I went to see Dune Part Two in the movie theater, to catch all the epic sfx. I came out wishing that I hadn't bothered.
I'd rather liked Part One, and I'd enjoyed other Villeneuve movies, so I figured I'd give this a try. I should have paid more attention to my general stricture against sequels, and to the fact that, when I read the book long ago I'd liked the first half a lot more than the second half.
I didn't like the long draggy plot that wandered on and didn't get much of anywhere until it gathered up its skirts in anticipation of the ending. I didn't like the murky colors, the bulk of the movie being either in black-and-white or in such drab coloring that it might as well have been black-and-white. I didn't like the booming sound effects and/or music. I didn't like the mumbling unintelligibility of most of the dialogue underneath that, except for lines in the Fremen language which I could follow because there were subtitles. I didn't like the way Paul kept disavowing any interest in ruling the people but acting as if that was his intention. (The only character I could identify with was Chani.) I didn't like having to get up in the middle to visit the restroom, and I liked even less that the guy in the middle of the same row had to get up about six times. I didn't like the way the plot didn't come to a stopping point, but ushered in the entirely different plot of the next movie, which I'm certainly not going to see.
In fact, the only thing I did like was that I didn't have to see the previous movie again in order to follow what was going on. I remembered what I needed to know well enough.
Of course Dune Part 2 isn't a sequel, no more than The Two Towers is a sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring. Dune Part 2 is just the continuation of what could have been a single 5-hour film.
ReplyDeleteWhy some people may not like it as much, I think, is that it focuses almost entirely on the insular Fremen culture. In Part 2, we don't really get a lot of the stuff that made Part 1 so interesting — Caladan, Kaitan, Salusa Secundus, the Bene Geserit, and not even *very* much Giedi Prime, except for the black-and-white sequence you mentioned. And as you say, a side effect of this is that the color scheme is drab and monochromatic indeed. (Though, for others, like Villeneuve himself, the protracted focus on the Fremen is the whole point of making the films in the first place.)
Jason