Even though the books have been out half a century ; it was requested as we ramp up to the October release date in Theaters to have a Dune spoilers thread...

I guess I'll start it.


1. When will movie 1 end?
2. How good or bad with the hand - pain trial be?
3. Will the navigators be grotesque like Flynn's movie? Or more ethereal like SyFy miniseries?
4. Do you hate sand?
5. Will the eyes be blue enough?
6. How will Denis capture the inner thoughts of Paul that are prevalent throughout the books?
7. What are you most looking forward to?
8. What do you fear about this movie? What do you think other people will think was bad?

ETA: this topic is for the movies and the entire dune series, e.g. all movies and books info welcome

1. When will movie 1 end? After Paul becomes Usul so in the second movie they can expand on the years of raids/battles between then and Paul drinking the water of life.
2. How good or bad with the hand - pain trial be? Hadn't even thought about it but now that it's mentioned it is a difficult scene to fit into a movie naturally. I could do without any visuals of the hand
3. Will the navigators be grotesque like Flynn's movie? Or more ethereal like SyFy miniseries? Hoping for more like the miniseries.
4. Do you hate sand? Sand is great as long as it stays where it belongs.
5. Will the eyes be blue enough? They look great.
6. How will Denis capture the inner thoughts of Paul that are prevalent throughout the books? Perhaps said out loud as dialogue with a confidant in between scenes. "Did you see/hear *something important*? must mean *something significant*." And so on.
7. What are you most looking forward to? the world building - should be epic.
8. What do you fear about this movie? What do you think other people will think was bad? I keep having flashbacks to the dark tower - the gunslinger movie that took a beloved book and butchered my soul with it.

• I'd expect it to end right after Paul declares himself Paul Muad'dib. We've already seen some leaked images of what looks to be Paul fighting Jamis.
• I'm not sure what the navigators be like. We haven't seen Villenueve do monsters in a movie yet. So maybe they'll be clouded in a spice fog mostly, similar to Arrival.
• Leaked images say the eyes won't be blue enough for me.
• I don't expect an inner monologue or narration. But I expect a lot of people making obvious statements like "He already knows the way of our people!"
• Villenueve is know for his big panning helicopter shots from Sicario. can't wait to see that across the desert. When I saw the Las Vegas scene in Blade Runner 2049 all I could think about was wanting fierce blue eyes to be peering out of the sand.
• Main fear is that it won't be successful enough to make the second half of the story.
• I expect the biggest departure from the books will be Chani. I think she will play a much bigger roll, and we'll see more of the Fremen opposition to Rabban than we get in the books. Which I'm all in for.

The inner dialogue shouldn't be as necessary in the movie anyway. We should be able to catch on to things that Paul noticed in the book by virtue of being able to see the other characters and how they are acting.

SpreadsheetAg said:

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Even though the books have been out half a century ; it was requested as we ramp up to the October release date in Theaters to have a Dune spoilers thread...

I guess I'll start it.


1. When will movie 1 end?
2. How good or bad with the hand - pain trial be?
3. Will the navigators be grotesque like Flynn's movie? Or more ethereal like SyFy miniseries?
4. Do you hate sand?
5. Will the eyes be blue enough?
6. How will Denis capture the inner thoughts of Paul that are prevalent throughout the books?
7. What are you most looking forward to?
8. What do you fear about this movie? What do you think other people will think was bad?

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1. I'd guess just after the Harkonen invasion (and death of a certain someone)
2. Lol good?
3. Gross! Just based on the faitful adaptation of Baron Harkonen in the trailers
4. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere.
5. Blue as a Coors as cold as the rockies
6. No idea
7. In the first movie? Some sand worm action.
8. I worry they will spend too much or too little time to the politics/hiearchy of the universe. For the movie to work, it needs to establish a universe outside of Arrakis.

The inclusion of Chani and Stilgar, but not having Alia, Leto II, or Feyd makes me think the movie will end before the two year jump in the book. I just have no idea where.

Please keep spoilers to the spoiler thread. It's not polite to write on this topic otherwise.

