Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Li Li
"It's just the beginning."
Two and a half hours of "Dune" is coming to an end, and the girl in Paul's dream finally comes to life and says the last line of the whole film to him. And audiences began to write on social networks their direct perceptions of the film, adapted from a sci-fi masterpiece from more than half a century ago.
"Scattered in the sand, I just want to sleep." Some people say.
"It's a work that makes you feel like, 'It's great that movies can be invented.'" Some people say so.
What about Dune? From 7.6 points at the time of release to 7.9 points today, it is clear that among the 180,000 people who scored "Dune" on Douban, more people do not think that it is "a mess of sand", especially fans of the original. After all, from the last failed adaptation to the present, people have waited for 37 years for a movie worthy of Dune.
The first weekend box office, not low but not yet a "blockbuster"
"Old-fashioned", "lengthy", "almost no plot", "Prophecies and dreams nagging from gods", "I can't imagine that in the future of such a developed science and technology, fighting wars will even use cold weapons to cut each other"... In the minds of those who don't like "Dune", the "faults" of this movie are simply too many. However, more people gave this work a high score. On the film's Douban page, Dune scored better than 86% of sci-fi films and 81% of adventure films.
Corresponding to its word-of-mouth controversy, "Dune" Chinese mainland the first weekend box office was 139 million yuan - not low, but it is obviously not a "hit". In fact, since its premiere on October 22, "Dune" has always ranked second in the single-day box office rankings, lower than the domestic war film "Chosin Lake", which has been released for more than half a month.
In North America, Dune did a good job. The film grossed $40.1 million in its opening weekend, far higher than expected, and set a record for the highest weekend box office for a Warner Bros. movie during the pandemic. It is worth mentioning that this is still the achievement of the film in the case of the simultaneous launch of HBO MAX streaming media. Compared with the Chinese box office, it is obviously an indisputable fact that there are Chinese and Western cultural differences in "Dune" at the public level.
The original is of high status, and Star Wars also borrows from it
The original author of Dune is frank Herbert, an American science fiction giant born in 1920. He wrote twenty-three novels and five collections of short stories during his lifetime, notably the Dune series of novels, which began in 1965. The last dune, The Dune Finale, was completed in 1985 and died the following year.
As the first science fiction work to win both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, what is so good about Dune?
Library Magazine positioned the series this way: "Dune is in science fiction literature as The Lord of the Rings is in fantasy literature. ”
Yan Feng, a professor at the Department of Chinese of Fudan University, once compared "Dune" with Jin Yong's novel: ""Dune" is comparable to Jin Yong's novel in terms of the vivid complexity of the story. But "Dune" is not only a science fiction novel, there are politics, economy, military, religion, ecology, futurology, etc., but also put human nature, human nature, human purpose on a cosmic scale to think, this scale is probably beyond Jin Yong's reach. ”
It is worth mentioning that many people believe that another more widely known sci-fi blockbuster series, Star Wars, borrows heavily from Dune. In fact, Herbert, the author of Dune, held this view himself, directly dismissing Star Wars as a "comic book on the screen" and half-jokingly saying, "I try to restrain myself from suing it." ”
But unlike Star Wars and other contemporaneous science fiction, Dune is a world without computers and robots. This is related to the latter's story setting , before the main story begins , humans have engaged in a critical war with "thinking machines" and are freed from THE control and enslavement of AI by defeating the latter. So, to those who don't know the backstory, Dune's sci-fi world seems less "sci-fi" because it contradicts the familiar perception of an AI-filled futuristic world. But there is no doubt that Dune fulfills one of the important missions of science fiction works - to imagine the development of the human world on different paths.
The Prince's Revenge, the film only made half of the first film
The current release of "Dune", from the plot point of view, is only half of the first part of the series. The story begins with Paul's dream, and at the end of the film, the teenager "wakes up" and has just taken a difficult first step in growth.
In the future universe in which Paul lived, planets were connected to each other in the form of imperial rule. The male protagonist, Paul, as the heir of the Ertridi family, is ordered by the Empire to take over the planet of Aracis, a desert-filled planet, also known as the "Dunes". The importance of Aracis lies in the fact that it produces the most important substance in the milky way, spices. But the savage Hakonin family, who ruled the planet Arakies for years, did not let go easily. Behind all this was the Emperor's calculations, which he deliberately connived at the Hakonin family's attack on the Ertridi family in order to weaken the power of both sides.
On the one hand, it was the overthrow of the family under the imperial conspiracy, and on the other hand, it was the entanglement of Paul's personal fate. Growing up, Paul always saw The Fallman girl Chini in his dreams, and all indications were that he was probably the Chosen Son who could save the heavens. At the end of the first part, Paul, who lost his father, won the respect and acceptance of the Fremmans by his own strength, and he followed the girl of his dreams to the depths of the desert and also to his own destiny.
Even from this "half" of the script, it can be seen that "Dune", known as the "space opera", although it is a science fiction work, has a clear Western classical narrative routine. This also determines the unique style of the "Dune" movie - the interstellar real interspersed with the change of the court, a "revenge of the prince" that takes place in the 10,000 years AD.
