text | Linghu Boguang
The Hollywood science fiction blockbuster " Dune 2" has been released. Before the movie was released, foreign media really blew the whistle. What is the highest score in IBM's history? What is the best sequel blockbuster after "The Dark Knight"? . Bo Guangjun also went to read it immediately, if he wanted to evaluate it.
This movie is really a science fiction blockbuster. In the future, major studios will ask science fiction blockbusters to follow this standard. At least it will be visually pleasing. Compared with the first part, which spent too much time on introducing settings and shaping the atmosphere, the story of the second part is obviously much smoother. Although Sweet Tea's reputation has declined in recent years, its business capabilities as an idol can still be sustained, and Zendaya is also okay.
But when the two protagonists are together, I actually never feel any cp feeling.
At the same time, the main line of the story is actually the family grudges and the chosen one. Although " Dune " is the ancestor, everyone is also familiar with this routine. Fortunately, Villeneuve successfully used the graphics to create an epic feeling. , so making this space opera epic an epic indeed.
But the shortcomings of this movie are still very obvious, especially for Chinese audiences. I guess there must be many people who find the pace slow, the story cliché, and the production to be a surprise, and ultimately not able to get it.
"The Lord of the Rings" in the Western science fiction world? Why is the status of "Dune" so high?
I must first mention that the original work of "Dune" was written in 1965. Yes, half a century has passed. Moreover, in works such as science fiction novels, the settings can easily become outdated. Therefore, old-timer works such as "Dune", Cthulhu, etc. are still too contemporary.
Many of the groundbreaking and cross-era things they created at that time have been smashed by countless outstanding successors today. Now that
has been adapted, it has become the most "conventional" story, so the highlight of it is really the "artistic" aspect of audio-visual aspects such as aesthetics and vision. As long as these are outstanding, it can be called excellent. I personally read some of the original "Dune" (but I really didn't finish it).
Later, based on the explanations and popular science of fans of the original work, I would say that at least the "Dune" movie is not bad, but it is also a bit more form than content. Because of the original work, Villeneuve is good at describing civilian epics, which is from a young age. The big problem is to give more energy to some stories and character relationships with smaller situational specifications to achieve unconventional impact.
But it just so happens that the original book "Dune" itself is a large-scale book, and the story is quite broad. It begins with an interstellar empire and a palace struggle. We all know that counterintuition is a very useful tool in modern art, including the good works of Velen in the past, which also relied on counterintuition to create tension.
This trick is not so effective on "Dune", which has a large pattern and scale.
In addition, I think Tiancha's performance and Rebecca's performance in "Dune" inevitably fell into overexertion. Anyway, it seems that I feel more impetuous. Many people think of Dune as a space palace battle drama. But in fact, the real core of "Dune" is religion and philosophy.
I remember that the author wrote a chapter at the end of the novel to discuss some of his views on religion. This is also the underlying reason why many domestic audiences cannot empathize with this movie or novel. The movie also spends a lot of space trying to express Paul's transcendent personal experience in the novel.
Many parts are actually quite difficult to understand without knowledge of novels and the religious and cultural context of the Western court.
For example, from time to time in the movie, there are flashbacks of the characters dreaming, and the magical sounds of religious mutterings, combined with the appearance of the characters, there is an ear-splitting soundtrack. If you don't know these complicated background knowledge, you may think that the processing of these scenes is a bit mysterious.
The same problem also occurs in Paul's "precognitive dream", or strictly speaking, it is not a precognitive dream, because the setting in the novel (if I remember correctly) should be that he is so powerful that he can walk freely on the river of time. Every branch, and what ultimately becomes his reality is not necessarily the branch he took.
also has the problem of the voice, which is also very difficult to express. Not to mention the issue of cold weapons that many people cannot accept. The settings of the navigator and hyperspace travel were simply omitted from the movie.
Therefore, the part that makes many viewers feel baffled and procrastinated is actually the part where the director is trying to restore the core of the novel. And other parts are subject to the settings of the original novel. As for whether it was a success, I think it was very difficult for Director Wei to try "Dune", and the movie was also very careful, but I can also understand why some people think it doesn't look good.
Using a space battleship while stabbing people with a knife? Can you enjoy Dune 2?
A major feature of the film and television adaptation of "Dune" is that the picture style is so special that it "picks the audience." The advantage is the visual enjoyment brought by the consistent art design, but the disadvantage is that this too "restrained" and "plain" style eliminates the sense of science fiction to some extent.
But the problem is also obvious. In addition to the cultural context setting mentioned above, the problem of weak story plot alone is also very serious. Although Asimov's "Galaxy Empire" series is based on Roman history, it is not the same as "Dune" Compared with the medieval court, the Roman story is already extremely advanced.
