DUNE (October 2021) directed by Denis Villeneuve

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Maybe I’ll check it out
 
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Need to see a trailer to judge this film, love Villeneuve films particularly Prisoners and Arrival being my favourite film of his.
 
If the first movie is a standalone epic then I'm guessing the second movie will cover events from Dune Messiah and Children of Dune combined.
 
I think these are going to be two long movies. Though if they are epics wouldn't be a bad thing.
 
If the first movie is a standalone epic then I'm guessing the second movie will cover events from Dune Messiah and Children of Dune combined.
They'll presumably split the movies at the 2 year interval in the story, which is two thirds through the book. However, there's plenty in the last third to make a whole movie of.
 
They'll presumably split the movies at the 2 year interval in the story, which is two thirds through the book. However, there's plenty in the last third to make a whole movie of.
Nothing much happens in the second book until you're two thirds in. That's why I'm thinking the second movie will combine book two and three.
 
I'm surprised the studio didn't believe in them enough to film the lot back-to-back, a'la Lord of the Rings style, as its much cheaper to film them that way.
 
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Nothing much happens in the second book until you're two thirds in. That's why I'm thinking the second movie will combine book two and three.

I'm not sure if you are referring to the three 'books' within the first Dune here, or if you are referring to the actual sequel books
 
I'm not sure if you are referring to the three 'books' within the first Dune here, or if you are referring to the actual sequel books
I'm referring to three Dune books I read during the 70's:
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
 
I'm referring to three Dune books I read during the 70's:
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune

Ah ok. I am referring to just the first book. There is a logical place in the first book where the story jumps 2 years ahead. This is where I am saying the two new movies will presumably split.
 
As far as I can see Liet's role in the story isn't contingent on gender. Paul's and Jessica's (for example) absolutely are. So no harm done really.

Of course the director wants more women. It's a very male-heavy cast and, lets be pragmatic about this, Dune needs all the help it can get. It's a story with niche appeal and to be successful we need more women watching. A more balanced cast could help with that. It's good business sense. I'd only object to that if it compromised the story, and I honestly don't see how this will.

Ok I realise this might not be the most popular topic of discussion and may not enjoy resurrection, but as a latecomer to the thread and a fan of the book I want to say something about this, because it's not as minor a detail as you think.

Liet Kynes is a significant character and changing him to a woman potentially compromises the book in at least two ways. How big a deal it is will depend on how faithful you feel a modern movie adaptation should be.

The first compromise, is that it changes the nature of the Freman. The second compromise, is that by having a woman leader of the Freman, the impact of the Bene Gesserit is possibly lessened slightly.

Further explanation...

First on Kynes himself... in the book, Liet Kynes is a key character, the whole ecological theme of the book is delivered by Liet and his father. He is also an imperial servant as Judge of the Change, and has the support of the Emperor. What this means is that the Atreides have to impress Kynes, they need him on their side. So straight away Kynes has significant power and influence.

Now let's consider the other side of Liet Kynes' character... He's the secret leader of the Freman! He walks with Freman guarding him; he refers to the climate on Arrakis as 'my climate'; Jessica observes his off-hand attitude towards killing. He has respect and command of not only the Freman but also the smugglers. He also has influence with the Space Guild.

In short... Liet Kynes has a huge amount of power and is a major player on Arrakis. He's playing both sides, all for the purpose of achieving his most precious dream of making Arrakis habitable.

So now onto the compromises...

The first problem with turning Liet Kynes into a woman relates directly to the Freman. In the book, the Freman are a 'primitive' tribal community, like it or not, women are not leaders. So by making Liet Kynes a woman the movie has to completely change the nature of the Freman themselves and their traditional gender values, so that we can believe they will accept a woman as their leader. This is a significant compromise considering the Freman are a major aspect of the story.

Now the second compromise (this I'll admit is slightly tenuous but I think is a perfectly valid concern). The second problem with turning Liet Kynes into a woman relates to the Bene Gesserit. Turning Liet Kynes into a woman means that we now have an obviously powerful and influential non-BG female leader existing within the Dune story.

So what's the big deal with this?

Well, in the book, the true power of the BG is kind of like a slow reveal, when you realise just how powerful they are it's a 'wow' moment. It's made more impactful by the fact that there aren't any other women calling shots. You realise... hang on... the women are actually completely running the show here! This is a cool aspect of the book in my opinion, the women of the BG are far more powerful than any of the men. If the BG wanted to they could use their powers and kill every man and seize control... but that's not how they operate. They operate in the shadows... few people ever witness their power and survive.

So the second compromise is really two fold... We potentially lose some of the 'wow factor' around the BG reveal because some of their thunder has already been stolen by Kynes being a badass woman scientist and a leader commanding a ferocious tribe, and we lose some of the cool 'gender power dynamic' whereby it turns out women actually have all the power hidden under the surface, because Kynes will now be a powerful woman right up front.

Conclusion:

Having Kynes as a woman probably won't matter in the slightest in terms of making a great movie adaptation. However, there are definitive compromises to the book. The funny thing about this is that there isnt really a gender imbalance in the book, strong female characters are well represented. So I think this is a case of a studio over-compensating just to increase their chances at a big audience. It's not a necessary change in my opinion, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Hope you all enjoyed this long post 😎 (maybe not!)
 
Ah ok. I am referring to just the first book. There is a logical place in the first book where the story jumps 2 years ahead. This is where I am saying the two new movies will presumably split.
Oh I see what you mean. I never considered the two movies covering the events in the first book alone. There is a lot going on in the first book and spreading the plot over two movies would prevent the shortcomings with Lynch's Dune, where some plot points were rushed and treated at a superficial level. I'm not sure there's enough there for two 'Epic' movies though.
 
Turning Liet Kynes into a woman or depicting many or some Fremen as black doesn't bother me in the slightest. And there has never been a true screen adaption of a book, ever, as they are different mediums. Personally I always find the books better, but still enjoy the films interpretations of them.
 
There are many powerful women in DUNE, DUNE MESSIAH and CHILDREN OF DUNE and I mean MANY. In many cases controlling and/or manipulating everything. As a teenager reading these, I thought that was pretty cool, and true. Paul Atredies decided to buck that trend and oh boy did he.

I'm looking forward to this. Has it been given a release date yet?
 
Turning Liet Kynes into a woman or depicting many or some Fremen as black doesn't bother me in the slightest. And there has never been a true screen adaption of a book, ever, as they are different mediums. Personally I always find the books better, but still enjoy the films interpretations of them.

Well yeah the ethnic diversity thing is a total non-issue and just silly really (if it's even an issue at all?), the actors can be whatever skin colour and I don't think it makes any difference in terms of faithfulness to the book.

When it comes to Kynes, I suspect they will change the character even more than just gender. My bet is they will simplify the character quite a lot and ignore the Freman leader aspect and simply focus on the ecological aspect. Instead they will establish Stilgar as the leader from the beginning. This is just my gut feeling. Obviously we would be losing some of the political complexity of the story, but it will possibly make the overall story easier to handle and avoids the Freman problem as previously mentioned.

If we say the Lynch movie managed to get away (just) with about 10% of the detail and complexity of the book, I think we can cut the new movie some slack here. If they get to 60-70% then we should have an awesome movie. Can't wait :)
 
First teaser rumoured for July 17th with Inception re-release.
 

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