MovieChat Forums > Dune (2021) Discussion > Shields are useless!

Shields are useless!

posted 3 months ago by sati_84 (457)
2 replies | jump to latest

The movie spends an entire scene setting up personal shields as a piece of technology that exists. The brawl between Brolin's character and Paul lets the viewer know that slow attacks penetrate the shields, and such slow attacks are marked with red glow, whereas ineffective, fast attacks are lighting up with blue. So far so good, nicely done visually and the idea is interesting.

But this whole ordeal could have been spared, as in later scenes, personally shielded combatants completely disregard this "use slow attacks to get through" strategy. Case in point: the Harkonnen attack - when Atreides soldiers are faced with the Emperor's elite troops, everyone is flailing at normal speed, i.e. like a "normal" fight scene, we never see evidence of slowing down their attacks, and yet, red spots are flaring up from time to time on participant's shields, and they are evidently effective attacks, as people are dying. I was so confused.

Then we get the face off of Momoa VS the Emperor troops, and the same thing happens again. Neither Momoa, nor the troops slow down any of their attacks, yet some of them are repelled by the shields, some of them are not. The red glow is dramatic and all, but absolutely makes no sense, in light of the setup (no pun intended). I was really looking forward to a different kind of fight scene, in both cases, seeing the combatants strategically using slower arm movements or whatever, but the fight choreorgraphers couldn't be bothered, so they just used traditional choero and told the guys where to put the red glows in post.

Personal shields are supposed to be a huge part of this universe, and it would have been nice to see something new, that differentiates this movie - not just visually - from the rest of the sci-fi outings. So... why did they messed this up so badly?

I saw a brief scene from Dune '84, where the shields looked ridiculous, and they were certainly better visually here, but that's not the point. The fight choreography should have aligned with what we know about shields, but in an unbelievable display of carelessness and laziness - it did not!

Did I miss something, or they were really this lazy?

[–] Fluffyudders (119) 3 months ago

I could be wrong, but my interpretation was that you have to strike in a particular way to get past the shields. If you imagine for example a slash across the throat, while the movement itself could be quick, if the speed at which the blade approaches the throat is slow the shield may be rendered ineffective.

However, the real point to note here is that the shields only seem useless because they are actually very effective - this is a sci-fi fantasy world set in the far future, but everyone is fighting in melee combat. Ranged attacks are effectively nullified, which is the true purpose (and strength) of the shields. While you have a shield up, you can only really be attacked or killed from extremely close range. The exception to this of course is the hunter-killers, and I am slightly confused how exactly they work, but it's fair to assume that if it was as simple as a projectile that can pierce the shields, battles would be fought by armies firing the damn things at each other!

[–] sati_84 (457) 21 days ago

OK, so let's say I accept the general premise of the shields - i.e. to explain and justify the need for hand to hand combat scenes in the movie. So far so good. So following this...

#1 - ... the fight choreography still does not make sense. Maybe it's just poorly presented and there are indeed "special" movements that are being done by the combatants. But for the untrained eye of the viewer, this is confusing. The viewer will not think "oh, my perception must be inadequate to register the special movements they are doing now" - as the filmmakers might have intended. On the contrary, the viewer will not understand what is happening "What is special about this? I don't see them slowing down their attacks... oh, I see some red... but that strike was not slower than normal... this doesn't make sense" - this was my train of thought and still is about the fight scenes.

#2 - ... now that you mentioned projectile attacks, I think the filmmakers shot themselves in the foot (no pun intended) in a different way with two other scenes involving personal shields. One is the assassination attempt on Paul with that tiny drone thing. It is established that it moves slow enough to penetrate the shield, so Paul has to catch it with his bare hands. The other scene is when Paul's father is tranquilized with that dart thing - also apparently moving in a fashion to penetrate the shield. And that's... a projectile. Which has the capability to go through shields. Why doesn't all fractions use this technology in combat? Why don't they make bullets with this capability? Why don't the Harkonnens release thousands of mini-drones that attacked Paul? (And why not attack Paul in his sleep? Bu that's beside this point) So the filmmakers established projectile-like technology that would destroy the need for hand to hand scenes, but still... these only appear when they are convenient for the writers and never again in situations where they should have obviously used them.