I led up to this viewing by re-reading the book and watching the 1984 scat avalanche so that I could make the following statement quite authoritatively despite enthusiasm stoked by the initial trailers for this film and my own personal love of Arrival;
This film is essentially a perfect adaptation of Dune.
I literally do not think I can adequately express how flawlessly executed this was, or how perfectly structured the concept was, to say nothing of how miraculously it functions as an adaptation. The bar I had for this film going in was admittedly low; I love the source material, but Hollywood's track record for book adaptations is pretty lousy for the most part and the last time they tried this one they accidentally took a steaming dump on the nation's eyeballs instead of making a movie. My expectations were higher than they would have been simply because I know Denis Villaneuve's other work, but honestly what I was expecting was a pretty movie with good characters that was an okay adaptation of Dune. This expectation was based on the idea that it's very difficult to adapt a book with the scale of something like Dune, just look at how badly David Lynch failed.
But that was evidently unfair. If the bar was low, this film cleared it in the same way you might clear a three foot hurdle with a Saturn V rocket. Or as my wife observed, if David Lynch's film was a kindergarten gymnastics class, this Dune is Simone Biles. Comparison to the last film adaptation of this franchise is useless, because they aren't even in the same league. Henceforth there is no other adaptation of Dune than the one that came out in 2021. So going forward I'm going to compare Dune to only two things; the source material it adapts to film, and the only other book-to-film adaptation that managed to so flawlessly adapt its source material in terms of world, scale, character, and themes.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
When Fellowship of the Ring came out back in times of yore I was literally up late finishing the book the night before I went to see it in theaters. The story was fresh in my mind, the characters and the world they inhabited were present in every thought I had. When I walked out of the theater the next day I was giddy with pants-wetting puppy excitement over how perfectly the movie I had just watched matched up with the world that had so recently only lived in my head.
My memories from my most recent reading of Dune are perhaps not quite so fresh, but it was mere weeks ago, and to say I have been frequently revisiting my own imaginings of Arrakis since then would be an understatement. When I walked out of the theater Tuesday night upon completing my viewing of Dune, the only thing I could think of was that this felt exactly the same as Fellowship had all those years ago. The film is not exactly a perfect retelling of the book; much like Fellowship there are scenes, events, and even characters that were removed for the sake of time. The dialogue of the film is rarely lifted directly from the page, and some brief character interactions were inserted so that the audience had a chance to understand these characters without the benefit of on-page narration.
That's how you adapt a book into a movie, after all. You make it a movie instead of a book. Dune sacrifices nothing in terms of being a competently made movie; the characterization is excellent. The performances are natural, the costumes exquisite. The sets are varied, visually distinct, and incredible in their detail. The music is massive in its intensity and well matched to the setting, if not quite as carefully crafted as something like LotR. And the visuals are, simply put, stunning. I have seen films as pretty as this before; they were all the work of Oscar-award-winning visual master Roger Deakins. That's the court Dune is playing in. The technical aspects of this film are objectively excellent. Subjectively this is exactly the type of large screen sci-fi I enjoy, with the caveat that it's part 1 of the story, so it ends in a pretty depressing place.
And the adaptation itself... well, shall we just run through the list of things the movie needed to do to adequately portray the themes of the book?
The Lady Jessica and the Bene Gesserit
They were perfect.
House Atreides troops and Duke Leto
Spot on. Made me cry a little.
Duncan Idaho and Liet Kynes
Both spectacular. They gender-bent Kynes, but there aren't any gender-specific character traits for Kynes anyway and it improves representation. Zero complaints there.
The Fremen and the Weirding Way
We haven't seen much of this yet, given Dune is getting two parts, but suffice it to say what we have seen thus far seems to suggest that the Fremen in here are utter badasses. As they should be.
One Half of the Book in Part 1 of the Movie
Because obviously that's how you do that.
Simply put the Dune fan in me is over the moon with how this movie was made, and the movie fan in me was literally breathless at several points from the sheer artistry on display. The movie was three hours long, but much as with Fellowship of the Ring, it felt like the fastest three hours of my life. The movie is deliberate, which to some people may feel slow at times, but pay very close attention to what is happening visually during those moments if that's you; if you're getting bored, it's because you're missing some detail of what's happening on screen. Like the bull. Count how many times you see references to the bull and try to figure out why the movie wants you to see it so much.
I have previously identified what I considered to be the greatest science fiction film of our time on this blog. And I don't know that I want to alter that judgement; Arrival is outstanding, and to my eye it continues to be sci-fi cinema dressed up in its very best suit of clothes. But Dune is outstanding in its own right, and on top of that belongs to one of the greatest sci-fi properties ever created. Its scale is far more epic than Arrival, even if its science is a bit more speculative and opaque.
But perhaps I can have it both ways. Instead of picking the greatest science fiction film of our time, perhaps I can simply state that Denis Villaneuve is the greatest science fiction filmmaker of our time. Or, dare I say, of all time? Because at the moment I can't think of anyone else who even comes close.
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