some of my favourite TV episodes are bottle episodes, heavy on dialogue and low on action. But I don't think it would work here as a followup to the epics that are Dune 1-3. I'd watch it, but nobody else would!

        1 vote
        1. unknown user
          Link Parent
          I'm hoping by the time AI techs are good enough, some dedicated fans will be able to make a movie adaptation without needing millions of dollars and manhours while still having it looks good, and...

          I'm hoping by the time AI techs are good enough, some dedicated fans will be able to make a movie adaptation without needing millions of dollars and manhours while still having it looks good, and it'd be as esoteric as we expect!

          2 votes
        2. [6]
          venn177
          Link Parent
          Dune is such a massive and incredibly dense story that I don't think it'd be viable to any kind of modern TV audience as an adaptation. The fact that Denis Villeneuve is able to convert any of it...

          I agree about God Emperor. It's a fantastic book, but it would just not work on the screen.

          Dune is such a massive and incredibly dense story that I don't think it'd be viable to any kind of modern TV audience as an adaptation. The fact that Denis Villeneuve is able to convert any of it into a genuine blockbuster is a miracle.

          1 vote
          1. [5]
            mat
            Link Parent
            They're not quite comparable in terms of density but.. Game of Thrones (at least until the writers fucked it), The Expanse, Hannibal, The Handmaids Tale, Shadow and Bone, The Queen's Gambit,...

            They're not quite comparable in terms of density but.. Game of Thrones (at least until the writers fucked it), The Expanse, Hannibal, The Handmaids Tale, Shadow and Bone, The Queen's Gambit, Poldark, Longmire, Wolf Hall, even The Leftovers.

            Some of the best TV of recent years has been based on relatively dense and complex books.

            1 vote
            1. [2]
              venn177
              Link Parent
              The difference is that all of those (except Shadow and Bone and Wolf Hall, which I haven't seen) are complicated stories in traditional settings. Dune not only has a very complicated story that...

              The difference is that all of those (except Shadow and Bone and Wolf Hall, which I haven't seen) are complicated stories in traditional settings. Dune not only has a very complicated story that needs to be told in a very deliberate way, it also has this incredibly unique setting that requires a lot of exposition to explain. It's so incredibly different from anything within the cultural zeitgeist right now.

              Hannibal is a serial killer in modern America, the Expanse is traditional scifi with a twistTM, Longmire is a modern western set in america, etc.

              When books are converted, having the 'heavy lifting' of people already knowing the basics of a setting through cultural osmosis means less time spent having to explain it. The other option is you go full Lynch with it, and well, Lynch's Dune is insanely weird and entertaining, but also the worst literal adaptation.

              2 votes
              1. mat
                Link Parent
                Shadow and Bone is fantasy. Magic and stuff. Wolf Hall is Cromwell-era England. I'm not sure there's much which is that different in terms of Dune's setting. Ocean planets aren't different to...

                Shadow and Bone is fantasy. Magic and stuff. Wolf Hall is Cromwell-era England.

                I'm not sure there's much which is that different in terms of Dune's setting. Ocean planets aren't different to coastal locations; deserts are deserts; industrial hellscapes are industrial hellscapes and so on. There's nothing particularly unfamiliar. The Dune universe is really just Earth but spread out over multiple planets, it's not like we're talking about people living in a universe with fundamental different physics that requires pages and pages of maths to explain

                Dune isn't really about setting anyway, it's about the politics going on with the people who live there.

                btw if you haven't seen the fanedit of Lynch's film by Spicediver, Dune: The Alternative Edition Redux, it's well worth seeking out. It's still super weird but it's much more coherent and (allegedly) much more like the film Lynch originally wanted to make.

                1 vote
            2. [2]
              papasquat
              Link Parent
              The main difference is that those are all pretty external, plot driven stories. Throughout a lot of dune, but especially starting with God Emperor, a huge chunk of the book, maybe even the...

              The main difference is that those are all pretty external, plot driven stories.
              Throughout a lot of dune, but especially starting with God Emperor, a huge chunk of the book, maybe even the majority of it, takes place in character's minds. In God Emperor, the majority of the book is just Leto's inner thoughts. The actual things that happen in that book are relatively straightforward, but without Leto's thoughts on philosophy, governance, religion, war, etc, they don't really make much sense. The story is perfectly adapted for the medium of a novel. Stuff like that just doesn't work well on a screen.

