I thought the stillsuits shown in the second link in the OP looked pretty spot-on. But I couldn’t make out hoods, and Paul doesn’t have a mask.
Also cautiously optimistic. Also also, gotta read the book again.
I liked the miniseries the first time I saw it, but I tried to watch it again later and it wasn’t as good. Dunno why, maybe because I payed more attention to the production values the second time around.
I was dreading the hell out of LOTR, and was wrong then. I hope this turns out to be a good adaptation as welll; as pointed out, there’s a lot of material to cover and some will have to be left out, and some themes that you pick up from reading the book will have to be fed to the audience who haven’t read it.
Whoever wrote that article doesn’t realize that Leto likely doesn’t survive the first film. And if he does survive it, he is dead very early in the second film.
Seems to me that given the split into two films, the logical place to end the first is with Paul and Jessica meeting the Fremen and being accepted into the band. So Leto will certainly be dead by then.
That might also explain the apparent absence of Feyd-Rautha. While he is certainly there in the first half of the book, it doesn’t seem necessary in any sense other than character development, as his rivalry with Paul really only happens at the very end of the book. Or perhaps they won’t use Feyd-Rautha at all, keeping Glossu around for the duel.
I am also cautiously excited for this. I really don’t like line-for-line perfect movie recapitulations of books, and I’m curious to see what adaptations Villeneuve makes… Based on that Vanity Fair article, he’s obviously pretty open to changes.
Javier Bardem as Stilgar is great casting. Bardem has some age and wear on him now that will fit perfectly for the role.
I agree it would make sense to cut Feyd-Rautha as suggested to clear space in the script.
I am looking forward to seeing Josh Brolin as Gurney and Jason Momoa as Duncan, although I admit that when I saw the cast list, without roles, I thought Momoa would be the choice for Gurney.
Who would you all prefer instead? I don’t have strong opinions about it, and I’m way out of touch concerning who’s hot and trendy in the 19-27 year old male actor cohort.
I wonder if they’ll do the arena on Giedi Prime scene, with Feyd, Thufir, the Baron, and Count + Lady Fenring? I like the casting decisions made so far, albeit making Liet, the military leader of the Fremen, a woman is just silly. Like there aren’t any strong women otherwise in Dune…
You probably could get away with making Pardot a woman, if you wanted to change genders.
It would be nice if they’d get it right but if they keep refusing to get the stillsuits correct then I’m not optimistic. The stillsuits absolutely SELL the aridity and deadliness of Arrakis and having people swanning about in the desert with their heads and mouths uncovered just undercuts the whole thing. Stillsuits are to Dune what space suits are to any space movie–you don’t show people out in space with their helmets off just because it makes it easier to act. Same with Arrakis. Heads and mouths uncovered is a quick death.
I haven’t read the book in a long time, but IIRC, there was a lot of exposition-via-internal-monologue; wonder how Villeneuve will handle that? Those awful voice-overs that Lynch used were one of the worst things about the movie.
I confess to enjoying some of the hamminess of the Lynch version; “For he IS the Kwisatz Haderech!” is up there with “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” for cheesiest line ever delivered with a straight face.
Hmm. Kieran Culkin (he’s 37 but looks much younger) is really good as a pampered corporate princeling in the HBO series Succession, and I think he could make a really good Feyd.
This is a case where I’m happy to suspend my disbelief. It’s not ease of acting, it’s the ability of the audience to recognize characters and read expressions. It might be more realistic, but it results in a movie where it’s difficult to follow the action, care about characters, and know what they’re feeling.
Even your space example does this - in movies, the spacesuit always has a light shining in the astronaut’s face, even though that would make it impossible to see.
Thing is that scenes that are fully out in the desert are actually somewhat few and far between in the first half of the book or so, up to the point where Paul and Jessica finally twig that the Fremen ride the sandworms rather than just considering them to be huge nuisances. I think it makes the Fremen more alien that they’re so fully covered head to toe and only take the masks of their suits off for the bare minimum of time while out in the desert. That means exposed faces during times when exposition and dialogue are happening and otherwise everyone looks like subsistence people on a super arid planet. Flitting about with repurposed nasal cannula that couldn’t salvage a drop and letting the sweat pour off faces and into hair is just not right–and my suspicion is that any director that doesn’t go for that level of faithfulness to the material either doesn’t know it well or doesn’t care and that makes me think I’m just going to get irritated with the movie even if it’s otherwise good. It’s just going to gig me at random points during the movie and keep taking me out of it. And yes, I get it that I read this book WAY too many times to be strictly healthy but here we are and I wish they’d just get the fucking stillsuits right. Casting looks fairly bomb though. Patrick Stewart as the Emperor would be ever so nice.
IIRC, there were times in the book where the stillsuits were not being used correctly. Paul knew how to put one on so it fit properly, and that played into the Missionaria Protectiva and how the Fremen saw Paul. They didn’t start wearing them properly (mask and nose filters always in place) until they ran into the desert and joined the Fremen.
