Weekly Watchlist - 6th March 2024

Dune Part 2

There’s a scene in The Two Towers, the second part of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, when Gandalf, just recently reborn by divine transformation as Gandalf the White after a battle with The Balrog, a demon of the ancient world, emerges from a forest full of tree creatures that can walk and talk, and let’s out a long, piercing whistle. Suddenly, galloping in slow motion over the hills comes a magnificent white stallion with it’s mane blowing in the wind as the music swells and the wizard smiles beatifically.

It was at this point that the person sitting next to me in the cinema said, “Oh come on!” Obviously, the supposed cheesiness of this scene, rather than all the magical maguffins that had gone on before hand, was just too much for them to take the film seriously anymore.

Meanwhile, I was sitting there, trying my best not to turn into a howling, blubbering mess, whilst tearfully shouting at the top of my lungs, “It’s Shadowfax!”

That’s what being a fan of something does to you. It gives you an emotional connection and lets you look past a film’s deficiencies and awkwardness, because it’s based on something that you love, and have probably done so for decades.

I first read Lord of the Rings twenty five years before the movies came out. In those years, I had waited eagerly to see what Lothlorien, Moria and The Shire would look like. Of course we had the cartoon and lots of artwork but not live action. There were a lot of big questions to be answered. How would Peter Jackson bring the Black Riders to the screen, never mind the aforementioned Balrog or Ents? There were real concerns it would just look goofy and the tone would not be right.

Of course, we now all know he did so triumphantly by making it accessible to fans and non-fans alike. Are there moments that are a bit much for the average cinema going punter? Of course (Galdriel’s transformation when tempted by the ring, the Ents, the songs, Gimli’s ridiculous Scottish accent, the wigs, the 642 endings to Return of the King) but everyone mostly went with it, and the devotees lapped it up. In fact, I wish there had been more of the original source material. Never mind Shadowfax, where were The Barrow Wights, Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadil?!

So, Tolkien had always been with me from a young age. Frank Herbert most certainly wasn’t. As I’ve written about before, science-fiction was not my genre of choice. I was aware of Dune but had never been tempted to read it.

Then, in probably 1985/86, I watched the David Lynch film version on video.

I remember at the time thinking it was a bit pompous and silly, even before Sting turned up in his underwear. Therefore, I hadn’t watched it since and my interest in the book remained limited.

However, when it was announced Denis Villeneuve was going to direct a new version, that could possibly turn into a trilogy, I was intrigued once again.

Villeneuve had recently directed Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 which were two of my favourite science fiction movies of the last decade, so if anyone could bring me around it would be him.

With Dune Part 1, I was quite impressed with the overall visuals and world building. It’s always good when a movie is brave enough not to divert too far from the original text, but the characters and storyline, left me cold. It did boast an impressive cast. Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica), Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck), Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto), Zendaya (Chani) and Jason Mamoa (Duncan Idaho). However, their performances, particularly Ferguson, just reminded me how much more charismatic they were than Timothee Chalamet as Paul. It was good but nothing more than that. Was my constant indifference solely down to not having read the book?

A few months ago I was invited to take part in a read along with

Alexander Ipfelkofer

,

Claudia Befu

,

Vanessa Glau

and

Nathan Slake

for their “Letters from Arrakis,” where we took a deep dive into all 3 sections of the book and the various film adaptations. These lovely people had all read Dune before so knew a lot more about it than me and it was really fascinating getting their thoughts, and well worth checking out their posts on the matter :-

Letters from Arrakis: Part One

I would imagine they will also be doing another one of these with their own feedback on Dune Part 2 so apologies if I’m jumping the gun!

It would probably make sense, at this point, for me to give a very brief summary of the plot of the book just for any people who aren’t sure what all the fuss is about.

Dune tells the story of a young Paul Atreides whose family accept the stewardship of the planet Arrakis from their Emperor, and how the ensuing battle for supremacy of it’s precious natural resources takes place. The desert planet is the only source of melange or “spice” in the galaxy. This is a drug that can be used to extend life, enhance mental capability and, probably most importantly, is essential for space travel. The book explores, amongst other things, colonialism, ecology and religious extremism. It’s not a long book, about 520 pages excluding the appendix, and tries to cover a lot of ground. I think it’s fair to say that I wasn’t a fan. Again, there is some good world building here, and I understand what Herbert is trying to tell us about all the issues above, but with seriously unlikeable characters (particularly Paul and Leto), clumsy, poorly written dialogue and a thuddingly dull plot, I was, by the end, reading just to get it finished.

Having finally got through it, I decided to go back and re-watch both the Lynch version and Part 1 from Villeneuve. My view on the latter had not really changed, but I certainly liked it a whole lot more than the book. However, my opinion on the former had certainly altered from when I watched it nearly forty years ago.

