That's very real. Much of the tension in the dinner scene comes specifically from Jessica's internal monologuing. The two major ones are her internally chastising Paul; he's moving too quickly, playing his hand too early, and noticing the attempted assassination in the airheaded teenage girl. I think specifically she says *They thought to lure Paul with sex!*
I guess that’s the tradeoffs between mediums. The books allow for things like thoughts to play such a big part. The movies can bring imagery and awesome things to life, but have to be more overt and simplified than books.
here's a thought... why not have the internal monologues? I know it's hard to pull off, but it's a crucial part of Dune (at least for me it was). Jessica's thought processes are everything and explains so much more.
idk I loved the first movie ahd watched it a couple times to understand what was going on in more detail, but I read the books afterwards and couldn't enjoy the second movie as much, it really lacks something, if I hadn't read the books there's so much I wouldn't understand.
Like Kayns in the movies is not really a clear character at all and I could go on and on, but point being that internal monologues would be cool to see in a movie
It would've become too much 'tell-don't-show'. Villeneuve is a very visual storyteller and tries to explain as little as necessary through dialogue. David Lynch' Dune has those internal monologues and every time it comes off as clunky and awkward. I also think how it was handled in the movie with Jessica, it strongly supported her character. She's much more evil in the movies than in the books, and I think if we got to hear her internal monologues we would've lost the mysterious aura she gives off. As it is now we never really know her intentions, especially in the second film, which makes her a much more threatening antagonist.
As for Liet Kynes, I didn't think he was that strong of a character in the book, and don't think we lost aot of his/her character in the movies. The only thing we really lost was their connection to Chani and Stilgar which honestly I don't mind. Some backstory is lost but I don't think it's that unclear what her goal was in the first film.
Sure, I agree the inner monologue does come off as cluncky, that's why I said it's hard to pull off.
I guess you're right about Vileneuve's style but still, as the OP said the dinner scene and a lot more dialogues could've been good. Like dialogues with Leto and his men etc.
Kynes is still arguably pretty important, it's his/her vision that started it all with the fremen.
I had a bigger problem with the pacing of the second movie, with Alia not being born, sure the fetus thing works, but the timing doesn't work, Paul goes through so much more over the years, with him becoming more and more fremen and more man, having a child with Chani, losing that child etc. just shows how/why he gets on the path to genocide much better. In the movie the whole thing was less than 9 months, since Jessica was already pregnant in the beggining and the child is never born.
I liked part one better tbh.
but sure visuals, sound, desing, everything was pretty epic and I enjoyed it overall
There were some issues with the second movie. The time skip being cut out removes child reverend mother Alia and the development of the relationship between Paul and Chani. As it is from the end of part 2, if they go forward with the romance of Paul and Chani, it will feel very unnatural. She's essentially in the spot of an antagonist to his family, position as a leader, and him personally.
In books we have a theme of Kynes's relation with his father and what Kynes' dreams were, his intentions... I remembered him very well from the book. He was the person that lived with a dream to make a desert planet a heaven. It alone did something to me.
There’s an introduction of the internal monologues at the end of Part 2 and when it happened it really made me think “I’m so glad they didn’t fill these two movies with this on top of the dialogue”
They are actually kind of awkward in lynchs dune i think. Like almost comedic. they remind me of that scene from wolf of wall street.. "Is she fucking flirting with me?"
The scene would be incredibly boring, misleading and narratively useless without hearing the inner monologues. The ones complaining that it was omitted would be complaining even more that it was shortened or simplified or changed to suit the film.
> The ones complaining that it was omitted would be complaining even more that it was shortened or simplified or changed to suit the film.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
The scriptwriters (Denis and Eric Roth?) are both (1) skilled screenwriters, and (2) childhood fans of Dune
If they couldn't make the dinner scene work without being clunky and taking away from the movie as a whole, then I trust their decision to omit it
My thing is, what does it really add?
In the book, where there is no limit to the amount of detail and context you can stuff in, it works well. It fleshes out the peripheral political, social and economic world we're reading about and adds more depth via the traitor subplot.
For a film, where the director has to take pains to balance details with not overwhelming a largely uninitiated audience, not so much. Even as stripped down as the films are there's still a ton of names, factions and plot points to keep track of that people who have read the book and already know the story take for granted.
I don't know, I've read the book probably five times over the decades and it's a fine segment, but I honestly don't get the hype for it. It involves a bunch of characters you've never met and don't see again and that's pointless in a film where you have to make choices.
