Everything GREAT About Dune! Part One (2021)

"This Herbert guy must've been a Star Wars fan!" Every Dune fan just took 10 psychic damage from this quip.

The thing that gets me is that when Paul is out of the thopter during the sand worm attack on the mining vehicle, he says, “I hear your footsteps, old man.” We’re supposed to think he’s talking to Gurney, but Shai-Hulud, the Fremen word for the sand worm, means ‘Old man of the desert.’ Paul wasn’t talking to Gurney. He was talking to the sand worm. Denis Villeneuve gets it.

I don’t know why, but Leto’s line “you’ll still be the only thing I ever needed you to be, my son” always puts a lump in my throat

Interesting fact: the March that the atreides bagpipes play when arriving at Arrakis is written as a traditional funeral march rather than a military style march, Hans Zimmer literally told us that marching off the ships into the city was the action of House Atreides marching to their deaths

Never read the books, never watched the old movie, went into this completely blind only know it’s a giant desert planet with sand worms. And I plan on going into the next movie just as blind. And I am loving this movie so much!!!!

I think one of the things that struck me is how Rebecca Ferguson managed to sell me on the worries of a mother vs. the serenity and control of a bene gesserit. She's POWERFUL, often scary, but her breakdown when she is ORDERED to leave the room where she might return to find her son dead on the floor with her powerless to stop it... pure horror, played with chilling realism... and yet her vulnerability is never at the cost of Lady Jessica's strength and dignity.

"When a movie makes it big, people start reading, so it's a net win." Truer words, my friend. And what a story to read for the first time.

Duuuuuude how did you not win the scene of Paul saying to the reverend mother "you dismiss my mother in her own house?" followed by the POV of the voice making it feel as involuntary as it is.

I interpreted those “thirsty” looks as, “We came from royalty and were getting naked on a rock in the desert, my mother is pregnant and I don’t know how to keep her alive, we have no supplies or help.. this may be one of the last times I see my mother before we wrap up and head into danger.” And “I saw this coming and I still can’t believe it’s happening. I’m pregnant and don’t know how I’ll survive this and keep my promise and keep my son alive. He’s grown so much but he’s still growing and changing and I cannot afford to leave him on his own. My baby boy is all grown up and he has no choice but to become a warrior, a leader, and a target, like his father.” To me it was basically both of them considering taking a moment to talk and discuss things but both deciding they don’t have time for it and just getting on with their mission. It’s a sad scene because it’s the next stage of the death of Paul. The first was the dart, the second was the crawl out of the sand and looking at his namesake and the third was this… him deciding not to comfort his pregnant mother, and to just become something new… a pseudo Fremen warrior and embrace those horrifying visions and take revenge. The final was his fight with Jamis.. Basically Jessica knew her son was going to live, but also die. In order to keep her promise to Leto, she would also have to break it. Paul would physically survive, but Paul Atreides would die, symbolically and realistically he’s gone.. Letos son is going to die, and become something new, something different and she knows it. On that rock, in the burning sun, she knew she was looking at her son for the last time as he is… he would never be the same after he put that suit on. For Paul, he knew he had to keep his mother safe and knew he was making a huge choice by putting on that suit and choosing to survive and fight, and he understood that she needs to be protected and survive because she is the last thing he has and the last reminder of his father lives inside her. It’s a nice moment for me.. sad, but nice. Two people who love each other but know that love is a weakness right now.. affection and softness will get them killed on this planet. So just a few glances and a mutual understanding is all they get.

"I recognise your footsteps old man." Paul is talking about the sounds of the approaching worm, the old man of the desert. But it is Guerney walking up behind him, so it has the double meaning that Dune is famous for.

Something else I really love about this movie is how the stalwart, warrior-culture Atreides in no way stifles Paul for his little moments of physical intimacy with his friends. He bounds over excited to them and gives them hugs and that's just normal. It's such a small detail that goes (at least for me) SO far in really showing you how this house operates.

I absolutely LOVED the visions of Jamis being his friend and mentor. It perfectly illustrates the imperfectness of Paul's prescience. And also makes it more plausible when he says " I was a friend of Jamis."

I was hooked the moment that opening narration just came booming out of the speakers in the cinema, i didn't hear, i FELT IT!!

The 1-minute Sardaukar scene with the throat singing deserves 100 points by itself

15:59 The coolest part for me in that scene is the knowledge that the sand worm we are looking at is a small one. The one that took out the crawler was way bigger. And in the deep desert, where none but the fremen dare to travel, there are some even bigger than that.

I think that the "unfilmable" thing gets somewhat misinterpreted. Dune WAS pretty much unfilmable back in the day, before it became accepted/possible to do over-length and multi-part films. Having to pack the whole book into 90 minutes, that's what made it impossible. People were right to call it "unfilmable" back then. But it is fully possible to film it when freed from those stringent time constraints - as was already proven by the SyFy Miniseries more than 20 years ago. It just wasn't until Lord of the Rings that movies became fully freed of those time constraints. So why then shouldn't it be filmable as a two-part over-length movie? Sure, it's a complex book full of inner dialogue and unspoken thoughts, and that's pretty difficult to film - but not impossible.

The biggest win for this movie for me is that it ended and I literally could have sat there for another 4 hours if Denis wanted me to. I looked at my wife and I was like "I can stay here if they wanna go ahead and show part 2, no problem".

A detail I realized after re-watching it several times (and it's a win in my book) is that Duke Leto confesses to Paul that he wanted to be a pilot, and he is actually the first to spot the wormsigns... So yeah it makes sense, the Duke was Pilot Material! Great eyesight.

“Military and religion. What a terrifying combination!” Paul: write that down write that down

That “just like Christopher walkin taught us” line has aged superbly!