MovieChat Forums > Dune: Part One (2021) Discussion > This Will Be Weak and Boring.

This Will Be Weak and Boring.


I can see it now.

The main characters are ugly and wimpy looking. So, they will look ridiculous.

There's a lot of negativity about the 1984 version, which is a cult classic. That film attempted to capture the weirdness of the setting. It has been criticized for it.

However, the Dune story is just a story, it's not about anything deep, but just a bunch of weirdness. It takes place in a super distant future where people rejected computers and started breeding people to do special tasks. That is helped by special chemicals, namely this spice from a certain planet.

That's the story!

If you don't get weird with the characters, you have a very boring story to obtain control of this spice.

I predict that if it gets too weird, people will not understand the characters because this spice stuff and breeding program is hard to explain quickly. If the characters aren't weird, it will be boring and they will seem like average people, not spice mutants, which is what they are.

Dune requires a lot of explaining, which is okay for a book, but not an action movie. So, there are ugly actors who don't look athletic and exciting and a bizarrely complex backstory, that's hard for average people to understand, and a fairly thin plot.

It's going to be terrible.

reply

Weak and boring accurately describes you (and old).

reply

A man who wrote such a great post could neither be weak nor boring.

You are a poor judge.

reply

Zzzzzzzz 😴

reply

You fell asleep?

You must be old and weak.

reply

"The main characters are ugly and wimpy looking. So, they will look ridiculous. ".....LMAO

reply

It's true in many films and shows.

I recall the BBC Robin Hood. I was excited until I saw the actor.

He was extremely wimpy. To pull a real bow, you have to be strong as hell. This dude's arms would rip off.

It's a trend to have heroes be wimps for some bizarre subversive reason. Not too many military guys are wimpy and that's what this film is about.

reply

It's a good point that there really is no transformation in this story except Paul's becoming the KH, and no one really knew what that meant in the book or the movie except he got super powers ... whoopee. I have to agree this would make a very hard movie to do anything with unless the whole story is re-interpreted. It is silly to think worms, any kind of worm, could move through solid ground, or even sand ... it's mostly kind of an escapist fantasy story.

reply

Sorry I missed this.

There is no point to the story.

I could see if there was a point to being the KH but that is never mentioned in the book and I don't think the following books either.

The KH is part of a many thousands of years breeding program. The KH was not supposed to be born, why, and then when he is, what is the big issue?

They never say.

I thought the first film did the best it could. There an extended version where they explain there was revolution against AI and robots, so that's where the breeding programs cam from. That was good, but there's no clear point to the story.

As I always say, the movie captured what WEIRDNESS would come from these programs 50k years from now.

There's a Japanese book and anime called Basilisk that I love. It's a similar theme.

There's two ninja clans that have breed themselves into deadly mutants. The king finds them threatening and so he orders them to kill each other. They do and it's all a massive waste as these "innocent" murderous perverts murder each other for no reason.

The author wrote the book after WWII when it became clear Japanese were programmed to hate and murder for no reason and a lot of nice people suffered. That's what I get out of Dune.

reply

The latest book by Jared Diamond, Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, talks a lot about the history of Japan and how they moved towards militarism. I'd like to know where you get your information about the Japanese being programmed to hate. That doesn't really jibe with me. Look at America lately, what are we being programmed for? Or China. Or Russia. All the nationalism worldwide?

reply

Take a look at WWII, lol!

Ninja Scrolls/Basilisk is the authors lesson about WWII.

Japan was and still is a massively racist country. They are horrendously racist and always were.

There a book and movie called Fear and Trembling about a woman's experience there.

In WWII they did heinous torture and medical experiments on Chinese because they hate Chinese. That is due to the constant historical invasions from China. The Rape of Nanking is something to read about. The Japanese routinely raped Chinese women and used them as "pleasure women" forced whores, in the war. Japan still has trouble admitting this.

They believed in their bullshit so much they would be suicide bombers. In the war they didn't believe in treating war prisoners well and would torture the shit out of them in perverted ways.

The reason Japan is into cartoons, not talking to girls, having sex with cartoons, and not procreating is because the US castrated the culture, which was based on war. All of that stuff was outlawed, samurai stuff, and they can't have a military.

Read about Christian missionaries trying to go there in the 1700s. I would have killed them too, but still, lol.

reply

Germans the most civilized people in the world did medical experiments on people too ... all the people that were not them. The hate was fake. They gin up the hate. Chinese do similar things to Tibetans and Uyghurs.

