I learned today for the first time that a remake of the awesome book (and decidedly less awesome early 80s movie) Dune is being made, and is currently in post-production with a release date of December 18, 2020.
The cast includes many I don't know, but the ones I do know seem excellent for their roles. It's damn near a Marvel reunion...
Jason Mamoa as Duncan Idaho (the swordmaster of House Atreides)
Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck (weaponsmaster of House Atreides, played memorably (and surprisingly) by Patrick Stewart in the original movie
Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Harkonnen
Dave Bautista (better known as Drax the Destroyer) as "Beast" Rabban, the nephew of Harkonnen
This film is also only going to cover the first half of the book, which is good. It's really not possible to cover the whole thing in one 2 or 3 hour movie.
Anyway -- I love the book and a really good film would be great. What say you about all this news? Or am I just the last to known (as would be typical, to be honest!) [Reply]
Had this movie been released in theaters only it would have made at least $100-150 million more.
I have to think this is by design, to drum of interest and then Dune 2 to not take the same path (only in theaters and not available on HBO Max) --- or maybe I'm stupid and it's some contractual thing but they could have made so much more money. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BlackOp:
If I were a producer...I would have tried to put that team back together for this one.
That would have worked...there just wasn't much "vibe" to Dune. It wasn't terrible...but could have been a lot better.
I, obviously, didn't like the casting...
This was probably the most anticipated sci-fi flick since BR2049.
That movie far exceeded my expectations...amazing. Probably the closest film to Kubrick-level production in decades...
2049 is an amazing flick, but it doesn't have 1/4 going on as in this iteration of Dune. Which is a problem in and of itself, but not necessarily a bad one as I think I'll be able to watch this Dune several times and still be coming away with little things I missed the first, second, and third times. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider:
2049 is an amazing flick, but it doesn't have 1/4 going on as in this iteration of Dune. Which is a problem in and of itself, but not necessarily a bad one as I think I'll be able to watch this Dune several times and still be coming away with little things I missed the first, second, and third times.
This movie wasn't nuanced...it was a lot of immediate gloss and window dressing.
I'm not being a hater for the sake of being a hater...I was just...meh.
To each his own... BR2049 has a shit-ton more going on than this flick...I dont even know how you could come to that conclusion. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chiefspants:
Fantastic movie. Loved the casting and curious as to how they’ll handle things moving forward reading that this is a planned trilogy.
I meeeaaaan, we could tell you if you want... :-) [Reply]
I get the hot takes on casting, for sure. I enjoyed the movie and thought it was really well done, especially the sfx, but the casting in several instances was problematic. Upon multiple viewings, my perception is this is "Americanized"... it just felt like either the production team or studio meddled and forced in modern speech/mannerisms/behavior in an attempt to make the content more palatable for the "modern US market". If I were to change anything, and this is definitely nit-picking, I would have used more non-English speaking actors, esp for the Fremen, and fewer "big name" actors (ex. I liked Jason Momoa's take on DI - he brought a Special Forces Operator flavor to the role, which was cool, but also made the role seem much smaller as he was "channeling" a Navy Seal, rather than an Atreides badass). Remember, this series takes places thousands of years in the future, on alien planets, with wildly varying civilizations and technologies, with associative cultures. In several instances (Sardukar, Harkonen) this was exceptionally well done, but others not so much. It would be better (IMO) to make each of these unique cultures radically foreign/different than modern culture.
Only other changes I would make would be to bring Roger Deakins in to lead cinematography... no knock on this work, but man, RD is simply the best, and remix the audio. Hans Zimmer's score was really good in many instances, but the mix was off... it was overbearing in several scenes.
All of those nit-picks aside, I'd still rate Dune 8.5/10. It was really good, and definitely worthy of multiple viewings [Reply]
Originally Posted by HC_Chief:
I get the hot takes on casting, for sure. I enjoyed the movie and thought it was really well done, especially the sfx, but the casting in several instances was problematic. Upon multiple viewings, my perception is this is "Americanized"... it just felt like either the production team or studio meddled and forced in modern speech/mannerisms/behavior in an attempt to make the content more palatable for the "modern US market". If I were to change anything, and this is definitely nit-picking, I would have used more non-English speaking actors, esp for the Fremen, and fewer "big name" actors (ex. I liked Jason Momoa's take on DI - he brought a Special Forces Operator flavor to the role, which was cool, but also made the role seem much smaller as he was "channeling" a Navy Seal, rather than an Atreides badass). Remember, this series takes places thousands of years in the future, on alien planets, with wildly varying civilizations and technologies, with associative cultures. In several instances (Sardukar, Harkonen) this was exceptionally well done, but others not so much. It would be better (IMO) to make each of these unique cultures radically foreign/different than modern culture.
Only other changes I would make would be to bring Roger Deakins in to lead cinematography... no knock on this work, but man, RD is simply the best, and remix the audio. Hans Zimmer's score was really good in many instances, but the mix was off... it was overbearing in several scenes.
All of those nit-picks aside, I'd still rate Dune 8.5/10. It was really good, and definitely worthy of multiple viewings
I'll just give one example of why this will be a forgettable movie...and it's on the director.
The fight scene with Duncan shifted to cheezy "action hero/low brow"...there was nothing believable about that sequence. Not only that...but his character was underdeveloped...to even giving a shit if he died or not. It was superficial fodder..."big man unrealistically kills things he is outnumbered by"
Maybe that is deep enough for some to sing it's praises...but for me...it's a fatal flaw.
Master films NEVER take you out of your suspension of disbelief... [Reply]
