moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime) (12/19/84)
Given that I did not particularly like the book in the first place, I would
have to give DUNE a "worth-seeing" recommendation, with the qualification
that you either read the book and aren't fanatical as to how it's
interpreted (though I think they did a pretty good job), or are a scholar of
science fiction films and wish to see a new direction in the art design of
such films. I think I may have liked it because it went faster than the
book :-).
Grades:
ACTING: Varied. Plot tends to be carried too much by hearing peoples
thoughts as voice-overs. This doesn't bother me, but it is used too often,
and in places where facial mannerisms would have been much better ("My son
lives" -- yeah, Your Grace, we noticed...).
ADAPTATION: They kept most of it in, which is amazing, and I think the gist
of it got through. However, they gave it a cutey ending, like 2010: Paul
will bring peace to the galaxy. Well, yes, but only after beating the Holy
Crap out of it...
DIALOGUE: In most cases, God-Awful, even given the desperation to compress
plot. Certainly more imagination could have been used here...
PHOTOGRAPHY, PRODUCTION DESIGN, SPECIAL EFFECTS, COSTUMES:
THE reason to see the movie, at least for me. While the shots can be
mediocre at times, there are moments which are just amazing. Paul and
Jessica seeing the underground water storage areas of Arrakis; the attack on
house Attreides (sp?); the subsequent attack on the Emperor's legions (now
THAT felt like a holy war); the docking with the Guild star-traveller. The
intricate, non-functional, asthetic design of the ships appealed to me (the
inlaid trimming around the Guild ship's docking port is a good example),
because it has not popped up elsewhere. Anyway, while images like this are
on the screen, I was not bored.
CONCLUSION: Not a great movie or a good movie, but an inspired movie, and
done with enough innovation to make it interesting to those mentioned above.
Blessed Me,
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
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