Recognized as difficult to shoot, the imaging process is jokingly called "Master Cemetery"
If Star Wars borrowed from Dune, why did Star Wars catch up on the big screen earlier? In fact, as early as 1971, the producer Arthur M. P. Jacobs has already bought the film and television adaptation of "Dune", considering that many elements of the film are similar to the Arab world, and the director in his mind is David Lane, who made "Lawrence of Arabia". Unfortunately, Jacobs died of illness just two years later, and the copyright was transferred to a French consortium.
The second director who almost made Dune was Alejandro Zodurowski, who directed a series of surrealist films. He even brought in the great painter Salvador Dalí for the film, who was paid as much as $100,000 a minute. The music production invited the famous rock band Pink Floyd. But this great project was eventually made into a documentary called "The Dunes of Zodlowsky," which itself did not make. The reason is not difficult to guess: Zodrowski's vision of this science fiction film is too advanced, and the film technology at that time cannot afford it.
In the end, the first person to make Dune was David Lynch. He gave a lot to the film: a year and a half to write the script, a seven-month shooting period, and gave up the opportunity to direct a third Star Wars for it. But in the final editing stage, he had a conflict with the producer: he wanted to divide into two parts, but the other party insisted that one be made, and finally Lynch was so angry that he signed it under a pseudonym, so he refused to admit that it was his own work. The compromised "Dune" also suffered a crushing failure of word-of-mouth and box office when it was released in 1984. After nearly 30 years, no one wanted to make Dune again.
Today's Dennis Villeneuve is clearly more fortunate than David Lynch and Alessandro Zodlowski before him: on the one hand, today's cinematic technology has been able to present enough human fantasies; on the other hand, he has made science fiction masterpieces such as "Arrival" and "Blade Runner 2049", and he is also ready for a more difficult challenge in personal experience. Even more fortunately, when Villeneuve, like David Lynch, offered to make two films, the new producers immediately agreed. More importantly, whether it is Villeneuve's previous work "Arrival" or this time "Dune", he is good at grasping the cultural core rather than the superficial exoticism.
On IMDB, Dune now has a high rating of 8.3. In addition, Blair Herbert, the son of the original author, also said in an interview that Villeneuve's version will always be regarded by him as the "authority" for adapting the original book of Dune.
Go to the theater to feel, IMAX version or the best way to open
How to enjoy this version of Dune? Go to the cinema. It is best to choose the IMAX version.
All of Villeneuve's lens language prepares the viewer for a complete immersion in that desert planet, and the viewer must truly "enter" in order to feel the unique beauty of that world.
A giant sandworm with a body of up to 400 meters long is an alien creature that many people were fascinated by when they watched the original "Dune". It is particularly sensitive to regular sounds and is able to move quickly under the sand and then stick its head out to engulf everything. But in Villeneuve's version, the creature's appearance is more of a shock than a shock or horror. This is also the aesthetic tendency adopted by Villeneuve in dealing with the film's flying objects, spice collection vehicles and various buildings, most of which carry a sense of ruthless solemnity, and in IMAX shots, with an objective grandeur and rigidity to set off the smallness and fragility of human beings.
Hans Zimmer's score also added a lot to the film. It is worth mentioning that Zimmer even turned down the offer of his old partner Christopher Nolan's "Creed" to score "Dune", even though Nolan's works have always been more popular than Villeneuve. Obviously, Zimmer can't refuse to participate in an "epic" rather than a "blockbuster".
Finally, the audience needs a little patience. "Dune" is indeed not as suitable for all ages as "Harry Potter" or "Star Wars", and the first one climaxes, but sometimes it is a good experience to change the taste and feel the anti-routine and anti-climactic movies.
【Audience Comments】
"Bulky and dull" or "beautiful to the point of aphasia"?
Ghost Foot Seven: Hans Zimmer Jr. +1, Villeneuve 's Progress +20%, the trade-off for the original is very appropriate, the performance of sweet tea is better than expected, and Paul Erridi's slenderness in the first half and the transformation in the latter section are in place. The original party was satisfied.
Natsuki: Spectacle bombing, super satisfying setting control, as far as possible to restore the world view and plot of the first half of the novel (because the novel is too long, so you can only shoot this length), the photography and composition are really beautiful to aphasia. This is a work that you will sincerely feel that "it is great that movies can be invented".
Banana Three Fish: I often don't understand the definition of epic poetry.
Dodge: The whole article is bulky and dull, and people are mentally distracted, and in the second half, they begin to touch the mobile phone frequently.
Dream girl: Ten minutes to tell the story, used one hundred and fifty minutes...
Confucius Xiaoyu: After years of struggling with the dilemma of gag-gag popular commercial soft science fiction comedy and struggling to do it, the small-budget science fiction movie that is always short of breath has indeed harvested a rare science fiction epic. The whole film is a disaster for people with colossal phobia, whether it is space or the vast desert scene of Errac, the visual impact on small humans is very strong. Now look forward to the follow-up wholeheartedly, please ask the original team to hurry up.
Latitude 34: In fact, it is not like the future, but it is very much like the past, the distant past. Ten thousand years ago. There is not much sense of the future, but the sense of history is very heavy.
So-and-Ni: A few tips for improving the film's compulsion: low saturation, coarse filters, dim color grading, giant fear, wide-angle blanks, obscure lines, pathos, Hans Zimmer. (Comments from Douban) (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News
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Editor-in-charge | Zhu Fan