Gizmodo and The Guardian both seemed to like it a lot more:
I hope the back and forth between Walken and Taylor-Joy is similiar to the dialogue between their characters in Lynch’s Dune. Both actors definitely have a creepy vibe and their casting is excellent.
I know it’s silly but the level of pre-release critical plaudits for Pt. 2 is starting to get me concerned about a “well, it’s good but I expected it to kick my ass and blow my mind, y’know?” effect.
I saw the film yesterday.
Unfortunately, that scene in does not exist. Taylor-Joy has a 10-second cameo that is a blatant setup for a sequel, and Alia - whose name is not spoken - spends the entire film as a talking fetus. Seriously.
All in all, for the reason mentioned above and several others, I thought the movie was good, maybe very good, but not great.
I’ll ask a spoiler question:
My memory was that “child” Alia kills Harkonnen. If she is a talking fetus in this movie, who kills him?
Paul does.
This ruins Alia’s future character development. The whole she kills her grandfather and he takes over her mind.
Why do film directors make fundamental changes to the story beats like this? Is it ignorance of the entire storyline? Or, dislike of it? Or, is it a decision to go with their own way, nevermind the larger vision?
I’ll go see the movie, but stuff like this limits its impact compared to the book.
That doesn’t happen until Children of Dune though, and AFAIK Villeneuve only plans on filming Dune Messiah, nothing beyond that.
Dude, what a thing to change. Disappointing. I’m not one who expects things to be the same, but this was a big change. I guess this explains how they have not developed Alia as a character, not even having her born…
For anyone’s who seen it, did you figure out what the “Harpies” were? I still maintain they’re never mentioned in Frank Herbert’s original 6 novels.
I like this comparison of what the new Dune gets right and wrong from the books:
I think at this point we’d be justified in making a new thread for the sequel. I’ll do it later unless anyone wants to.
Makes sense to me.
And some good news on that front: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/03/business/dune-2-sees-usd81-5-million-box-office-weekend/index.html
FWIW Denis Villeneuve said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that he hopes to make a third movie. It would cover Dune Messiah and it would be the last in the series for Villeneuve but he wants to do it. That is a long way though from a green light from a studio but I suspect he can get it done if Dune 2 does well (which, as @Elendil_s_Heir noted above, seems it is).
The studio needs to double-up the money and pay him to write and direct Dune Messiah and Children of Dune in one long shooting block and wrap up the series.
I get that Leto II continues further, but I would be happy if they stopped after Children of Messiah or went into a TV show at that point.
I created a general Dune Part 2 discussion thread