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Villeneuve's DUNE


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In Old English and Old Norse.


Not in a modern - not to mention one of the most widely-spoken - language.

 

Old languages are less distracting in a story of antiquity than contemporary languages are in a story of the far future.

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I don't really see why. And Old English is familiar enough to recognise some elements (which was the point). Even more so for German speakers - the German translation even keeps several of the names unaltered because they're closer to modern German than they are to modern English.

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18 hours ago, Brónach said:

It's gonna be hilarious if they only manage to adapt half the book

 

Battlefield Earth was only the first half of its book. After Psychlo is destroyed, Johnny G. Tyler needs to outwit the rest of the universe when they arrive on Earth. Ridiculous but I liked the book about ten years ago. 

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On 4/18/2020 at 2:30 AM, Chen G. said:

 

Old languages are less distracting in a story of antiquity than contemporary languages are in a story of the far future.

 

Isn't one and the other the same?

 

Arabic is already fragmented into a family of languages anyway, most people referring to anything in Arabic are talking about the older language

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Arabic as a speaking language has many variations, yes. Its not quite a "family of languages" because - say - Morrocan Arabic would still be reconisable to an Iraqi Arab. However, I'm talking about written Arabic, which is the same everywhere. Dune seems to be drawing heavily on that as a "something exotic-sounding" for Western readers. Except I'm not a Western reader...

 

I'm not saying its a deal-breaker or anything: just something that'll probably take a bit to get used to while watching the film.

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On 4/21/2020 at 11:52 AM, Chen G. said:

Arabic as a speaking language has many variations, yes. Its not quite a "family of languages" because - say - Morrocan Arabic would still be reconisable to an Iraqi Arab. However, I'm talking about written Arabic, which is the same everywhere.

 

Written diglossia with something nobody really speaks plus the thing split into branches that people insist on calling dialects is a lot like Latin Europe a bunch of centuries ago. Even today, we can understand each other, except the French language wich has gone off the rails. The Italians still call all the different languages in the peninsula "dialects".

 

The whole exoticness thingie never worked on me as a Spaniard. FH seems to just jump between classic arabic with altered meanings to IE languages to represent the same language while not doing anything completely unrecognizable as it would be in ten thousand years time (note most hypothetical proto-language reconstructions are like 4000-5000 years old at most for a reason). He's not as bad as the complete lack of interest on the topic such as with GRRM (the guy that gives you a land the size of south america with three language groups), but still uninterested in colanging anything interesting.

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It can be, and I can understand why it infuriates fans of the book (rain on Arrakis; major scenes not included), and just plain confuses the casual viewer (a bombardment of sounds, images, and ideas).

It took me three viewings at the cinema, just to make any kind of sense of it, and to absorb all the information. Subsequent viewings have been for pleasure, and for a deepening love, and respect, for the film.

Uneven, or no, it still has a lot to offer.

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1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It can be, and I can understand why it infuriates fans of the book (rain on Arrakis; major scenes not included), and just plain confuses the casual viewer (a bombardment of sounds, images, and ideas).

It took me three viewings at the cinema, just to make any kind of sense of it, and to absorb all the information. Subsequent viewings have been for pleasure, and for a deepening love, and respect, for the film.

Uneven, or no, it still has a lot to offer.

 

Even today, no other film looks like it. Just take any 5 second sequence and you would never mistake it for any other film. And the tone is also completely its own. I'm still surprised how they were able to pull off such serious and pompous delivery of the dialogue without it ever becoming ridiculous. It's something else

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On 4/23/2020 at 7:41 AM, Naïve Old Fart said:

I know that DUNE will never have a HEAVEN'S GATE-style reappraisal, but I'd love to see a director-approved reconstruction.

It's easy to see why Lynch washes his hands of the film, but there is a lot of love, for it.

 

There can't be a reconstruction right? It's not just that he did not have final cut. It's that he said his vision was compromised in the production stage. Didn't he say that 75% of what he shot he did not have control over.

 

So his original vision can never be reconstructed.

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4 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

There can't be a reconstruction right? It's not just that he did not have final cut. It's that he said his vision was compromised in the production stage. Didn't he say that 75% of what he shot he did not have control over.

So his original vision can never be reconstructed.

What's this?

Tell me more, please. Are you saying that Lynch had creative control over only 25% of the film?

And how can this be? Because...

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9 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

What's this?

Tell me more, please. Are you saying that Lynch had creative control over only 25% of the film?

And how can this be? Because...

 

I think I misremembered what he said.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/dune-why-the-director-of-the-original-has-zero-interest-in-the-remake.html/

Quote - he said the process of making the film was “maybe 75% a nightmare.” 

I took that to mean 25% was his vision, rest was a compromise.

 

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Anyway, was Lynch ever a good match for this type of filmmaking? He's not the sort of director that pops to my mind when it comes to effects-laden, large-scale genre films.

