Chen G.

Spielberg obviously worshipped at Lean’s feet, but without being at all like Lean himself. It’s a little like how a composer like Mendelssohn adored Beethoven, but really takes more after Mozart.

Well, Karajan liked smaller, more lyrical voices to begin with. As time passes on, I find that I can get tired of voices that are too strident or steely.

At the same time, artists take after artists of the previous generation that they admire. I think in many ways Nolan takes after Ridley Scott, whom I know he greatly admires.

I wouldn't call it "staged" but I see what you mean.

I think we first need to see how much from Children of Dune this film incorporates. Then we'll know what the prospects are for a movie based on that book. After that, the books become more surreal, less directly connected to the first Dune, and ultimately less filmable and certainly less bankable.

Audiences were always going to relate to a mother crazy-worried for her son, then to Paul and his "cosmic" predicament. It's one of the many ways in which Dune isn't the most accessible movie...

To me, Ferguson's Jessica was the most engaging part of the first Dune. I think part of why I like part two less is that, very quickly, she's reduced to a kind of Erda-knockoff. Annis was also a good Jessica: she had a bit of a run in genre films, with a memorable appearance in Krull, and years prior she had made a credible Lady Macbeth in the Polanski film. In general, I find the casting in the Lynch version quite excellent. Patrick Stewart, Francesca Annis, Jose Ferrer, Sian Philipps? Great actors who perform well. It's, for the most part, much less distracting than Denis "gala" cast.

Isn't that very normal? Think of all the composers who wrote variations on themes from other composers.

One of the big differences between Nolan and Villenueve and Spielberg. Spielberg is not really a writer-director. He's had writing credits before, and obviously he develops scripts with writers quite closely indeed. But he's not a really a writer, himself. In this, he joins any number of renowned directors, of course: from Ridley Scott to Clint Eastwood and others.

Every generation has their superstar director, and to today's generation it is unquestionably Nolan. But he's a very different kind of director to Spielberg.

Definitely! Or you can end on a melancholy note but in a different way to the kind of way Villenueve does.

I'm inclined to agree. I also find the ending of his second Dune film a little too sour for my tastes, but of course that also stems from the novel.

I think the success of Barbieheimer was the good ol' Greek tradition of pairing tragedies with a satyr-play. Basically, one lighter entertainment and one more serious piece that play off of each other.

I never expect consistency from...any artist, really. I think the moment you set your expectation at "It's from this writer or that director, it MUST be brilliant" is when people set themselves up for a shock when it doesn't turn out right, which in turn leads to all the usual, silly retrospective accounts we then see, whereby the previously-idolized artist now becomes a hack who got lucky, or who was "carried" by someone else, etc... It's just the way creativity works. If Beethoven could compose something like Wellington's Victory...

I think Skarsgard is very menacing in part one. That was always going to be a little more jaded in part two, both because we were going to see more of the baron AND we see the Harkonnen more on the recieving end. With Feyd, I think there are ways to play psychotic that are less...I dunno, THAT.