When watching movies, I always try to differentiate between my personal enjoyment and the inherent merits of the movies. There are a lot of bad movies, which I totally and thoroughly enjoy watching, and some really great movies, which I don’t enjoy that much, but still can respect/appreciate.
With this prelude, I totally do not get the positive reactions to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies. At the time I am writing this question, part two has 94% critique and 95% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes, 9.0 at IMDB.
In my opinion, Dune 1 and Dune 2 have obviously high production values and good special effects. What I do not like is the acting, the pacing, the total flat/simple characters and the whole narration, which is for me a trivial love story between Chani and Paul, plus becoming a leader and get some revenge. I could simply replace the ‘Dune’ theme with a standard war theme and a few tribes, and I would have exactly the same movie. Also the battle scenes at the end of part 2, they are for me totally cookie cutter war movie/battle aesthetics. (Total waste: There are big Sandworms after all, and combat with personal shields etc.).
My question is, especially if you very much enjoyed watching the Dune movies:
- Why did you personally enjoy the movie?
- Do you think this movies have some inherent merits?
- How do you like the acting/plot/pacing?
No, I’m in the exact same boat.
It’s an absolutely stellar production of a completely mid story set in an amazing world, which is ignored in favor of the blandest character-drama-chosen-one-lovers-of-destiny drivel.
I can’t stand it. I went back to Trigun for my desert sci-fi fix.
Some people are able to enjoy just the cinematography and world building, with the story and characters serving as mere excuses to explore those other things. And they are done exceptionally well here, which I think is impressing a lot of people.
And a lot of people really never think past surface level aspects when it comes to writing. Anyone can tell when the acting or CG is bad, but a lot of people can only tell that the writing is bad, when it goes from good to bad within the same production (Game of Thrones). If it’s bad from the start, most people don’t care. If something is cool, loud, pretty, dramatic, or shiny enough, it is able to entertain.
And I’m not even saying that’s wrong. Different things are important to different people, both creators and readers/watchers etc.
We all have that one thing we enjoy for all the wrong reasons. In the same way some things can be widely popular, and still not hit home for some of us for all the wrong reasons.
Thank you very much for your reply and the ‘Trigun’ tip!
I was not too impressed by the cinematography, the pictures are nice, but nothing compared to the like of ‘Drive’ (… and Drive has basically no story, but I will enjoy it from time for time for its beautiful cinematography and soundtrack), ‘Pan’s labyrinth’ or the first season of True Detective.
Very much agree with all you write, though.
It’s funny because it’s very clear that Trigun takes extremely direct inspiration from Dune (sandworms and all), but it has a much more human lead, while still set in a world with complex and big things going on.
One big difference is that in Trigun, space travel is basically a dead technology. Though it was once commonplace.
Stampede is a prequel, and supposedly Studio Orange will make more, so you can start there if you like, instead of the much older stuff.
And for anyone reading, I should probably mention it’s a manga/anime.
Thanks, Trigun is airing on Netflix right now, looking forward to watch it!
Just a clarification, Trigun Stampede is not a prequel but is an alternate universe re-imagining of the original.
When the producers approached the creator about doing something very different from the source material, the creator mentioned that the first anime adaptation was “really excellent”, and that “anything beyond the original anime is more of a bonus time, so you could pretty much do whatever you want to with it.” They liked the idea of how, for example, there are different versions of Spider-Man in the Spider-Verse (so that the 90s Spider-Man show, Ultimate Spider-Man, etc., would all be very different from each other). This is them doing that for Vash and company.
It’s very different in a lot of ways, you can think of it as an alternate universe from the original. I would strongly recommend first time viewers watch the original anime in its entirety first and then check out Stampede if they’re itching for more of that world in a very different flavor.