Considering the Emperor Shaddam IV hasn't been cast, and therefore isn't appearing in the first movie, we may not even see a Navigator.
The only other time they appear in the book is at the end, and during the space folding journey to Arrakis.

Which is this thread safe for book spoilers? or just first movie spoilers? I'd expect people who read this after seeing the movie won't like having the second movie or any sequels spoiled for them. So try to be careful about second half of the book or sequel spoilers.

1. When will movie 1 end? After he fights Jamis, before he drinks the water of life. Doesn't he ride a worm somewhere in that time. I think he will ride a worm in this film.

2. How good or bad with the hand - pain trial be? I think this scene will be heavy on exposition, so IDK

3. Will the navigators be grotesque like Flynn's movie? Or more ethereal like SyFy miniseries? Grotesque. Someone earlier said we haven't seen Villeneuve do monsters, but he did do aliens in Arrival, and they were not ethereal.

4. Do you hate sand? IT GETS EVERYWHERE

5. Will the eyes be blue enough? They look good from what I've seen

6. How will Denis capture the inner thoughts of Paul that are prevalent throughout the books? I think when you have an actor like Chalamet playing him, they are going to rely on him to communicate as much as he can non-verbally (show me don't tell me). It seems like they are going to beef up the dream sequences too, so I bet some exposition and inner-thought details come out in that way as well.


7. What are you most looking forward to? I'm intrigued to see the scale of the Harkonen invasion.


8. What do you fear about this movie? What do you think other people will think was bad? Its possible people feel like the story is a retread of other sci-fi, etc. even though the story itself predates a lot of films/books that have taken whats worked in Dune and reimagined or stole from it.

Nice job creating a thread that TCTTS cannot visit by his own admission until late October. Great way to mock him guilt-free, like saying I bet you anything he's read the Wikipedia page about the novel by now!

On to the questions.

1. When will movie 1 end? - drinking the Water of Life and going unconscious? That would be a pretty bold way to end the movie because if you're not invested in Paul by then, it's trouble for Movie 2.

2. How good or bad with the hand - pain trial be?: It logically needs to be fantastic and unique, because it's a very early show of Paul being off-the-charts special. Hopefully better than Qui-Gon explaining midichlorians while Jake Lloyd reads his cue cards.

3. Will the navigators be grotesque like Flynn's movie? Or more ethereal like SyFy miniseries? Unique enough to not confuse them with any other faction in the movie, since you're asking a general audience to meet a lot of differently motivated people.

4. Do you hate sand? Not after seeing Padme's Tatooine episode in AOTC.

5. Will the eyes be blue enough? Need to get Restless Heart to record a sequel song called "The Bluest Eyes on Arrakis(are Haunting Me Tonight)"

6. How will Denis capture the inner thoughts of Paul that are prevalent throughout the books? My guess would be little 3-10 second "visions" that give clues without giving it everything away, either him seeing future versions of himself or his trainers and teachers' voices/faces.

7. What are you most looking forward to? My favorite thing about the book is the sense of dread that grows especially throughout the first part. Even though I know Duke Leto is doomed, I still got attached to him while reading it, and hoped against hope he would stay alive. I hope the movie can capture that foreboding, As for the action stuff, although I don't think Jason Momoa is a very good actor, I can't think of anyone better to play the guy who kills 19 Sardaukar during the invasion.

8. What do you fear about this movie? What do you think other people will think was bad? Probably not a problem until the 2nd movie, but for me the very limited development of the Emperor, his daughter, and the government as a whole makes the book's conclusion not nearly as fascinating as the 2/3rds. It almost felt like Herbert had a word limit he was about to reach and rushed to finish it. Lots of extra scenes establishing the ferocity of the empire and ramping up the final confrontation will be necessary.

My question is how far will the 2nd movie go past the first book if any? To me making Duncan, Jason Momoa leads me to believe he will be heavily focused in the first movie and they might actually introduce the ghola in the 2nd movie.

Bumping this since reviews are on the way:
https://www.indiewire.com/2021/09/dune-review-denis-villeneuve-1234660459/

Easy, Rod said:

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My biggest fear is that we get Brian Herbert garbage interjected to eat up time.

