I absolutely adore how this visual progression throughout the film so brilliantly communicates how she falls further and further into being nothing but a political pawn for several groups & individuals; a steady decline from where she started that she can do NOTHING against.
I admire the decision to turn Giedi Prime (a pretty standard industrial sci-fi hellhole in the first film) into a full BDSM planet where everyone is constantly horny in a weird way.
We HAVE to talk about Stilgar.
In all three of my screenings, he got the best reactions from the audience. He is genuinely funny, but in a way that fits so perfectly with the film's tone. There is gravitas to his humorous moments. When he quotes the prophecy for everything that
Austin Butler toned down the Method acting for
#DunePartTwo
because "that would be unhealthy for my family and friends."
Denis Villeneuve says Butler was "maybe 25% or 30%" in character when the camera was off...Just enough to still be present and focus but removed enough that
I can not wait for Dune Messiah to release and for people to absolutely hate and misread it because they didn't understand the story the first two films set up.
The reactions to it will probably be disastrous and I already know it's going to be my favourite of the three films.
It's been a few days so I can finally talk about the ending.
"Lead them to paradise."
What. A. Moment.
Chalamet's performance in the third act is absolutely breathtaking. The way the camera has distanced itself from Paul and the way he utters the line. The resignation in his
It's time to talk about the Lady Jessica, who was my favourite character in the books.
When Part One came out, I already felt that Rebecca Ferguson MASSIVELY elevated the character through one of the most captivating performances in sci-fi history, making her more compelling
Multiple studios with nominated films complained to The Academy about allowing Messi to attend the
#Oscar
nominees luncheon event
He will not be attending the Oscars ceremony.
(Source: )
Not to praise Crystal Skull too much (the ending is fantastic), but I really wonder why modern media has this nihilistic tendency to tell its stories; why almost every character who got their happy ending needs to return in a lesser, more miserable form for "one final ride"
Sometimes it sljps my mind, but whenever I remember what we're in for with these two in Messiah, I have to giggle. I can't wait to see the reactions of casual audiences who have no idea what incredible surprises the next film has in store for them.
To start your film with a sequence this exciting and visually stunning...I knew in the first ten minutes I had entered masterpiece territory.
(Visually reminiscent of the way Lynch framed Arrakis, but in the best way possible!)
Listen, I think on a first read, some of the messages and implications of the original Dune novel CAN be hard to pick up. It was the same for me.
Messiah is the perfect Sequel because it sort of works like an epilogue that tells you what this story is really about.
But
DUNE 2 made me a believer —
In the prophecy.
In Paul Atreides.
In the power cinema.
I will go to Holy War for this movie.
It’ll worm its way into your heart.
Denis Villeneuve asked Josh Brolin to work with Hans Zimmer to develop a song that Gurney could play on the baliset in DUNE: PART TWO.
Brolin worked for a month and a half on writing the lyrics, and Zimmer wrote the music — the song *has* made it into the final cut this time!
This guy's interviews have been the best of the entire press tour. You could really see that it was refreshing for everyone to be asked some meaningful questions and that they loved answering them.
My interview timing had ended yet Denis Villeneuve was awesome enough to let me sneak in one more quick question.
I was blown away by the infrared lenses Greig Fraser used to create that brutal black & white look of Giedi Prime.
A little insight into that process.
#DunePartTwo
When I first read Dune before the movie, I was pretty disappointed by Chani.
I knew Zendaya had been cast and went into the novels with high expectations for her character. What I got was a one dimensional love interest, a plot device with little agency, a character that seemed
Dune: Part Two offers a new take on Chani, however eliminates key roles she had in the original novel.
Dr. Kara Kennedy (
@DuneScholar
) breaks down character changes in movie vs. book, and how these affect her agency.
Read analysis:
#Dune2
#DunePartTwo
After seeing it 3 times, my final verdict on Dune Part Two is that it is not just one of the greatest Sequels of all time, but also, without a doubt, my favourite movie of all time.
Villeneuve gave me more than I had ever hoped for. While I don't want to speak with the authority
DUNE 2 made me a believer —
In the prophecy.
In Paul Atreides.
In the power cinema.
I will go to Holy War for this movie.
