Dune Part 2 2023 (24, 25, 26...)
- Thread starter wayoung
- Start date
Apology accepted.
How will using stillsuits correctly prevent non-fans from understanding the plot? They don't cover the entire face, just the mouth and forehead. You can still easily see who everyone is.
As for people who do reaction videos, keep in mind that their channels are usually monetized and much of what they react to is because their Patreon supporters have asked them to, or paid extra for them to react to a certain movie or series. Just because they react to something, it doesn't mean they're a fan of that particular movie or show, or even of that genre.
I saw a YT reactor do The Ten Commandments, and she had no clue who played Pharaoh or who played Moses. She referred to Charlton Heston as "Charles Heston" and guessed that he was the pharaoh(!). So I have to surmise that she knew little or nothing about Heston, and little or nothing about famous bible-based dramas.
I am allowed to disagree with you or anyone else when it comes to what is an "issue" with this or any other movie, TV show, book, etc. It's not an issue with you - fine. But you need to realize that there are things that are an issue with me.
This is no different from the myriad issues people have with the various Star Trek series or movies, or superhero movies, or whatever. Some like them and some don't. There are people who get into angry confrontations over elements of Star Trek that I literally never notice. I don't attack them for it. Being rude to someone is not the way to get them to agree with you.
I've given numerous reasons MANY times for why I think what I think about this movie. It's tiresome to constantly see this refrain of "I can't understand why..." when I've TOLD everyone my reasons. Just because you don't agree doesn't mean my opinions aren't well-reasoned.
So you do you - reject this wonderful, visually stunning, well acted and written ADAPTATION of a classic Science Fiction novel, that has influenced many who came after just because some people didn't wear masks when the book said they do.
I am getting really damn tired of pointing out that the lack of proper stillsuit use is NOT the only reason I don't think well of this movie. There are many other reasons, to do with casting, acting, costuming, the director's disingenuous statements, and so on.
BTW, you don't want masks on the actors' faces? What about those doilies the Bene Gesserit characters wear on their faces? I don't see what useful purpose they serve, and they look silly. At least a stillsuit mask has a filter in it for the purpose of reclaiming moisture that would otherwise be lost to the open air.
The Brothers Grimm lived up (down?) to their names, scaring little kids for more generations than I care to try to calculate at the moment.
The thing you need to understand with the whole stillsuit thing, is that when you're dealing with a movie or TV series where they are paying these actors millions of dollars to appear onscreen, 90% of the time, they are going to go out of their way to make sure that they are showing as much of the actors' faces (and depending on the type of movie and rating, other parts of their body) as they possibly can. You don't hire people like Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Timothee Chalomet, and Zendaya and then cover up their faces. You mention the Benet Gesserit, but they were a fairly minor part of the movie, and were meant to be kind of strange and mysterious, so I'm pretty sure that was what they were going for with the veils. And even with the veil, you could still tell the Mohaim was Charlotte Rampling, which is more than we would get if the stillsuits masks covered the characters' faces like in the book.
Indeed, we see with superhero movies these days there's all sorts of conceits to see them without their masks, like the whole interior helmet vision thing in the Iron Man movies. Just the way Hollywood works.
Pragmatic vs. Hollywood strikes again.
Hell, it happened in Across the Spider-Verse and that's animation where you don't worry about an actor's face. In that case, it was a conceit to see Miles' reaction to a certain event, one that couldn't be easily conveyed with his mask on while silently observing.
Hers was more like a very loose-weave afghan or throw. Even in the Elmo parody of the gom jabbar scene, Elmo asks, "Why do you have a blanket on your face?"
It seems that the Bene Gesserit are forever doomed to look ridiculous in whatever adaptations are made. Lynch made them bald, the miniseries gave them funny hats, and Villeneuve has them wearing blankets and doilies over their faces. I predict lampshades for the next adaptation, or maybe a toque like Jayne wears in Firefly.
The only one of these actors I'm familiar with is Timothee Chalomet, and only because some people have used clips of his other work when making Harry Potter fan videos and cast him as Regulus Black. So to me these aren't famous people. They're just a bunch of actors, some of whom mumble their lines.
And for the umpteenth time, covering the mouth is not covering the entire face. The eyes are visible. The nose is visible (though there should be filters inserted into the nostrils). They can be heard when they speak. If an actor can't convey emotion without speaking or having their mouth visible, they need to learn how.
Would it have been better if the Fremen stillsuits had had transparent face plates, that perhaps could have been made opaque, e.g. for combat? Maybe it wouldn't have satisfied all purists (I would have been fine with it), but it could have solved the technical issue of moisture containment while allowing full actor face visibility.
I just don't see it being practical from an acting point of view. The last thing you do is inhibit their mouth. I would imagine there are workarounds but not sure how practical it would be. Doable, of course but practical? Curious.
The mouth would not be inhibited, and the face would be completely visible.
Sorry it wasn't about that. I was musing outloud.
There are many things done in movies and TV shows that are doable but not practical, or at least annoying. Yet they're part of whatever the production is and if they're done well and the actors can cope with it, it works.
