Video Wednesdays: Dune, Part 2

To say that I was looking forward to this movie would be a gargantuan understatement. This one had the same anxious anticipation as The Lord of the Rings trilogy did for me in the early 2000s (except that I didn’t re-read the source material for Dune as I had the Lord of the Rings trilogy twenty years ago). And as with the Lord of Rings, much of this movie’s success lay with the director’s respect for the source material, but not so much so that he didn’t re-interpret the story so that it could make the transition from text in a book into a visual and auditory medium.

There is so much to this mythic story, so many places where it could have faltered. Whereas the 1984 version of Dune and the 2000 TV mini-series now show the technological limitations of those times, this version very much focuses on the looking at these lived in worlds of these characters where the political/galactic aspects are just a part of the story but not the story. A young man wants to step out of the shadow of his station in life and have an adventure, and then that existence is swept away from him and he must grow into the person he wants to be and navigate all the expectations of everyone around him.

I really should re-read the books between now and whenever Part 3 happens. Enjoy.

[Movie viewed 2024-03-01 and 2024-03-05]