              1 vote
              1. mat
                Link Parent
                There are ways to tell those kind of stories though. At a very obvious level, just have Leto talk to someone about what he's thinking. You've seen The West Wing, I assume? Even more obvious,...

                There are ways to tell those kind of stories though. At a very obvious level, just have Leto talk to someone about what he's thinking. You've seen The West Wing, I assume? Even more obvious, probably to the point of being a failure of visual storytelling in the modern grammar of such, is the character voiceover that Lynch used so much in his film. Third party narration like Irulan recounting history, is another approach.

                The later books in the Dune sequence never struck me as being particularly unfilmable. They need good amounts of time and space to tell their stories but not being action sequence after action sequence doesn't preclude those stories from being suitable for screen.

        3. [3]
          cfabbro
          Link Parent
          Also funny enough, despite the Brian Herbert novels getting (somewhat deservedly) shit on by a lot of people, I think they would actually make for fantastic movies. They're far more...

          Also funny enough, despite the Brian Herbert novels getting (somewhat deservedly) shit on by a lot of people, I think they would actually make for fantastic movies. They're far more space-opera-ish and action packed than any of the original Frank Herbert novels. And IMO The Butlerian Jihad would be especially great to see adapted to screen.

          1. mat
            Link Parent
            There is a TV adaptation of Sisterhood of Dune coming. It's been quiet for a while but is apparently still going on Sisterhood was the last Brian and Kevin book I read, I think. They are such...

            There is a TV adaptation of Sisterhood of Dune coming. It's been quiet for a while but is apparently still going on

            Sisterhood was the last Brian and Kevin book I read, I think. They are such aggressively mediocre writers that even though I love the Dune universe, I struggle to drag myself through their prose. It's such a shame because the stories are good and the world so compelling, it deserves better writers.

            I agree about the Butlerian Jihad books for adaptation. I think they were the best books Kevin and Brian did.

            1 vote
          2. venn177
            Link Parent
            Unfortunately, a production company has to make it that far. Which means going through the un-filmable task of body-horroring Timothee Chalamet.

            I think they would actually make for fantastic movies

            Unfortunately, a production company has to make it that far. Which means going through the un-filmable task of body-horroring Timothee Chalamet.

            1 vote
      2. ChickenNoodleSloup
        Link Parent
        Dune and the expanse series both got me back into reading. I agree though, not every part will adapt well, especially since visual media tends to have a wider reach in audience.

        Dune and the expanse series both got me back into reading. I agree though, not every part will adapt well, especially since visual media tends to have a wider reach in audience.

        1 vote
    2. [9]
      lou
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      They most certainly are, but Dune (the novel) has peculiarities that must be taken into account. Chiefly, its length, intricacy, and the breadth of its universe. The first movie is great but...

      Movies are not really the best thing to adapt novels into.

      They most certainly are, but Dune (the novel) has peculiarities that must be taken into account. Chiefly, its length, intricacy, and the breadth of its universe.

      The first movie is great but should have been longer. People often complain about long runtimes, but it was warranted here. At 2h35min, Dune 1 is definitely on the shorter side. This is less than Avengers: Endgame, The Batman, and Blade Runner 2049. That doesn't make any sense. The lack of exposition ensures that only those familiar with the universe will be able to enjoy it fully. Longtime fans need no exposition, so they're understandably content. I'm not so sure if new audiences share that sentiment.

      2 votes
      1. [8]
        mat
        Link Parent
        I have to disagree there. Movies are excellent for adapting short stories. But they're too short for capturing novels of any significant length or depth. I don't think I've ever seen a film which...

        I have to disagree there. Movies are excellent for adapting short stories. But they're too short for capturing novels of any significant length or depth. I don't think I've ever seen a film which adapts a novel of any length that isn't disappointing by virtue of how much it needs to leave out.

        Villeneuve has maybe five hours total to capture a book of nearly 900 pages. He's already missed out so much - perhaps even too much - and has barely even got started. The first season of Game of Thrones ran to almost ten hours and barely managed to convey a single book (and GRRM's world is nowhere near as deep as Herbert's).