I've harped on it on every Dune thread, and I'll do it again. Brian completely screwed up the "Dune-iverse" by making up the garbage prequels and sequels.

If not for the fact the BH/KJA novels began over 20 years ago, I'd bet the farm on them being written by A. I.

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I am pretty sure their quality of storytelling and the quality of early 2000 AI lend credence to your hypothesis.

from the idiewire review:

Villeneuve is in love with the scale of these subterranean beasties, each of which is half as long as the R.M.S. Titanic, and he frames them with such palpable awe that you almost expect the "Jurassic Park" theme to play every time they rear their butthole heads.

Hans Zimmer's soundtrack popped up on Spotify and YouTube over the weekend. I just noticed it today -

Track titles:
Dream of Arrakis
Herald of the Change
Bene Gesserit - just finished listening to this one, creepy as hell
Gom Jabbar
The One (Neo?)
Leaving Caladan
Arrakeen
Ripples in the Sand
Visions of Chani
Night on Arrakis
Armada
Burning Palms
Stranded
Blood for Blood
The Fall
Holy War
Sanctuary
Premonition
Ornithopter
Sandstorm
Stillsuits
My Road leads into the Desert

Pretty nuts seeing all those words on a soundtrack for me. The music from the trailers with the lone 'singer' is the Gom Jabbar track, just started that one. The track titles seem to largely follow the order of the book, which if true, would seem to suggest there's nothing but the original novel in here.

I think that the eyes are not blue enough. You shouldn't see any whites at all and instead you just get slightly blue whites and weird CGI neon blue irises. Too bright, not blue enough

Blue upon blue

Decay said:

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I think that the eyes are not blue enough. You shouldn't see any whites at all and instead you just get slightly blue whites and weird CGI neon blue irises. Too bright, not blue enough

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they are blue upon blue, but definitely not to the level that they should be.

Ok so what the hell is Stellan Skarsgards character exactly? Does he fly around?

HalifaxAg said:

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Need a meme of Hermione saying it's Har-KO-Nan, not hark-onan

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that and Padishah

It's PadiSHAH NOT paDIshah! (Right?)

Okay let's answer the questions:

SpreadsheetAg said:

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1. They end the movie when they get caught in the canyon, but move up the knife fight to happen then. Good choice to give a nice stop.
2. Gom jabbar scene was pretty good. Showed his mother's pain and his power.
3. Don't think we saw navigators, just mentats. Harkonnen were gross though!
4. Sand good?
5. Eyes were too blue but also not blue enough.
6. Flash forwards and showed some confusion for Paul as to what is real or not

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The first hour and fifty five minutes or so = all-time, absolutely mesmerizing masterpiece. One of the most stunning sci-fi films I've ever seen, up to that point.

The last forty minutes or so, though = a little meandering, lacking the focus/promise of everything that came before. Very much a wandering sand walk through the desert, both on screen and in terms of plot.

At least in my opinion.

Basically, once Paul and Lady Jessica were 100% on their own, after Duncan Idaho and Liet-Kynes both died, it lost a bit of steam for me.

That said, on my eventual rewatch, I have a feeling the final act will likely play better. I think my biggest issue was with the marketing. Because the main trailer 100% sells a massive, Braveheart-esque desert battle as the climax, with a blue-eyed Paul flipping and slicing his way though enemy soldiers, absolutely going off. For months, and up through a decent chunk of the movie tonight, I assumed everything was leading to that climactic conflict, solely because the trailer billed it as such. But then, once we got that sequence as a vision instead, I knew something was off, but was still not at all prepared for how "small" the actual climax was. Even with everyone and their dog saying the movie ends in somewhat premature fashion, in the moment, I was still thinking, "No way this is where they end it."

But again, now that I know, hopefully it'll play better the second time. If anything, the final fight was a great character arc moment for Paul, and I'm always preaching about how that's what matters most. So it definitely delivered in that regard. Now, I just need to sit with it for a while, then give it a good rewatch before finally settling on my thoughts completely.