Roundtable: Dune (2021)

Aren: I love Frank Herbert’s Dune. It’s my favourite novel and I sing its praises wherever I can. So it would be an understatement to say that I was highly anticipating Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation. On the August episode of 3 Brothers Filmcast, I mentioned that it was my most anticipated movie of the fall and that I was hopeful that it would finally be the faithful adaptation I had been waiting for my whole life. (If no one ended up making one, I had always dreamed of making one myself, but that’s a whole other story.) So I’m very happy to say Villeneuve’s film basically lives up to my high hopes. I think it’s marvellous and I’m surprised it turned out so well.

What did you guys think? What’s your first impression on Dune—or Dune: Part One, if we’re being pedantic?

First Impressions and Expectations

Anders: It’s as good as I could have hoped, to be honest. I liked it a lot.

I’ve read Dune a couple times: back when I was a teenager and also a year or so ago in anticipation of its initial release date in 2020. I’m a fan of the book, but I’m by no means a Dune expert. As far as I’m concerned it is about as “faithful” an adaptation that you’re likely to get, taking into account interpretation and the necessity of changing things for cinema. I was thrilled to see iconic scenes play out on screen.

It’s the return of large-scale science fiction storytelling in a way that we haven’t seen in a few years—since Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, perhaps, in 2017—and like Villeneuve’s other film this one is taking the risk of adapting a work that both has a lot of fans and is not exactly an easy sell. So, it’s a real accomplishment. I don’t think a person can take that away from this film.

Anton: Aren, you aren’t being pedantic. It’s actually crucial for general audiences that the film sets out that this is only the first part in a multi-part story. But we can talk more about that later.

I’m mostly with you guys: I like Dune a lot too. I found the visual and sound design and the production to be stunning, often arresting, and sometimes disturbing. It’s a deep, powerful, and affecting cinematic experience, and the emphasis of my praise is on the experience of the film. The music and sound effects in particular were incredible. The whole audio dimension was one of the best I’ve experienced in an IMAX theatre, and many of the landscape and spaceship shots were stunning to behold. 

I’m still working through my response to the movie as a whole—its narrative, its portrayal of the characters, and its adaptation of the novel. I read the novel in high school, loved it, and just started rereading the novel a couple weeks before seeing the movie. (But I haven’t read all the sequel novels, like you, Aren.) So I’m still working through a lot of thoughts and expectations and personal interests in regards to the movie, since it’s something I’ve been invested in for years.

I feel something like I did after first seeing The Fellowship of the Ring—20 years ago!—back in December 2001. (Although I’m a much more knowledgeable and dedicated Tolkien aficionado than Dune fan, I should note.) 

To sum up, I’m blown away by much of what I saw on screen. I’m thrilled by some of the visual and audio realizations of the book, and by the film’s scope and grandeur. But I’m unsure about and still assessing the movie as an adaptation.

Anders: Yes, the Fellowship of the Ring comparison was the one that I made after we walked out of the theatre, and so it's appropriate that Dune is coming 20 years later. While I’m not a stickler for narrative fidelity in adaptations—one of my favourite films of the last 20 years, one that I wrote about on this site, is Children of Men, which is significantly different in key ways from P.D. James’s book—Dune should satisfy most fans of the book in its realization of the story and world.

Anton: “Should” meaning you expect it will or that you think they ought to be satisfied? Ha ha.

Anders: Both.

Anton: I think a second viewing is a must, particularly to work out my view of the adaptation, but I haven’t been able to see it again yet.

It’s an interesting movie in terms of expectations, for both fans of the book and folks who’ve just been waiting for the movie to appear after seeing trailers over a couple years at this point. It’s been a long time coming out, and I think that colours my reaction.

Aren: I think there was a bit of trepidation in anticipation of the film, especially when the trailers came out, which made it seem action heavy. 

Anton: Just to clarify: Do you mean you had these concerns, or are you summing up some of the online reaction?

