Dune 2018 (19,20,21...)

[JD]

I haven't seen Timothee Chalament in anything, but I had heard of him before he was cast.

I doubt it. First of all it is utilizing a lot of well know actors, especially genre actors. Secondarily, the guy in charge of John Carter just assumed that everyone knew about John Carter enough to just want to see it by name recognition alone. He didn't feel the need to expand marketing beyond the name and some visuals.

Thus far, I've seen a little bit more chatter with Dune than I did with John Carter. So I am cautiously optimistic that there is some success going to be had here.

I'm pretty sure people working for Disney were in charge of the very poor marketing for John Carter, not Andrew Stanton.

Oscar Isacc? A little franchise called "Star Wars"?

If anybody is looking for something with Oscar Isaac that isn't Star Wars, Ex Machina is awesome, and he gives a great performance.

Rebecca Ferguson? Mission Impossible movies and many more

Rebecca Ferguson is awesome in MI: Rogue Nation and MI: Fallout. If you like spy action movies, and don't mind Tom Cruise, I highly recommend them. I think Mission Impossible is one of the few movies series that has actually improved as it's gone along.

Zendaya? Mary Jane in the new Spider-man movies

She's Michelle Jones in the Spider-Man movies, they don't have Mary Jane in them.

 

[fireproof78]

'm pretty sure people working for Disney were in charge of the very poor marketing for John Carter, not Andrew Stanton.

I'd have to look it up but Stanton pretty much owned it and (as odd as this sounds) I do know some people who work in Hollywood and pretty much stated the same. Take that for what its worth.

 

[wayoung]

My bet is you guys have seen Chalamet, just didn't know it. He was the son in Interstellar, the young private in Hostiles, and King Henry in last year's The King on Netflix.

His biggest films are arthouse features/targeted at the female audience though so assuming most of the people posting in this thread are guys it's not a surprise we haven't been exposed to him much.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I guess I must've seen him in Interstellar then. I just like saying his name especially since Timothee has the accent mark so it rhymes with Chalamet.

 

[fireproof78]

bet is you guys have seen Chalamet, just didn't know it. He was the son in Interstellar, the young private in Hostiles, and King Henry in last year's The King on Netflix.

Haven't seen those.

 

[Timewalker]

...Is this sarcasm? Dune's cast is stacked

Okay, I take it back. I have heard of Josh Brolin and Charlotte Rampling. However, I haven't seen anything they were in.

I mean, OK. I haven't heard of some of the lady actors but I do know most of the males.
Well, Jason Momoa will at least get some street cred from being Aquaman and in Game of Thrones (briefly) from genre fans. Oscar Isaac will be known to X-Men and Star Wars fans. Bautista from Guardians of the Galaxy. Stellan Skarsgård and Josh Brolin I've seen in a bunch of stuff, but more recently Marvel.

Lot of Marvel.

I don't watch Marvel. I've never seen Game of Thrones or Guardians of the Galaxy. The last Star Wars movie I saw was the one in which Han was killed off, and haven't had any interest since. Han was my favorite character, so without him, I don't see the point in watching further (just my own preference; don't take this as criticism of other fans' preferences). I haven't even seen the prequel trilogy all the way through. I really did try, but they're so damned boring, I just can't force myself.

It says something about the quality of post-original trilogy Star Wars when I'd rather watch a Harry Potter marathon for the third time (which is on this weekend in Canada on our science fiction channel) than bother with a Star Wars movie, though once they all come to TV, I'll give it another try.

Oscar Isacc? A little franchise called "Star Wars"?

I can't match him with any character I remember. Sorry.

Rebecca Ferguson? Mission Impossible movies and many more

Never saw them.

Jason Momoa? Aquaman?

Josh Brolin? Cable? Thanos?

Zendaya? Mary Jane in the new Spider-man movies

Seriously, folks, I don't watch very many movies anymore. It's been over 20 years since I last set foot in a theatre. It's just in the last couple of years that I finally saw the Harry Potter movies (the science fiction channel in Canada usually runs them as a marathon a couple of times a year on long weekends, and I decided to give them a try and was surprised to find that I liked them. Maggie Smith was the dealbreaker, though. I love her performances).

Most of my TV viewing nowadays is a combination of Star Trek, various shows on PBS, and documentaries on BBC Earth. Movies need not apply unless they're an old favorite or something I might try because it looks interesting.

