‘Dune’ Is Beautiful—We Need More of That

Audiences will put up with a lot of weirdness for a beautiful epic.

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Dune is a weird movie, full of fantasy jargon and heavy on plot, deliberately paced, punctuated by slow-mo visions that could have dropped right out of a Terrence Malick movie. It requires audiences to take in vast amounts of information about fantasy economies and cultures, keep up with multiple odd characters, and with very little humor and not a single side-eye joke to the camera. 

And yet it is popular. Audiences flocked to it, improving on the box office predictions for its opening weekend, even though the film simultaneously debuted on HBO Max, disincentivizing viewers from heading out to theaters. While it’s not achieved Marvel levels of success (which we shouldn’t have expected), it’s doing fine. Forbes’ Scott Mendelson notes that this isn’t actually a story of a studio weaponizing intellectual property. It’s not another Batman or Spider-Man reboot. Dune’s success relied on selling a largely unfamiliar story to normie audiences, and that seems to have happened. A good sequel could even cement this success into a franchise.

All this underscores something important: Audiences will put up with a lot of weirdness for a friendly, earnest epic that doesn’t equate art with ugliness. Dune is strange but beautiful (i.e. not ugly), and it’s spectacular. I haven’t seen a modern film in a while that has such a good grasp of how to use vast spaces. It’s a film designed for a big, big screen and audiences have recognized this in their consumption choices. 

In all the debates about the future of cinema, commentators seem able to envision only one future, one where we’ve all polarized into two aesthetic classes. This is a future where Disney, triumphant and flush with cash, keeps pumping out sequels while we all herd like cattle to see Guardians of the Galaxy 8 in the 2030s. All the other big studios slavishly try to jumpstart their own vast interconnected universes. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ed P

    Yes! The awe is real!

    I enjoyed this movie and simply can’t stand most Hollywood productions today. But Dune was well done in an artistic sense all around, so uncommon these days, especially in a big budget blockbuster. The cinematography is grand and gorgeous, the special effects drop jaws, the acting impresses, and of course, the plot is a masterpiece of wild future fantasy.

    I really appreciated how thoughtful and amazing the special effects were. They really captured the same wonder and awe about the possibilities of the future I remember feeling watching the original Star Wars films in my childhood. That combined with the grand cinematography is what inspired my awe.

    My only complaint is the stopping point. I guess it can’t be much longer than over 2 hours, but it it seemed to me like an awkward time to conclude within the story.

    Thank you for a great review!

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      Fighting Armadillo

      Ornithopters!

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    Justin Stapley

    Excellent review. I was wise in having myself and my wife listen to Dune on audio-tape before the movie came out. It helped us put the "weird" in context and appreciate the artistry and good screenwriting behind the film. It's one of the first truly new and exhilarating cinematic experiences we've had in a long time.

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    Ted Gale

    Nice review. I read it before I saw Dune this weekend, and it put me in a frame of mind that perhaps made me more willing to accept the movie. I first read Dune almost fifty years ago, and have re-read it many, many, times since. It is one of the books that has stuck with me since I was very young indeed. So, after I saw the trailers last year, I was prepared to concede the appeal of the visual choices Villenueve made. And I was going to see the movie, but I wasn’t expecting to like it very much. If anything, I expected the equivalent of Jackson’s handling of LOTR—visually appealing, but straying too far from the source to satisfy the expectations of a movie-going public.

    I am glad to say my expectations were confounded. Dune is a beautiful film, not just visually, but in the way it emphasizes certain themes from the book (e.g., the burden on those facing a “great destiny”). Changes I thought I would dislike didn’t end up bothering me (even when they weren’t changes I would have made—I’ve got to remember that nobody was hiring _me_ to make this movie). I was frequently tickled by little visual cues that evoked something in the novel (and would probably escape someone who had not read it). And, while there were things missing that I well, missed, the fact is film is a very different medium that the novel, and any effort to merely transcribe a novel that has the incredible layers of backstory of Dune . . . well, it would be a mess. ‘

    One thing more . . . take the time to follow the link in the review to Villeneuve’s musings on Lawrence of Arabia. He is not shy about stating how Lean’s film influenced his visual language—something that is readily apparent when you see Dune (and not just because it has a lot of desert scenes as well).

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    Ben Connelly

    It started with beautiful source material!

    “ There’s a certain philosophy that holds that all things artistic must be difficult, iconoclastic, ugly.”

    So I actually like some very violent movies (Tarantino etc.) and I think some important artistic work is shocking (Fight Club). But I agree with the author entirely that there is something incredibly lazy about this school of philosophy she refers to. Cormac McCarthy can write a shockingly violent book like Blood Meridian without the point being to bludgeon readers with the desire to shock at every turn. Most writers and producers who set out to create “deathworks” just end up creating lowbrow stuff. There is a point at which something stops being clever and starts being stupid. There is a difference between including violence and sex because it is important to your story and throwing in a gratuitous eye-gouge or breast shot in a vain attempt to elevate middlebrow work. At a certain point, you’re not rebelling against any “traditional values” or “demolishing norms,” you’re just trying to one up the last guy. Ozzy bit the head off a bat, so the next guy’s got to bite the head off of a human (or some such nonsense).

