Dune dance

 Watched Dune .... what a lot of cobblers.  Was there a single cliche of the genre that they shirked and shied from? 

Let us count the seen-before / heard-before a hundred times... 

Vast, majestic yet forbiddingly austere interiors, shrouded in shadow (hmmm they’ve colonized the galaxy but can’t afford some extra 140 watt bulbs?!). 

Haute couture-like, sculpted and dimensional garments, in sombre hues of black and grey, exquisitely tailored (how about a bit of hot pink for variety's sake, or some fluorescent multi-colored futuristic fabric of the far future?). 

Portentous drum-clattery music, swoops of lustrously dark abstract sound-texture, not unlike a poncified high-def version of Mover-style gloomcore at times... i.e. the usual Zimmerbombast. 

Faintly fascistic massing of troops, serried and regimented formations, huge chants of soldierly loyalty rising up with a vaguely Zulu-like quality... 

A priestly caste that gives off an eerie aura of gnosis. 

LOTR-style, much intense holding of the mutual gaze, shining eyes, plighting of troth, words of honor and glory, destiny and dynasty... 

A prince reunited with his older mentor, who schooled and schools him still in the manly arts of hand-to-hand combat. 

Still fighting with swords for some reason…

Despite being a s.f. nut in my teens, I never read the book.  I was put off by the cover I think - and never liked those sort of quasi-Medieval space sagas, galactic empires struggling for dominance, confederations of alien races etc. In fact vastly prefer s.f. that is terrestial and near-future (10 to 200 years ahead, that sort of range).  Never seen more than 20 minutes here and there of the Lynch Dune when it's been shown on TV. The book does sound vastly more interesting and potentially impressive, from what I've read about it online, than either of the two filmic versions (although this current one does seem to be immaculately executed, albeit within its utterly cliched and played-out terms). 

(And maybe Dune invented those cliches? But that doesn't really help the current viewer, can't be made allowance for).

Just about the only value I gleaned from watching it was realising that not one but two Eon songs derive their soundbite and title from (I assume) the Lynch Dune... 

The phrase "fear - the mindkiller" cropped up twice in the movie, in fact. But I don't recall "the spice must flow" coming up. But then again, I did actually fall asleep towards the final stretch. 

postscript: good to see that Gio Makyo has similar feelings, and even more informed ones having once dug the book:

-Lawrence of Arabia in space. Colonialist fantasy of a white savior coming to lead the brown people to freedom. 

-Yet another sci-fi film that is heavily stuck on Judeo Christian ideas of a “chosen one” Messiah, which I am so over at this point. 

-Ditto for any paranormal mental powers like “the force“. 

-Evil bad empire like that’s totally new… (Starship Troopers remains the only Hollywood film to suggest that maybe we are the big bad empire and not the rebels) 

-Stupid character name of the year: Duncan Idaho. (And I thought Philip K Dick was bad at coming up with character names!) 

-Typical fascination with militaristic iconography. 

-Dialogue mixed really low so they have the headroom to clobber you with the Zimmernator and the special effects sounds.

Another thing that’s really getting overdone is the use of digital filters to give a color tint to almost every scene now. Each location has to be differentiated by Ia pervasive color... gray, green, yellow, whatever. Steven Soderbergh‘s Traffic was really the first to do this Way back when with the saturated dusty yellow Mexico... it definitely has its usage, but it’s just knee-jerk almost every single freaking scene now.

About the Zimmerbombast, Makyo comments:

"So much of the Zimmer score just seems to be multi-synth versions of risers and impacts".

I don't know what that means exactly but it sounds authoritatively dismissive!

Makyo's final observation is telling: 

"Given that the whole allure of science fiction is that we can create entirely new worlds and situations beyond our imagination, why is it that we keep ending up in the same f—king scenario over and over? This wants to position itself between Star Wars and Game of Thrones so badly it hurts"

Indeed, indeed... 

We travel into the far future or the remote reaches of the galaxy - and find only our own past, the same old-old saga narratives, talk of destiny and dynasty...

postscript