My brother in law watched it. Has not read the book.
Said it was good, though visually excellent. He thought the story felt glossed over at times - he smartly decided to stop and google some things to fill in some of the gaps Denis left out so he could include longer than necessary dramatic shots of Paul's flowing hair.
It took me 3 tries, but I finally finished it tonight. Thoughts:
1. Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful movie. Reminded me of Oblivion. Just fantastic visuals.
2. Dune is a hard book to turn into a movie because there's so much depth & introspection. It's hard to pack that into a single movie & capture the vibe of the book.
3. I felt like it was told from a distance. Like, I don't know if it would be enjoyable if someone hadn't read the books first. Dune is one of my favorite sci-fi books of all time, so I'm biased.
4. I was really surprised it ended where it ended. The story felt like it had just finished the first act & was about to start getting good. I was really hoping the ending was an intermission or something.
5. None of the bad guys really...did anything
bad. I mean, they fire-bombed their dune-home, but you know what I mean. Like, you have to demonstrate why the Baron is a Bad Dude™.
6. I feel like this should have been a character-focused, character-driven movie, specifically on Paul. But it was really focused on the bigness & the beauty of the movie. Like, explaining & emphasizing the concept of the Kwisatz Haderach should have been a central focus right from the very beginning. There's a heavy emphasis on the political stuff in the book, but I feel like the movie should have been a bit closer to something like the first Bourne movie, where you buy into Jason Bourne right away & then are off on an adventure with him for the rest of the movie.
7. I had a hard time buying into Zendaya, because of Disney & Spiderman. I also feel like Paul Atreides would be someone more like a young Paul Walker. I feel like Liam Neeson would have fit really well into this world as well, either as Paul's father or as a Fremen.
8. I would have liked to have seen it as a TV series, with the complexity of the first two seasons of Lost, so that they could REALLY go into depth with the movie. And also shown off the character of the people to develop them, like how House Atreides provides water to the people after dinner.
9. After that really fun shield knife-fight in the beginning for training, I wish the desert crysknife fight had been more awesome.
Very pretty movie. Wish it had captured the story more!