It’ll worm its way into your heart.
One of my favourite things in Dune Part Two that I picked up on my 4th & 5th viewings was how Villeneuve's incredible direction really reaches its zenith during the confrontation between Paul & Shaddam and in the final duel.
It's all in the looks the characters give each other.
"If this Muad'dib is a religious figure, you can't use direct force. Opression only makes a religion flourish. You'll only end up humiliating yourself."
"You underestimate my Sardaukar?"
"You underestimate the power of faith."
Dune made by people who understand Dune 👏🏻
Dune and Star Wars can co-exist. They HAVE for nearly 50 years.
It's funny to see so many jump on the hate-bandwagon because Dune is the fresh new sci-fi thing for some people.
Star Wars never plagiarized Dune, it took inspiration from it, just as it took inspiration from
Dune Part I: The movie that establishes the universe & its characters
Dune Part II: The movie that fully fleshes out the universe, the characters, the central conflicts & themes
Dune Messiah: The movie that deconstructs the universe, its characters, themes & any moral binaries
With its 5th episode, I genuinely think that
#TheAcolyte
delivered the best lightsaber fight choreography since Revenge of the Sith. Absolutely riveting. Full of incredibly creative moves, unique fighting styles that reflect character personalities & some truly shocking deaths.
This was the first moment I was truly terrified of him. Chalamet's performance gets even darker after the Water of Life, but seeing him walk through the smoke, his Fedaykin wreaking havoc all around...
You could see why Muad'dib became so feared.
I almost felt bad for Rabban.
The negative reception of the prequels made them so afraid to tell anything even VAGUELY political that they completely lost the Star Wars spirit
It's devestating that they tried to tell an entire trilogy that completely avoids political worldbuilding & the spirit of revolution.
Ten years ago, Dune was still a niche franchise with a small fandom. There was no successful adaptation of Frank Herbert's work.
Three years ago, Dune Part One was close, but with its limited box office due to the pandemic & the simultaneous release on HBO Max, we were uncertain
Impossible for me to get over this sequence.
The music, the sound-design, the terrifying language of the Harkonnens. Austin Butler unleashing the monster that Feyd is, the Baron looming over everything, the fight choreography and above all, Greig Fraser's visual language.
I'm a huge fan of the production design of the first two Dune movies. The brutalist architecture and its immense scale really work in favour of the atmosphere these films want to create.
Still, as many others have pointed out, I think Dune: Messiah will have to look a little
The best thing he could have said about the film. He is right: Messiah IS different.
It's a different sci-fi sub-genre. A complete shift from the adventurous tone to something bleak, sad and larger than life. A 1000 times bigger in scale and frighteningly dehumanising. A drama
Denis Villeneuve on ‘DUNE: MESSIAH’:
“If I do a third one, which is in the writing process, it's not like a trilogy. It's strange to say that, but if I go back there, it’s to do something that feels different and has its own identity.”
(via
@VanityFair
)
Possible small
#AlienRomulus
spoiler below:
Some eagle-eyed fans seem to have spotted a small ship ejecting from Renaissance station as it crashes. The ship appears to be none other than the Narcissus, which at this point in time carries Elen Ripley in cryo-sleep. According to
When I first saw this scene, the black sun in the sky, the fireworks and characters moving from a coloured frame to being in black and white, I realized we had entered the blockbuster renaissance. Big cinema could finally be grand in scale AND good again.
Giving us Feyd's arena fight in black and white is such an insanely great choice (think of the black and white knives...) and just proves once again that no one could have adapted
#Dune
better than Villeneuve!
There will be a lot of praise for certain actors in Dune Part Two, but I wanted to highlight these four especially, because they brought SO MUCH to their roles.
Smaller characters, whose impact was truly felt due to their fantastic performances and the film's remarkable script.
Villeneuve is so right because - unlike so many others - he actually still trusts young people to have an attention span. He knows they still care to find good stories and crave meaning, but so rarely find them in our modern media landscape.
Denis Villeneuve is not worried about
#Dune2
being too long because "the youth love to watch long movies...They are craving meaningful content.”