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    Paul Montagu

    I loved it. I'll see it again, in IMAX.

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    BrettH

    I always wait a few weeks to let the initial crowds die down before going to see a big box office flick. We went to see Dune on Friday evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought it ended at good point in the story and look forward to part II

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    Adam Bridge

    "Dune" was just fine. I enjoyed it on my very good TV and want to see it projected in IMAX but from comments I gather it'll be pushed off by the (ick) "Eternals." I do hate super-hero movies. They're just boring.

    If you haven't seen "Arrival" I heartily recommend it. It's a complex and beautiful film with an earned emotional ending that was (to me) both unexpected and compelling. It felt right in small-ish ways that "Dune" with its epic scale doesn't quite achieve.

    I won't pretend to understand "art." I don't have issues with sex and violence if its place on the screen is earned. I remember back in the late '60s and early '70s when bare breasts popped into films for no reason beyond they could. (reference: "The Great Waldo Pepper") Which was fine for adolescent me but...not art.

    There are a series of interesting short-video essays on youtube titled "Every Frame a Painting." I highly recommend these. They changed the way I look at film. They represent one informed person's opinion of what goes into making a great scene or style. I think if you watch all of them it'll take a a half-hour or so. But you'll see film differently afterwards, I think.

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      Dave

      Arrival was a beautiful movie that really packed an emotional punch.

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      Fighting Armadillo

      Ah, well . . . it might not be art, but I was a sucker for The Great Waldo Pepper. Good theme, good acting (especially the Swede), and a great score. 😃

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        Adam Bridge

        Oh, I liked that film a lot although I haven't seen it in sooo long. Note to self: put on DVD list from Netflix!

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    Fighting Armadillo

    I went to see the movie in the theatre on the strength of this review — the first time I’ve been to the movies since COVID. It was well worth the trip. The cinematography and attention to detail were great, and I thought the actors did well with material that is inherently difficult. In the books, the planet Dune is very much part of the story — not just a backdrop but a character in its own right. The movie captures that well.

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    Pboyd

    I have never read DUNE, but enjoyed the movie on HBOMAX. I have one question for those who know. Does the Baron fly or can he grow to great heights? I could see where George Lucas got some of his ideas for Star Wars and I do enjoy seeing some Marvel Movies with my grandchildren. Didn't care for LOTR movies at all. So much of the humor/humanity was taken out. That always seems to be the first thing to go in these sagas because they don't advance the narratives. That's where the Harry Potter movies did a better job. For the most part, the directors understood the silliness of school kids, even when fighting evil. And yes. STEVE HAYES....please write a review.

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      Fighting Armadillo

      The baron is using an anti-gravity belt

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  10. David A L

    I read Dune (book) years ago and thought it was good (I preferred Heinlein).

    I saw Dune (movie) and it was visually stunning but had flat characters, and the music was unrelentingly ominous and got tiring. Unless you read the book years ago you had no idea why any of it mattered and why you should care about Paul. Who cares that the Atreides are taking over from the Harkonens - why are the Hs so bad and the As so good when both are invading forces? There was too little character development, and some of the interesting characters were quickly killed off (why kill Dunkin - did he have to be somewhere else to make another movie?).

    And does anyone really believe that 80,000 years in the future a galactic-wide economic/military/political system is based on emperors and fiefdoms, and major battles are still fought with swords? Puh-leaze.

    That said, I'll go see the next installment because the production quality was so good, and maybe, just maybe, I'll start to care about Paul.

    I think the movie would have been better if they had chopped off about 1/2 of the middle (especially the CGI battles), spent more time showing how they lived among the Freemen and what that culture was, and made the Harkonens much more evil - ugly disgusting bodies is not enough (good start though). It needs a really good bad guy - calling Dr. Evil!

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      Aylene Wright

      What I have always found unrealistic about Dune as a supposed futuristic society (as opposed to just a totally made up parallel universe like Star Wars) is how patriarchal the whole society is. The only way women get any power is through manipulating men through mystical sexual practices. The only exception being Alia but that pretty much proves the rule as her attempt to rule in her own right ends in disaster. Leto's sister is technically a queen regnant who is co-monarch, but has zero actual political power and I don't even remember her name

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        Aylene Wright

        PS: Although at least she gets to have a family with her own MALE concubine. But the idea that bound concubines would still be a thing in an era with advanced biotech and interestingly syncretic religions, I really found wildly implausible. Although Lady Jessica is basically Atreides wife in all but name, I recall one of the Harkonnens treated his concubines as slaves and eventually killed them all, and this behavior wasn't presented as that wildly outside the norm, either.

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        1. David A L

          The book was a good read but it was like a grape - delicious but ultimately unsatisfying because I always wanted more than what it had.

          I find it unbelievable that an intergalactic system uses the same feudal organization with even more religious zealotry and patriarchal mindsets than existed in the middle east 1000 years ago.

          Sure, mystics are more mystical, sand worms are bigger and badder than desert storms, and spice is literally the spice of life, but come on.

          My biggest disappointment in the movie is casting Dave Bautista as one of the Harkonens - what could have been a spot of comic relief in an otherwise dreary plot is subsumed into the nastiness of all things H - and he didn't even get that much screen time!

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