Ah, now that was a fun movie.
Honestly, only one hiccup with the plot, I feel. I mean, I get it, and if we liken it to astral projection, it sounds kind of cool, but even if all the technology was flawless, why would you do it in that situation? No, I get it, I do. But of all the plot devices they could have used (none of which immediately come to mind) to get the story to move on to the next stage, it felt like a weird leap to take... unless I'm missing something from the previous movie, that I haven't watched yet? It just felt like the lead up needed more time to cook, and maybe that already happened. But ultimately, it doesn't even matter. Skipping right along with the flow, that was a super fun ride.
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Now, on the flip side, after so many adaptations of DUNE... nah. Nah, man, I wasn't satisfied with the latest, and having not read the book, I'm starting to think that the whole DUNE saga is extremely overrated. It sets up the kind of universe where you want to follow all the plot and intrigue of a vast galactic empire... only to dump you with some story about these superstitious desert people who have been tricked over generations into believing in a prophesy that was always orchestrated to have come true. None of it matters. In previous adaptations, the whole "grandfather" part didn't even fully register to me, but this time it did. The whole storyline of Paul Atreides just suddenly felt absolutely meaningless, and thinking about it, poorly written from the start; which might explain why adapting it into a film has always been difficult, with mixed results. It's a contrived power fantasy about a privelaged white kid being worshipped by some desert natives, stuffed headfirst into the middle of a sci-fi story. I discovered the genre name "sword and planet" recently while browsing pinterest, and Dune is literally that, and I've always loved the concept, and the retro cover art. But in Dune the swords are daggers. And with only one planet to really explore, and a desert one at that, it may as well just be John Carter of Mars, and the Disney adaptation of that didn't inspire any sequels. I didn't mind it, but it wasn't amazing. That series always struck me as a lot more towards high fantasy than Dune; which is trying to make it realistic and plausible, despite the magic mcguffin of spice. Maybe that's the problem? The never-made version by Jodorowsky always seems like it had the right idea. Go real over the top, wacky, and not take itself too seriously. From the way it seems to get described, it would have become a longer tv series, rather than cramming it all into a couple short hours.
But I feel like I've said a lot of that before.
I feel like I'd only ever watch Dune 2 again, and only once more, if... I was going to say, if I thought I'd get more clarity out of it, but no. That's not enough to make me sit down and watch that 3 hour film again.
Ghostbusters, though? Hell yeah, I don't need any pushing to rewatch that. On fact, I'd love to marathon it with the originals!
The thought of doing that with the latest Dune adaptations is exhausting by itself... like when you think about watching all The Hobbit films, because you didn't hate them, but you remember that one time you watched the first one on DVD, and it had a fucking INTERMISSION, and you did not change the disc in order to resume watching it. What, you thought there were only three Hobbit movies? Feels longer.
