Film Name: 沙丘 / Dune / Dune: Part One
Despite catching an early 2D screening on Friday, I’ve been dragging my feet on talking about the movie until two days later – I can’t help it, Dune is just too big, too powerful, and I can’t even brag about it.
As the originator of contemporary sci-fi & fantasy creative works, involving politics, philosophy, religion, history, humanities, aesthetics and many other abstract concepts, “Dune” is recognized by Hollywood “can not be shot” IP, such a hot meat and potatoes to the hands of recent years, Denis Villeneuve’s hands, highly respected, bursting out of an unprecedented thick and solid. This is a hot potato in the hands of Denis Villeneuve, who has been highly respected in recent years, bursting with an unprecedentedly heavy and solid vitality.
Let’s start with the conclusion: I personally loved Dune. It’s vast, beautiful, deep, and well-proportioned, and the director has written a soothing, atmospheric, and poetic sci-fi epic in his own style – at the same time, I understand that for those who don’t have a problem with it, even if you don’t take into account the basic barriers to viewing, Dune has “issues” such as dull content, controversial details, and lack of entertainment. At the same time, I understand those who don’t feel the same way about the movie, but even without considering the basic threshold, Dune suffers from “problems” such as dull content, controversial details, and a lack of entertainment, and is destined to be a polarizing film.
Like this whole slow and methodical, narrative and not a few laughs of the blockbuster, in the increasingly fast-paced, pan-entertainment market is no longer favored, and indeed rare ……, but we still need this kind of film, will always need.
[WARNING: Spoilers to follow].
As a rule, I will first talk about the “hardware” part of the film, but talk about “Dune” will certainly be different, for one thing, Villeneuve has a unique personal aesthetic style, and for another, the film’s visual effects, lenses, and other audio-visual performances have long transcended the status of a supporting role, and are directly related to the film’s narrative and the overall perception of the key elements.
When we mention Hollywood blockbusters, we often can’t get away from “special effects”, but if we watch more, we will inevitably feel that special effects are “easy to become ‘over’ and difficult to become a ‘merit’ necessary conditions”. But if you watch a lot of them, you’ll inevitably think that special effects are “a necessary condition that can easily be ‘faulty’ but not ‘successful.
Dune” is very different, a large number of desert shooting + part of the computer special effects mixed production is only the basis of the exotic flavor, it has also been restrained by the use of the corresponding lens and scene, without half a bit of show-off pompous meaning, and finally give people, always in the silence in the ground a thunderclap shock.
Take the sandworm’s several appearances as an example, the movie doesn’t give any panoramic or close-ups of his face at all, but lets him approach the audience slowly one at a time: the first time he warms up with a countdown, and then lets the sandworm reveal only a mouth; the second time, he still lets only the teeth in his mouth be seen; and it’s only in the third time that the sandworm appears in front of the protagonist at the crack of dawn.
Such a gradual progression of psychological emotions, rather than sensory stimulation, abounds in Dune, and most of the long-distance + close-up special effects sequences are similarly subdued and abrasive, before revealing themselves to be expansive and exquisitely beautiful without even realizing it.
Dune” there are even a lot of ‘meaningless’ empty shots, in order to take the sand sea as the main character to show her silent and light rhythm, the atmosphere to, how to see are enjoyable …… said that blockbusters do not lack of special effects, and ‘Dune’ with a real Dune” tells everyone what kind of gap there can be between special effects and special effects.
The sci-fi setting of the movie follows the same principle as the special effects: light on close-ups and heavy on practical effects. This is certainly a better delivery than cheap showmanship.
For example, the dragonfly-like wing fluttering aircraft, the body has the shadow of helicopters and propeller planes, the appearance and principle of movement is completely different, seems to specialize in a small number of close-ups, but the key role has not been given a little less, and interested viewers can also note that the quadruple pulse blade, communication transceivers, signal receivers and other configurations, if you out of the office will certainly be a good seller … … In addition, the distillation suit, hunting darts, crystal tooth blade and other objects are also pleasing to the eye and very much in line with the art style of the film. …In addition, the designs of the distillation suit, hunting dart, and crystal tooth blade are also pleasing to the eye and fit the art style of the movie.
Also worth mentioning is the soundtrack contributed by Hans Quartermain, which not only provides appropriate BGM for each scene (percussion for the army, sand flutes and chants for the desert, etc.), but also to a certain extent, the narrative rhythm of the movie is led by the soundtrack.
To enjoy the audiovisual experience of Dune, you may have to slow down a bit, but whether you do or not, I agree with the director’s statement that if you watch the movie on your computer or cell phone, it’s like “sailing a yacht in a bathtub”.
