Admittedly my crowd today was dead silent, which I appreciate. But the dude in front of me was on his phone half of the movie, and he was reading about the movie which is even stranger. I hope he has a bad night
A couple small things: No Stephen McKinley Henderson (although apparently he did film some scenes that were cut). The jump from Paul training in the desert to the first big battle felt very sudden, to the point that I thought I missed something. It was the only time that the pace and editing felt off to me.
Can’t overestimate how much of a better time I had seeing this in a theater than I did seeing part 1 at home.
I already figured I’d wanna go again in the next couple weeks but honestly I wanna go again this weekend
I was definitely thrown for a couple minutes when that happened. I genuinely thought the film skipped
I guess it's just that fascism is fascism but the politics and religious stuff definitely could have been fleshed out more, Lea Seydoux is just like I need to fuck this albino freak for the good of the empire and everyone is just like yeah that checks out also I could also drink the worm juice gender is a social construct also Feyd is Richie and Paul is Carmie
hmm, gonna have to sit with this a bit but I don't think I liked it as much as pt 1. feel like it had to contort into some awkward shapes to hit what I always thought were some shaky plot points in the book where the first one made it seem so elegant. a couple things I wish they'd taken a freer hand in adapting. also the Big Cameo Scene was pretty bad frankly lol for sure had some of the best sequences in isolation though (Paul taking control of the council scene was goosebumps material) and Butler absolutely ate it up as Feyd. never seen him in anything before but that was the best performance in both movies
I’ll circle back with more thoughts later but I honestly thought this kind of stunk? I was lukewarm on Part One and I liked this installment even less. All the things you’d think are great are, sound and production design, incredible action set pieces. But these movies are so emotionally flat for me, all beige, no heart.
That’s ok! There’s really no emotional warmth around this movie at all, and can understand that criticism, even if I don’t quite agree. However the book is cold in the same way and the emotion comes from the political machinations and actions the Atreides take, so it didn’t bother me at all. And it kind of makes sense to me, as this takes place 20k years in the future, focused on like 15 power, high class individuals, which are a subsection of trillions of lives across the universe. Of course their breeding and political stature would prevent them from participating in more trivial, human behaviors that we experience. Their entire existence is to ploy within politics.
"time will prove me right" lmao give me a fucking break. no-one actually talks like that in real life do they? there are a lot of things about this I didn't love especially compared to the first. someone itt said it really well actually, that the tone of the first was much more unique, oppressive and ominous with lots of intrigue where this kind of feels like a more standard blockbuster. this really hit me when I got home and saw the Sardukar homeworld scene playing from 1, such a distinct and creepy vibe whereas in this movie they look and act like generic soldiers. but even so as a big screen moviegoing experience it did exactly what it needed to, you and your theatre aren't the arbiters of all quality sorry to say