Dune (Movie) and some WTFs?

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Dune (Movie) and some WTFs?

Post by Havok »

OK, who is our Dune expert?

I watched the last part of Dune last night, starting right as the fat floating guy with the boils is floating around Sting in his steam bath... 1st WTF... and right before Paul gets his little army rolling and teaches the guys how to shoot shit with their voices. That is my second WTF.

The worms. WTF?

The little creepy kid and what she says at the end after it starts raining? Double WTF here. What the hell did she say and why is she so creepy?

I will probably never read the books and On Demand wasn't listing it anywhere so I couldn't watch it again.

Little help here?
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Post by Vympel »

I watched the last part of Dune last night, starting right as the fat floating guy with the boils is floating around Sting in his steam bath... 1st WTF
That's just David Lynch being David Lynch.
and right before Paul gets his little army rolling and teaches the guys how to shoot shit with their voices. That is my second WTF.
The "Weirding Modules" are not in the books. They're in the movie because ruining shit with sound-based weaponry is easier and less time consuming from a story telling perspective, I imagine.
The worms. WTF?
What about them?
The little creepy kid and what she says at the end after it starts raining? Double WTF here. What the hell did she say and why is she so creepy?
She's like a Reverend Mother in a child's body, that's why she's so creepy - she's an adult.

She said "for how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!!!"
I will probably never read the books and On Demand wasn't listing it anywhere so I couldn't watch it again.

Little help here?
Read Dune, it's way cool.
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Post by Atavarius »

I watched the last part of Dune last night, starting right as the fat floating guy with the boils is floating around Sting in his steam bath... 1st WTF...and right before Paul gets his little army rolling and teaches the guys how to shoot shit with their voices. That is my second WTF.
I don't know how familiar you are with the book, and its been quite awhile since I have read it but I will do my best here. The weirding modules were added in because Lynch felt that to do the film with the prana-bindu training in the book would make it like a kung fu film in the desert.

In the book, it is implied IIRC that the Baron lusts after Feyd (the Baron is a homosexual and a borderline pedophile IIRC).
The worms. WTF?
They are Arrakis' only indigenous (IIRC, or have the prequels changed this?) life, and the source of the spice.
The little creepy kid and what she says at the end after it starts raining? Double WTF here. What the hell did she say and why is she so creepy?
Alia is an abomination. Earlier in the fil Lady Jessica takes the Water of Life and becomes a Reverend Mother (basically unlocking the female side of her genetic memory.). At the time she was pregnant with Alia so she was exposed to the same thing. Basically a fetus who has lived thousands upon thousands of lives. As to what she says I will have to dust off my DVD of the extended edition and rewatch the scene.
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Post by Atavarius »

I don't know how familiar you are with the book
Ghettoish edit, sorry missed it where you said you never have/will read the books, though in all honesty you should check them out, great reading.
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Post by LadyTevar »

Just stop reading after "God-Emperor of Dune", ok? Or even "Children of Dune".
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Post by Gullible Jones »

That was David Lynch fucking around with the characters and the plot.

For the record - fat insane guy with the skin problem is Harkonnen, Sting is Feyd-Rautha, the kid is Alia, and the killing-with-one's-voice thing is the "weirding module", which replaces the "Weirding Way", the Bene Gesserit's martial art.
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Post by Aaron »

Atavarius wrote:
In the book, it is implied IIRC that the Baron lusts after Feyd (the Baron is a homosexual and a borderline pedophile IIRC).
No he's a flat out pedophile. The Baron at one point goes into his quarters with an oiled naked teen.
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Post by Laughing Mechanicus »

Vympel wrote:
and right before Paul gets his little army rolling and teaches the guys how to shoot shit with their voices. That is my second WTF.
The "Weirding Modules" are not in the books. They're in the movie because ruining shit with sound-based weaponry is easier and less time consuming from a story telling perspective, I imagine.
According to my film-buff friend, David Lynch has a major hard-on for the importance/power of sound in films. That's most likely why the weirding modules were added.
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Re: Dune (Movie) and some WTFs?