On to the plot, a controversial topic that I’m of the opinion that there’s some give and take, and it’s acceptable.
The two-and-a-half-hour Dune is actually only an excerpt from the first half of the first book, but even so, it cuts a lot of ground and reduces it to a “Revenge of the Prince” that anyone can understand.
This “Dune” is simple, the main forces have been compressed to only the Ereti family, the Harkonnen family, the Fremen, as well as the “Sisterhood” and the emperor who does not appear in the sauce, the film is centered on the political game between the several forces and the spice on the planet of Erakos to play a sample, and then the story is over.
In terms of building a worldview and explaining character relationships and the main plot, Dune has done its job, but what if further refinements were made? For example, the vanguard and loyal Duncan’s character background, and for example, Dr. Yue is difficult to betray the setting and the story, etc., to make it clear, then, the film is certainly more fluent and better to watch, but according to the film’s trade-offs, really can’t be everything……. If not how to say that Dune is difficult to shoot it.
In addition, the narrative of the movie is also not let a person “pain”, because it is really too not “commercial”, neither highlight the family, power or conflict between the characters, nor ink in the character of the change or growth.
Think about Paul, the main character, he is the young master of Eurydice, “the future of the family”, a member of the “Sisterhood”, a magical truth-teller, and the “son of prophecy” on the planet Dune, the savior of the Freds. The savior in the eyes of the Freds …… is not himself.
The audience basically can’t establish any emotional connection with such an unenthusiastic and impersonal teenager, and the movie’s plot is driven more by the character’s identity torn, struggle, and the abstract character’s emotions rather than concrete factual changes to advance the story, which can’t be more literate than it is.
The most typical place about this is the large number of “future flashbacks” in Paul’s dreams, which are prophecies about his future and the bonds he desperately needs to break, from the expression of the character’s predicament, it is indeed very “philosophical” and very written, but to more For those who don’t get into the movie, it’s really too tortured and baffling. ……
It can be said that Dune is an “anti-climactic” anomaly among the “blockbusters” of today’s scale, and apart from the key features mentioned above, there is very little vulgarity in its side-issues.
For example, there are few laughs in this movie. After seeing the film, my first impression was that “there’s nothing to laugh at in Dune”, but then I was reminded that there were a few atypical laughs.
Things like Leto making Goni laugh when the Eurydice are appointed, and the spitting ritual when the Fremen meet, etc., while intuitively comedic, can only be laughed at more “throughly” when one realizes that Goni, who never laughs, has an incredibly scary smile, and that the environment on Dune, where there is a desperate lack of water, and the corresponding cultural etiquette, is a very difficult place to live. ”
(There’s also a fun cast stunt in which Oscar Isaac’s Leto says he once wanted to be a flight pilot, when he was ace pilot Poe Dameron in the new Star Wars series.)
When you think about it, it’s easy to see why Dune didn’t get enough buzz. Most people go to see a blockbuster movie to relax, and even if it’s telling a serious story, it’s better to lay out what the audience needs to know rather than letting them guess.
A good example of this is the discussion about the fighting patterns in the movie, where too many viewers complained that “it’s 10,000 years later in the age of interstellar technology, and they’re still using ancient cold weapons to play arm wrestling, it’s too much bullshit”.
According to Dune’s setting, soldiers in the future world are commonly equipped with full-body shields/shielding fields that block incoming knives, bullets, and lasers, but it’s “fast, but not slow”, and can be pierced by a skillfully controlled blade, which is why everyone uses cold weapons in close combat.
Not to mention how many people will be convinced by this setting and the jittery effects in the movie, the reality is that not many of the viewers who are complaining about it are actually going to understand the setting: I spent more than two hours on the movie, and giving me an explanation that I can live with is something you should have done in the movie, and I’m supposed to do homework outside of the movie?
Of course, there are plenty of new viewers like me who haven’t seen the original movie, who have expressed enough enthusiasm for Dune, and there are also those who have gotten into the original novel ……
I’m not saying this to make peace, but to make a point: there are films with high or low thresholds, and audiences with different tastes, but there is no superiority or inferiority, except that, compared to the past when literary creation was monopolized by a few, when it was more of a matter of works picking the people, nowadays, under the environment of the sinking of the right to create, and the explosion of various kinds of works, it is more of a matter of people picking the works. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that the times have chosen to mainstream popular works of general entertainment, but please understand some of the less entertaining and popular “pseudo-mainstream” works.
It’s been said, “Watching Dune now is like watching 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968.”
Whether that’s an exaggeration or not I don’t know (not to mention that there are many people who can’t enjoy 2001: A Space Odyssey even now), but I do know that if I don’t see a movie like Dune in theaters in the future, I’m going to be beyond disappointed.
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