just watched dune part two, and i gotta tell ya, after being blown away by the scope and promise of dune part one, part two seemed a rushed and jumbled mess to me.
i know i’m in the vast minority on this, but part two of course, could have, and should have been expanded into at least two or three separate movies to do the story justice. the majesty of the first movie was mashed into a frenetic eye rolling dash to the finish with nothing happening that should have hit me, with the same tingles up my spine, as when i read it all those decades ago. not one scene or event made me feel anything.
but wait a second did them just defeat the entire galactic empire in the span of 90 seconds. boy that was convenient huh. blech,
i did not like it at all. imma rewatch at 2160 when i can, and maybe come back to edit, but i kept waiting for the cool shyt to start, and they blew on past all the cool shyt for 2 hrs and 45 minutes.
the whole thing was nothin but a dust storm.
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I do agree that the weakness of Part Two was that it was rushed, but i don’t agree that it was incoherent. What it really needed was key scenes and events to be more fleshed out - say another 30-40 minutes?
It certainly didn’t need to be split into two separate movies, though.
In the books everything happened over 3 or 4 years not over 2 weeks like it seems to in the movie.
Yeah, I know. I was disappointed that certain key scenes that I loved in the books were either cut or dramatically cut down, but I understand why they did it.
My guess is that going into this series, the producers/director were not confident that they could get three movies out of it and keep the studio happy and so decided to squeeze it into two. Remember that while most critics and sci-fi fans loved Blade Runner 2049, it was considered a commercial flop and many accused it of being “too slow” . Perhaps it was felt that three Dune movies would have suffered the same fate?
Personally, I would have vastly preferred it had they gone the Lord of the Rings route and released 3hr30 minute extended editions of Dune Part One and Two, but apparently that’s not the way they wanted to do things. Either way, under the circumstances, I think they did a decent job with the constraints they had.
While I agree about the missing key scenes, I think it could have had a 3rd movie. I do agree with OP that it was rushed.
I don’t know how to add spoilers, so I’ll just say that there were key points that diverge from the book, and with more time, they could have been fleshed out and made a more faithful movie.
I’ve read the books several times over, so I think I know exactly what you’re referring to. While I agree that you could potentially stretch Dune to three movies, I don’t think you necessarily need to for the sake of a movie franchise.
Agreed. It should have been long and drawn out and boring like the source material.
People are saying the source also focused more on world building and skipped over the action sequences too, tho
I haven’t seen the second Dune yet, but the first Dune to me was kind of a waste of a bunch of plot building exposition when it really felt like the movie wanted to be a series of stunning visual and action set pieces that told a story without needing words.
I just kept thinking while I was watching the first Dune that I wished it was made like the recent Mad Max was, because while the subversion and complexity comes into the plot in the second Dune, the first Dune movie’s plot was pretty forgettable especially if you are already tired of the trope Dune is subverting with Duncan as the hero figure (I was bored of superhero movies and YA adult fiction with universe saving wizards a longggg time ago). The universe and environments put up on screen were NOT tired however, and I just wish they showed me more of the world of Dune without attaching exposition and plot to it.
This was one of my complaints about the movie too, but after seeing it I decided to listen to the audiobook and tbh the book ends similarly. The final chapter is just rapid-fire story progression, ending with little fanfare after the dude just coup’d the entire galaxy. So, this complaint remains for me, apparently as a element of the canon. I’m still looking forward to the next book though, going to start it this week!
Yeah, when I first read the book I did that thing where you space out and read a page and a half while absorbing nothing, and I was similarly taken aback how it progressed from “let’s blow up the shield wall” to “Irulan and I are married and ruling the galaxy now” in basically a 30 second lapse of attention
I was actually really happy how short the action sequences are. I hate action movies. I’m glad the spent more time developing characters and their relationships
I really liked that the first film was like 30% plot and 70% worldbuilding and exploring. I don’t read Dune because of the plot, I read it because it’s so interesting with society and technology and cool concepts. The first film really did that for me. The one big action fight where they were betrayed was fantastic. When I read the book, it seems like basically one family and a few of their guards gets killed. The film showed the scale of a city-wide invasion and slaughter and it was really grand.
Second film though, that felt like it was mostly just fighting. Got kinda boring after a while. It’s not what I look for in a Dune story. If I wanted that, I’d go back to Marvel.
So yeah, that’s how I felt. But tbh, almost anything would be disappointing after how amazing I thought the first film was.
I felt the Geidi Prime stadium scene was an infra-red footage showoff first and foremost. I wondered why so much runtime went toward setting up
spoiler
the na-Baron, only for him to die in the last 10 minutes.
Granted, I haven’t read the books. Perhaps it’s key to the story later, or illustrates something about the Harkonnens…
Others have answered partially his purpose, but the Baron’s plan was for Raban to exploit and crush Arrakis as much as possible to recover the funds spent on the invasion, then the na-Baron comes in as a benevolent saviour for the people. The Harkonnens get a bunch of money, control of the spice, and a cushy job for the Baron’s favourite
Interesting, I feel that didn’t come through in the movie at all. Also, didn’t the Harkonnens already have control of the spice after the betrayal in Part One?
No, I don’t think it was in the film at all either. The Harkonnens do have control one again by the end of part one but they are feared and hated. The plan was to play on this reputation with “The Beast” Raban whilst making as much money as possible. After a few years, the population are “liberated” by Feud-Rautha who will be a much kinder ruler and so the people will love him. Of course, they will still be under Harkonnen rule and still giving them spice and money, but probably too stupid or relieved to notice this. (part of the motif of the media is that Harkonnens rule through fear and don’t really understand people very well, in the way that the Atredies do)
Ah cool, that makes a lot of sense now. Without going into all that detail however, I agree with the original comment that they shouldn’t have spent so much time introducing Feyd-Rautha, or should have introduced him in the first movie. As is, it was a lot of screentime that never pays off, except for being cool looking I guess.
I mean he impregnated a witch. I think thats going to be significant later.
While a serviceable film, part two was a much looser interpretation of the book. If you’re interested I’d highly recommend reading it.
I seriously wondered if the release group had messed up the rip, and had scenes missing or in the wrong order. One scene Paul is starting his training, the next that’s apparently all done and they’re now attacking a harvester. It’s not like I wanted a training sequence montage or anything, but movies aren’t usually paced like that. There was lots of jumping around in time and space, for quite small scenes (typically of a Harkonian murdering an underling or two).
I’m assuming it’ll be like Rogue One, another choppy film that makes sense when you already know where it’s going, so I’ll re-watch it along with Part One at some point, and hopefully enjoy it more.
That’s one of the things I liked about the film. It was pretty jarring at the time but when I’d realised what they’d done I was like “yep, I didn’t need to see that. Nice little three or four scenes to show that time has passed and they’re becoming integrated with the Fremen.” Didn’t need to spend any longer on it imo
rogue one is fucking perfection, dune two is not (i rewatched it. still a rushed jumbled mess)
I enjoyed the first movie, and was looking forward to the second, but I just have no desire to watch it now. I don’t know what changed, but I just don’t care.