Dune 1984 versus Dune 2021

OP maybe it’s hard to impart because the 2021 movie was just part 1? Hello, McFly?

compare^^^

1984 for me and it's not even close. I described the new one as "joyless sterility" when it came out and I haven't changed my mind since. Should've been told from Charlotte Rampling's perspective, she was the only good thing about that movie.

Dune 1984 was corny and over the top. Awful movie.

Dune 2021 was flat and boring. Awful movie.

STING!

The fat man in 1984 always grossed me out.

To the point where he almost makes the movie unwatchable.

At least in the 2021 version, his appearance was less disgusting.

And I think that was done purposefully.

I never found Timmy that attractive, until I saw him in Dune.

He was stunning in that movie.

This should’ve been a poll.

Dune 1984 is much more artful and often kind of fun. And more beautiful. Dune 2021 looks like MONEY WAS SPENT.

D21 left out a lot of little details that were included in D84.

This movie really needs an explainer, and I think that 1984 did a better job of it.

Plus, the costumes in 1984. I mean, really....

2021 included things from the novel that were cut out from 1984.

Whose idea was it to put Sting in this costume?

Bravo!

D84 had the House Atreides war pug, so it automatically wins.

For those familiar with the 1984 version, can you explain the scene where we are first introduced to Baron Harkonnen?

Why does everyone around him look like they have herpes?

Then he presses his flying button, and goes through some kind of grease machine.

Then he flies up to some blond twink and pulls out a plug, causing him to bleed.

WTF was that all about??

In the scene after that, Space Guild amoeba looking things start shooting these white lights out of their mouths into space.

None of that made any sense to me.

Anyone?

[quote]WTF was that all about??

[quote]None of that made any sense to me.

Because David Lynch.

The baron is too fat to walk, so he floats. The oil is a treatment for his disease. These are in both films and the novel. Not Lynch—Herbert.

The Duke is a psychopathic ruler. Imagine Jeffrey Dahmer with real social and political power over others to get what he wants, or even better Robert Berdella.

Someone so corrupted by power they can only get off by watching people suffer and die, and sending his minions and relatives to mass exploit whole societies. The way that Caligula and Nero are mythologically referred to (in actuality, neither of these guys was as claimed although both quite nutty).

If looks were true to insides, Bezos and a host of others would be corpulent and pustulent.

Thanks, R16.

Do you know why everyone in this movie seems to have herpes around their mouths??

Also, I loved seeing all the random actors in the 1984 movie: Linda Hunt, Alicia Witt, Brad Dourif, Sting. What a cast!

They tried to turn Dune '84 into the next Star Wars with one of the least commercial filmmakers that the studio basically sidelined in the editing room to sell toys. The outcome wasn't terrible but it was disjointed and seemed rushed. Dune 2021 is gorgeous but I really wish they had serialized it into a limited series instead of splitting it into two films.

[quote]I think that Dune 1984 did a better job of telling the story. And I think it stayed truer to the book.

It was not truer to the book. David Lynch deviated from the source material. In the novel, the Harkonnens weren't all redheads and they didn't have skin diseases. The Baron was fat but he wasn't full of oozing sores. Leave it to Lynch to go over the top with the grotesqueries.

There was no "weirding module" that transformed your voice into a weapon. Paul did not bring rain to Arrakis as it was depicted at the end of the movie. He did not have such power.

The adaptation that was more faithful to the book was the Syfy miniseries. However, it drags, looks low budget (illuminated desert backdrops on soundstages), and many actors were miscast.

Dune 1984 is better than Dune 2021 in some aspects. It has more atmosphere. The 2021 version feels a bit remote, sterile. The 1984 set design is interesting and seems more detailed, perhaps because realistic practical effects were used (CGI didn't exist). The actresses who played the Reverend Mother Mohiam ( Siân Phillips) and Lady Jessica (Francesa Annis) are better than their counterparts in the 2021 version. Rebecca Ferguson played Jessica as too emotional. The character in the novel was more composed. You could see that with Annis. Princess Irulan and Feyd-Rautha are present throughout the 1984 movie. Villeneuve left them out. Hopefully, they will be in Part 2 because they both have a small but important function in the novel.

The ethnic diversity in Dune 2021 is good. The story is set in a big universe, after all. But it was a misstep to make Liet-Kynes female. The character in the novel is Chani's father. A big reason why she and Paul grew close was because they both lost their beloved fathers. This shared grief strengthened their bond.

R16: If I remember correctly, the Baron didn't have a skin disease in the book. Yes, he was grossly obese and needed anti-gravity suspensors to move around. He was soaking in a pool of liquid spice (melange) to heal from the poison gas that nearly killed him.

^ Francesca Annis

Pustules are costume shorthand for disease, both of body and soul.

If not true to book, true to spirit of book to convey much in short time frame.

As for them all looking greasy, almost all of them were spice addicts, no? And the unkemptness of the mentats is to convey their Einstein brains take up all of their time and care, so nutty professor was employed.

Notice how clean, and clean living, the Duke and his entourage are portrayed by contrast.

[quote] Paul did not bring rain to Arrakis as it was depicted at the end of the movie. He did not have such power.

