Short version: I understand that some people out there are bound and determined to pretend that there is no appreciable difference between watching a movie in theaters and watching it at home “with a good sound system*.” I feel a great and terrible pity for those people right now, because you need to watch DUNE in theaters for the first time.
Slightly longer version: it was a good movie. Good acting, excellent sets, the script was remarkably faithful to the book. Somewhat different aesthetic than the Lynch DUNE, but you knew that going in. As to which one is better: the question’s unfair. Lynch had to put the entire book into one movie, and Villeneuve is rolling the dice on whether he’s ever going to get to finish his story. I suspect that they probably would be content to sit together over a bottle of fine brandy, and toast each other for making good DUNE movies.
By all means, go see DUNE. In theaters. Save that HBOMax junk for the second viewings.
So this isn’t Dune, then?
So like ‘It’ the producers are gambling that people will just ignore the fact that they lied and left out that pesky ‘Part 1’ that belongs there?
F*ck those kinds of people. No money for them. At least Harry Potter and The Hunger Games were up front and honest when they split a book.
Eh. I’m one of those heathens.
As far as I can tell, the main benefit of the theater is social. There’s a certain camaraderie in setting out on a journey with others (even if it’s only for two hours). You feel validation when people around you gasp when you gasp, laugh when you laugh, cheer when you cheer, which enhances the sense of community.
It’s great. When it works. Seeing this with friends equally likely to geek out about it would be top notch.
But the size of the screen doesn’t matter much. I’ve enjoyed movies just as much on a 27” TV with onboard sound as on an IMAX.
Nah, you don’t want to actually stop people from going to the theaters, because how dare they have fun that others are too afraid to have.
I am horrified that people like that actually exist.
(Beforetimes rant deleted, words like psyop, enable, and damnation were used unironicly.)
The bright side is, the going-to-theaters thing turned out to be excellent for unmasking petty would-be tyrants, which lets us isolate them more easily.
I haven’t been in a theater in a decade, but I certainly wouldn’t discourage other, more people-tolerant folks from going. It’s hard for me to enjoy a movie when it feels like the trash compactor in the original Star Wars.
So it might be a while before I get to see the new Dune.