“Also, think of ‘Oppenheimer.’ It is a three-hour, rated-R movie about nuclear physics that is mostly talking. But the public was
One of my favourite aspects of
#AlienRomulus
' worldbuilding is how often it tells us how doomed humanity is. Most colonies are failing. Poverty, sickness, accidents. Everyone becomes desperate. A civilization that tried to conquer space too early and was conquered by it instead.
Fede Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues have already considered making a sequel to ‘ALIEN: ROMULUS'
"We naturally started thinking about where [the story] goes and what’s going to happen.“
(via )
EXCLUSIVE:
#DunePartTwo
*will* have Josh Brolin's Gurney Halleck playing the Baliset.
"It became a weird priority for me," Denis Villeneuve tells Empire.
READ MORE:
There are so many bad quality videos on TikTok of people who filmed this scene with their phones, and I hate that people do it, but I also watch it. Every. Damn. Time. I saw the film 5 times and I still have to watch this scene every time the algorithm throws it at me.
Book fan here! Most of the changes expanded the themes of the novel, allowed for more compelling character moments and tidied up many of the plot threads! It's not a scene by scene adaptation, but extremely faithful to the spirit of Frank Herbert's work!
#RingsOfPower
really managed to bring these characters to life in ways I never thought possible. Just absolutely fantastic castings that only get better and better with each episode.
Denis Villeneuve is set to direct ‘NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO’
The film follows the events that would happen if a nuclear war begun, based on information from interviews with military & civilian experts.
(Source: Deadline)
By the time of the third act, her chains are out for all to see, both figuratively and literally.
She isn't really an interesting character in the first book, but Villeneuve gave her a lot more weight than the novel did.
Can't wait to see her prominently in Messiah.
Such a fantastic year for sci-fi nerds. As if Dune Part Two wasn't enough, we're also getting a new Apes movie AND George Miller blesses us with a return to the Mad Max universe.
There are so many bad quality videos on TikTok of people who filmed this scene with their phones, and I hate that people do it, but I also watch it. Every. Damn. Time. I saw the film 5 times and I still have to watch this scene every time the algorithm throws it at me.
I read the book 2 times. I knew this was coming. I know how this story ends. But the absolute beauty of seeing it put to the big screen with this much care, scale and sheer epicness still blows me away.
I must not listen. Listening is the surprise killer. Listening is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face the wait. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the wait has gone..
The way Villeneuve has used Gaius Helen Mohiam throughout both films is just amazing to me.
Her scenes taken directly from the book are incredible, but the additional scenes he gives her add so many layers to the character and truly show how many events the Bene are steering
Who else is even more excited for the HBO Max show 'The Sisterhood' after watching
#Dune
?
The film portrayed the Bene Gesserit so perfectly in only a few minutes, imagine what they can do with a show with a runtime of 6 hours or more!
Maybe I'm biased because I love Rogue One so much, but I'm really happy to see Gareth Edwards' return to the big screen with 'The Creator', coming September 29.
High-budget standalone sci-fi movies are so rare these days and I'm already super drawn in by the visuals!
Showing us Paul's steady descent / rise into the role of a dictator by shifting the narrative focus from him to Chani in the second half of the film, showing us through her eyes the way he changes and how her people become slaves...Denis Villeneuve, what a brilliant man you are!
Denis Villeneuve, on Chani’s expanded role in DUNE: PART TWO: "as the movie progresses, there's a shift in the main character, and Chani becomes my reference as a point of view."
"He was really able to build out a strong sense of [Chani's] own views and life." - Zendaya
Real-life locations from Episode 4 of
#Andor
:
Coruscant Spaceport - McLaren Technology Centre, Woking, England
Coruscant Apartment - Brunswick Centre, London, England
Thanks to
@jelof21
and
@awwhellsbells
for pointing these two out!
There's a lot of people down there who seem to be very appalled by the idea of new people joining the Dune fandom and I can't stress this enough, I would rather have thousands who saw the films yesterday and suddenly fell in love with Dune than one more person who's entire
Ten years ago, Dune was still a niche franchise with a small fandom. There was no successful adaptation of Frank Herbert's work.
Three years ago, Dune Part One was close, but with its limited box office due to the pandemic & the simultaneous release on HBO Max, we were uncertain