Dune: Part 1 - Movie Review
What do you get when your take a visionary director and hand him the reins to adapt my favorite Sci-Fi novel of all time using a cast of some of the greatest actors who’ve ever stepped in front of a camera? Probably the greatest adaptation ever in history. Does that mean it’s a perfect film?
Let’s discuss.
Dune is a Sci-Fi epic brought to us by Writer/Director/Visionary/LivingSaint Denis Villeneuve. You may recognize his name from his masterful film Blade Runner: 2049. Which I have pretty high on my list of greatest sequels (it’s still below Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). The film centers on the boy prince Paul Atreides as he follows his father to his newly gifted fiefdom of Arakis. Arakis is a deathworld of blood and sand, but with one caveat. It is the only place in the universe that makes spice. Spice is the key to interstellar travel as well as a mystic fuel for psychic warriors and a highly intoxicating drug for the elite. Whoever rules the spice has the keys to the kingdom. Yet, all is not well with this move. The world is rife with intrigue, betrayal, and murder. Will the Atreides survive what is to come or will they fall beneath the waves of sand. Above all… The Spice must flow.
Queue the personal interlude.
I have always been tied to Dune. I grew up in the unforgiving deserts of the southwest, dreaming of visiting a beach one day. As a kid who’s family didn’t have a lot of money, it was needless to say that didn’t happen until later in life. Having no money left after my family’s economic crash and burn, we developed a past time of spending our evening at BookStar. We’d sit in the aisles or at the reading couches and just read in the peaceful quiet atmosphere. We were the regulars, hell my siblings even worked there when they were old enough. I think people took pity on us. I know the old manager did. He’d always push me towards reading something new. I was an advanced reader having read Cujo, It, and the Dead Zone by the time I was eight. He told me to try out some Sci-Fi and handed me a copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune. It was a dense paperback with font almost small enough to call for the magnifying glass. It was was too big to finish in store, so my father bought it for me. I remember taking it to my grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Morristown, Arizona. I spent a lot of summer days at Grandma’s, in the pure desert. There was no asphalt or concrete, just dirt, dust, and everything trying to kill you. I hunted rattlesnakes, caught lizards, and even had a run-in with a mountain lion. I remember reading Dune in that environment and relating to the Fremen and to Muhad’Dib on a deep emotional level. I dreamed of riding on the back of Shai-hulud away from my traumatic upbringing and burgeoning mental illness.
I tell this story to illustrate how much I love Dune. I’ve seen every adaptation and read or listened to multiple editions. It’s akin to scripture to me. It’s pained me for my entire life to see people worshipping Star Wars when it was just a direct rip-off of a greater work. Warhammer 40,000 is also such a thing, but at least the creators admitted it and paid homage.
Long-Story-Short… (Too Late)… Take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
This is fantastic adaptions for Dune fans who, like myself, know the ins and outs of the world of Herbert’s books. This is not a great movie for people who are not at least familiar with the Weirding Way, force shields / death of ranged combat, and the idea of precognition. There are little in the way of explanations for these things in the film. Which is understandable considering the burden of trying to adapt a tome as dense as Dune. The film needs to leave out the explanations as there 2 hour and 30 minute + runtime is packed to the gills with world building. Unfortunately, for the uninitiated people I watched Part 1 with, they were completely lost. I had to explain almost every scene so they understood what was happening.
Here are a few of my favorite things:
The film is beautifully shot and the cinematography is on Blue Planet levels of gorgeous. I watched it on my 82” Samsung QLED TV and it was crystal clear. The varying shades of the desert lull your eyes into a false sense of security until you see a firemen’s eyes and by then—it’s too late.
The sound design was on the same level as everything in the world had a different thump, boom, or pop. Surround sound is a must. The musical score is epic beyond compare. We’re talking Lord of the Rings level orchestral brilliance.
Timothee Chalamet’s hair deserves an Oscar. Academy, stop letting me down.
Zendaya.
Okay, this might be the best film cast ever assembled. Timothee “The Hair” Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Jason Mamoa, Javier Bardem, I mean Jesus Christ! No, he wasn’t in it, but the fact that you even asked the question shows how insane this cast is!
I think Americans will probably hate this film, much like my country hates any film that asks hard questions or strives to tell an actual story. That’s why movies like Rocky win best picture and Network doesn’t. This film is a beautiful slow burn and I loved it.
This is the greatest adaptation I’ve ever seen. Entire scenes are lifted from the book word for word. While some people may hate it for the antiquated language, much like many people hated the Witch. I think it gives a look into what could have been. If mankind had focused on science instead of Jahova or Muhammad, what could we have achieved?
Dune has always been a magnifying glass on our worlds ills. Herbert showed the evil of weaponized religion, greed, global inequality, and the wastefulness of great nations.
Watch this movie if you want to see a work of art. It has explosions, death, amazing fight scenes, and yes… Timothee Chalamet’s amazing hair, but it’s not a popcorn flick. It’s not another shitty Star Wars sequel, prequel, or spinoff. It’s the source.
Dune is currently in theaters and streaming exclusively on HBO Max.