Aren: I’m summarizing some of the takes out there, but we even talked about this on the podcast and I certainly thought the trailers were a little too conventional Hollywood blockbuster in terms of tone and emphasis on action. But I also remember that this was the case with the trailers for Blade Runner 2049, which seemed to promise an action film, and the one we got was way stranger and slower. A similar thing happened with Dune. The film is slow paced and methodical in laying out this magnificent world 8,000 years in the future.

Anders: That’s exactly the comparison I made!

Anton: We keep stealing your points and using them before you. Ha ha. Story of this Roundtable, Anders. 

Anders: Ha. But in all seriousness, because Blade Runner 2049 turned out so masterfully, I was less concerned this time. I kind of figured that the trailers were trying to sell this odd film to mainstream audiences, but that Villeneuve would try to do something different from just another space opera.

And that’s what the film delivers! Scale. An immersive onscreen world. Beautiful and bizarre production design. Even the cast delivers in my opinion.

Anton: I’ll admit, I was somewhat less keen about the trailers than either of you.

Anders: Well, like I said, it’s not that I was keen on the trailers, but I wasn’t about to let them condition my response to the film.

Aren: Turning back to the film itself, I think the first thing that stood out is the scale. This is an enormous movie, both narratively and in terms of visuals and sounds. The shots in this film are wide and imposing, with characters mere specks in the frame. Villeneuve spends so much time paying attention to the size of things with his camera. Just think of that first image of the ramp coming down from the ship carrying the Herald of the Change, with the huge carpet and all the strange Guild Navigators and members of the Imperial Court. It’s enormously wide and opulent, transposing a kind of Baroque magnificence to the Space Age.

Anton: For sure. That’s a stunning shot and the scale also lept out at me when viewing the film.

I think Villeneuve’s use of scale also contributes to how the film makes space travel wondrous. There are no shots of spaceships racing around in combat, as in Star Wars; instead, Villeneuve uses scale to generate wonder.

Nolan similarly does this a number of times in Interstellar, where we see the tiny spaceship moving slowly, like a tiny speck against Jupiter.

Aren: The building design, whether the palace in Arrakeen or the Baron’s castle on Giedi Prime, borrows a lot from mid-20th century Brutalism and neo-imperial architecture, with columns and grand facades and an emphasis on hard corners and thick walls. The spaceships recall those in Villeneuve’s Arrival with their smooth surfaces and mysterious propulsion systems. Villeneuve does so much to make us pay attention to how the world of the film is new and strange and immersive. It’s engrossing.

Anders: I’m glad you mentioned Arrival, because that’s a film that sometimes gets overlooked (even though it was a Best Picture nominee!) when talking about Villeneuve’s science fiction output. But yes, there’s a scale to the ships in that film that presages some of the ships in Dune, as well as the nature of the story, with its visions of the future and central character drawn into something larger than himself.

Anton: Would you say these are the kinds of visuals that can really only be appreciated on a big screen? I mean, I can’t imagine noticing some of the details on an iPhone. The scale of the ships are too big in comparison to the people, or the smaller cruisers exiting them.

I saw it on one of those smaller IMAX screens, but it was still amazing, and I’m recommending to friends to seek out the biggest screen possible to appreciate this movie.

Anders: Yes, we saw the film on a smaller multiplex IMAX at the Kitchener, Ontario Landmark Cinemas. It’s not the full 1.43:1 ratio that a full size IMAX has, like you might find in a science centre, but it’s larger and squarer than the typical widescreen projection you will find in most theatres today. And it was well worth the extra cost. If you’re going to see this thing, see it on the biggest screen you can.

I should also mention the sound, since the IMAX sound is incredibly immersive. But for those with sensory sound issues, I’ll note that even if it’s not sustained, in moments Dune might have been the loudest film I’ve heard in theatres since Dunkirk.

Aren: I saw it in proper IMAX at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and much of the film was shot in the full IMAX 1.43:1 floor-to-ceiling format, which certainly helped with the immersive aspect, but I imagine it works well in any format. It’s not like watching Lawrence of Arabia at home detracts from its magnificence. It’s simply better on the big screen in 70mm. We all agree that theatrical is better, but it’s not the only way to appreciate a great movie.

