Movies

waruv said:
To expand a bit, I watched Dune in a theater and I'm a newbie to the franchise, but, to me, the "boring" aspect wasn't so much a technical thing. It was a great looking film (if not necessary to see in a theater). My issue is, well, I'll spoil it

The movie takes a lot of pains to emphasize the importance of Paul's visions and futures as well as the important of Chani in these visions. We see a lot of them, we get signs that some of the Fremen think he's a savior, he's seeing a Holy War, etc. It pretty much tells you quickly that the real story is going to take off when he gets there. As such, it really undercuts a lot of the intensity when characters like Leto, Gurney, and Duncan meet their end because they weren't going to be substantial to the main undercurrent of the plot anyway. Like there was never a spitter's chance that Paul was gonna die, so a duel to close the movie is like...okay. I just didn't feel like there were any stakes in this part of the story because the most sympathetic characters (The Fremen) aren't even touched upon until about 2:15 into the movie. To me, it felt like we were watching a malevolent power (Harkonnen) against a largely unsympathetic protagonist family (Atreides) with a ton of world setting for most of the movies.

Ultimately, I wish they just got to the Fremen a bit faster if they're not going to build up the Atreides to be a sympathetic figure as the rest felt pretty pre-determined to the idea of "when is Paul going to meet the Fremen".
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I think this is a fair criticism of Dune as an object. It is, and really feels like, half a film.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I really enjoyed the DV Dune. I never read the book and like you went back and watched Lynch’s Dune. I agree with all of this. In reading about the history of Lynch’s Dune, I learned that Ridley Scott was originally attached to direct but was in the process of filming Blade Runner and the producers didn’t want to wait to get Dune out and hired Lynch based off of Elephant Man but hadn’t seen any of his other films and Lynch had never read Dune prior to filming. Lynch’s version, if thought of as a Lynch sci-fi film isn’t bad. Also, I understand that they cut like an hour from the film. I am not sure it would have made a huge difference but I think it would be an interesting watch. I would have loved to see what Scott would have done with Dune based on Alien and Blade Runner I think he could have made a very interesting and rich universe. Anyways DV’s version is very well done. I wish it were longer; maybe 3 movies instead of two, but overall it’s beautifully executed and am looking forward to the sequel.
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Melt Face Molly Drop said:
There’s a 3 hour 10 minute special edition of Lynch’s Dune. Curious if anyone’s seen this version and if it helps flesh some things out a bit?
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I do have the extended version of the film, because this nerd's gotta nerd...short answer, no, the extra doesn't make it any more watchable.

In my copy, not everything that Lynch wanted in the film, actually got filmed, so there are story boards and crap that they put up to show you what it was supposed to look like. When I obtained this copy of Dune sometime in the aughts, I realized, maybe for the first time in my adult life, that it was possible for one to go too far down the rabbit hole.
waruv said:
To expand a bit, I watched Dune in a theater and I'm a newbie to the franchise, but, to me, the "boring" aspect wasn't so much a technical thing. It was a great looking film (if not necessary to see in a theater). My issue is, well, I'll spoil it

The movie takes a lot of pains to emphasize the importance of Paul's visions and future as well as the importance of Chani in these visions. We see a lot of them, we get signs that some of the Fremen think he's a savior, he's seeing a Holy War, etc. It pretty much tells you quickly that the real story is going to take off when he gets there. As such, it really undercuts a lot of the intensity when characters like Leto, Gurney, and Duncan meet their end because they weren't going to be substantial to the main undercurrent of the plot anyway. Like there was never a spitter's chance that Paul was gonna die, so a duel to close the movie is like...okay. I just didn't feel like there were any stakes in this part of the story because the most sympathetic characters (The Fremen) aren't even touched upon until about 2:15 into the movie. To me, it felt like we were watching a malevolent power (Harkonnen) against a largely unsympathetic protagonist family (Atreides) with a ton of world setting for most of the movie.