The 1984 movie's ending implies peace and love for all. In the novels we see Muad'Dib's Jihad followed killing 61 billion people and "the sterilization of ninety planets, and the "demoralization" of five hundred additional worlds. Furthermore, 40 different religions were wiped out, along with their followers. "

Another bit of trivia let out of the film:

The Baron's conditions were inflicted upon him as a punishment by the Bene Gesserits

[quote] Baron Harkonnen had been demanded by Gaius Helen Mohiam to conceive a child for the Bene Gesserit breeding program, which Baron Harkonnen refused. He reluctantly agreed, but his first daughter turned out to be too weak for the Sisterhood's tastes. Gaius Helen Mohiam returned to Geide Prime to conceive another child, but Gaius Helen Mohiam was stunned by a neural scrambler upon arrival, and Baron Harkonnen raped Gaius Helen Mohiam, from which another daughter had been conceived, and Mohiam decided to punish The Baron by giving him a disease which destroyed his physique, and made him obese.

The end result was Gaius Helen Mohiam was Lady Jessica's mother and the Baron was Paul's grandfather. The plan was Jessica would have a daughter who would mate with Sting to produce the Kwisatz Haderach.

R23, the quoted description in the second part of your post comes from the crappy Dune prequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Williamson. Many fans of the original series don't consider it canon. Frank Herbert, the talented author of the original 6 books, said that the Baron was Jessica's father. He did not mention who was Jessica's mother. That it should be Reverend Mother Mohiam herself is cheap soap opera plotting. Brian Herbert claims this plot twist comes from his father's working notes, but Brian has put elements in his books that contradict what Frank Herbert established, so his credibility is questionable.

As an example, Frank wrote that thousands of years ago there was a war called The Butlerian Jihad (between people who used thinking machines to enslave others and people who opposed such slavery). The good guys won and so thinking machines and computers were outlawed. Brian ignored this and made The Butlerian Jihad a humans versus A.I. robots conflict, just like in Terminator and The Matrix.

18 mediocre prequels and sequels by Brian and Kevin and they are nothing more than a cash grab.

In the end, after the 8 millionth argument about "more Canon than thou", which is more enjoyable and likely to get unread audience to try the book?

Remember, it's Dune. Not 9800 books about Dune.

Try reading the books, if you want to know really how hard it is to follow Dune.

It's the deepest descent into the mind and universe of a writer, ever. I think i got to book 5 before i stopped as i didn't want to BECOME Frank Herbert.

I agree R26.

This movie is a fucking mind trip.

Watching the 1984 version, it's like being on some hallucinogenic drug.

Kyle MacLachlan was hot, though.

[quote] Mood's a thing for cattle and love play!

Armie is so lucky he got to fuck Timmy.

That must have been fucking hot!

Damn!

Why wasn't this in Dune?

[quote] Why wasn't this in Dune?

It was. But that was happening between Timothee and Oscar Isaac.

What was Frank Herbert on when he wrote Dune? I’d like to have some of that.

I had no idea that Dune 2021 was split in two parts.

I didn't get to see the ending, so I thought it concluded the same way as Dune 1984.

When is Part 2 coming out?

Thanks to whoever shared what happened after Dune.

It never dawned on me that Paul Atreides was actually a bad person. Like Hitler, or Stalin, or Trump.

[quote] What was Frank Herbert on when he wrote Dune? I’d like to have some of that.

From Wikipedia:

[quote] Another significant source of inspiration for Dune was Herbert's experiences with psilocybin and his hobby of cultivating mushrooms, according to mycologist Paul Stamets's account of meeting Herbert in the 1980s:

[quote] Frank went on to tell me that much of the premise of Dune—the magic spice (spores) that allowed the bending of space (tripping), the giant sand worms (maggots digesting mushrooms), the eyes of the Fremen (the cerulean blue of Psilocybe mushrooms), the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the Bene Gesserits (influenced by the tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico)—came from his perception of the fungal life cycle, and his imagination was stimulated through his experiences with the use of magic mushrooms.

Dune 1984 missed the whole point of the book. The movie presented Paul as an infallible supernatural messiah who defeated the Harkonnens and the Emperor, thereby freeing the Fremen and ensuring that there would be peace in the galaxy. He caused rain to fall on Arrakis, an impossible event that meant the harsh planet would eventually become a paradise. The End.

Pffft! David Lynch’s adaptation dumbed down the story. He turned it into a simplified tale of Good vs Evil with none of the philosophical observations Frank Herbert discussed. The main message in the book, which Herbert also talked about in interviews, is that you should “beware of heroes. Much better [to] rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.”

He later wrote: "Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says that mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader's name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question.”

In the book, Paul could see glimpses of the future and wanted to avoid the path that could lead to a religiously fanatic Fremen army that would kill billions of people and destroy civilizations in Paul’s name. Even though he was their spiritual and military leader, he couldn’t stop the Fremen and their holy war. The hero ultimately does not triumph because Herbert did not write a Star Wars type of fairy tale.

Very apt posts. When I watched the 2021 film, I remembered the original books and it reminded me of Trump, the MAGATS and current U.S. society.

I look forward to the musical.

[quote] Dune, the musical.

Dancing Worms, high on Spice!

[quote] It never dawned on me that Paul Atreides was actually a bad person. Like Hitler, or Stalin, or Trump.

Think more broadly. Herbert specifically had JFK in mind.

“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "May be dangerous to your health." One of the most dangerous presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said "Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next?" and we wound up in Vietnam"

How did the author come up with the name Fremen?

Isn't that a part of a dick?

I think the 1984 version implies that, regardless of what Paul wants, other people will view him as a God and he himself in the end appears to be under full hubristic sway.

You can only do so much in a few hours of film, half of which the director washed his hands of.

The word 'gorgeous' died along with OP.