It is completely understandable that many audiences are obsessed with big-budget movies, and "grand narratives" always easily poke people's pain points. "Dune" itself is also a legend in the history of the film industry, and what is lost is always beautiful. "Jodulovsky's Dunes" is like a spell, the original novel seems to have been sent to the sanctuary, and Villeneuve's version dominates the fans' eyes with almost bombing propaganda, all of which is really too familiar and strange.
Text_Zhang Shuwei
Only big productions can retain audiences?
The story of Dune is, of course, told in conjunction with Lawrence of Arabia, and although one is a science fiction story and the other is a 1960s biopic, Frank Herbert went to great lengths to include images of the Arab world in his writing, many of which are derived from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and so on. The spice that everyone competes for in the novel is an indispensable raw material for people to explore the universe, and it's hard not to associate it with oil. This series of novels is precisely the white imagination of the Arab world as colonialism is on its way to disintegration. When Herbert wrapped the story in a wealth of science fiction, religion, environmental protection, political power struggles, growth, and more, science fiction readers went crazy.
The situation between the Arab world and the Western world has now changed dramatically. But the filmmakers of "Dune" are much more reasonable than the 007 series. Unmoved, they continued to tell the story of how the white Chosen Son mingled with the natives and cultivated himself into a savior. Villeneuve slashed the plot of the 1984 version of "Dune" in half, but used almost a similar length of time to tell the story more calmly, and in the opening paragraph, he specifically reminded the audience that this is only part 1, which is a rather wise decision, otherwise it is indeed a rice cooker to want to explain the plot of a novel with a huge worldview in two and a half hours. Lynch lost not in ability, but to the rules of the film industry of the year. From an industrial perspective, it's time. Medium-cost films are becoming less and less flattering, and studios are hoping that more large-scale fantasy films will join the competition for the market, only in this way can the cinema continue to retain the audience, as long as the length is opened, the adaptation of "Dune" will not be a problem, and the timing is not on the side of Zodrowsky and Lynch.
Isn't this really an outdated story?
Villeneuve almost completely restored the textual core of the novel: an ancient power organization, through hundreds of years of implantation, poured the Concept of the Messiah in Christianity into the minds of the indigenous peoples, who in the process of being enslaved and plundered looked forward to the arrival of the "prophet" - hundreds of years later, the Messiah was internalized into the religious culture of the indigenous peoples, and even the titles were adopted in the language of the indigenous peoples - in the story, a large number of religious terms came from Hebrew or Persian, and it is difficult to say whether they were riding robbers or parasitism. The protagonists of the story, the Ertridian family, come from the ancient Roman Empire.
It's a weird trial story. It's hard to imagine that Villeneuve once made wonderful stories of race and refugees, and now he is building the map for a colonial Orientalist story. Is he really unaware of these subtexts in the original?
The 1984 version of the film focuses on how a teenager witnesses the cruelty of the adult world, then grows up, and finally becomes a rebellious hero. The 2021 edition has more details, more detailed about the impact Paul faces under different world cultures, and gives him a lot of drama to sympathize with and understand the indigenous people, which makes everything look high. When the film tells this story, as in the novel, it suggests that the audience projects itself on Paul. People pride themselves on one civilized race, looking down on and observing another. In the shot, the technology of the indigenous people is like indigenous steelmaking, full of exotic and mysterious feelings, and they have more etiquette and customs that outsiders cannot understand. The more delicate Villeneuve is, the more eerie the film presents an eerie atmosphere. Today, when the US troops are withdrawing, Dune uses a beautiful man like Chalmed to save the indigenous people, and if there is no accident, he will establish a new order with one enemy and a hundred enemies in the sequel. Isn't that really irony?
Villeneuve was afraid of losing
Villeneuve handed over a wonderful humanistic interpretation of science fiction works in "Arrival" and "Blade Runner 2049", and did not think that Hollywood only regarded him as a blockbuster director who was good at shooting big scenes and good at scheduling, which was not necessarily his strength. Behind the majestic momentum, the core of the story of "Dune" seems naïve, and Villeneuve is powerless in the face of this childishness. I heard that Hollywood asked him to remake "Cleopatra", probably a setback in creation. Who would have thought that he would take over the script and turn out to be more pedantic than the other. In this way, he may become an instrumental director, casting one empty scene after another to convey Hollywood's seemingly classic and safe stories, but in fact outdated.
The soundtrack of "Awe of Justice" and "Atmosphere" is the last straw of the film, and when you think that underneath the superficial text, the director may be hiding mysteries, Hans Zimmer tells the audience to think too much. This is an old-fashioned story about glory and the awakening of the Savior. After watching the movie, I was relieved. It looks like Dune — no matter how much its original fans defend it — has passed, people have been dialed by online novels, and no matter how beautifully packaged, Jack Sue will have a good day. This is the pain of saying goodbye to childishness.