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primeidealI first read Dune when I was pretty young and going through a "read lots of classic SF" stage. My mom had read it long before and was like, "there's so much dust. No water. Only dust, they have to recycle their urine and stuff. Gross." So I read it and my memory was, "look, there's not only dust, there's also political intrigue!"
Then, at Capclave last month, I saw a used copy on the freebie table, and was like, "hmm, new movie coming out, I barely remember the book, apparently it was one of the inspirations behind 'Crying Suns' which I'm really into right now...I'll snag it." And read 100 pages.
I really enjoyed Blade Runner 2049, and while I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" Arrival exactly, I felt feelings from it. (Some of my linguistics nerd buddies were not impressed with the way the alien linguistics came across there, but I was fine with it.) So I had high expectations for another Denis Villeneuve SF movie. I don't live within walking distance of a movie theater so I had to rideshare over, definitely for the first time since the pandemic.
And, it was fine? Pretty, nice cinematography, but...fine?
The book has a lot of third-person omniscient narrative. Or else, rotating between lots of people's heads in the same scene. But a lot of it is exposition that feels difficult to adapt to screen. For instance, an important scene early on is when Paul is putting his hand in the pain box and trying to resist pain by mentally reciting a litany. That's...not really something that translates well to film. But the choice the film made was to have Jessica outside the door, terrified for her son, knowing what he's going through because she went through the same thing, reciting the litany out loud. That worked for me!
But a lot of the movie dialogue felt pretty clunky/exposition-y. Do we have any idea why the Harkonnens and Atreides hate each other until that thing the Baron says later on about "ah yes, the endless war"? Like, the book wasn't much better, but it at least established the vendetta.
I don't think Paul is necessarily "problematic" as a character, but there's a narrative danger with having so much be "well here are my visions, and now they must play out, just as the prophecy foretold." (This is still an issue in the book, but not as much, at least in what I've seen so far.) The movie prologue from the Fremen POV felt unnecessary. I know that the Fremen are often cited as an influence in the Aiel from WoT, I haven't seen enough of them yet to get much of a vibe. But revisiting WoT has made me skeptical of the "but we must, because prophecy" undertones.
I was warned that the movie just kind of ended abruptly, and I think there were several places where it could have ended and made just as much sense. The Fremen at the end felt rushed--like we didn't know enough about them to establish how Jessica and Paul went from being accepted to not-really-accepted. (Actually, the "win a fight with us and now you're one of us! at least until you're not..." reminded me more of the Outskirters from Steerswoman since I just read that, and Fletcher.)
Back to the difficulties of "there is no free will, everything is predetermined/planned out by higher powers, well what the bleep are we doing here then..." I can see how Crying Suns draws both from this and Foundation in this regard. (I haven't seen the new Foundation series and probably won't.)
With Arrival, the twist at the end is at least a twist to us, if not the characters, it makes us interpret everything we've seen so far in a different way. In the original short story "Story of Your Life," we know right from the beginning that there's something very weird going on with this narrator's relationship to past and future, so there isn't that "twist" sense and it feels less affecting for me. (But it might be because I watched the movie first, I think often I have the experience where the first version of a fictional world I engage with is better than the ones I do later, no matter what order they were created/adapted in.) Dune (and the Foundation books) feel closer to "Story of Your Life." Crying Suns, at least the sense of futility is just some (powerful) characters' opinion rather than actually screwing with the chronology too much.
Kynes is definitely the Lisan al-Gaib/offworld prophet, right? At least in the movie canon?
Gurney's depiction in the movie was great, comic-relief wise.
I'll probably finish the book, but IDK when, I am procrastinating on many things.
Then, at Capclave last month, I saw a used copy on the freebie table, and was like, "hmm, new movie coming out, I barely remember the book, apparently it was one of the inspirations behind 'Crying Suns' which I'm really into right now...I'll snag it." And read 100 pages.
I really enjoyed Blade Runner 2049, and while I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" Arrival exactly, I felt feelings from it. (Some of my linguistics nerd buddies were not impressed with the way the alien linguistics came across there, but I was fine with it.) So I had high expectations for another Denis Villeneuve SF movie. I don't live within walking distance of a movie theater so I had to rideshare over, definitely for the first time since the pandemic.
And, it was fine? Pretty, nice cinematography, but...fine?
The book has a lot of third-person omniscient narrative. Or else, rotating between lots of people's heads in the same scene. But a lot of it is exposition that feels difficult to adapt to screen. For instance, an important scene early on is when Paul is putting his hand in the pain box and trying to resist pain by mentally reciting a litany. That's...not really something that translates well to film. But the choice the film made was to have Jessica outside the door, terrified for her son, knowing what he's going through because she went through the same thing, reciting the litany out loud. That worked for me!
But a lot of the movie dialogue felt pretty clunky/exposition-y. Do we have any idea why the Harkonnens and Atreides hate each other until that thing the Baron says later on about "ah yes, the endless war"? Like, the book wasn't much better, but it at least established the vendetta.
I don't think Paul is necessarily "problematic" as a character, but there's a narrative danger with having so much be "well here are my visions, and now they must play out, just as the prophecy foretold." (This is still an issue in the book, but not as much, at least in what I've seen so far.) The movie prologue from the Fremen POV felt unnecessary. I know that the Fremen are often cited as an influence in the Aiel from WoT, I haven't seen enough of them yet to get much of a vibe. But revisiting WoT has made me skeptical of the "but we must, because prophecy" undertones.
I was warned that the movie just kind of ended abruptly, and I think there were several places where it could have ended and made just as much sense. The Fremen at the end felt rushed--like we didn't know enough about them to establish how Jessica and Paul went from being accepted to not-really-accepted. (Actually, the "win a fight with us and now you're one of us! at least until you're not..." reminded me more of the Outskirters from Steerswoman since I just read that, and Fletcher.)
Back to the difficulties of "there is no free will, everything is predetermined/planned out by higher powers, well what the bleep are we doing here then..." I can see how Crying Suns draws both from this and Foundation in this regard. (I haven't seen the new Foundation series and probably won't.)
With Arrival, the twist at the end is at least a twist to us, if not the characters, it makes us interpret everything we've seen so far in a different way. In the original short story "Story of Your Life," we know right from the beginning that there's something very weird going on with this narrator's relationship to past and future, so there isn't that "twist" sense and it feels less affecting for me. (But it might be because I watched the movie first, I think often I have the experience where the first version of a fictional world I engage with is better than the ones I do later, no matter what order they were created/adapted in.) Dune (and the Foundation books) feel closer to "Story of Your Life." Crying Suns, at least the sense of futility is just some (powerful) characters' opinion rather than actually screwing with the chronology too much.
Kynes is definitely the Lisan al-Gaib/offworld prophet, right? At least in the movie canon?
Gurney's depiction in the movie was great, comic-relief wise.
I'll probably finish the book, but IDK when, I am procrastinating on many things.
no subject
Date: 11/3/21 04:41 pm (UTC)I probably won't see this movie until it's available streaming. I don't really have any interest in "Dune, but simplified for the visual medium"
no subject
Date: 11/3/21 09:28 pm (UTC)The appeal of the big-screen was part of the draw for me, but in this case the cinematography wasn't the end-all, be-all.