The plot of the Chinese science fiction masterpiece "The Three-Body Problem" refers to the modern history of China. Judging from the complexity, tension, and conflict of the plot, it is easy to distinguish between the three.
When viewers see art works (including but not limited to movies) with tags such as "science fiction", "future" and "interstellar", they are born with a psychological expectation of "I want to see how this world is different from Earth OL". As a result, the scenes in "Dune" are solemn, concise, and restrained. It has neither the brilliance of an interstellar city nor the dizzying spectacle of a fleet battle. The audience may feel a sense of suffocation.
It is true that if human beings really enter the interstellar age, there is a high probability that they will go back to the colonial era and oligopoly, but this does not mean that the audience is willing to watch a "future history" that is "medieval + religious" and lacks big scenes. The combination of the above three shortcomings makes the "Dune" series more like a fan-oriented art film that pays homage to the original work.
has a superb visual experience, a mediocre plot, and a self-consistent but barren world setting. As a science fiction movie blockbuster in the 21st century, it stands on the shoulders of countless science fiction works, but it perfectly restores the limitations of the era of the 1965 original work.
If you like it, you can say you appreciate it as a classic. If you don’t, you can say it is decadent and outdated.
I personally am not a fan of the original work of "Dune". I only learned about the settings of precognitive dreams and voice after watching the first movie and reading some popular science. Of course, these two settings can still be understood when watching the movie, but they do not affect the understanding of the story.
The setting of the game is a color addition to the story. I just said that in terms of the story theme itself, it is a relatively classic "Prince's Revenge". It is not wrong to say that it is a palace drama with a space layout and universe. Then it is indeed a palace fight. plot. The structure of the empire, their military features, sisterhoods, voices and precognitive dreams are all part of the setting game and do not affect the specific structure of the story.
Space opera epic? Scheduled to be the number one Hollywood blockbuster this year? "Dune 2" was born at the wrong time
Finally, let's analyze this movie from a movie perspective alone. This movie has stronger visuals than plot, and it is a rare movie nowadays. The advantage of
is that the pictures are beautiful, and the film and television industry is very powerful. The quality of the film's shots is very, very outstanding, which is very in line with the personal style of director Denis Newa-Willen, and it is magnified to the extreme. There are several shots of the architectural style that are really impressive. I think of " Blade Runner ".
The art design is top of the list. I was instantly inspired after watching a random paragraph. The art design skills are very strong, including the lens design and advancement of the "villain soldier" in the front, which reminded me of his " Sicario ". The costume design of the
sister group is top-notch, and the black and white duel scene is really impressive, especially the light on the face of the bald boy when he first came out.All kinds of metaphors, structures, and symbols are like pressing the accelerator button. The shortcomings of
are also very obvious. First, looking at the film production itself, this director really doesn't know how to shoot war scenes and fighting scenes. He is very "restrained" in the presentation of battle settings, and the action scenes are relatively weak, which is in line with my expectations of director Dan. Impression, the presentation of battles in several of his movies is not great, but the atmosphere of the movies is really great.
Second, the pace of the plot is actually limited by the novel. There is too much information to be conveyed, and it has to be condensed into nearly three hours. It is actually very rushed. The audience feels that the pace is slow because many things must be explained and cannot be skipped. , and these things happen to be "cliché" plots that have been seen in many later works, so I feel it is a complete waste of time.
At the same time, because the rhythm is too difficult to describe, the effect is that the scene is extremely explosive. There is no bigger scene than this. It is inevitable that "contradictions will be too concentrated" later and the solution will be a little simpler. After all, it is the original parent copy from decades ago. Many of these ideas have already been paid tribute to or even plagiarized by latecomers, which would have been absolutely awesome back then. But today, some of them are understandably not so new.
Finally, let’s talk about the director. Villeneuve is in the rising period of his career, and it is also a period of trial and error. His creative style is basically stable, but he is still making more attempts. In fact, just like Nolan, would you say that every one of his films is amazing? That is over-deification, and when trying works with different themes, it is inevitable that there will be parts that you are not good at
There are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand people, and director Villeneuve's creativity in movies is definitely more than what some people say. It's so thin, just like "Arrival" would be amazing if you could understand Villeneuve's film layout and narrative techniques. Chinese audiences really can't watch "Dune" because of the cultural background, historical background and religious background.
But in the current Hollywood and global film industry, "Dune" is already very rare.
It’s amazing that this story can be filmed, not to mention that he completed it well. The romance of science, linguistics, anthropology, and cosmic poetics all appeared on the screen. But this work has a threshold for viewing. Some people are destined to like it, while others will criticize it because they don’t understand it.
I think Villeneuve's goal is not here, but somewhere further.
