Funny How Many Ppl Feel Like It’s Showing Too Much And Not Tellling Lol What’s With The Takes On

Funny how many ppl feel like it’s showing too much and not tellling lol what’s with the takes on this movie it’s so polar opposite

so I rewatched Dune (with subs this time) and I still don't understand the hype. My impressions are of course my own, but I think the main issue why it doesn't work for me is that it doesn't explore its main themes in an interesting way and, mostly, that it's a lot of telling, not showing.

It does have some good visuals, but a limited color palette that ends up being a detriment to the story (the desert lacks color! their people lack color!). Timothee has a very short range of acting so he just mumbles most of the time while looking bored or confused, which might be in character, but makes it very difficult to believe anyone would like him enough to support him without already knowing him. Paul as the protagonist isn't particularly interesting for me, either, because I don't really know what he cares about except his friend Jason Momoa, whose work as a strategist and commander we barely see, in favor of listening to stories about what he does. We don't learn how the superpowers aka the Voice works, either, for some goddamn reason. We only see Paul failing at it once and then succeeding at it the next time he tries it, more than an hour into the film. And then it never gets used again, not even by his mom, who *can* use it properly and there's no apparent reason as to why she wouldn't.

I also disliked some of the framing of the Fremen. I didn't understand why the Fremen who welcome him and his mom did so happily *after* he killed one of their own, because apparently just by fulfilling the Amtal no one has a problem to let them join? Even though they were super ready to kill them five minutes before? One thing is to accept your leader's word, imo, and fulfill your word. But another to be happy about it. Zendaya even gives Paul her grandmother's knife for some reason, despite him being the colonizer. She says it's so he dies with honor, but why would she give him that chance? Minutes before she had already told him that she wouldn't have let him hurt her friends. Was he going to die with honor then? Maybe she admires that he is defending his mother, but we don't know. And I know they are probably trying to say the Fremen are kinder and more understanding or compassionate than the colonizer will ever be, but it's such a narrowed perception of how to *show* that. Because if Joe Biden's son ever came into my house I wouldn't give him my grandfather's tools, fuck that shit.

We haven't even seen a worm properly! I guess it's so we see more of them later but it's annoying we don't even get descriptions of them by the ecologist T.T We don't get to see how she actually cares about the native ecology either until for like, 2 lines, because they mostly use her to infodump about extracting spice to the other characters. And we get but a glimpse of her work with the succulents! She doesn't even get to talk about her plants, we just see Jason Momoa seeing them. And the only full worm we do see is in the *dark* because, idk, maybe they were hard to animate? Didn't even contrast it with Timothee's clothes for like, size comparison, because his mom is wearing the white robe.

We are told the main character has been bred to have protagonist syndrome and everything comes easy to him, but we don't *see* him pick up things faster, we don't see him doing anything, instead we get people *saying* he does and we ought to believe them.

For me all these things mean to me that the movie relies heavily on telling, and not enough on showing. I understand the basic premise is that House Atriedes is wrong, the empire is wrong. They do that in the most obvious ways. They *tell* you it is, at the very beginning, with the Zendaya voice over. Then you hear all the shady things they are doing in Dune, which obviously means they are bad. We see the politicians talking *about* the Fremen in a way and speaking *to* them in another, which is all very good, but we never go beyond that. We get *some* of the signs the Fremen look for in their messiah, but we don't know what they are soon enough for them to have weight when the audience sees them. We don't see wall paintings, sacred images, or people talking about the prophecy. Maybe it's on purpose, because of the POV being Paul. But for me the overall effect is that the story doesn't care about them, instead of only the colonizers not caring about them.

And, my biggest problem of all, is that we don't see the direct consequences of the colonizers' presence in Dune. We see the machines, we see the army. But we don't see the effects of the spice extraction, for example. We get *told* the Fremen mostly have to live outside the city walls, but we don't see guards enforcing imperial law inside the city either, or people having to purchase food only through them because their lands have been ravaged. We don't even see the workers who help around for the extraction, but we hear them say they won't abandon ship during an emergency just so Lord Daddy looks good when he says he will save them. We see the empire's lies they tell Javier Bardem, which is okay, but why would he believe the new lord? Without anything to prove it *to his people*? One thing is to think Paul is the messiah, but his father? We don't see much of the people *inside* the city either, except of them praying. And we didn't even get to see if the guy who waters the sacred palm trees (most interesting character imo) saw his palm trees getting burned, which *should* be a monumental moment given how much attention they give them. And we didn't see who gets hurt during the attack, either. These people were being bombarded by the empire, because of the empire's desire to finish House Atriedes, also part of the empire. And the film doesn't even spare some time to show how the people are affected, to showcase the injustice committed against them. We don't see their temples being destroyed, or people running and screaming away from it. There's no WEIGHT to it. We don't even see how this all affects the environment, despite having an ecologist right there. What is her dream? How does she view the paradise that Dune can become? How does she worry about her planet? We don't know, we never learn what she loves so much about her desert, which IS her home. We never get to see that.

Besides, and this is of course very personal, but I insist, this white boy should at least get his cheeks pink under the sun. I know he gets advantages because he has protagonist syndrome but I'd like some sign that these people are NOT adapted to the weather, to the planet, to the desert. They keep saying the desert isn't kind to humans, but we don't see the desert being unkind to them. "The people who live here welcome and protect the outsider" is hardly an outstanding take in Hollywood, and I understand these books are old. But for that same reason I think it's something that I just don't think is particularly praise-worthy in a modern film. It might be okay, I guess. There are definitely very interesting ideas here, that I'd love to see developed. I just don't see why people call it a masterpiece.

So in the end all I'm saying is that most of what we know, we learn because we get told. I know it's a lot to do as an adaptation, but I also think it's just... kinda meh as a movie on its own. If you like pretty cinematography, ig this is more than enough. They also keep putting dramatic music while characters *walk* (and I like LOTR so the device doesn't bother me), and it feels like kinda trying to balance out the fact there is not a lot of tension in most scenes. It also gives me the sense that the director wants you to think this movie is deep and epic, instead of letting you be the judge of that. idk man I just think if you have to keep reminding yourself the film "is setting up everything for the sequel" then your movie mostly failed as a story on its own. Maybe its purpose *is* to set up everything for later but if you can't use the main conflict of the film to explore your themes without NEEDING people to know the future, then maybe it's not a solid enough script. For me, the main conflict in this movie is "adjusting to Arrakis", but its heart is not in "I'll show you Arrakis through Paul's eyes," it's in "look, I'm doing something impressive." And I just don't vibe with that.