        I want Dune (the adaptation of the book, Dune, not the series), a book that I love a great deal, to be able to stretch out and tell it's deep story, complete with plenty of background detail. I want to spend a whole hour luxuriating on Caladan learning about who the Atredies are, how they treat their people, what their goals and ideals are. I got one or two scenes. I want another hour on the Guild and the Harkonnens, another again on the Landsraad and the intricacies of Imperial politics, not to mention the Bene Gesserit. I got hardly anything. I don't even want to see Arrakis for three or four episodes. Dune is a vast and complex universe and the many stories within deserve time and space to be told. Time and space movies just can't offer, and TV can.

        When the first film came out Jason Momoa hinted that there was some four hours of footage which didn't make the final edit, which suggests Villeneuve does understand Dune needs more time, but I think he's a "movie guy" and thinks TV isn't good enough. He's wrong. At the very least he should release a longer edit, but he's said he won't do that.

        1 vote
        1. [7]
          lou
          Link Parent
          I'm not sure history agrees with you. Here's a list of movies that are adaptations of novels: Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) The Exorcist (William...

          I'm not sure history agrees with you. Here's a list of movies that are adaptations of novels:

          • Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940)
          • Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
          • Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
          • The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
          • The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
          • The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
          • Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
          • Schindler's List (Spielberg, 1993)
          • Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
          • Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994)
          • 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
          • A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971)
          2 votes
          1. [4]
            mat
            Link Parent
            If I'm honest I haven't read most of those to compare. Or seen a lot of them. I was only talking about my personal experience, after all. However, 2001 doesn't count because it was written...

            If I'm honest I haven't read most of those to compare. Or seen a lot of them. I was only talking about my personal experience, after all.

            However, 2001 doesn't count because it was written concurrently with the movie. The film is not an adaptation of a book that existed before. And while 2001 is probably the best sci-fi film ever made, the book is still better.

            I haven't read The Silence of the Lambs but the TV version of other books from the series by Thomas Harris, adapted as Hannibal, is absolutely superb, a far more involving and complex experience than one short film. It is a good film but the TV version of Hannibal is considerably better than the movie one.

            A Clockwork Orange I have both read and seen and while the film isn't at all bad, it still leaves out a lot and you have to consider that the book is very short. The version Kubrick adapted is rather shorter than the version Burgess wrote, but that wasn't Kubrick's fault.

            1 vote
            1. [3]
              lou
              Link Parent
              It's probably worth noticing that most people do not believe that a good adaptation must be a one-to-one thing where for every entity that exists in the book there must be an equivalent...

              It's probably worth noticing that most people do not believe that a good adaptation must be a one-to-one thing where for every entity that exists in the book there must be an equivalent counterpart in the movie. Otherwise, yeah, adaptations will seldom be considered good.

              In my view, a more relaxed attitude is conducive to greater enjoyment. There's a book that I enjoy, there's a movie I also enjoy. They are related, but I understand that they are also independent of each other.

              1 vote
              1. [2]
                mat
                Link Parent
                Sure, and I've never expected a one-to-one. Books are not screenplays and I never claimed they were. Stuff always has to change - usually things are lost, sometimes things are added too. My point...

                Sure, and I've never expected a one-to-one. Books are not screenplays and I never claimed they were. Stuff always has to change - usually things are lost, sometimes things are added too.

                My point is that movies from complex novels tend to be disappointing because they necessarily have to leave out so much. Movies from short stories usually do much better. Compare and contrast the butchered mess that is Blade Runner (a pale shadow of the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) with the excellence of Total Recall (a near complete telling of the short story We Can Remember it For You Wholesale). That short form moving pictures are better suited to telling short form stories doesn't seem like a particularly controversial take, to me.

                But you see, Dune I particularly love. It's one of my favourite books of all time. I want it to get better treatment than being squeezed into a strongly time-limited format. TV is just better for long-form storytelling than movies, and Dune is nothing if not a long-form story. I want to spend tens of hours - or more - enjoying Dune onscreen, not 4-5.

                Maybe I'm just being greedy. I want more enjoyment than I'm being offered. But it is just entertainment. I can want more!

