I just finished part 1 and, well, I’m kinda disappointed. It’s not bad, I think it’s actually pretty solid, but compared to the book it’s much worse in terms of story progression and characters. Some parts felt really rushed. I didn’t expect it to be better than the book, but I still expected better adaptation considering that (at least as far as I know) it was well received and I knew that it didn’t adapt whole book so I expected it to don’t skip too much. Is part 2 any better?
Can you elaborate on how the 2nd movie didn’t follow the book well? Because in my opinion it was pretty damn close to the book…i did think that the ending in the movie was a bit rushed and not as clearly explained as in the book, and they clearly pushed off Paul’s demon sister baby to the 3rd movie, but other than that, it was pretty damn close? As far as book adaptations go, I felt this was easily top tier. It’s impossible to capture every single thing from the book. There’s just way too much shit that happened. Compared to adaptations that just straight up say “fuck you” to the books (witcher/3 body problem/silo) this felt very faithful to me.
I think the choice to set up Aliyah but ultimately leave her arrival for another time was a smart one, just as it was smart to not introduce Feyd until the second movie. Doing so really let him arrive in a big way, like “Oh shit, this guy is important.”
(Also good lord, Austin Butler steals the second movie so hard)
Not OP, but I didn’t like what they did to Chani. Kinda felt like that character got done dirty.
In the books, she was pretty much ride or die. The movie, not so much.
The movie is basically “guy gets cast as Messiah by evil cabal machinations and is too big a baby to do anything about it”. The end.
Leaving aside for a moment the sheer complexity of the themes and the plot and the universe in the book —that didn’t make it through— the movie doesn’t even stay faithful to itself. Every single person who’s had any influence on Paul gets discarded just so he can fulfill his ultimate destiny of being a sad, wet blanket with a “welp, I guess we’re doing that” attitude.
But seriously, how do you manage to make two movies and have nothing important from the rich Dune universe make it through? This could have just as easily been set in the Star Wars universe with only minor alterations and nobody among the general public would have batted an eye.
Yeah, sorry man. I just disagree. I only read the first dune book and half of messiah so far. But I really think the movie did a great job with it. Agree to disagree
Also the two movies look gorgeous on 4k HDR Blu-ray, but I digress.