Dune Is The Answer To Superhero Fatigue
A review of Dune 2 and a breakdown of what's next for blockbuster cinema
Before starting the review I want to give a quick promo for a special project I’m working on called The Sacred. The debut single for the project is dropping on March 15th, it’s an 8 and a half minute beast meshing new wave, techno and industrial, called “Rat City / Under God”. Pre-save the track here and follow the Instagram here. Get hyped!
**********SPOILERS AHEAD**********
A Quick Word About Modern Blockbusters
There is something strange that happens when you watch a film like Dune 2 or Star Wars: The Last Jedi, as opposed to something standalone. The cliffhanger at the end always leaves the characters on their way to face a new territory that will be addressed immediately in the next film. It feels much more like a TV show than it does a film in that way, because a variety of factors will determine when and if the story gets to have a conclusion. For that reason, I far prefer to wait until a trilogy is finished before ever watching the first one. Unfortunately, because motherfuckers on Instagram have to share plot shattering memes all willy nilly a day after the shit comes out, I don’t have that luxury. “Dune is a book series that came out in the ‘60s how can you spoil it” idk bitch I don’t know how to read that sounds like your problem!
At least I’m half literate and can in fact write and what I wanna do today is write out a quick glaze session for Denis Villeneuve. What this man has done to modern “blockbuster” is nothing short of a miracle. For YEARS this man has evaded the stereotypical pattern of “indie director makes one decent film and then directs a Marvel movie” that happened numerous times in the past. After proving himself as a formidable director with Sicario, Prisoners and Enemy, he has seemingly birthed this very forward thinking method of turning cult classics into blockbusters. Well, I can’t give him all the credit, Zack Schneider did it first with Watchmen. This only issue there is that he immediately got tapped to make all those awful Superman films. Denis, on the other hand, has a laser-focus on picking properties that demand to be taken seriously while still having a mainstream charm. Take for example his Blade Runner sequel from 2017. That film took a niche popular but still well-known IP and modernized it with style and plot that rivaled it’s predecessor. With Dune part one and two, he challenged himself to adapt a seemingly “unadaptable” book and has done so with ease. With Villeneuve’s blockbusters, you get an experience that treats the audience like adults and provides filmic visuals instead of uncanny CGI bullshit.
I think after Avengers: Endgame put the Marvel universe to rest and Covid kept people away from the movies for a while, the world was really over superhero films. I think only the iconic characters will stick and make money in that field at this point, and everything else will fail. Batman and Spiderman movies will all do well, everything is destined for failure. And that’s honestly for the best at this point. Disney ruined Marvel and Star Wars with oversaturation of the product. That’s why I really believe people like Villeneuve are the future, because they are true story tellers above all else. He doesn’t give a shit about marketing or stuffed animals, he wants to make art. Plain and simple.
Dune 2 Review - please see the movie first, I’m not only spoiling it but also I’m not summarizing the plot
Dune 2 felt incomplete as a standalone film because I think it’s better to just watch them back-to-back. This is not a knock on the actual experience, it’s just that I keep seeing people saying one is better than two and I don’t buy that. I think if you watched it as one long movie, you'd see that they are not meant to be compared.
With all that being said, I really enjoyed continuing this narrative that left off two years ago. It focused much more on the actual “dune” that the series is named after, with Paul and his mother roughing out the deserts of Arrakis with a group of itinerant wanders called “the Fremen”. I’ve read some stuff about how the director did a lot of drugs and got heavily into Islam while writing the book, and that makes sense to me. Paul essentially takes on the role of a white Mohammad here, with the leader of the group (played by Javier Bardem) really glazing him up the entire time. He strongly believes that Paul is the outsider prophet that is meant to lead the people of Arrakis to greener pastures, so much so that he offers up his life multiple times. Chani (played by Zendaya) plays the role of Paul’s reluctant love interest, almost immediately falling for him while still adamantly denying his prophethood.
After seeing Villeneuve’s Sicario, this film really solidified to me that he is a storyteller that loves playing around with the idea of “the protagonist”. You spend three hours throw the eyes of a “main character” who is actually more of a villain or neutral party. Paul got so corrupted and power hungry in this film that I believe we are no longer supposed to be invested in his outcome. I think personally that Dune is Chani’s story. Just as Sicario (assassin in English) was really the story of Benedico Del Toro assassinating a cartel leader for killing his family, I believe that Dune is the story of the Fremen, not any of the high houses.
Without Arrakis, there is no spice and without spice, there is no colonialism and space conquest. The Fremen have to live here full-time and get constantly killed by whoever controls the spice trade. In Dune 2, they are given a promise of a new beginning, but again, it is through the eyes of the flawed Paul who continues to have visions of future genocide done by his hands. While the rest of the Fremen, whether skeptical or glazing, get swept up in his prophetic ways, Chani is the only person to turn her back on him and go off into the desert once again.
The thing I like about these new Dune films is that they give you something to chew on once you leave the theater. Whereas Avengers failed to tap into our thinking power in any meaningful way, these films allow us to interpret it in different ways while taking in meaningful and breathtaking environments. The visuals moved in lockstep with the modus operandi of each clan, with my favorite aspect being how the planet Geidi Primes was portrayed. The way this film’s muted color palette blended seamlessly into the stark black and white of that planet was phenomenal. That colosseum scene was riveting, with Austin Bulter’s character fighting off drugged up dudes from Paul’s home planet in front of this massive crowd. They are cold and unflinching in their evil and it is visualized. When it goes back to the Fremen, they are a vibrant, caring bunch with bright oranges and blue glowing eyes.
My only complaint with these films is that I just wish they would finish, in more ways than one. As I said before, I want all of them to be out so I can just watch it as one full picture. They all seem to end after pretty epic confrontation and reveal, and they could be handled a lot worse (looking at the new Star Wars trilogy), but I just want to behold the saga as one experience. Secondly, I do feel like they drag on a bit too long. I understand we are capturing an epic scale, but some portions of the film could’ve been pared down a little bit. Also, the pieces just feel a little insignificant by themselves and the credits always roll at a part that feels inappropriate. But at the same time, from a marketing perspective, this works because I desperate want to see the next film. Blockbuster franchises are hard to judge because they sort of evade the typical rubric of a film in that way.
Regardless, I’ll grade it on it’s own merits by giving it a