Probably something like Jessica tapping her stemware twice, picking up the glass, and then putting it down without taking a drink. She looks at Leto, and they subtitle it something like “Harkonnen spy.” All we need after is an Oscar Isaac reaction shot. Then Leto tells the room an obvious lie that his own men barely react to. Throw in the word “garment” in his lie, and then maybe Gurney makes up an excuse to leave the room.
I don’t think so. Having watched many movies and series with tension created on dinner scenes just by an interchange of characters that you know shouldn’t be together, is fairly doable by an experienced director/writer to summarize it in few interchanges.
I genuinely do consider the dinner scene to be unfilmable, I don't think either attempt worked.
It's by far my favorite scene in the book but there's just too many internal monologues and it just doesn't translate to the screen well at all
I wonder if they filmed it and cut it. There’s promotional material of Rebecca Ferguson in a red evening formal dress we never saw her wear, and I think some other things that suggested it being from the dinner scene. We’ll probably never see it though. Denis Villeneuve has stayed on multiple occasions that he doesn’t do directors cuts or extended editions, because what he releases to theaters IS his vision, and that he doesn’t let the studio make changes for time. I’m not quite sure I believe that, but I’ll believe that he finds a way to fit his vision in a running length that is acceptable to tatters and studios. And of course every film has things that get cut in editing because they end up running the pace, interrupting flow, or just being superfluous after changes were made to other scenes.
I’d still like to see what, if anything, was done for the dinner scene that would have been in part one. Part two was also missing the Jamis funeral scene - with how important Jamis is later in the movie (his memory helping Paul learn the desert), I’d have liked to see the “I was a friend of Jamis” scene. That was as important, if not more, than the pouring of his water into the sacred cistern.
They did film the dinner scene, there’s a still of Dr. Kynes from it.
We did see Jessica wear the red dress too, albeit briefly, when Thufir tells [her](https://youtu.be/lC1dgSzcQvA?si=CFo4LGyQMoIeWRqd) and Leto about the Harkonnen operating the hunter-seeker.
Wow I forgot we did see her in it. It’s really a blink and you’ll miss it moment. Still, I think that dress had to be meant for something more than just that blip of a scene
I think the same, it’s such a formal dress to be wearing about the residence when there is no formalities happening (especially when comparing Jessica’s dresses during the house keeper and pregnancy scenes).
I agree, I think the miniseries got closest to Herbert's idea for the Kwisatz Hadarach, but early paul was too angsty in it imo.
I did like that they gave Irulan something to do, seeing as she has big arcs in the next two books.
It's also very campy which I love.
That dinner scene makes a change I love! Putting Irulan at the dinner, does so much prep for the ending. It allows the audience to feel like Irulan and Paul are ‘destined’ to be together, yet also does so much to show how and why the imperium has been ‘stable’ for so long.
Yeah. Irulan and Paul Atriedes in that version are a perfect match for one another.
Whether she’s a good match for Paul Muad’dib Atriedes is another matter….
I hated the costumes, effects, and casting of the miniseries. They could stay closer to the book because of the time compared to movie run time, but Alec Newman sucked as Paul. He looked 40 when Paul was supposed to be a 15 yr old on the small side, and William Hurt was closer to the Baron than the sleek hawk-like duke Leto is portrayed as.
Personally loved the costumes, and I dont really mind the casting, though Alec does look a little older than a teenage paul. The CGI used is the worst Ive ever seen, literally.
No it didn't. The Miniseries dinner scene is crap. They skip \*all\* the politics, bantering, any form of development to have Paul dance with Irulan for whatever reason.
I think it would’ve been extremely challenging to portray this in 3-5 minutes without the internal dialogue that is a huge part of the scene.
Part 1 of Dune is much better suited for a TV show but if that had happened we wouldn’t have gotten the Part 2 we did.
Hmmm, I see where you're going with it, but I think it's too tied into the major themes where it's needed. It's playing multiple roles by foreshadowing the desert mouse, demonstrating the scope of Atreides loyalty, their value of family ("they came for my son"), and the depth of the Harkonnen planning for the trap.
The dinner scene is great for the political intrigue, but it would have to be justified as extending the film rather than losing these thematic threads.
Also showing how Paul won't gnaw off his leg in a trap (try to run away) but remain human (stay still and get a drop on the killer). Thematically, it is still important.
