Dune: Filled With Life, Yet So Empty
From IGN.com
By Nick M. W.
Dennis Villeneuve’s new version of the old sci-fi epic, is all setup and no payoff.
Director Dennis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario), and cinematographer Greg Fraser (The Batman, Rogue One, Zero Dark Thirty) created a fantastic visual adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel, or at least part of it. Dune looks amazing, and the far off worlds featured in the film feel authentic. It has a big cast of well-known and talented thespians who shine in each of their performances, but it felt like an empty experience by the time the credits rolled.
This feeling goes beyond the way Villeneuve and Fraser chose to compose and shoot this film. Villeneuve has a knack for making simple visuals seem epic, as he showed in Blade Runner 2049. That film relied more on the presentation of the forms of buildings and landscapes on a grand scale. Both Blade Runner 2049 and Dune share subdued designs and color palettes that shy away from vibrancy.
No, it wasn’t this film’s visual design that left me feeling empty at the end. It was the abrupt ending. Villeneuve, Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, A Star Is Born) and Jon Spaihts (Doctor Strange, Passengers) actually did a great job of dropping the audience right into a universe rich with history, filled with beings, and on the brink of war. Unpacking the political machinations and cultural traditions of each constituency and house seems to have been part of what sealed the fate of David Lynch’s 1984 version, so it seems wise that in the 2021 version, the audience is immediately immersed in the action.
If it wasn’t obvious from the jump, I’ve never read Herbert’s Dune series, and I have never survived the gauntlet that is sitting through Lynch’s version, so I was a noob entering the Dune universe. That might have been advantageous for me because I have no complaints about how Villeneuve, et. al. interpreted the characters and shaped the dialogue. However, I do think that the pace at which this story was unwound lingered, and that ultimately makes Dune and two-and-a-half-hour setup for the next movie in the series. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this movie ends and is incomplete.
I suppose I should give Villeneuve credit for leaving me wanting more, and I will return for the sequel, but he should have given us a bit more substance in the story. This could have been a matter of spending more time with House Atreides and the Harkonen, giving more weight to the tragedies that befell the former at the hands of the latter in the film’s climax. Maybe this comes at the expense of the Fremen storyline. It could be a matter of the medium, too. Adapting a six-novel epic sci-fi book series effectively in fewer than three movies might be a difficult task. Villeneuve wants to make three Dune movies, but only the 2023 “part two” has been green lit so far. Hopefully, Villeneuve will be able to fulfill his vision for Dune because the sum of each part may just be a masterpiece.
Image from Dunenovels.com