Ultimately, I wish they just got to the Fremen a bit faster if they're not going to build up the Atreides to be a sympathetic figure as the rest felt pretty pre-determined to the idea of "when is Paul going to meet the Fremen".
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I think we come to the same conclusion. It feels like a large portion of the characters you meet at the beginning are throw-aways and not central to the plot. I felt like DV's Dune did a great job showing you some really cool landscapes but didn't do a great job explaining anything.
 
nolalady said:
In my copy, not everything that Lynch wanted in the film, actually got filmed, so there are story boards and crap that they put up to show you what it was supposed to look like. When I obtained this copy of Dune sometime in the aughts, I realized, maybe for the first time in my adult life, that it was possible for one to go too far down the rabbit hole.
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Lynch was on record that the studio (and Dino DeLaurentis personally) messed with his vision and undercut what he wanted to do with the movie, which is why eventually he had his name removed from the credits (and technically it's an Alan Smithee film). In fact he bitched about it so much, so publicly, that de Laurentis tried to call him on it and offered him complete creative control of a movie, but like the barest amount of money possible to do it. Presumably de Laurentis had a proto-surprised-Pikachu-face when Lynch enthusiastically agreed and then came back with Blue Velvet, which is a wonderful and bizarre piece by anyone's measure.
waruv said:
The movie takes a lot of pains to emphasize the importance of Paul's visions and future as well as the importance of Chani in these visions. We see a lot of them, we get signs that some of the Fremen think he's a savior, he's seeing a Holy War, etc. It pretty much tells you quickly that the real story is going to take off when he gets there. As such, it really undercuts a lot of the intensity when characters like Leto, Gurney, and Duncan meet their end because they weren't going to be substantial to the main undercurrent of the plot anyway.
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A lot of this is because of the book's pacing and layout -- Gurney is important in the latter part of the story and Duncan comes back (sort of?) in the latter books (I want to say books 4/5/6 but definitely the last two that Frank Herbert wrote have Duncan Idaho as a central character). Your criticisms are totally spot-on for this book/movie as it is though.
 
zomgbear said:
Disappointing to hear I was looking forward to Soho
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I'll make a case for it, keeping it non-spoiler. It's still an Edgar Wright movie so you get top flight sound and music cues as well as a great overall environment. There are several moments in the movie you get the euphoric rush and beautiful staging. You also get very game performances from Anya Taylor-Joy and the criminally underheralded Thomasin McKenzie (who is the true lead of this movie) and a pretty solid concept. I do think it's a drop off from Wright's best movies in that there are too many underdeveloped characters for their importance to the story, some of the actions taken don't make sense, and (shockingly) I feel like some of the later scenes got repetitive and uninteresting action wise. I think the first 2/3 or so is an A-/B+ movie and the last 1/3 is a C movie which is a true bummer, but there's enough good in there that I'd recommend it to genre fans (as a non genre fan).
 
waruv said:
To expand a bit, I watched Dune in a theater and I'm a newbie to the franchise, but, to me, the "boring" aspect wasn't so much a technical thing. It was a great looking film (if not necessary to see in a theater). My issue is, well, I'll spoil it

The movie takes a lot of pains to emphasize the importance of Paul's visions and future as well as the importance of Chani in these visions. We see a lot of them, we get signs that some of the Fremen think he's a savior, he's seeing a Holy War, etc. It pretty much tells you quickly that the real story is going to take off when he gets there. As such, it really undercuts a lot of the intensity when characters like Leto, Gurney, and Duncan meet their end because they weren't going to be substantial to the main undercurrent of the plot anyway. Like there was never a spitter's chance that Paul was gonna die, so a duel to close the movie is like...okay. I just didn't feel like there were any stakes in this part of the story because the most sympathetic characters (The Fremen) aren't even touched upon until about 2:15 into the movie. To me, it felt like we were watching a malevolent power (Harkonnen) against a largely unsympathetic protagonist family (Atreides) with a ton of world setting for most of the movie.

Ultimately, I wish they just got to the Fremen a bit faster if they're not going to build up the Atreides to be a sympathetic figure as the rest felt pretty pre-determined to the idea of "when is Paul going to meet the Fremen".
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I thought the Atreides family were sympathetic because it seemed like they were trying to be decent and diplomatic within the role that was forced upon them. They just seemed like cogs in the larger machinery to me.

Paul, in particular, seemed sympathetic because his mom put him in the weird position and has been hiding all these secrets from him about what she’s been grooming him for, but she also came off to me like a fiercely caring mother who was trying to do what she thought was right. He also seemed to go out of his way to signal his respect and empathy for the Fremen and also the workers that were in danger and needed to be rescued on that spice harvester thing. I don’t remember any comments he made or actions he took that made him seem selfish or unsympathetic.

