For all its visual, storytelling splendor, Denis Villeneuve's DUNE is very much the Reader's Digest version of the story.
Don't misunderstand me. This movie does a number of things correctly and I do find myself already developing a warm, feel-good spot for it.
What's a Mentat? After watching this movie, you are going to probably not know. For that matter none of the political tripod is defined - From the Emperor and his Sardaukar to the Spacing Guild or even the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood are really ever defined and their purposes laid out.
The novel is filled with set pieces, scenes which exist almost entirely with the purpose of applying definition to the world which we are being asked to immerse ourselves in. From Paul and Gurney's practice fight - To Reverend Mother Mohaim's testing of Paul - A very critical scene which lays out the stakes of the story.
Now there are a number of book accurate sequences which transpire over the course of this movie, yet they are breezed past and the dialogue only faintly fleshes out of what is going on, or why. Often I found myself checking the stored version of the novel I have that lives in my head. I've obsessively read DUNE a number of times and can refer to it easy enough. I can't imagine how this will come across for the none DUNE fanatic.
I want to say its great to have seen Salusa Secundus, though totally unnecessary. Calling it an 'Army World' is somewhat misleading and if one felt the need to include it, using it as a comparison to Arrakis should have been the point.
I don't understand filmmakers impulse to make the Harkonnen's and Sardaukar bizarre. Which brings me to, and its important, if not key since Paul's claim to the throne is actually stronger, based on his maternal linage than being Duke of Caladan - That is, the reveal his grandfather is Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. The Corrino's and House Harkonnen were once the same family - Even sharing redhair... The sequence, where Paul reveals to Jessica who her father is technically exists in this movie, yet the scene itself does not bring up the subject even as Paul is having a Spice-vision.
Denis Villeneuve's DUNE is a grand experience and I do hope we get more of it since regretfully, it is an incomplete experience and I look forward to having more.
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