Anton: I don’t think I agree with that. Most of us, of our generation, just haven’t had the chance to experience Lawrence on the big screen, and even if we have, our first experience would typically be on TV.

Aren: But isn’t Lawrence of Arabia your favourite movie? Are you really telling me that every single time you’ve seen the film, you’ve seen some diminished version of it? Or is it simply that seeing it on the big screen would be better, as is the case with almost every single film ever made?

Anton: I think with Lawrence I never knew what I wasn’t getting until I saw it restored on 70 mm, and that was never really an option for most of my life. But yes, I loved it before that. 

And that’s possible for Dune too. It doesn’t mean the experience will be ruined by the small screen. But it’s not the same experience. I don’t know if I would love Interstellar as much as I do if my first experience hadn’t been on the IMAX at Scotiabank.

Anders: Counterpoint: I was cooler on Interstellar on my initial viewing, and it’s only over repeat viewings that it’s grown into one of my favourite films of the last decade. It’s not only the visuals that work so well in that film, and I feel Dune has enough to generate interest beyond the theatrical experience.

Anton: Nevertheless, I do think some of the reactions we are describing to Dune wouldn’t be duplicated if you see this first—and I think that first experience is crucial—on the small screen, or, heaven forbid, an iPad or some device. I’m not saying Dune can’t have a great life on home viewing, but I do think it’s clearly made for the big screen, despite the HBO Max release. But I fear I’m returning to my hobbyhorse of lambasting the streaming world…

Anders: And yet, for a significant portion of the American viewing audience at least, Dune is being first encountered on a home theatre or streaming device via HBO Max. Does that conversely explain some of the more lukewarm responses I’ve seen online? Do these things correlate? Probably mostly speculation at this point.

Audience Reception and Emotional Response

Aren: It’s probably not wise to read too much into opening night screenings, but if the audience I saw the film with is any indication of the reaction of the general viewing public—and the film’s A- Cinemascore indicates it might be—people are very into Dune. For instance, I noticed how the theatre was almost entirely silent during the screening. People didn’t look at their phones, which is a sad rarity these days, and no one wanted to eat their popcorn. In the overwhelming silent stretches, such as whenever we see space travel, people simply watched in silence. Everyone was rapt. It also helps that the sound in the film is amazing. Only the movies of Christopher Nolan can match Dune in terms of pure volume, and I personally think Dune does a better job of not burying the dialogue and voiceover in the sound mix of music and effects.

Anton: I had a friend text me saying how much he liked the film, and he’s not even someone who has read the books. It’s rare that I receive that sort of message about a movie these days.

Aren: I also want to relate another anecdote from after the screening of the film, which may put more proof to my idea that Dune is working its magic on audiences. I was riding the infamous escalator down at Scotiabank Theatre and a lady behind me was crying while trying to talk to her husband. Whenever she tried to get a phrase out, she’d break down again. Finally, she was able to mutter, “I just don’t understand how humans made that,” before crying again. She was overwhelmed. I understand the emotional reaction to the film, even if it’s not the typical kind of emotional catharsis that people may associate with tears.

Anton: So you would say you had a profound emotional experience watching the movie, Aren? 

Aren: I did, but not in the sense the movie made me cry or anything like that. As I said, it’s not quite a film to weep over because it’s not manufactured to get that kind of catharsis out of an audience. It’s not melodrama. Denis Villeneuve is not James Cameron and this isn’t Titanic. But I was emotionally overwhelmed by the film because of the strangeness and grandiosity of the vision. I felt transported to another world and transfixed by the virtuosity of what I was seeing. It’s an emotional experience similar to the one I have when I visit great landmarks around the world. For instance, I didn’t cry when I visited Machu Picchu, but I was stunned by the experience and left in awe of the ruins on the Andean mountain top. Dune did something similar to me. It’s emotional, even if it’s not emotional in the narrow melodramatic sense that modern critics seem to restrict the definition to.

