{"id":3899,"date":"2024-02-23T16:56:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T16:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=3899"},"modified":"2024-03-03T17:01:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T17:01:06","slug":"a-safe-pair-of-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=3899","title":{"rendered":"A safe pair of hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Watching Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2 for New Scientist, 23 February 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s where we\u2019re at, in the concluding half of Denis Villeneuve\u2019s adaptation of Dune:<\/p>\n

Cast into the wilderness of planet Arrakis by invading House Harkonnen, young Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) learns the ways of the desert, embraces his genetic and political destiny, and becomes in one swoop a focus for fanaticism and (with an eye to a third film, an adaptation of author Frank Herbert\u2019s sequel, Dune Messiah) the scourge of the Universe.<\/p>\n

From Alejandro Jodorowosky\u2019s mid-1970s effort, which never bore fruit (but at least gave Swiss artist H.R. Giger his entr\u00e9e into movies and, ultimately, Alien), and from David Lynch\u2019s more-than-four-hour farrago, savagely edited prior to its 1984 release into something approaching (but only approaching) coherence, many assumed that Dune is an epic too vast to be easily filmed. Throw resources at it, goes the logic, and it will eventually crumble to your will.<\/p>\n

That this is precisely the wrong lesson to draw was perfectly demonstrated by John Harrison\u2019s 2000 miniseries for the Sci Fi Channel and its sequel, Children of Dune (2003) — both absurdly under-resourced, but both offering satisfying stories that the fans lapped up, even if the critics didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Now we have Villeneuve\u2019s effort, and like his Blade Runner 2049, it uses visual stimulation to hide the gaping holes in its plot.<\/p>\n

Yes, the story of Dune is epic. But it is also, in the full meaning of the word, weird. It\u2019s about a human empire that\u2019s achieved cosmic scale, and all without the help of computers, destroyed long ago in some shadowy \u201cButlerian Jihad\u201d. In doing so it has bred, drugged and otherwise warped individual humans into becoming something very like Gods. In conquering space, humanity teeters on the brink of attaining power over time. The \u201cspice\u201d mined on planet Arrakis is not just a rare resource over which great houses fight, but the spiritual gateway that makes humanity, in this far future, viable in the first place.<\/p>\n

Leave these elements undeveloped (or, as here, entirely ignored) and you\u2019re left with an awful lot of desert to fill with battles, sword play, explosions, crowd scenes, and sandworms — and here an as yet unwritten rule of SFX cinematography comes into play, because I swear the more these wrigglers cost, the sillier they get. (If that\u2019s the sandworm\u2019s front end on those posters, I shudder to think what the back end looks like.) Your ears will ring, your heart will thunder, and by morning the entire experience will have evaporated, like a long (2-hour 46-minute) fever dream.<\/p>\n

As Beast Raban, Dave Bautista outperforms the rest of the cast to a degree that is embarrassing. The Beast\u2019s an Harkonnen, an alpha predator in this grim universe, and yet Bautista is the only actor here capable of portraying fear. Javier Bardem\u2019s desert leader Stilgar is played for laughs (but let\u2019s face it, in the entire history of cinema, name one desert leader that hasn\u2019t been). Timothee Chalamet stands still in front of the camera. His love interest, played by Zendaya, scowls and growls like Bert Lahr\u2019s Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz.<\/p>\n

Dune Part Two is an expensive (USD 190 million) film which has had the decency to put much of its budget in front of the camera. This makes it watchable, enjoyable, and at times even thrilling. Making a good Dune movie, though, requires a certain eccentricity. Villeneuve is that deadening thing, \u201ca safe pair of hands\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watching Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2 for New Scientist, 23 February 2024 So here\u2019s where we\u2019re at, in the concluding half of Denis Villeneuve\u2019s adaptation of Dune: Cast into the wilderness of planet Arrakis by invading House Harkonnen, young Paul … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[620],"tags":[1157,1158,86],"class_list":["post-3899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-screen","tag-dune","tag-frank-herbert","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3901,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions\/3901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}