3 Days of Dune

Dune was originally scheduled to be released on November 20, 2020. It was then pushed to December 18, 2020. It was delayed yet again to October 1, 2021 and then finally set to open on October 22, 2021 so as not to directly compete with the also delayed No Time To Die.

One of the biggest controversies of Dune’s release was the agreement that all Warner Bros. movies through the end of 2021 would be released simultaneously on HBO at the same time they were released in theaters. That has brought about some frustration for some filmmakers but none more than the director of Dune, Denis Villeneuve, who insisted that the movie be released exclusively in theaters due to the fact that its scope and picture were not only filmed with the theater experience in mind but that any other way would be extremely inferior.

In addition to my thoughts about the movie itself, I’d like to add my thoughts to that viewpoint because part of my purpose of seeing it 3 days in a row was to judge the experience in different environments.

If you want to mock me for seeing it 3 days in a row, let me just say… get in line. It’s a long line and runs around the block. Guess what? I don’t care. I’ve looked forward to this movie for a long time and though I didn’t expect it to crack my Top 10, the experience that it was expected to present was something that interested me a great deal.

I’ve never read the book and I haven’t even seen the other major Dune movie from 1984. I enjoy a good sci-fi movie and Denis Villeneuve’s previous movie, Blade Runner 2049, is one of my favorite movies and so I was curious to see what he’d do in this “universe”.

It hasn’t been uncommon for me to see recent movies more than once. When TENET was finally released, I saw it 3 times in the first 5 days. A well-made, thinking movie contains a lot of detail that only a single viewing can never get everything of interest. My pattern has been to watch a movie, read the details and spoilers so that I better understand the story and any smaller details that may have been missed and then see it again. It adds a lot to the story for me.

Here’s how it went down:

Thursday, October 21 – HBOMax. 7:30 PM. I watched at my house in my recliner on my 70” Sony TV. Full surround sound.
Normally movies that are released simultaneously with theatres aren’t shown on the night before but Dune was so I decided to catch a first look knowing it was going to look “small”.
Sound was good and picture was ok but you could definitely tell that it needed to be on a bigger screen because some of the shots were hard to see. At least I was able to watch in a recliner since the other theatres had the old-school seats. Having the closed captioning on also helped a lot because much of the back story is told though the character’s dialog so if you miss that, you miss a lot of detail.

Friday, October 22 – AMC Classic Theatre, Apple Valley. 4:00 PM. In 3D on a 17’ high screen. Stadium seating. 2 other viewers at that screening.
I like 3D movies and I didn’t know until a week before that a 3D version was even going to be released. Evidently, the workers at the theatre didn’t know until I told them that it was in 3D. That was pretty disappointing when you have to prove that you need 3D glasses to the management. Though the theatre has a giant screen, this showing was NOT on it. The screen was tiny and so I sat in the 3rd row to hopefully get the best 3D experience I could. As it turned out, the 3D conversion or something seemed off. There were scenes that were very blurry and just not right. The 3D didn’t really add much at all, except for the hunter-seeker scene. THAT was pretty cool in 3D.

Saturday, October 23 – CMX Odyssey Theatre, Burnsville. 12:30 PM. In IMAX on 75’ high screen. Stadium seating. About 50 other viewers at that screening.
I forget how big the IMAX screen is at the Burnsville CMX Odyssey Theatre. It’s just massive and so even after seeing the movie twice in less than 48 hours, I’m ready for the full experience. The previews are kinda quiet so I’m hopeful that the sound gets turned up for the movie itself. Sure enough, it does and the movie looks and SOUNDS amazing! Though the stadium seating isn’t all that comfortable, I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me so that was nice. I now fully understand why the director insisted that it needed to be seen in a theatre on the biggest screen possible. Of all the reviews that I read, I’m pretty sure every one of them also pointed that out as well because it really makes a huge difference. Most of the movie is in IMAX format and the scenes that aren’t are not distracting. One thing of note though. I need to understand the formatting of IMAX better because there were at least 3 scenes that I noticed that cut off things that had been shown in the standard viewing format. I thought that was very strange. Overall, IMAX was well-worth a 3rd trip.

As was mentioned to me more than once, it was assumed that I loved the movie so much because I saw it 3 times. As I said before, I did like it a lot but the 3 distinct viewing experiences were really a fun way to see a movie. Think Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs and compare that to the Olive Garden version. Now, have spaghetti in Italy and compare them all against each other. Which do you think is most likely the best? That would be my analogy of this movie viewing experience.

As for the movie, it’s somewhat a version of The Matrix with a lot of other movies mixed in. It’s set at least 8000 years in the future and some things haven’t changed at all. The characters are interesting especially Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and his dad, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides. A ruler who’s tough but shows a gentle compassion as well. Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård and Javier Bardem are all really good. 2 bigger names, Dave Bautista and Zendaya are fine but not in the movie all that much. A real favorite is Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho. He’s a really well-developed character.

You can see how the book this movie is based on influenced the original Star Wars back in 1977 with a lot of things, especially the ornithopters. They have to be one of the coolest space travel ships of all time.

I’m a big fan of Hans Zimmer and the way he integrated the sound with the background is truly one of his best efforts.

On a final note, people will be happy to know that Velcro and bagpipes are still around in the year 10,191.

p.s. it was just announced that Dune 2 is a go!