[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Vanessa

Dune, part one.
Absolutely brilliant. I didn't want it to end. I wanted more!
A very well deserved 10/10

I watched it yesterday, I think "wanting more" pretty much describes the main issue with the movie though. It's literally half a movie .

Coming from the perspective of someone who already knows the Dune story and it's scope, I actually don't even think dividing it in two was enough to capture the scale of the narrative... the first section of the story (from House Harkonnen getting the boot to the fall of House Atreides) is massively condensed here ... there's so much more lore with the Great Houses, and I'm pretty sure that House Atreides is meant to have been on Arrakis for a year or so before the full Harkonnen takeover. I was a bit unclear on the timeline in the film but it felt like it all happened very quickly? Basically I think it would take a full TV season to cover the story without it feeling rushed. I very much enjoyed the film but on balance, I'd have preferred a high-budget Game-of-Thrones-style TV series of Dune than movies. The lore is too expansive for films to do it justice.

But yeah going back to just the film as it is - I felt like it ended just as it was actually starting. The real story only begins with Paul Atreides joining the Fremen... as Zendaya said quite literally as the last line of the film.

Spoiler:

Overall though I think it's a sort of brave narrative for a Hollywood film in 2021... the wider story is a scathing critique of religious extremism and dogma gone too far. The Fremen go full Jihad in the name of Paul Atreides, who is (very literally, as they sort of covered in this film) a false messiah... with the entire Fremen civilisation having been manipulated into a belief system surrounding him by the Bene Gesserit. tl;dr the Fremen are desert-dwelling religious zealots and "freedom fighters" ... and they're framed as the good guys.

I wonder how long they'll keep the series going? It descends into quite "hard" sci-fi in the later novels and the story spans thousands of years. Although also... regarding Jason Momoa...

Spoiler:

For those who thought he died awful quickly in this for such a currently big-name actor, Duncan Idaho does still continue to play a big part in the saga. He wouldn't be in Dune Part 2 (though I suspect they'll find a way to include him, maybe flashbacks or visions) but after the first Dune novel, he does return, as a "ghola" or "ghost" (essentially, his body was recovered and cloned) who has been sent by some not-very-nice people as an assassin to kill Paul... but Paul manages to restore his memory so he is, effectively, resurrected. If they do make a trilogy I expect this to happen early in the 3rd movie. It's possible they'll rewrite that part and have him sent in Dune Part 2, maybe cloned by the Harkonnens (House Harkonnen has already fallen by the time he reappears in the books).