Post by Old Plympto »

havokeff wrote: What the hell did she say and why is she so creepy?
Creepy did you spake?
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Re: Dune (Movie) and some WTFs?

Post by Havok »

Old Plympto wrote:
havokeff wrote: What the hell did she say and why is she so creepy?
Creepy did you spake?
HOLY SHIT! Is that her?
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Post by Spanky The Dolphin »

Yeah, Alicia Witt.

She was also Lara Flynn Boyle's youngest sister in that one episode of Twin Peaks, wasn't she? The one who played the piano?

She's currently on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
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Post by Adrian Laguna »

Cpl Kendall wrote:No he's a flat out pedophile. The Baron at one point goes into his quarters with an oiled naked teen.
If you want to get technical, if he's boinking teenagers then he's a ephebophile, not a pedophile. The "borderline" case can be made depending on how old said teenager was.
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Post by Uraniun235 »

Aaron Ash wrote:
Vympel wrote:
and right before Paul gets his little army rolling and teaches the guys how to shoot shit with their voices. That is my second WTF.
The "Weirding Modules" are not in the books. They're in the movie because ruining shit with sound-based weaponry is easier and less time consuming from a story telling perspective, I imagine.
According to my film-buff friend, David Lynch has a major hard-on for the importance/power of sound in films. That's most likely why the weirding modules were added.
While the Weirding Modules being sound-based might have been Lynch having a hard-on for sound, the basic idea of "Weirding = badass weapons technology" almost surely stemmed from the need to simplify the plot (as well as provide for the use of flashy special effects) for mass audience appeal.

People like to rag pretty heavily on David Lynch for the Weirding Modules, but I think they were an effective part of slicing Dune down to a mere two hours. I enjoyed both the book and the movie, in no small part because I'm not one of those raving fanatical lunatics that goes frothing over the mouth every time a cinematic adaptation of a book deviates in the slightest from it.

Hell, here's what Frank Herbert had to say about it:
"Well, I get asked the specific question a lot of times. If the settings, the scenes, that I saw in David's film match my original imagination, the things that I projected in my imagination. I must tell you that some of them do precisely, some of them don't, and some of them are better, which is what you would expect of artists such as David and Tony Masters. I'm delighted with that. I mean, why not take it and improve on it visually? As far as I'm concerned the film is a visual feast. I would love to have some of the scenes as stills to frame and have around me. They're beautiful."
"Yes, very much so [satisfied with the result of the film]. But the funny thing happened. Dino called me. I didn't know David from Adam's offer. And he called me and he said that he had hired David Lynch to do the.... to direct the film of Dune. This was after a couple of... well I think they would have been disasters. David knows why. So, I said: "David who?" and he said David Lynch. He said Elephant Man. So I went out and got a tape of it and played it on my video, and I had a funny gut sensation we had the guy who could do it. When you're doing a film from the written word, you're translating into a different language. It is as though you were translating from English to Swahili. The visual language is a different language, and there was such subtlety and such beauty in the Elephant Man. I've seen it about eight times, I think, and I get something new from it each time, something peripheral or something right in the mainstream that was done visually as a visual metaphor. I've never told David this, but this is true. This is what happened to me. I had this gut sensation we've got him, you know, the guy who can do it."
"The film begins as the book begins, and it ends essentially as the book ends. And I hear my dialog all the way through it, not just my dialog, but there's lots of other dialog. I had the funny sensation of watching the rough cut, not exactly too rough recently, of some of the cuts, the things that are not in there, of feeling that they'd happened just off stage or that we'd gone beyond them, but they'd happened, that we hadn't really lost them. There are only two scenes that I missed in the film, but I know why they were cut. They were pets of mine, and you shouldn't have any pets."
Some people might take that as evidence that some authors eventually need to be separated from their own work (see: JMS and Babylon 5), and that's their prerogative. But nobody can say that David Lynch raped Frank Herbert's work, even if only because Herbert consented to it.
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Post by Aaron »

