So Dune, the Newest

 

As "franchises" go, this has been a rewarding one. I read the book in 1981. I watched the David Lynch production in 1984. I caught the Sci-Fi Channel's take in Aughts. I read all of the Herbert Dune books then. I tried the professionally published fan fiction afterwards and dropped it quickly. Now I have Denis Villeneuve's two movies. Watched the most recent of the iterations last night. I made a whole afternoon out of it even. You'll have to as well.

It has everything I expected, AND more it was more good than bad.

The casting is spot on, and I say this as someone that has read the books. Okay now that I said it, I should go on and clarify. Timothee Chalmet, born in NYC BTW, works as "Paul" so well, every guy below the age of 40 trying to not have a chip on their shoulder will relate. Whatever Zendaya is (I'm sure she has a full name somewhere), she takes the Muadid's squeeze to places where a real woman would actually go, as opposed to the book. Paul Baptiste as Rabban the Harkonnen is a piece of bronze set in glass for perfection in the role he was playing-- you want brutality based on overall insecurity? You got it.-- Josh Brolin as the uncle that we all wished we had? He's so there. And everybody else highlighted was great as well, complete with a lot of characterization, but the scripting didn't do them justice. More on that later.

The design of the overall work is almost beautiful. Repressed women from the Baltic in the 12th Century to most of the Muslim world today will look admiringly at the cocoons that the actresses that represented any female that had procreated already in the tale with awe. Once again, dudes wearing armor seem to be wearing the most ineffective protective gear ever. The most disappointing aspect of the artistic direction is the failure of producers to show why anyone would really want to, or not, live on Arrakis, err Doon, err "Dune, desert planet." Pools of water with dusty gatherings and a lot of shadow is a city block, not 3/4s of a planet.  That said, riding the giant sand worms of the planet as a mass transport system was rather believable.

The political and war dynamics depicted in the movie are as weak as it is in the book Dune. Something about a parliamentary of monarchs system subverted by an autocrat, their elected emperor, happening within that parliamentarian system using a faction of mean baddies. There is an awesome tactical combat scene. While it is meant to show that Villenuve's hyper-accurate understanding of managed violence, it is bonding moment between Paul and Chani despite the "hyper-detail." Overall though, the "warring" depicted in this take of the book is silly. Still the ornithopters as the solution between helicopters and airplanes shows why Herbert understood speculative science while writing fiction. If anyone can make sense of the movie's last part battles, please let me know. The Character dialogue did explain the premise changes nicely though.

Short points in the tale can only be blamed on the author, Frank Herbert. The bad part of the movie were the bad guys. There is the mean baddies, the Harkonnen. Then there is the two-faced Emperor which is supposed to be evil. The Director of this movie gets that and shows part of this point.

Big meanies get defined beautifully. Okay the Harkonnen of Gedi Prime are the worst of humanity. This translates as something akin to, umm Star-Finnish (FUCK YOU HERBERT). They live on a world where the suns themselves bleach humanity from its own selves. Pale, but fuckable apparently. The astrological and autocratic women, Jezzi-Jizz-habitat, not beholden to the autocrat, come up with designs trying to make an off-spring which they'll hate anyway when it shows up. In the end something about scheming women with a master plan covered up by the peanut butter-covered mystery box laced with grape jelly-flavored betrayal. Nothing but trouble, I'm sure.

The evil of Emperor though is stillborn. While Christopher Walken is the most powerful of any of the Padushah Emperors I've seen to date, he is just not given enough to do. He appointed Duke Leito AtTreesandWater to Planet Dune.Oil.and.Cocaine to replace Finns Gone Bad for some reason. His Supreme-ness then betrays his pick using his own roid rangers from heavy gravity to help out. I think he then posted a letter of confession in the mail to somewhere he was sure it'd never be found. Suddenly a white-bread messiah, the son of the betrayed tree-hugger Duke, comes forward and calls for hollywoodwar.Why that Herbert and Villeneuve have so much contempt for this Character could have been a bit more detailed. 

Overall, the movie is a Godzilla of a sci-fi movie. I'll still have to watch New Village's, my nickname for Villenueve, two movies about Dune together. I hear there there might be more movies about Dune coming. I'll go see them.

Flash Gordon: New Takes Don't Hurt

A great take!

Science fiction movies are not stagnating. It's not the reboot that is turning movies into tripe.  Reproducing these works is like new takes on Shakespeare, the artistic vision and thematic direction of each production allows the artists involved to get comfortable with epic scope without becoming Tolstoy or an abject failure. I bring this up after seeing so many YouTube critics are weary of basically anything J.J. Abrams and Marvel or Star Wars from Disney and most of post 2000 Star Trek. Me too, Brother and Sister, I am developing a bias against big money movies with catered-to internet fan bases. As for long standing stories, the reboot of a classic tale of speculative fiction whether it be a TV series or film, it is like fresh water from a nearby mountain stream that freshens up things up in a landscape well known the a person. Flash Gordon while fully trademarked and copyrighted by its owner Hearst Communications, is a cycle of speculative fiction that is right up there with John Carter of Mars, War of the Worlds, and even Frankenstein, in my opinion, in terms of potential and impact on imaginative stories to be told. As much as I bemoan the stagnation of fantastic culture losing its creative spark, I can't say I mind reboots for the most part.

My pick for Thun the Lion-Man in Flash Gordon: Disney Defeated available 2027

I still need to clarify this. TV shows shouldn't be rebooted or turned into motion pictures. That is at least without the original casts. If one wants to do an homage, do one; do not revamp a decent piece of culture into hardcore camp. Big name actors in movies "introducing new audiences" to "old television classics" from twenty years ago in a 90-120 minute with format-scripted modern changes should be left to realm of parody.

It's been a long ride with Flash for me. My first introduction to the Flash Gordon cycle was in Germany about '74. It was in English but had been produced in Berlin from the 50s with Steven Holland. I can't remember Ming or Mongo ever being mentioned. There was something about Pluto or Charon and a space-based FBI--kind of boring and hokey. In the States in like 1979, I started watching an animated series Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All on Detroit's Channel 20 (I think). There I started learning the classic Ming Vs. Earth saga. Someone drove me to the mall to catch the 1980s sexual chocolate take on Flash Gordon with Freddy Mercury as Ming (wink) and some dude with dyed hair as Flash's stunt double-- still a good movie, a lot of hot chicks and hawk-men.  When I got my license, I'd be introduced to the serials by late night TV on CABLE at my sister's apartment. It was all so cool. Throughout the years, I'd read works from the 30s and still be like "Wow. That is kewl." Most recently, I've been taking a look at comic books, mostly diminishing any respect I ever had for comic book producers and writers. Today, I catch a comic strip, which I think is net-based, but the writing is great. It is even adding to the vast lexicon of my favorite Science Fiction heroes and villains yet. It has been anything but a straight line, but now that I know the chronology of releases, it's only gotten better. I absolutely adore the CBC's take on Flash Gordon from 2007-- got problems with it? I'll fight you.



Indeed, with this "franchise" it still evokes excitement when I hear about the next take. I am much happier with my varied experiences with Flash Gordon, since the 1970s, than I have been with, say, Star Wars or Star Trek. I suppose it's because the milieu of this spaceship-laden folklore isn't based off of internet searches of vocabulary to determine what is the next popular thing, but has a long catalog of themes and ideas already discovered awaiting interpretation.