Anton: Yes, you are getting at something important: our emotional reactions to art can’t be restricted to “feelings,” as we typically understand them. Emotional reaction to art isn’t just about feeling sadness, happiness, etc.

For me, this was definitely an intense experience, I got totally into it and it sweeped me up in the narrative. I’m definitely more pleased with Dune than with the new Bond, No Time to Die. It’s probably the best experience I’ve had at the movies since at least Tenet. It delivers on what you want out of a big screen adventure. It’s escapism, in the true rather than pejorative sense of the word. I really felt transported to a different place.

Your anecdote reminds me of people after Interstellar opening night on the IMAX, and someone was crying into a phone, basically telling a friend they just had to go see this movie. So, even if I’m not there, it seems to be producing an intense reaction in some audience members, which is great.

How about you, Anders? What was your emotional reaction, and do you anticipate that this is going to really connect with audiences?

Anders: I think the emotion comes from the immersion in another world, in whether you allow yourself to be drawn in and engage with this world that is so different in so many ways from our own, and yet strangely familiar in its story of warring factions and exploitation of resources and indigenous populations. I think that the aforementioned scale of the film does some of the work of allowing people to be drawn in, and so the filmmaking and the narrative impact are wedded in a really great way where the grand visuals and scale don’t distract, but are integral to the whole.

Dune isn’t a particularly emotional story, if by emotional we mean demonstrative and melodramatic in the kind of way people are accustomed to. But it is grand in terms of the range of experiences the characters are having, and the viewer gets to participate in that if they allow themselves.

The operative concept here is, I think, the sublime. I think that’s what you’re describing Aren, in your comparison to something like Machu Picchu—and the failure of the woman on the escalator to put it into words and attribute the film to human agency supports this. The sublime is the sense of awe and overwhelming beauty that also has a danger to it. It’s like a mountain. Or a massive wave. If a kilometre-long sandworm emerging from the desert isn’t sublime, I don’t know what is.

Anton: Yes, exactly! I’m glad you are bringing up the sublime, which is the perfect word to describe Dune.

Anders: Sadly, I think our culture today is distrustful of the sublime, since it has associations with the kind of capital-r Romantic tradition and a sense of grandeur that has the potential for danger. So, I’m not surprised if some reject it as cold and surface-level, even if I think that’s a short-sighted and incomplete view of the film and Herbert’s story.

We keep circling back to this sense of scale, and the vertiginous effect of the big objects, but I think it’s also present in the story’s scale of thousands of years and how all of that gets filtered through this one young man. Perhaps I’m reading my own knowledge of the rest of the novel and some of the details that the film can’t completely fill-in, but for me it’s profoundly affecting, even if it’s less conventionally emotional and perhaps the opposite: it generates almost a kind of disassociation that is quite overwhelming at times. I think Villeneuve did something similar in Blade Runner 2049 as well. But he’s hardly cold. Few films make me weep like Arrival does, but that’s not what Dune’s going for. Water is too precious to waste in tears on Arrakis, but that doesn’t mean we’re not moved.

As a Movie and as an Adaptation

Anton: As I said earlier, my response to Dune does remind me of my response to The Lord of the Rings films. Dune also depicts a highly elaborate, very detailed fictional universe, and it requires a certain command to get on screen. And I think Villeneuve did that. Like Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, the Dune team achieves a comprehensible, unique, realistic if at the same time deeply strange world on screen.

But, just as I don’t love everything Jackson changes about Lord of the Rings, that doesn’t mean he didn’t make great movies. And I think the same holds for Dune. There are changes I don’t love, but it works.

Of course, in terms of dialogue and such, you have to simplify and condense when adapting to film. Anders is right. They get most of that right. I’m trying to think if there was anything urgently lacking.

For instance, I do think Dr. Yueh’s betrayal was sort of underplayed, partly because the character doesn’t get much time on screen. The book outright spoils the betrayal with the encyclopedia entries relating the history at the start of each chapter, but, like other famous betrayals, expecting it almost deepens the tragedy—I’m thinking of Judas in Jesus stories, for comparison. But the novel also has great scenes of tension where Yueh is talking to characters such as Jessica, and internally he’s just dying to tell her but he still doesn’t. 

