Chen G.

Shame its inaudible...

I was reticent to say this for the previous two, but I really love the kind of "leitmotif-soup" approach that Shore takes with this (and The Return of the King before it). Reminds me of the third act of Siegfried... There aren't really many film scores (if any at all) that do that.

And the circumstances of its coming out and creation are different. Star Wars came out in just the right timing, which is more than could be said for Dune. The Lord of the Rings was essentially a serial shown to audiences over a three-year period, which is already different to the circumstances in which Dune was made: that Warners chose NOT to make both installments back-to-back (indeed, there isn't even a completed script for part two) is evidence enough that in their mind its not "the next Star Wars."

We don't know how much of that kind of humour is in the actual film, though. I mean, you have to have some humour in there. And sure, I HATE MCU-style humour, but if there's just a pinch of it in a 2.5-hour movie? Not an issue. We shall see.

"Hero" is here strictly in the sense of "main character." Not in the literal sense of being heroic. Michael Corleone is a tragic hero.

Well, that's tragedy for you. I think the term "hero" in "tragic hero" is misleading. You could substitute it for "tragic figure." Michael of the original The Godfather is exactly that: he starts as a good person who doesn't want anything to do with the family buisness, and gradually gets dragged into it, and he does suffer for it. I do always say that The Godfather is "more Macbeth than Othello" in the sense that he's the kind of tragic hero/figure that's first reduced to bloodshed quite early. But its nevertheless a well-established version of the tragic hero/figure.

The Godfather: Part II notwithstanding, those are both tragic heroes.

Ther'es nothing "simple" about a good tragic hero. That was my point. And I'll take "simple" over morally-relativist crap any day.

I'm fine with discussing the work on this more conceptual level. I don't mind getting a general feel for what the work is: that's probably helpful. I think there's a difference between a tragic hero who has flaws and psychological complexity, but exists within a clear, moralistic framework where his flaws have to be payed-for by a reversal of fortunes (Peripeteia), and an antihero where his would-be "flaws" aren't being judged by the narrative, or are even meant to have the audience sympathize with them in an anti-institutional "sticking it to the man" type of scenario.

I've intentionally abstained from reading it or watching the Lynch Dune, purely so that I can see Villenueve's film through fresh eyes and purely as cinema.

Interestingly, Tolkien said he didn't like Dune...

Really, after the Council of Elrond even. Its a movie that starts in a bit of a hurry, and then accelerates until at some point it becomes borderline incoherent. But I do quite like the early parts, pantomime Gandalf notwithstanding.

Its actually both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, only the end of the latter book is greatly abridged. They had considered also including the Ent attack on Isengard, and early drafts even included Shelob and Sam's rescue of Frodo (with the cliffhanger of Gollum lurking in the background). And it was originally called "The Lord of the Rings: Part One, the Fellowship."

I thought the footage looked superb. But its very hard to judge a film's visual style from trailers. Still, I want Dune to succeed and to be great.

Bakshi doesn't like to talk about it, but it was his decision to quit during development on Part Two. They were well on their way to make it.