Im not sure that I agree with that! Very happy that the tone shifted so it didn’t feel like it retreaded the first, but the blockbuster, populist framing didn’t feel as uniquely oppressive as the first. Not to say I didn’t love it, but I now want to see it as one long film before saying whether I like one or the other. Really does feel like a Two Towers of the 2020s. The scale and grittiness of the battle scenes were astounding. And Timothee was astounding once he drank the Water of Life. Truly bought him as a formidable force and he nailed the heel turn.
Just saw it. I have a lot thoughts that will take time to process, but it I can pretty firmly say it was brilliant.
Spoiler tag this for people please but does it clearly set up for a third installment (Messiah) or does it feel pretty complete as is?
Yeah, this was phenomenal. A few qualms, but they have more to do with Herbert's story than Denis's adaptation, which is nearly perfect. Aesthetically flawless with strong storytelling and great performances throughout. The colossal scale more than justified IMAX, maybe even more so than the first movie.
I liked but didn’t love part one but part 2 I was all in on. The Two Towers is my favorite of the LOTR trilogy. Bring on part 3[\spoiler]
Having only read Dune and Dune Messiah, I've heard people say they function as a trilogy together with Children of Dune. Would it be possible for Denis to get away with a total of three movies, solely covering the first two books? Seems like it would be strange not to also make Children of Dune eventually, but I suppose he may hand the directorial reins off at that point to avoid spending so many years of his career on one series.
It sounds like he wants to do something smaller next and then get back to Part 3. I would imagine he'd be happy to call it a trilogy and move on after that I guess depending on how this one and how the eventual third movie does - we'll see if the studio decides to keep moving forward with the series with another director.
Very excited for a Part 3, as I enjoyed Messiah more than Dune. Beyond that, I’m not sure who would be able to get close to what DV does in these 3
I finished Children of Dune recently and yeah I can understand why Villenueve would be happy to stop at Messiah. A lot of it is nearly unfilmable/pretty strange!
Denis has said in a couple of interviews recently that he's already begun writing the script for Messiah, as he feels Paul's story needs to be told in three parts, that it finishes in Messiah. These movies took a lot out of him though, so he's considering doing a different, maybe smaller film first before doing Messiah. It's probably almost 100% certain WB will greenlight it (WB has probably already told him they want him to do Messiah), so he probably wants to take extra time he has right now, in order to have it right by the time he finally does start filming.