caitri | Movie Review: Dune

Scott's review of Dune: "And THAT's what you get for messing with an ecologist!"

I thought it was very well done, the best version yet, but--it irks me a bit that this is the third version we've seen when there's so much that hasn't been adapted. I kept thinking of the 2000 SciFi version which was a solid version that suffered only from tv budgeting. I spent a chunk of the movie thinking about other things that could have been done and just getting annoyed. This is why canons are difficult to update because the returning insistence on what things "should" look like.

(I sat there thinking if they went for some stuff from the same period. Samuel L. Delaney: Too much sex and drugs. Anne McCaffrey: Too much sex and also the main character is a woman. Marion Zimmer Bradley: Cancelled because pedobear, but man the stuff she did on how colonialism fucks people over was good.)

Also, one thing I did not expect was how the film underlines what a Mess Paul is. I've seen some reviews from folks who have not touched the books, or only the first one, and like. Paul is the opposite of a white savior. Paul is a case study in how well-meaning  colonialism is still colonialism and everything goes SO poorly.

I was irked that they made Jessica much weaker. Herbert's women characters are always awful: You can be a "good" wife/mother/concubine OR you can be crazy and/or incesty. I mean.

Also, it struck me that while everyone was pleased with racebending Liet Kynes, why the hell they left the problematic af Yueh. You have one (1) Asian character and he's the betrayer who dies pathetically. In related news why the fuck did they even bother to get Chang Chen WHO DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER than five lines and a lil polkadot on his forehead. I mean I hope he got a good check but WTF.