How does your view of the adaptation compare? Does anything stand out or rankle you?

Anders: I agree that Yueh’s betrayal is the most condensed aspect. As you note, in the book it plays out as this kind of inevitable tragedy, but in the film it’s slightly elided or passed over.

However, the film does a good job of including just enough exposition and information to explain things without getting bogged down. For example, recall in the book that the opening chapter is Paul’s trial with the Gom Jabbar, but in the film this scene occurs much later. The film spends more time establishing the world before it plunges us into some of the really strange bits. It reorders things to make them less off-putting, mitigating some of the narrative risks that Herbert takes in his book.

Aren: It’s an effective streamlining of an admittedly complicated narrative. Such a decision obviously means you lose out on some of the complexity of the plotting, but I think it’s necessary to make sure audiences who aren’t familiar with the text can follow the story. And the movie succeeds in this respect, even without an expositional overload. I’m impressed by how efficiently they convey exposition through the visuals and small elements such as the “filmbooks,” which sound like old 1950s encyclopedia recordings. Of course, this means there are some things from the book that don’t make it to the movie.

For instance, we miss a lot of the palace intrigue in the novel, the bits with the other members of the Imperium and Landsraad, with Count Fenrig and other court manipulators. This reduces some of the aristocratic flavour of the novel as well as the conspiracy elements. We also don’t get the plot about the Harkonnens trying to make Duke Leto think Jessica is their spy, so we never have drunken Duncan Idaho disparaging her and all the heated emotions and second-guessing that happens among the heroes. In general, the timeline seems a tad truncated, as in the movie it seems like right after the Atreides take over Arrakis, the Harkonnens invade again. In the novel, it’s many months before that happens. It’s hard to make time felt in a 155-minute movie.

As well, Frank Herbert is famous for using italics to portray the thoughts of characters in his novels. You can’t do that in a film without making it confusing (see David Lynch’s Dune for proof) so we obviously miss out on those highly subjective views of the characters’ internal lives and observations. 

Anders: I can only imagine how people would have reacted to Terrence Malick-style voiceover narration.

Anton: As with the Yueh scenes I noted above, the novel’s offering of different internal perspectives is one of its defining features. If George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels have chapters framed around a particular character’s point of view, Herbert shifts between points of view sometimes within a chapter, using italics to denote a character’s internal thoughts.

The film cannot duplicate that sort of internal depths and quick shifts in subjectivity that a novel can, but it’s not even trying to. For instance, it avoids the sort of character narration reflecting thoughts that Lynch even tried playing with in his movie’s adaptation. I’m not sure that element in Lynch’s adaptation is as bad as you suggest, Aren.

Certainly there’s some dramatic condensing and the addition of some action scenes, but this is common to all Hollywood productions and every Dune adaptation has had the challenge of translating a very dense, complicated, layered novel to the screen. I think it’s probably the best adaptation so far, even if certain narrative aspects are perhaps handled better in John Harrison’s 2000 TV miniseries—but that work seriously fails in comparison in terms of rendering the strange world on screen.

In spite of these criticisms, however, my summary view is that this movie works. I don’t understand the “It doesn’t make sense” crowd. I thought they kept the storyline bare enough but at the same time, some disorientation is part of the point. Strangeness and bewilderment is intentional throughout this movie.

That said, a prestige TV show which would give the time for more intrigue would be a cool approach. Maybe for a sequel. 

However, there’s just something about the Villenueve atmosphere I love. In all his movies.

Aren: They are doing a companion HBO series called The Sisterhood, about the Bene Gesserit, but I don’t believe they’re going to be overlapping with the films directly. I have often thought that a Game of Thrones approach to Dune would probably be best. But that being said, you’d lose out on the immersive aspect that comes with the cinematic approach. Dune truly transports you to another world. I’m not sure it’d be the same producing it for the small screen with the inevitable lower budget and different approach to the visuals, with conventional coverage and more close-ups. With all adaptations, you always gain something and lose something. It’s inevitable.

