The 4K disc of Dune Part Two arrived, allowing a return to Denis Villeneuve’s sprawling adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel. I was in two minds about the film when I saw it at the cinema, enjoyed it much more now, second time around. I think this is the problem with film adaptations of books I have read, same thing happened with the Lord of the Rings films; one can’t help get distracted by thinking about the source and any changes, divergences both good and bad. I think subsequent viewings you can relax somewhat, but first time around… can’t help but remember your own ‘minds-eye’ version that ran in your mind when originally reading it.
Which makes me recall, for the first time in years, negative reviews of Blade Runner back in 1982, by people who had read PKD’s original book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a book I didn’t read until after seeing Ridley Scott’s film. Thinking about it now, the book and film are so different -similar in many ways, utterly dissimilar in so many others- that such a negative view of the film seems inevitable. I wonder how many of those guys warmed to the film, eventually. How many years it took.
Dune Part Two is such a brilliant achievement, it gets so much right, and I know I keep saying this, but we take so many of these visual effects sequences for granted now, as if its so easy doing this stuff so well. Objects, places, things so impossible looking so real…. its like Villeneuve takes some kind of twisted delight in making it look so mundane, ordinary, understated. He did the same thing with so much in BR2049 too. He has a great eye for making visual effects look almost completely in-camera, its rather ridiculous. Compare that to how so many sci-fi blockbusters so deliberately draw attention to their effects.
I still don’t think the Dune films are what they could have been, or are in any way as perfect as I’d hoped they would be, but I guess he gets 90% there and that’s a formidable achievement in itself, of course. The cast are largely perfect. The art direction perhaps more muted than I’d have hoped- something set 10,000 years in the future should look more alien and strange, I think, but maybe that’s just me. But yeah, still pretty amazing. The ending of Part Two still feels rushed, too much of that final battle occurs off-screen (perversely, is that budget limitations, I wonder, as this clearly, no matter how big it was, wasn’t some madly-indulgent $300 million epic?). I suspect Villeneuve sees this whole story as three films and Messiah may yet be the grand conclusion that seems to have escaped him in both Part One and Part Two.
In any case, now that we have Part Two at home, I can indulge in a Part One & Part Two marathon session someday. I think that will be very interesting. Or am I fooling myself, too old for such madness? I remember a Star Wars trilogy marathon back in the 1980s, Star Wars, Empire, Jedi…. (it was getting rough, midway through Jedi) couldn’t do that now, for sure….
the ghost of 82 