In Which I'm Told I'm Watching Dune

I watched a bit of Dune on TV the other day. I really like the book and have always had mixed feelings about it as a movie. As a kid I always loved the part where they ride on the worms and they have blue eyes. What's not to like?

As a teen, I liked Sting playing Feyd.

I love...the way his name is spelled

I remember, as a teen, making fun of all the internal dialogue with a hilarious friend (said friend, if you're reading this, hi!) The spice, the worms...what does it all mean? I'm not sure, Paul, but I bet if we keep watching, we'll find out.

So I knew the internal dialogue was coming when I watched it the other day. But what I was not expecting was all the unnecessary telling the internal monologue accomplished.

Here's some examples.

Paul is about to be tested by sticking his hand in the box of pain (which is another thing I remember as a child. That and the horrible horrible Baron unplugging that guy's heart plug and the guy just bleeding to death. Fun times).

Paul's mother has this look of fear on her face. Paul looks between his mother and the Bene Gesserit High mother and he can see, clearly based on the actor's facial expressions, that something is going on and his mother is frightened.

Then Paul thinks she's frightened of something.

Boy, you think Paul? We already picked that up from all the actors and their expressions.

Later, Paul's mother is talking to their Dr. Yueh and she mentions that he must really hate the Harkonnens. Yueh makes a comment along the lines of:

"Yes. My wife..." Then he stops talking and has a grieved and pained look on his face. Jessica looks at him sympathetically. Clearly, as an audience, we can see what has happened here.

BUT THEN, the internal monologue.

Jessica thinks, His wife must be dead.

Thank you SO MUCH internal monologue. We could not deduce that ourselves. AND even if we couldn't, in about 15 minutes, we'll know for sure when the Harkonnens tell her that they killed Yueh's wife. I think as an audience, we could have been held in suspense for 15 minutes if we couldn't deduce that his wife was dead.

I have about 6 other specific examples written down just from the hour or so I watched but I think you get the point.

I don't know why they felt the need to hammer us over the head with so much telling. The movie could have been much more subtle and pleasant as opposed to the heavy handed film it is now.

When I read the book, I was never once confused. But when I watch the movie, I'm confused about 50% of the time. If you want to do some telling, movie, to make sure the audience is following you, why don't you let the actors act out their emotions (which they'er already doing) and save the telling for things like what the hell that floating creature thing is - turns out it's the guild navigator. Who knew? Not me, even after I had read the book. Then I was like That's the guild navigator?!.

It would take a hell of a lot of spice to turn a man into this

Anyway, that's what I was thinking when I was watching the movie. Too much unnecessary telling.

Anyone else love or hate Dune? Either the movie or the book? There's supposedly a new movie in the works. Hope it's good.

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