David Lynch’s Dune, is an absolutely appalling film. I would go so far as to say it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It brings to screen all the worst parts of the book like the ridiculous internal monologuing and grandiose seriousness. The special effects, even taking into account when it was made, are like something out of Doctor Who, not the modern version, but the ones with Tom Baker and the wobbly, cardboard sets. The acting is not much better with everyone having their over acting dial set all the way up to eleventy stupid! Even Patrick Stewart and Max von Sydow can’t save it. And why, for the love of all things holy, is Duke Leto wandering around with a pug in his arms?! Just awful. It should consumed by a sand word at the first opportunity.

I know there is also the documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempted version which was to star Salvador Dali. The story goes that he was to be cast as the Emperor, but had asked to be paid $100K per hour. The director agreed, but then cut his scenes down to one hour and proposed the rest of his lines were to be spoken by a robotic lookalike to which Dali agreed. It sounds absolutely crazy and I’m sure I’ll get around to watching the documentary at some point, but there’s only so much Dune I can handle.

And so to Dune Part 2 that is already being hailed in some quarters as the best science fiction movie ever made.

At the start of this instalment, House Atreides has fallen to their enemy the Harkonnen’s and Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) have been take in by the Fremen tribe of Arrakis. Stilgar, (Javier Bardem), their leader thinks that Paul is the foretold chosen one destined to lead them to freedom. Again, that’s a very brief overview but, to be honest, this part is not heavy on plot.

Having just returned from the cinema, I do have to say that I prefer this to the first instalment.

The storytelling, for one, is lot more joined up, and whist it still does jump around a bit, there is none of the first movies random flicking from scene to scene without any connective tissue.

It’s also unafraid to lean even heavier into the lore than it’s predecessor. This may be one of the parts of the film, not being a fan of the book, that I felt might be unnecessary but it’s always admirable to see a director take such wild swings. Plus, I can appreciate that these scenes would be like Shadowfax or Moria from Lord of the Rings to people who are devotees of the source text.

Again, the visuals are very impressive, but I felt not quite as sharp as the first one. Still looks good though. The much discussed monochrome gladiatorial scene was stunning, even it was ruined a wee bit by the CGI at the end.

The performances are all pretty strong with Chalamet holding his own this time, alongside Zendaya as Fremen warrior Chani, who is superb as the heart of the movie, but also the one who tries to bring sanity against the increasing slide of the Fremen tribe into zealotry and extremism. Rebecca Ferguson, after being so strong in the first part, is underused here in a sinister shouty role, as are the newcomers in Christopher Walken, just being himself, as the duplicitous Emperor, and Florence Pugh as his daughter, the Princess Irulan who should really just be called Princess Exposition as that’s about all she gets to do.

Austin Butler as the truly mad Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen gets to overact to his hearts content which is quite impressive. His performance is really off the chain, but he pulls it off with all the charisma of the superstar he’s becoming. However, there were moments with his character that did not sit easily with me that I will come back to later.

There have been complaints that the film is a bit slow and then everything happens in the last thirty minutes, but I didn’t think this was the case. The world building is again very impressive and it does take an in depth look at the rise of Paul to the position of Lisan al-Gaib, the supposed messiah of the Fremen. He initially rejects such talk, but is eventually drawn into their fanaticism. It shows just how desperate people are to make a mortal man into the divine, and how far they’ll go to make prophecy seem reality. It is something that’s particularly pertinent in our own world.

However, there is a scene that does slip into unintentional comedy. When Paul tells the Fremen he wants nothing to do with being their messianic leader, someone pipes up that only the true messiah would deny his calling. This is a scene almost lifted word for word from Life of Brian, and caused me to have a good chuckle, but it does show how deluded religious believers can get.

There are two problematic issues that have really stuck with me after this viewing.

Firstly, the Hans Zimmer score. It’s just too much. I see what he’s trying to do and it’s sounds very similar to the incredible work he did on Blade Runner 2049, but it’s overused and seems inserted in completely the wrong places. There’s one scene where it’s all blaring noise when Paul stands up and then it bleeds into the next scene of troop movements with barely a breath between deafening decibels. I can appreciate something like that when it’s mirroring the vast, futuristic LA landscape as the water wall explodes into life in Blade Runner 2049, yet here it doesn’t let any of the drama actually breath without telling you exactly how to feel.

The second issue is more serious and might just be with me, but I think it should be addressed. The random violence against women in this movie was completely unnecessary. We know the Harkonnen’s are crazy bad guys. It doesn’t need Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) murdering a couple of his female servants to show us that, and it certainly doesn’t need Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) doing the exact same thing only a few scenes later. It was lazy story telling and really left a sour taste. Villeneuve should know better.

All in all, however, it’s admirable what he has achieved with these two films. He’s brought a supposedly unfilmable novel to the screen in a very impressive manner and it’s wonderful to see science fiction on such an immense scale doing so well at the box office. Unfortunately, it’s not for me. As I mentioned at the start of the article people are already calling it the greatest science fiction movie of all time so it’s clearly found it’s audience. I’m not one of them, and if there is a part 3, I will not be seeking it out. From what I hear, in the following books, it doesn’t go too well for Paul and the gang anyway. I think the late, great Terry Jones would have summed it up perfectly with his quote from Life of Brian, “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”

Thanks for reading. Until next time.