Adrian Laguna wrote: If you want to get technical, if he's boinking teenagers then he's a ephebophile, not a pedophile. The "borderline" case can be made depending on how old said teenager was.
Meh, a guy in his 50's fucking a teen is pretty fucked up regardless of how you look at it. Teen to me implies someone who is less than eighteen years old. Although I don't believe it's actually mentioned how old the teen is.
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Post by B5B7 »

Dune is a great (and beautiful) movie. I have been recently rewatching the mini-series, that is (allegedly) more faithful to the book. This may be so, and whilst good and enjoyable, I believe that the Lynch movie is more faithful to the spirit of the book. It is true that the ending of the movie is a large variant - but there is a good reason for that - when movie made there would rightly be no expectation of making a sequel, so had to put in something to provide a resolution that points to power of Kwisatz Haderach.

havokeff should read the 'Dune' book, but not any sequels (unless he wishes to), to help clarify some aspects of the movie. The second and third Dune books are well written but really basically just waffle as regards story. The second trilogy is even more waffly.
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Post by Gullible Jones »

He's in his eighties actually. I forget whether he used Spice or not.

Re the movie, I take less issue with the weirding modules than Lynch's handling of the characters - especially Harkonnen, who comes across as a simple maniac instead of the creepy, manipulative bastard portrayed in the book.

I do like the way Lynch portrayed the Guild Navigator though.
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Post by Crom »

I really enjoyed Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse of Dune so I would vote for reading all six of the books.

One thing I enjoyed about Lynch's Dune was the casting. Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, can I get a hell yeah!
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Post by Ghost Rider »

Crom wrote:I really enjoyed Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse of Dune so I would vote for reading all six of the books.

One thing I enjoyed about Lynch's Dune was the casting. Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, can I get a hell yeah!
Most of them were well picked. At least Lynch didn't go for a 15 year old Paul.

All in all, some of the Sci Fi channel was a bit better in look for special effects, but the Lynch version still had a better feel, and honestly less hokey look in many other areas such as costumes and actors.
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Post by Lord Revan »

Cpl Kendall wrote:
Adrian Laguna wrote: If you want to get technical, if he's boinking teenagers then he's a ephebophile, not a pedophile. The "borderline" case can be made depending on how old said teenager was.
Meh, a guy in his 50's fucking a teen is pretty fucked up regardless of how you look at it. Teen to me implies someone who is less than eighteen years old. Although I don't believe it's actually mentioned how old the teen is.
not overt IIRC but they speak of "young boys" in the first book and there's hints (or even said outright can't remember) that Baron Harkonen lusted after Paul Atreides (or how ever the last name was spelled)
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Post by Crom »

Ghost Rider wrote:Most of them were well picked. At least Lynch didn't go for a 15 year old Paul.

All in all, some of the Sci Fi channel was a bit better in look for special effects, but the Lynch version still had a better feel, and honestly less hokey look in many other areas such as costumes and actors.
I agree with you, while the Sci-Fi miniseries was stayed truer to the book, I always thought that the Dune movie portrayed the universe better.
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Post by Nephtys »

Crom wrote:
Ghost Rider wrote:Most of them were well picked. At least Lynch didn't go for a 15 year old Paul.

All in all, some of the Sci Fi channel was a bit better in look for special effects, but the Lynch version still had a better feel, and honestly less hokey look in many other areas such as costumes and actors.
I agree with you, while the Sci-Fi miniseries was stayed truer to the book, I always thought that the Dune movie portrayed the universe better.
By better, you mean hilarious.
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Post by Spanky The Dolphin »

No, definitely better.

Because the Dune movie is awesome.

Better than the Command & Conquer cutscene miniseries.
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Post by Nephtys »

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:No, definitely better.

Because the Dune movie is awesome.

Better than the Command & Conquer cutscene miniseries.
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Better than the Command & Conquer cutscene miniseries.
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Command & Conquer cutscene miniseries.
....what? What is this?
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Re: Dune (Movie) and some WTFs?

Post by Setzer »

Old Plympto wrote:
havokeff wrote: What the hell did she say and why is she so creepy?
Creepy did you spake?
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Post by NecronLord »

Dune 2000, basically a command and conquer game, had some fairly well produced live action cutscenes. Example.

Visually very much based on the Lynch film.
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