So... I Googled the cast and it appears that they've switched Liet-Kynes from male to female. WTF? Why? It may be more palatable for 21st-century audiences, but in the context of the Imperium in the year 10,191, the position of Imperial Planetologist would be unlikely to be given to a woman. After all, this is still a feudal society, no matter if they have space travel. Royal women have some power, Bene Gesserit have a great deal of power, but in what is essentially a hybrid of a court position/civil service, those positions would go to men.

(Do NOT start accusing me of misogyny; I'm a woman who is all in favor of equality, but in the in-universe context of Dune, I don't think Emperor Shaddam IV and his advisors would have put a woman into that position (unless manipulated into it by the BG?).

 

[CorporalCaptain]

it appears that they've switched Liet-Kynes from male to female. WTF? Why? It may be more palatable for 21st-century audiences, but in the context of the Imperium in the year 10,191, the position of Imperial Planetologist would be unlikely to be given to a woman. After all, this is still a feudal society, no matter if they have space travel. Royal women have some power, Bene Gesserit have a great deal of power, but in what is essentially a hybrid of a court position/civil service, those positions would go to men.

Obviously, this is a different version, in at least some of the details. The film is an adaptation of the books, if you will....

 

[Kai "the spy"]

So, that theatre-only teaser trailer attached to Tenet?! Apparently not in Germany. Bummer.

 

[Timewalker]

Obviously, this is a different version, in at least some of the details. The film is an adaptation of the books, if you will....

It's made crystal-clear in the books that Liet-Kynes is Chani's FATHER. Not her mother.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's made crystal-clear in the books that Liet-Kynes is Chani's FATHER. Not her mother.

So, yeah, I've read the book multiple times. I know. Obviously, this is different, like, an adaptation....

 

[Timewalker]

So, yeah, I've read the book multiple times. I know. Obviously, this is different, like, an adaptation....

Well, like, I, like, know it's, like, an adaptation. But, like, what's the point behind this switch? Especially since Liet-Kynes, like, gets killed off early.

Unless they're, like, going to, like, change that part, too.

Like.

(Seriously, I know it's an adaptation. I asked WHY TPTB decided on a pointless gender switch that makes absolutely zero sense, given the in-universe context of the entire role of Liet-Kynes. And the cast list I Googled didn't include whoever is playing Irulan; have they decided to omit her?)

 

[Mage]

Well, like, I, like, know it's, like, an adaptation. But, like, what's the point behind this switch? Especially since Liet-Kynes, like, gets killed off early.

Unless they're, like, going to, like, change that part, too.

Like.

(Seriously, I know it's an adaptation. I asked WHY TPTB decided on a pointless gender switch that makes absolutely zero sense, given the in-universe context of the entire role of Liet-Kynes. And the cast list I Googled didn't include whoever is playing Irulan; have they decided to omit her?)

Who cares when gender isn't important to the part? Muad'Dib needs to be male, because he's the Kwisatz Haderach, the male that can look where females cannot.
There are many roles where gender or skin color doesn't matter, it's not integral to the overall plot. You say it's integral. There is literally NO PART in Dune that says people of high status in the Empire need to be male. Can you imagine how many people with high status are needed to oversee an Empire as fast as the one in Dune? We only saw a few, and they happened to be male. People just assumed they all needed to be. Fremen almost worship Liet, but also have women in high regard. Again, no need for Liet-Kynes to be male.

 

[Timewalker]

Who cares when gender isn't important to the part? Muad'Dib needs to be male, because he's the Kwisatz Haderach, the male that can look where females cannot.
There are many roles where gender or skin color doesn't matter, it's not integral to the overall plot. You say it's integral. There is literally NO PART in Dune that says people of high status in the Empire need to be male. Can you imagine how many people with high status are needed to oversee an Empire as fast as the one in Dune? We only saw a few, and they happened to be male. People just assumed they all needed to be. Fremen almost worship Liet, but also have women in high regard. Again, no need for Liet-Kynes to be male.

skin color

Don't even try to go there. I said nothing about skin color. Do not make this out to be something it isn't.

I already explained why Liet-Kynes has to be male. What the Fremen do is irrelevant, because their internal government isn't the same as the Imperial government. Women in authority among the Fremen (the Sayyadina) serve a religious role that is part-guide, part-historian, part-spiritual leader, and they influence what the naibs decide. But the Sayyadina don't make the final decisions. The naibs - who are men - do that.

(Note that I'm going by Frank Herbert's novels, and what he approved in the Dune Encyclopedia. KJA/BH's drivel is not required.)