In America we have done worse, killing off the Native Americans, and enslaving and dehumanizing blacks. We also hate poor people and have poisoned them, experimented on them, and sterilized them.

You seem to be very excited about this, with the "take a look at" and LOL. Screw you. If you cannot discuss something in an adult way I see not point in talking about it with you. I would guess you are under 30, maybe around 20 or younger.

Your idea about the US castrating Japanese culture is weird, but is so strongly worded that it says more about you than the US or Japan.

You act like you expect everyone you talk to on the Internet to be less knowledgeable than you, or that you can lecture them, or condescend. I know a lot about WWII, and Japan, and Germany, and America. I guess your off the wall attitude is why I have seen so many warning about you here at MovieChat.

You should chill and try to learn something instead of being so full of yourself that you have spat it all over everyone else.

reply

Even with Denis Vileneuve directing?

reply

His films suck and are poorly thought out.

reply

Critics and audiences disagree.

reply

Not on here they don't.

reply

There aren't critics on here. Second no plenty of people like his films like Prisoners, sicario, arrival, and blade runner 2049.

reply

A "critic" is a person, not an angel of divine origin.

Blade Runner was HEINOUS will all kinds of plot holes and bullshit. It was a terrible film.

Arrival was retarded as well.

reply

Correct they are but the majority disagrees with you. On IMDb it has a great user score as well. Personally I consider it a great film. Like it or not you are in the minority.

reply

Smart people always are.

I can explain why these movies are garbage and make no sense.

Others are like "I donno---I liked it" and that's their review.

Dunne will be terrible, trust me.

If he can't figure out the logic of Blade Runner, Dune is WAY too much.

reply

Always? Interesting generalization you have there. No smart people are not always in the minority. Ignorant statement. Someone thinks highly of themselves.

Interesting I have found a full page review of blade runner 2049 on rotten tomatoes. Want me to link you to one since you are either blind or too lazy to look. I can give a full page review myself of why I think it's a great film.

No I don't trust you. So far your taste is questionable as is your logic.

I look forward to Dune. I think it will be amazing like his other films.

reply

I don't care about reviews.

I saw the film and it is filled with plot holes. It is extremely sloppy, like insanely sloppy.

reply

Lol you just said people say I don't know I like it and that is their review. I then offer you a chance to read a full fledged review explaining why it is good and you then say I do not care about reviews? So in other words we the people have to accept your word as law, and you only want to be validated. Which shows you do not care what people's reasons are like you tried to claim. This shows you are the one who does not know what you are talking about.

reply

As noted, I can explain what is wrong with it. It is obvious, so I don't need to read some review. I am capable of my own.

That is why forums like this exist and are better than reviews.

It was why IMDB closed their forums. Our feedback was defeating shitty movies promoted by shills.

reply

Okay put your money where your mouth is. Give me a detailed explanation not stupid buzzwords or labels. Let's see your review of the film. I want a full fledged review from you. I will wait.

reply

A major plot hole that was insanely retarded in Blade Runner:

Agent K is constantly grilled at the police station to she if he has emotional reactions. He does not and is a good example of a well controlled replicant.

MEANWHILE...he is clearly IN LOVE with a female simulation. He needs to imagine he is eating home cooked meals, not microwaved stuff. He great DESIRES companionship and buys a device to have the simulated girl he loves travel with him.

There millions of human males that live by themselves, wish they had a girl, and eat microwaved trash, without getting so emotional.

Those scenes of him and the girl were GREAT and very creative and enjoyable, but totally moronic given the story. I would watch a movie about him being a cop and their romance, but it's a plot hole as he is supposed to be emotionally dead.

There is no reason for a replicant to have his own apartment. Military people don't and why would an emotionless organic robot need an apartment when military people don't? Why would he be getting pay that would allow him to buy LUXURY items?

How could he pass the emotion test all the time. He wasn't faking because they didn't show that.

His story made up most of the film. His relationship with the simulated girl was going on through most of the film. There is no way you could miss this if you were making the film.

I recently read that Olivia Munn was annoyed because the X-Men people knew nothing about the story while making the film. That has to be the case here. How could you have all of these sequences where he's being test, then cut to a romance he's in??

reply

The point of the story was showcasing he did have emotion. No matter how much you do your best to distance yourself from emotion does not mean you will not have it.

There are also people who murder people in their spare time and feel nothing. Not everyone reacts to things the same way. Some people are more emotional than others are.