 

Maybe its just a case of a producer choosing an up-and-coming director for his name rather than his skillset?

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7 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Anyway, was Lynch ever a good match for this type of filmmaking?

 

According to Lynch himself, the answer is no.

 

8 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

What's this?

Tell me more, please. Are you saying that Lynch had creative control over only 25% of the film?

And how can this be? Because...

 

maxresdefault.jpg

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All the above comments are valid, but, in the end, DUNE is very Lynchian. One can trace the line from ERASERHEAD, to THE ELEPHANT MAN, to DUNE, and beyond. What we got may have been a failure, but at least it wasn't ordinary. It was the product of a very talented individual.

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1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

What we got may have been a failure, but at least it wasn’t ordinary.


Does that matter if you don’t enjoy the movie?

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Quote

There's a difference between "enjoying", and "appreciating".

 

True, but surely any movie-going experience must boil down to "Did I enjoy what I watched? Did I dislike it?"

 

If you didn't enjoy something - much less if you disliked it - than all the appreciation in the world makes precisely zero difference.

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17 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

True, but surely any movie-going experience must boil down to "Did I enjoy what I watched? Did I dislike it?"

 

If you didn't enjoy something - much less if you disliked it - than all the appreciation in the world makes precisely zero difference.

 

I think what Richard is saying is that he enjoys Dune for other things such as Lynch's voice or the film's unconventional style and production design. Of course, if one doesn't care about any of that, then it makes zero difference. Another example for me would be The Shining. The horror of this movies escapes me, but I can thoroughly enjoy it for Kubrick's artistry. 

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2 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

There's a difference between "enjoying", and "appreciating".

 

I appreciate BE but I certainly don't enjoy the crap script, crap acting, or crap Dutch angles. 

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On 4/25/2020 at 1:28 AM, Edmilson said:

I'm not sure, David Lynch and Star Wars are as far from each other as it gets.

That sort of thinking gives us more Return of the Jedi and Rise of Skywalker instead of more Empire Strikes Back and Last Jedi. An independent filmmaker on the director's chair of a big blockbuster - always a good idea that gives us things like the Prisoner of Azkaban score. Just imagine Lynch and Williams working together on the final emperor scenes...

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2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

That sort of thinking gives us more Return of the Jedi and Rise of Skywalker instead of more Empire Strikes Back and Last Jedi. An independent filmmaker on the director's chair of a big blockbuster - always a good idea

 

Not always. Some directors just aren't cut-out for big blockbusters. Lynch strikes me as that kind of director.

 

Its like back when United Artists wanted Michaelangelo Antonioni for The Lord of the Rings. Nope. Like Lynch with Dune, he was chosen not because of his skillset, but because he was the new "big" name after Blowup.

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4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Not always. Some directors just aren't cut-out for big blockbusters. Lynch strikes me as that kind of director.

 

Its like back when United Artists wanted Michaelangelo Antonioni for The Lord of the Rings. Nope. Like Lynch with Dune, he was chosen not because of his skillset, but because he was the new "big" name after Blowup.

If you insist on one-dimensional categories and oppose "blockbusters" to "artists", we'll never get more of this kind of movies that is both pompous and artistically refined. In a parallel universe, where Lynch got to direct Return of the Jedi and Terry Gilliam the first two Harry Potter movies, you would know what I mean. Actually, you'll see what I mean by the end of the year.

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6 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

If you insist on one-dimensional categories and oppose "blockbuster" to "united artists

 

United Artists was a film studio...

 

I'm just judging this on a case-to-case basis. I don't think Lynch, specifically, had a good Dune or Return of the Jedi in him. He has a very particular skillset that doesn't seem to lend itself to big spectacle films.

 

It'd be like asking Christopher Nolan to do a comedy. Its just not in his blood.

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2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

United Artists was a film studio...

Sorry, I meant to write "artists", but that word was floating in my head.:lol:

3 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I'm just judging this on a case-to-case basis.

Rightly so, but we have no real evidence that Lynch wouldn't have done great films out of those if he had had interest in Return of the Jedi/total control on Dune.

5 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

It'd be like asking Christopher Nolan to do a comedy. Its just not in his blood.

That truly does sound like a very bad idea, however, it's more a change of genre and overall tone that would be required here. The other examples we were talking about were more about a change of scope and scale.

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 He has a very particular skillset that doesn't seem to lend itself to big spectacle films.

 

 

It's because he has no interest in them. 

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6 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

An independent filmmaker on the director's chair of a big blockbuster - always a good idea

Not always. It’s actually been the trend this past decade and it’s resulted in studio-directed films with no artistic identity or vision.

 

Marc Webb on The Amazing Spider-Man

Colin Trevorrow on Jurassic World

Josh Trank on Fantastic Four

 

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