                1 vote
                1. lou
                  Link Parent
                  I've actually both read the book and watched the movies and love all of them for different reasons. Movies are just terrible at being books, but great at being movies. I certainly understand...

                  Compare and contrast the butchered mess that is Blade Runner (a pale shadow of the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)

                  I've actually both read the book and watched the movies and love all of them for different reasons.

                  Movies are just terrible at being books, but great at being movies.

                  I certainly understand loving a universe so much that you want every bit of it honored onscreen. That is how I feel about Sandman by Neil Gaiman.

                  2 votes
          2. [3]
            Comment deleted by author
            Link Parent
            1. [2]
              lou
              (edited )
              Link Parent
              If those were good shows, you would only show that television series can be great novel adaptations as well. Which is most certainly true, and was never in dispute.

              If those were good shows, you would only show that television series can be great novel adaptations as well. Which is most certainly true, and was never in dispute.

              1 vote
              1. [2]
                Comment deleted by author
                Link Parent
                1. lou
                  (edited )
                  Link Parent
                  Not really. Everyone knows that movies can be shitty. I was just countering the notion that movie adaptations from novels are necessarily shitty, that movies are not a good medium for stories that...

                  Not really. Everyone knows that movies can be shitty. I was just countering the notion that movie adaptations from novels are necessarily shitty, that movies are not a good medium for stories that are originally from novels, or even that they're necessarily inferior to adaptations for TV.

                  I could come up with a 1000 movies list if I had the time, there's just way too many great movies from books to justify the aprioristic notion that movies are not a good medium for novel adaptations.

                  1 vote
  2. cloud_loud
    Link
    Looks good. I liked the first Dune, I didn’t fall head over heels for it, but hey I’m sure it’s gonna be quite the IMAX experience

    Looks good. I liked the first Dune, I didn’t fall head over heels for it, but hey I’m sure it’s gonna be quite the IMAX experience

    3 votes
  3. [2]
    Wes
    Link
    I skipped the "teaser" trailer just to watch the real one. Even though I know the story back to front, I'm looking forward to seeing Part 2 realized. I'll likely be rewatching Part 1 to...

    I skipped the "teaser" trailer just to watch the real one. Even though I know the story back to front, I'm looking forward to seeing Part 2 realized. I'll likely be rewatching Part 1 to refamiliarize myself beforehand.

    Very curious if Messiah will be in the cards once this one releases. I'm not going to get my hopes up, but if the film is a success...

    2 votes
    1. cloud_loud
      Link Parent
      Denis did say he wanted to do Messiah. I think this is almost guaranteed to be a success. The first one made nearly 400 WW during pandemic market conditions and while being available on HBOMAX...

      Denis did say he wanted to do Messiah. I think this is almost guaranteed to be a success. The first one made nearly 400 WW during pandemic market conditions and while being available on HBOMAX simultaneously. It was also one of the most watched HBOMAX movies of 2022.

      3 votes
  4. LouBorg
    Link
    So excited for this. I feel like they’ve captured the spirit of the books

    So excited for this. I feel like they’ve captured the spirit of the books

    1 vote
  5. [2]
    culturedleftfoot
    Link
    Is it me or is the vaguely nondescript tribal wailing of the soundtrack overdone by now? I only watched the first film once but I feel like I've heard that song, or something like it, like a...

    Is it me or is the vaguely nondescript tribal wailing of the soundtrack overdone by now? I only watched the first film once but I feel like I've heard that song, or something like it, like a billion times.

    1 vote
    1. mat
      Link Parent
      Everything Hans Zimmer does is overdone. If I'm being generous I'd say it's because he is such an influential composer that lots of people copy his style in other films and TV so you hear it a...

      Everything Hans Zimmer does is overdone. If I'm being generous I'd say it's because he is such an influential composer that lots of people copy his style in other films and TV so you hear it a lot. If I'm being mean I'd say it's because he had one or two good ideas ten years ago and has just been rehashing them every since. The truth is likely somewhere between the two.

      Although to be fair, Zimmer's Dune theme does have echoes of Brian Eno and Toto's incredible soundtrack to Lynch's movie. Which didn't sound overdone in 1984 when it was released.

      2 votes