Denis Villeneuve is a great director, one who is not afraid to take risks, as proven by this second of part of Dune, in which he took quite some liberties with the story in the book and added a lot more flesh to the parts that Herbert paid little attention to. But in the same time he changed the meaning of the gestures some characters made. Stilgar comes off as a mindless fanatic, rather than a great friend, leader and strategist, Chani feels like a modern woman, trying to judge and control Paul's path, rather than someone completely loyal to him, the Fremen themselves just violent savages, the Bene Gesserit are given a much more deliberate agency than simply the vague future blending vision driven prophecy making mechanisms in the book and so on.
The result is something that feels like a disconnect for someone who read the books and also loves the Lynch version of the story as well. I understand what the director is trying to do: make the story more grounded, less nebulous and spiritual, and maybe the rest of the books can be adapted to something that the regular viewer can get behind. Yet so many things come off as spectacle, done for no good story reason and bringing inconsistencies in it. Like the battles, which use quick sword and knife movements that should be stopped by personal shields, the very reason why people don't use long range weapons so much, or Fremen getting into spaceships in stillsuits and knives, when they have no idea how to use them and their close range weapons are pointless. There are a lot of examples, the point I am trying to make is that while adding flesh to spectacle and world building, Villeneuve skimmed over important parts relevant to the story, like who the people really are, what drives them and their world and how technology and culture shapes how things are done. In trying to ground things for the current audience, he loses the magic, the awe brought by seeing what humanity becomes tens of thousands of years into the future.
Bottom line: great visuals, sets, decent acting, but both character and story subtlety and grandness are sacrificed on the altar of accessibility and even rationality.
The result is something that feels like a disconnect for someone who read the books and also loves the Lynch version of the story as well. I understand what the director is trying to do: make the story more grounded, less nebulous and spiritual, and maybe the rest of the books can be adapted to something that the regular viewer can get behind. Yet so many things come off as spectacle, done for no good story reason and bringing inconsistencies in it. Like the battles, which use quick sword and knife movements that should be stopped by personal shields, the very reason why people don't use long range weapons so much, or Fremen getting into spaceships in stillsuits and knives, when they have no idea how to use them and their close range weapons are pointless. There are a lot of examples, the point I am trying to make is that while adding flesh to spectacle and world building, Villeneuve skimmed over important parts relevant to the story, like who the people really are, what drives them and their world and how technology and culture shapes how things are done. In trying to ground things for the current audience, he loses the magic, the awe brought by seeing what humanity becomes tens of thousands of years into the future.
Bottom line: great visuals, sets, decent acting, but both character and story subtlety and grandness are sacrificed on the altar of accessibility and even rationality.