"In a move so unsurprising there is literally an eons-old galactic prophecy about it, powerful, horny men are unable to peacefully share a planet made of cocaine."

Ah, the power of Twitter.

 

Gaynor and I saw it on Thursday evening, with a fair bit of trepidation. Gaynor's a MASSIVE fan of the books and the Lynch film, I'm a moderate fan of the first book but lost interest with the later ones, and can see why the Lynch film is viewed as a massive failure, but can still enjoy it.

The verdict from Gaynor was "worthy", in the same way as the verdict on Blade Runner 2049 was "He didn't fuck it up" (Blade Runner being her number 1 favourite film ever ever ever).

I enjoyed it well enough. I think it'll take a few more views to take in the full majesty of some of it, and I'm willing to give it those views. I'm looking forward to the second part, but there's something about Villeneuve's film-making that falls ever so slightly flat for me. It did everything it needed to do, sometimes in astonishing ways, BUT some of it felt a bit workmanlike. Maybe it's just that I'm older and more jaded, or the Marvel explosion-fests have numbed me to anything more contemplative.

I'm curious about what anyone who isn't familiar with the book or Lynch film would make of it all - does it work as a standalone?

I think that's a pretty fair summation, it applies to BR2049, and Arrival. There's a by-the-numbers aspect (in those projects), like he's not really invested in the material, he'd rather be somewhere else but $$$ so here's some cleverness since you paid for it. OTOH I thought he was all-in on Incendies. That was about (more) real stuff, not scifi.

Yes, I know what you mean. We saw the film on a Wednesday and on Friday Mrs WilliamA remarked to me (as we were out on our morning walk) that Dune hadn't had the same impact as many big movies we'd been to see. She said that it felt a bit as though we'd ticked it off our list of films to see and that was that. 

That's what I meant about it being a bit like one of those LPs (when they were a thing) that you felt you needed a few listens to before deciding.

I also wondered the exact same thing about how well it works if you don't know the story. Lynch's version got a lot of stick for a confused narrative, but Villeneuve's version seemed to have a great many good-looking "scenes" where characters told each other what was happening. For example, it was lucky that Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho) told us about how fearsome the Sardaukar troops were, because apart from a scene where they stood around while somebody with a CGI growly voice moaned at them, they seemed a bit like any other extras doing cosplay.
 

Yeah - neither of us enjoyed Arrival, Gaynor because she's a fan of Contact, and me because I'm a fan of Slaughterhouse 5. We thought it was trying too hard to be clever, and didn't quite manage it.