Indeed, this is true. So I would be curious to see what would be the balancing act to strike the actors managing within it, similar to prosthetics and make up. I am trying to imagine what could serve as part of the stilsuit, while still allowing for audio capture, more doable with smaller microphones now, and acting styles.
Again, I am looking at how actors can cope and what designs can be utilized while practical in their application, especially across multiple extras and people.
Remember that it's only necessary for something to look like it functions as it's supposed to. I'm not suggesting that someone really invent a functioning Fremen stillsuit and make the actors wear it.
I used to work backstage in musical theatre, on the properties crew, and there were so many times that I had to find or make something that was supposed to serve a specific function - but either the thing in question was hard to find, illegal in Canada, unsafe for various reasons, or too expensive for the production's budget.
So we had to fake it sometimes, to make it look real, or at least a plausible substitute. If we did a good enough job, the audience never knew the difference.
There were a couple of shows where I flat-out told the director that we could NOT have a monkey or goldfish (live ones) (this was for Gypsy), or real fireworks for a scene in Peter Pan (the fire department refused permission for that - thank goodness!), or arrows being shot across the stage (could easily have hurt actors and stage hands if the aim missed or if someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time).
In the above situations, we substituted different animals, flanged up fake fireworks that only looked like it was lit, and rewrote a few lines of the script. It worked.
Overall, though, I aimed for as much reality as possible in the shows I worked on. When the kids got egg rolls to eat in Gypsy, they were right out of the microwave - you could see the steam from the audience. I did that because first of all, we had no way to keep food frozen there, and I didn't want it to thaw and either get disgusting or have somebody eat it who wasn't supposed to. Second of all, I knew that at least some of the people in the scene would take a bite or two, and it was nice to be able to tell them to go ahead - it was safe to eat, and they wouldn't be trying to eat something that was frozen solid.
I used to work backstage in musical theatre, on the properties crew, and there were so many times that I had to find or make something that was supposed to serve a specific function - but either the thing in question was hard to find, illegal in Canada, unsafe for various reasons, or too expensive for the production's budget.
So we had to fake it sometimes, to make it look real, or at least a plausible substitute. If we did a good enough job, the audience never knew the difference.
There were a couple of shows where I flat-out told the director that we could NOT have a monkey or goldfish (live ones) (this was for Gypsy), or real fireworks for a scene in Peter Pan (the fire department refused permission for that - thank goodness!), or arrows being shot across the stage (could easily have hurt actors and stage hands if the aim missed or if someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time).
In the above situations, we substituted different animals, flanged up fake fireworks that only looked like it was lit, and rewrote a few lines of the script. It worked.
Overall, though, I aimed for as much reality as possible in the shows I worked on. When the kids got egg rolls to eat in Gypsy, they were right out of the microwave - you could see the steam from the audience. I did that because first of all, we had no way to keep food frozen there, and I didn't want it to thaw and either get disgusting or have somebody eat it who wasn't supposed to. Second of all, I knew that at least some of the people in the scene would take a bite or two, and it was nice to be able to tell them to go ahead - it was safe to eat, and they wouldn't be trying to eat something that was frozen solid.
I've done some backstage and acting and yes of course sometimes you have to take it.
But, when you have a camera taking in every single detail then the creativity will be interesting to see how to make it work. Which is where my mind is going to what do you use, and obviously different layers for speaking vs. non speaking roles, etc.
Again, just my own musings.
I thought this was the least ridiculous looking version of them.
You must not watch a lot of movies.
It's not their whole face, but it's still enough that they're going to want to avoid it as much as possible.
Last edited:
I don't, or rather I am probably not into the movie genres/franchises that these actors have appeared in.
The last movie I saw in a theatre was Toy Story 2. That's literally last century.
I've got a bunch of movies recorded that were on PBS Saturday Night Cinema, though. I've caught up a bit on some movies I missed when they were first on, or have rewatched old favorites (ie. Fiddler on the Roof, which was on recently).
I'm usually years out of date with a lot of SF/F TV shows. It's just in the last 7 months that I got hooked on Merlin (left off a third of the way through a fanfic to come and reply to your post).
Next time you watch something, ignore the actors' mouths. Concentrate on how well or how poorly they convey subtle emotional nuances with their eyes and other body language. It's like taking the Bene Gesserit approach to studying an actor's performance, except you're not concentrating on the mouth.
I wrote a lot of Crow: Stairway to Heaven fanfic back around 1999-2000. Some of it was inspired by the actors' eyes, when they reacted to what another actor did, or their body language. A tilt of the head can convey so much if it's done effectively. I didn't need to see the STH actors' mouths to understand the nuances of what they were communicating.
Yes, that's fine you can act with your eyes, but when you have recognizeable actors on screen, you're going to want people to see all of their face. Actors in live action movies are recognized by their faces, and hired because they have a recognizable face, so as often as possible they are going to want to show those faces. You're not going to pay 6 or 7 figures for an actor, and then cover their face.
Similar threads