 

[wayoung]

Because Dune has two female characters of any substance in the novel, the leads wife and mother, and the wife only makes a short appearance in this movie so they wanted to increase representation by gender swapping and expanding the role of a character whose gender is unimportant to the film. Kynes being a woman doesn't change anything story wise. Dune was written nearly 60 years ago. Different time, different values. I hope they don't include Frank's overt homophobia if they get to GEOD either.

 

[wayoung]

In related news, here in Canada movie theatres reopened this past weekend.

Staff are already testing positive for Covid-19 and affected theatres are being shit (edit: oops - SHUT) back down.

 

[Timewalker]

Because Dune has two female characters of any substance in the novel, the leads wife and mother, and the wife only makes a short appearance in this movie so they wanted to increase representation by gender swapping and expanding the role of a character whose gender is unimportant to the film. Kynes being a woman doesn't change anything story wise. Dune was written nearly 60 years ago. Different time, different values. I hope they don't include Frank's overt homophobia if they get to GEOD either.

When Dune was written is irrelevant. It's about a feudal society in which women have traditional roles, and they have to be either in a religious order (the Bene Gesserit or Sayyadina) or of very high rank to have any real power. That's how it was in real history, and it's how it was in the Dune novels, which were partially based on historical feudalism.

And don't worry about GEOD; I doubt very much this latest attempt will get that far, and if you want to talk about an unfilmable book... yikes.

Some of the guys at the old Arrakeen forum loved God Emperor, and it's thanks to long conversations with them that I finally understood what the hell that book was really about, because as many times as I tried to understand it, it just seemed like a few scenes of Duncan Idaho trying to fathom this new life he'd never asked for, while Leto keeps blathering away to whoever is there to listen, even if it's just his own thoughts being recorded in his journals. And then both Leto and Duncan fall in love with Hwi Noree (I have no idea why), a plot is hatched, and Leto dies. The end. Duncan and Siona carry on, and after fast-forwarding another 1500 years, the Bene Gesserit end up taking over what's left of the Imperium.

In related news, here in Canada movie theatres reopened this past weekend.

Staff are already testing positive for Covid-19 and affected theatres are being shit back down.

No surprise there. People are desperate for normalcy, but don't understand that it isn't safe until there's a vaccine.

 

[FPAlpha]

In related news, here in Canada movie theatres reopened this past weekend.

Staff are already testing positive for Covid-19 and affected theatres are being shit back down.

You might want to re-read the last part or let it stand - i was amused

However i agree that the gender of Liet-Kynes is completely unimportant and have no problem that it has been swapped. We agree that due to the story Paul has to be male, that's it.

I would even guess that if Dune would have been written now, in the 2010s/2020s by an unbiased or progressive writer we'd see a perhaps a more balanced society with men and women being in equally powerful positions (unless the novel is intentionally portraying gender inequality).

 

[wayoung]

The time a work is created is incredibly important with regards to how it utilizes characters. Ignoring the social norms of the time does a great disservice to trying to understand the works you are experiencing.

There are no mentions whatsoever in the novels that women are banned from professional occupations. That's your own interpretation. There's no evidence for this. The place of women in the imperial society is not explored. I simply do not see gender swapping Kynes as a betrayal in any way of the principals of the novel.

As for GEOD I doubt they'll make it either but that wasn't my point. My point was that as amazing as the books are, they're still a product of their time and that does need to sometimes be updated to modern values. The homophobia in GEOD is an obvious example. Its not a surprise that a man born in 1920 and writing in the early 80's would be homophobic and have homophobic characters. Again, product of his time. But since that's not integral to the story there's no reason a modern adaptation has to include said homophobia.

 

[wayoung]

You might want to re-read the last part or let it stand - i was amused

However i agree that the gender of Liet-Kynes is completely unimportant and have no problem that it has been swapped. We agree that due to the story Paul has to be male, that's it.

I would even guess that if Dune would have been written now, in the 2010s/2020s by an unbiased or progressive writer we'd see a perhaps a more balanced society with men and women being in equally powerful positions (unless the novel is intentionally portraying gender inequality).

Lol, good catch

 

[The Wormhole]

Zendaya? Mary Jane in the new Spider-man movies

Point of Order: Zendaya is not Mary Jane. Her character is know as MJ, but MJ in this case in fact means Michelle Jones.

In related news, here in Canada movie theatres reopened this past weekend.

Staff are already testing positive for Covid-19 and affected theatres are being shit (edit: oops - SHUT) back down.

Where's that at? In Nova Scotia, theatres have been reopened since early July, and so far have not been a factor in any of our positive Corona cases.