He is supposed to be emotionally dead but the fact is he isn't. This my friend is something in a story called conflict. A character being at conflict with himself is what makes them engaging.

Replicants are shown to be integrated into society. If he is alone a better chance he will be emotionally dead.

How do people pass lie detector tests when they are lying? Does the movie need to show you this? Do you need your hand held?

Olivia Munn's comments do not apply here whatsoever. The fact that they integrate Sean young's Rachael into the story while continuing Deckard's is amazing.

reply

You are just making that up because it violates the premise of the story seen in the first movie.

The test is to make sure they aren't becoming unstable due to emotions. It is also how you tell if the person is human because they will start getting upset, etc about all the weird questions being asked.

It is a plot hole, as I explained, to be "in love" especially with an hologram, because that would have to be intense delusional love, and pass the test. For him, the test exists to see if he can kill people and no be affected.

It all makes no sense and it was as if two stories were going on at once.

reply

No it does not at all. In fact it strengthens it if anything.

So a person can not fake an emotion is what you are saying?

No it is not a plot hole. You simply are missing the point of the plot. You are one of those people where when you miss the point on something you fault the film for it.

reply

I'm waiting.

reply

Vileneuve didn't write BR2049. He only directed it and very well I might add. The flaws with BR lie with its writing. Sicario is also very well done.
Based on those two (the only 2 from him I've seen) I'd say he is a good choice for Dune. However, I mostly agree with Alderian that this is likely to be on the weak side due to the nature of the source material. The books summarize well in that there are fascinating ideas and circumstances. But they don't translate well to screen. I didn't like the books enough to get passed half way through the 2nd one.

Vileneuve is the only reason to give this a chance, IMO.

I agree that Lynch's Dune was the best you're going to get without severe alteration of the IP.

reply

Yes, but if you're directing a movie, wouldn't you be troubled if the whole middle of the film is a giant plot hole?

I thought Blade Runner looked nice and Arrival looked nice, but both were messed up stories.

Dune was an okay book. I tried to read the past that but they are terrible. Even the wikis explaining the books are hard to get through.

I had plot hole/illogical films and BR and Arrival were both. Sicario was SLOW and I didn't care about the plot.

I'm sure I will see Dune somehow or other but I am skeptical. The plot hole filled BR is a bad sign. This story is WAY more complex with all kinds of crap you need to explain.

reply

I don't think it should be done, myself. Some things don't translate onto the screen. In this case, I don't think much of the source to begin with.

reply

The source is an interesting concept with no theme, subtext, or whatever.

I like stories that are about something and not just a story.

The first movie tried hard to create a good setting and explain what the various characters were. If blew minds at the time, in a bad way, because no one understood it because it's too weird of a world.

I literally can't imagine how this will improve that and make itself an Adult Star Wars as the director said. There is no tension in this as in Star Wars.

reply

Probably trying to surf the remaining GoT inertia. Lots of characters plus quasi political intrigue with the occasional moment of violence.

reply

Good point.

I didn't watch that show because I thought it boring and not creative.

There has been countless copies of that show. It's amazing.

I hate court intrigue and backstabbing shows because why would I want to live or see that? But, people like that crap.

Dune has that to a high degree but it a creative way. However, the setting is so weird that it may not be attractive.

reply

Actually the only group that was into any type of breeding program was the Bene Gesserit which was a sort of all female group of which Lady Jessica was a member. Although the only real breeding program they were supposed to hold onto was to only have females and never give birth to a male child. In later books there was some breeding of clones but in the first book that was really the only breeding program that was really discussed.

The first book was really more like a Game of Thrones type story only set in planets instead of lands and without nearly as much sex as Game of Thrones. We had to read the damned book in a college environmental biology class because the book was supposed to somehow embrace and use theories of ecology in it. Which I think was because the author was supposed to have been influenced by a US government project to plant grass in sand dunes somewhere in the US to try and stabilize them and keep them from growing... can't remember the full story only that for whatever reason the professor had a hard on for Dune and every class had to read the damn thing.

Now it wasn't a terrible book, but the way it was written was such that you were not only always aware of what a character said to another character but was also aware of what the character was thinking which may or may not have been the same as their actual words... to me that is the part that will kill this movie. Unless you've read the books and can remember them you would need a narrator talking all the way through the movie just so that you knew what every character was actually thinking.

reply

Yes, this is the biggest concern about this film - how is Villeneuve going to convey the characters' thoughts, which is such a key part of the book and keeps the reader up to speed with the complex and twisting plot and the numerous important characters?

