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Though it’s two and a half hours long, this is a bare bones, abbreviated Dune<\/em>. Much of what makes the book such a classic had to be left out — for example, the politics, including the intricate political scheming of the Bene Gesserit witches and the wickedness of House Harkonnen. The dialogue, though good, is remarkably spare. There is character development for only two of the characters — Paul Atreides and his mother, Jessica. Those who have read the book will be able to fill in the gaps. Those who haven’t read the book will become acquainted with only two parts of the Dune<\/em> story — the character Paul Atreides, and the planet Arrakis.<\/p>\n Thus the camera is often in Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet’s face, and he is a good enough actor to handle it. The deserts of Arrakis are lavishly presented as a vast sea of deep sand, sand which, when roiled by the giant worms, rolls up in massive waves and crashes against skelligs of rock like a stormy North Atlantic against the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland.<\/p>\n Though there is just enough narration at the beginning of the film to set up the plot for those who haven’t read the book, the film never tries to explain anything, leaving time to focus on: Paul Atreides and the planet Arrakis. That probably was smart. It would take many hours of cinema time to tell the full story. And since that could not be done in two and a half hours, why not do the key parts of the story well. The film ends, by the way, before the book does. No doubt there will be a sequel.<\/p>\n My only complaint about this version of Dune<\/em> is that, once again, when the film industry gives us the science fiction and fantasy blockbusters that so many of us crave, it’s stories that we already know. Part of the awesomeness of Star Wars was that it was a new story, with new faces and new characters like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. Dune<\/em> gives us an old story and the stars du jour — Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Mamoa. Must they be in everything<\/em>? The faces of familiar actors inevitably evoke memories of their recent roles, creating friction for suspension of disbelief and immersion in the story.<\/p>\n Dune<\/em> is in theaters and can be streamed on HBO Max.<\/p>\n The Washington Post here touches on my complaint about the Hollywood star system and how the same faces keep appearing in different roles in quick succession. My complaints are two: First, that our ability to lose ourselves in a story is impaired by famous familiar faces that remind us of what we just saw them in. And, second, that re-employing popular actors again and again and again deprives us of seeing brilliant new actors of the sort that Game of Thrones<\/em> introduced in droves.<\/p>\n The Washington Post story is here: Welcome to our future of omnipresent Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a>. It’s not that I have anything against Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, who is a brilliant young actor. It’s that I’d rather see Chalamet go do the stage for a while so that we can bring some new stars on line at the cinema.<\/p>\n Updated below Though it’s two and a half hours long, this is a bare bones, abbreviated Dune. Much of what makes the book such a classic had to be left out — for example, the politics, including the intricate political scheming of the Bene Gesserit witches and the wickedness of House Harkonnen. The dialogue, though … Continue reading “Dune \u2605 \u2605 \u2605”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22248"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22273,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248\/revisions\/22273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nUpdate:<\/h3>\n
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