Anton: Absolutely. The achievement of this film is cinematic. The experience. On the mega screen.

Aren: We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention that it’s only the first two-thirds of the novel. I think it’s a smart choice, so the story can take its time instead of rushing. Inevitably, it doesn’t end on the most climactic moment, such as the fall of Arrakis or Duncan Idaho’s sacrifice, but it is the natural break in the novel, as Paul and Jessica disappear into the desert with the Fremen.

I also have to point out that the bisecting approach to the narrative is not new. Frank Herbert originally published Dune as two separate serials in Analog Magazine. The first, entitled Dune World, was published in three parts in late 1963. The second, The Prophet of Dune, was published in five parts through early 1965. This approach has been done before, by Herbert himself.

The Visual and Audio Achievement

Anton: We need to unpack the technical achievement of the film more, since so much of its impact is due to that.

Aren: The Dune sound mix is probably the most impressive I’ve heard in forever. The way they do “The Voice” is just insanely effective. As well, I love how deliberately weird some of the sounds are in the movie. There’s the scene on Salusa Secundus, the Sardaukar planet, where there’s the weird guy on the giant pillar who is directing all the soldiers with strange guttural rhythmic sounds. It’s discombobulating. The Sardaukar in general were creeping people out at my screenings.

Anders: Oh yeah, I want more of that kind of stuff. The film is not afraid to be deeply weird in a way that even George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels don’t quite go.

Anton: Christopher Nolan says he thought the special effects were particularly stunning and seamless, and I think I agree. It’s hard to point to any moment and say, that’s CGI, that’s a green screen, that’s a location shot, that’s a model. I think this approach is the right kind for these sorts of movies. Total reliance on green screen is still telling. Shooting on actual desert locations was necessary.

And the lighting is amazing. Do you guys want to speak to that specific aspect of the cinematography? I feel like the control of shadow and colour palettes is amazing.

Aren: I’ve actually thought a lot about the lighting and the limited use of colours. While I can understand people’s desire to see more colour in movies these days, especially big-scale blockbusters, I don’t think a technicolour approach would’ve been appropriate for Dune. For one, Villeneueve loves to use shadows and there are some striking silhouettes in this film, such as when Duncan Idaho returns to the Duke’s palace on Caladan and meets with Paul for the first time. As well, the film incorporates the colours of sand into its palette, so I’m not sure a frenzy of bright blues and reds would be all that fitting alongside the undulating shades of gold and brown. I tend to want more colour in my films, but the use of shadows and limited colours worked very nicely for me here.

Anders: I know some people like to disparage Hans Zimmer, but I thought his score was very good, incorporating elements of chant and instrumentation from Islamic traditions, much as Herbert incorporates elements of that culture in writing his book. Also, Zimmer knows how to play the deep bass notes that rattle your insides and help really sell that sublime, bodily reaction to the scale. Especially in IMAX sound.

Anton: Well, I love Zimmer, I love the momentum he builds up in his scores, particularly here the way the score keeps building to the solo female voice’s releasing cry. I think it works great.

Final Thoughts

Anders: I just really need Part Two. I was very concerned that we wouldn’t get it, since this isn’t a Lord of the Rings situation where they were filmed in one big go.

Aren: Yes. I’m so glad we’re getting Dune: Part Two. If we weren’t, I’d be so enraged, to the point that it’d almost spoil the pleasures of the film, which are many. But the fact that we have more to look forward to is encouraging. Dune is a special movie that I think could become a classic, so I’m glad other people (and the studio itself) are thinking the same.

Anton: I also appreciate that what we’ve received is a big strange sci-fi adaptation that seems less concerned about simply building a new franchise than most similar films these days. Even though we are getting Part Two and The Sisterhood, the film, and the filmmakers, seem focused more on creating a unique experience than on generating a never-ending property. I really appreciate that.

Dune (2021, USA)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve; written by John Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth, based on the novel by Frank Herbert; starring Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem.

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