David Lynch, of course, included voiceovers, lifting the 'thoughts' from the text - a bold move, and one that didn't really work.

reply

They were all into breeding.

The story is that there was a revolution against AI and androids.

To take their place people were bred to fill these roles. The pilots were humans that had so much spice it turned them into these mutants that look nothing like humans. The mentats were people who all come from the same place and take a special drug to enhance their thinking.

All of these people are groups made to fill the role of machines.

That's the back story.

reply

Was that what the extra part of David Lynch's movie said? Because I don't recall that being in the books. If it was something that Lynch was assuming then it does give some explanation of why the movie version was so weird.

reply

I believe it was in the book.

It was discussed not a long explanation.

Someone tacked on a semi animated explanation to the a version of the movie.

reply

I just found what you are talking about when I pulled up a pdf of the current version of Dune. While some of what you've mentioned was alluded to in the earlier editions. The afterward by Brian Herbert is where it is explicitly stated, which explains why I was unaware of a few of the points you made. If it was an afterward by anyone other than Frank's son and co-author I would probably just dismiss it, but since Brian worked with his dad on some of the books I'll have to accept it as what Frank believed... which sadly paints the book in a new light to when I read it. It was never clear that the guild navigators were actually humans in the book, which is probably why David Lynch's movie had them as such weird aliens unable to live in a normal atmosphere. I suspect if the had included Brian's afterward in earlier editions of the book that his movie would have made some significant changes in some parts.

For me, having just read the explanation of Brian for the first time my view of the book has changed. Now that I have a better understanding of some of the things Frank never clearly stated but which were apparently underlying the whole book... I'm sorry I ever suggested to my kids to read it because give the new insight the book was shit. Having some aliens made certain things plausible, but knowing there were no aliens and it was just humans in different forms makes too many parts of the book completely ridiculous. I have to wonder if my old professor would have forced us to read the damned thing if this afterward had been included when he read the book.

reply

I read the book shortly after the film came out and knew all of this stuff back then.

Mentats don't use spice but everyone else does. It's what causes the mutations that allow people to fill these different roles in society that machines would.

The pilots are the most mutated humans, due to the spice.

The story is kind of meaningless because it's just all about this spice. I don't know if there's supposed to be a meaning to it but I can't see one. If so, Dune is just "pulp fiction" meaning a meaningless story made for thrills. And, the books aren't that thrilling. I have always been confused by its popularity.

reply

I read it long before the movie came out, and until I read the afterwards by his son some of what you mentioned was unknown to me. Now that I read what his son wrote it opened my eyes to more of it and I agree it is pretty much pointless crap.

reply

I see.

It's crazy how LONG ago that was.

reply

The way I always thought of it was that all the "people" were from lines that were originally human but that had experienced reproductive isolation so long (many thousands of years) that they were now essentially like different species.

I didn't know that there was a specific explanation by Herbert's son; I always found it very confusing that the history was mentioned in the books but not really explained all that much.

reply

You can see the casting choices on IMDB. You think the choices are ugly and wimpy?

reply

Yes.

People want to see athletic men who look like heroes, not some huge headed wimp with distorted features. That's some SJW bullshit.

The girl is ugly.

I don't care about celebrities but Sean Young was fucking gorgeous in Dune. If I knew her in real life and bears needed to be fought, I'd be right on it. Some girl who looks like a caveman throwback does not inspire that response in a viewer.

Unless you're into that.

reply

What the fuck are you babbling about?

Granted, Zendaya I do not approve of the casting, but what about the other castings? You don't like Josh Brolin? You don't like Javier Bardem, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista?

So being that Paul is supposed to be 14 years old, who do you cast for the role, pray tell?

reply

The other actors ought to have tiny parts.

When I was 14 I was 6 foot tall.

In this case, you need and older actor. If not you run the Star Wars prequel situation of the actors not understanding their parts and sounding dull and robotic.

reply

Ought to have tiny parts? What the hell does that mean?

That's you, but if you read the book, Paul was describes as small for a 14 year old.

He is an older actor. He's not 14. This isn't his first role so he's got acting experience.

reply

correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't Paul in the Book kinda short and wimpy?

reply

It'll be all queer, feminazi and ''diverse''....Hollywood is a eunuch coward.

reply

This. Villenueve has already made a mockery of sci fi with the awful Arrival and 2049. This will be even worse

reply

My big fear is that they’re going to make the “weirding way” look like some regular old Kung fu, instead of the body teleporting like in the book.

reply