I watched this at home on October 21 because I couldn't wait. Then I went to see it in Imax on the 23rd. I'm glad I did both and I think everyone should see this on the big screen.
The sets and costumes were beyond my expectations. The feudal society didn't make Villeneuve use cliched Renaissance images like those in the 1984 film or Game of Thrones. This film does something new, a true vision of the year 10191. In particular, Villeneuve captured the Bedouin flavor of the book, my all-time favorite. Some of the technology in the book came alive for the first time: personal shields, the Baron's suspensor suit, and in particular the ornithopters, which I had previously imagined as helicopters shaped like birds.
One of my issues with the 1984 film was always the Toto score. It was nice as a generic film score, but had nothing to do with Dune. The Hans Zimmer score in the new film did not have any themes you could hum, but supported the story and its setting so much better.
Some quibbles: The biggest is that in a few places the acting was flat and unemotional. The one person whose acting truly showed her character's feelings was Rebecca Ferguson. Timothy Chalamet does not look like red-headed Paul Atreides from the book. The closest any film adaptation has come was the Alec Newman from the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. The early part of the film was misleading about the importance of the spice melange. The film made the spice sound like a mere navigation aid, much different from giving Spacing Guild navigators the ability to fold the space between two planets, which is the equivalent of creating a wormhole. Finally, I had been hoping this first film would include Paul and Jessica being taken to Sietch Tabr and Paul getting his new name, Muad Dib. That would be a better demonstration of the death of Paul Atreides and the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach.
I am now eagerly awaiting part 2.
The sets and costumes were beyond my expectations. The feudal society didn't make Villeneuve use cliched Renaissance images like those in the 1984 film or Game of Thrones. This film does something new, a true vision of the year 10191. In particular, Villeneuve captured the Bedouin flavor of the book, my all-time favorite. Some of the technology in the book came alive for the first time: personal shields, the Baron's suspensor suit, and in particular the ornithopters, which I had previously imagined as helicopters shaped like birds.
One of my issues with the 1984 film was always the Toto score. It was nice as a generic film score, but had nothing to do with Dune. The Hans Zimmer score in the new film did not have any themes you could hum, but supported the story and its setting so much better.
Some quibbles: The biggest is that in a few places the acting was flat and unemotional. The one person whose acting truly showed her character's feelings was Rebecca Ferguson. Timothy Chalamet does not look like red-headed Paul Atreides from the book. The closest any film adaptation has come was the Alec Newman from the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. The early part of the film was misleading about the importance of the spice melange. The film made the spice sound like a mere navigation aid, much different from giving Spacing Guild navigators the ability to fold the space between two planets, which is the equivalent of creating a wormhole. Finally, I had been hoping this first film would include Paul and Jessica being taken to Sietch Tabr and Paul getting his new name, Muad Dib. That would be a better demonstration of the death of Paul Atreides and the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach.
I am now eagerly awaiting part 2.