Dune (2021) Mixed Bag of a Movie

Good review, or criticism. I think it's fair.
But also to be fair, it is impossible to make a decent movie or even a series about Dune, so whoever and whatever they make has to be a different animal.
The 1984 movie was amazing in its conception, but as to the Harkonnens I thought it was pretty terrible, and overly grotesque, despite following the book.
I agree with what you said.

But, I don't think someone of the power to own several planets would worry about his hands being clean, unless it was a public place, and probably not even then.

Any movie you can go on and on about, Dune is a cerebral book, and as the years go by I appreciate it for what it was when I read it, but the whole idea of ornithopters being a mode of transportation is silly, and the physics of a sandworm, and every movie keeps making them bigger and bigger is pretty ridiculous. There is no way a worm could scale to that dimension and be strong enough to move through land/sand like a fish.

The ornithopter's long delicate wings simply do not scale physically like a dragonfly's wings. So, it is so absurd you just cannot take it seriously.

Where you correctly point out errors, I kind of felt good about them making choices to leave stuff out ... like spitting on Jessica's face, and the some of the Baron's psychopathic pleasures. And besides, whatever they did about Feyd Rautha it would be a distraction because of Sting's creepy role in the 1984 movie.

I just tried to enjoy it for what it was, and could do a bit of that.

It is not the book, no movie or series could possibly be. And it is not the 1984 movie, which was splendid in its opulence and the little dogs, and costumes and richness of the sets ... I think that movie got the feeling right. This series is so sparse. Instead of showing a royal opulence, everything was minimalist. It did not ring true to me.

Plus, Timothy Chalumet just does not seem like royal Prince material. He just doesn't. He is supposed to be combat trained and educated, but he looks like a dissipated American teenager.

I also did not like how they did "the voice". Another kind of silly idea from the book like the ornithopters.

> The Baron hates them perhaps even more than he hates the Atreides.

OK, but this is a world of royal intrigue and backstabbing. Do you think the Emperor likes doing deals with the Harkonnens? Everyone talked about the Bene Gesserit as being witches, but they had the respect of the Great Houses, as the Bene Tlexu??? The one that gives Duncan Idaho ( I think ) his new eyes in Dune Messiah. It's been so long I may have that wrong, but hope you get the point.

Also, I think the models of Arakken were atrocious. And Caladan was lush and fertile, not Scotland or wherever that was. The bagpipes were funny too. You just gotta try to go with it and enjoy it for what it was. Can you imagine the arguments about the tradeoffs in this movie between the producers/directors and whoever is representing the Herbert estate or the owners of the property?

I agree with both of you. It really is impossible to take such a complicated story and do justice to it in a 2.5 hour movie. A miniseries would have been much better. I suppose I was comparing Dune 2021 to Dune 1984. I felt that the 1984 story was a better story than the 2021 version, especially the long version, mainly because of too many key omissions when compared against 1984 and too many changes - some as I pointed out made zero sense.

Keeping hands clean was a serious issue because truthsayers would be able to root out any lies, which is why not doing the deed yourself was so important. They mentioned this in the thropter taking Jessica and Paul to the desert to dispose of them, so this is also cannon in the 2021 version although poorly explained.

The problem with 2021 story's is that the original plot in 1965 and 1984 was that it was simply a Corrino plot that involved the Harkonnen because they were the currrent stewards of Arakis and hated the Atreides. The Bene Gesserit and Guild were silent partners of the Emperor, not the Harkonnen. They each saw themselves above the other. The Corrinos and by extension the Sardukaur looked down their noses at the Harkonens as inferiors. Fenring basically told the Baron what would be done at the Emperor's orders and the Baron would comply or else. The Guild got involved in the plot because of a problem their seeing eye told them would occur. The real plot therefore was between the Emperor and the Harkonnen only. The Guild wanted Paul killed which the Harkonens were not involved in directly, so after the 3rd stage Navigator meeding, Eldrick I think the Navigator's name was, there was a secondary agreement between the Guild and the Emperor that Paul would die. Nothing more was mentioned because the Baron clearly was going to eliminate all of House Atreides - the Guild just wanted to make sure the Emperor got the job done correctly. There was of course mistrust everywhere. The 2021 plot as I mentioned above is something completely different from 1965 and the 1984 movie's plot and would not have occurred.