For the deaths of Leto and Idaho [I don’t really remember Gurney’s death?] - I didn’t really know until they died that they weren’t going to factor into the future of this narrative, so their deaths were all pretty shocking to me (technically, for Leto, it was the betrayal that led to his death which was shocking, but you know what I mean). The way the movie started off, it seemed like there was order and everything was planned and deliberate and then when the Harkonnens started attacking, it was like the whole universe tilted sideways and I had no idea who would survive anymore.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
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This totally seems how libertarians get recruits. "So this economic theory sounds really interesting, tell me more!"

and on the meme front:

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I'm sure it has to do with Actor end of career crisis where quantity is more important over quality? I don't really follow Bruce Willis' career but I don't know if he's itching for money? If he makes 20 shitty movies and 1 movie is good - people aren't going to remember the other 19. Only the one they watched that was good. They'll just be slightly shocked when they look at his IMDB that he's done so many movies. But no one is going to say he sucked in the Fortress 2 because no one has ever or will ever watch the Fortress 2.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Edit: corporate IT does not want me visiting 1900hotdog.com for some reason.
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brotip: go to Google Translate and tell it to translate from swahili to english and put in the URL of the page. et viola, you have a poor man's proxy. To the firewall it appears that you are just asking google for stuff. (this will def not hold up if you have actual humans that care about where you browse)
 
zomgbear said:
I'm sure it has to do with Actor end of career crisis where quantity is more important over quality? I don't really follow Bruce Willis' career but I don't know if he's itching for money? If he makes 20 shitty movies and 1 movie is good - people aren't going to remember the other 19. Only the one they watched that was good. They'll just be slightly shocked when they look at his IMDB that he's done so many movies. But no one is going to say he sucked in the Fortress 2 because no one has ever or will ever watch the Fortress 2.
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Cash rules everything around us...
Bruce has to eat too, and have you seen the price of groceries lately?
 
Watched Ad Astra. It was pretty good but something put me off on it, but can't put my finger on it.
Some parts of it is cool tho - I've never seen a space pirates battle on the moon in a "serious" space drama before.
I did not like Brad Pitt's character at all. I don't know why he demanded to go on that ship (even when he was undecided on what he wanted to do). He talks about wanting to let go of his dad but decides to go to try to save him anyways ultimately murdering an entire crew of that ship to do so. There was no way his dad would come back. He should have just let that crew go and nuke his dad. Why did that lady on Mars help him? She knew that there would be a possibilty that Brad would try to save his dad. His dad murdered her parents. Why would you help him save his dad who murdered your parents? Maybe i missed something but that part kinda soured it for me. I ultimately am a sucker for space movies tho. Also side note, is it just me or would Tommy Lee Jones make a great Lincoln?
 
zomgbear said:
Watched Ad Astra. It was pretty good but something put me off on it, but can't put my finger on it.
Some parts of it is cool tho - I've never seen a space pirates battle on the moon in a "serious" space drama before.
I did not like Brad Pitt's character at all. I don't know why he demanded to go on that ship (even when he was undecided on what he wanted to do). He talks about wanting to let go of his dad but decides to go to try to save him anyways ultimately murdering an entire crew of that ship to do so. There was no way his dad would come back. He should have just let that crew go and nuke his dad. Why did that lady on Mars help him? She knew that there would be a possibilty that Brad would try to save his dad. His dad murdered her parents. Why would you help him save his dad who murdered your parents? Maybe i missed something but that part kinda soured it for me. I ultimately am a sucker for space movies tho. Also side note, is it just me or would Tommy Lee Jones make a great Lincoln?
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Extremely promising movie that just fell flat. Not nearly as good as the directors previous effort, 'Lost City of Z'.
 
zomgbear said:
Watched Ad Astra. It was pretty good but something put me off on it, but can't put my finger on it.
Some parts of it is cool tho - I've never seen a space pirates battle on the moon in a "serious" space drama before.
I did not like Brad Pitt's character at all. I don't know why he demanded to go on that ship (even when he was undecided on what he wanted to do). He talks about wanting to let go of his dad but decides to go to try to save him anyways ultimately murdering an entire crew of that ship to do so. There was no way his dad would come back. He should have just let that crew go and nuke his dad. Why did that lady on Mars help him? She knew that there would be a possibilty that Brad would try to save his dad. His dad murdered her parents. Why would you help him save his dad who murdered your parents? Maybe i missed something but that part kinda soured it for me. I ultimately am a sucker for space movies tho. Also side note, is it just me or would Tommy Lee Jones make a great Lincoln?
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I liked this movie a good bit when I saw it in theaters. A messy, surreal, allegorical heart of darkness in space that I really enjoyed on those terms. Will admit that the lead ups and promos do NOT lend it that vibe though, so I understand how some didn't like it.
 
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