I feel like the hunter seeker scene played a role. It gave us some worldbuilding in the filmbook Paul was watching, it highlighted the danger of life on Arrakis and as a noble, and showcased the extremes Harkonnens would go to (the agent cemented into the wall weeks ago). The whole thing about having to stay still wasn't really well explained and the "it flies straight at Paul's eye and stops half a cm beforehand" was kind of goofy but still was interpretable by someone who hadn't read the books.
The scene with Mapes and the crysknife, however, *that* was the epitome of both stupidly unnecessary and utterly confusing to anyone who hadn't read the books.
Honestly, I love that scene in the book as well, but I think it’s inclusion in the film would have raised more questions than it answers and would likely just muddy up the pacing and eerie momentum that the film is steadily building. I thought it was a good choice to go ahead and place the focus on the Bene Gesserit and the Emperor’s plans using the Harkonnen as pawns.
The point of the H-S attack "They tried to kill my son!" was to me, highlighting the infinite hope of Leto: we know the Harkonnen are **scum**, but we continue to expect eternally that there is some bottom, some limit to their depravity.
Unfortunately for Leto, there is not.
I wouldn't call Dr. Yueh an obvious traitor; the Suk doctors are conditioned to withstand corruption / manipulation. It always struck me sideways that he was able to be blackmailed so easily, given how difficult doing so is alleged to be...
Completely agree that the dinner scene should have been included though! Count Fenring being omitted was a missed opportunity (IMO).
I stand corrected yet again. I read all 6 books back to back in my teens, then listened to them back to back on Audible after the first movie dropped. My timelines are apparently a bit of a blur...
> the Suk doctors are conditioned to withstand corruption / manipulation
That's only true if it's mentioned or explained, OP is discussing things that should/could have been included in the 2021 movie
What “obvious traitor”??? Did you read the books and learn anything about the Suk Doctors???????? There is nothing obvious about one of them moving against their employer.
> Did you read the books and learn anything about the Suk Doctors?
We can only take what we are presented, and that is not presented in the 2021 movie, which OP is talking about. None of the intrigue or politics that lead up the "obvious" traitor is presented, and OP laments that
The year is 2058. Earth has been reduced to an apocalyptic husk, destroyed by climate collapse and endless war. Roving bands of marauders murder each other for what few resources remain. Human civilization, if you can call it that, hangs by the thinnest of threads. Only the savage survive.
Somewhere amidst the endless carnage, someone is still complaining that the dinner scene was cut.
Fellowship of the Ring turns 23 this year.... and there are still people bringing up Tom Bombadil like Peter Jackson killed their childhood pet.
Simply saying his name may summon them.
One of my favorite scenes from the book, hands down. Paul holding his own after Leto leaves him in charge, at 15 years old, is just so good. The Guild, the stillsuit maker, all these important people, all politically entangled, Idaho drunk, its just such an important point--maybe turning point--in the story. Why this scene is never in any movie version is beyond me. Is it in the SciFi miniseries?
All the important people promptly die or never appear again. The scene is long, thick with inner dialogue, rich with unexplained political allusions but empty of any actual political maneuvers that make sense, all for zero payoff.
Why oh why don't film makers see the opportunity here? /s
The dinner scene is one of my favorite passages in the book, but not an easy one to do well, without breaking rhythm and imparting the proper messages.
It as a deeply political moment. Measured words and meaningful silences. Lots of uncertainty also. That said, I do not think the possible Harkonnen spy(spies) is not a main topic, but the new equilibrium that the political powers at play in Arrakis were trying to define. It was war, by other means.
It is but it would be a little jarring in the movie. DV's movies weirdly more or less ignore all politics outside of the Atreidea - Harkonnen - Corrino conspiracy, so it would be kinda weird to suddenly introduce it and never follow up on it.
yep - and now I noticed that I forgot to put a "no" there (the original text was "but an easy one" instead of "not an easy one").
Indeed, Villeneuve focused way more on the religious part than the rest of the politics.
DV basically came out and said he doesn't like dialogue in movies, and politics is pretty much all dialogue. My guess is we're not gonna get much of that, ever.
What is annoying about BOTH dune film adaptations is that the intrigue between the emperor, the great houses, and the spacing guild is the interesting part, and we don't get to spend any time in that world before the attack. The rest of the stuff with knives and psychedelics in the desert not so much.
I wanted this scene too. But I honestly can't imagine how it could be done.
This is the core problem with adapting Dune. Most of the books occurs in peoples inner musings. The dinner scene is a great example. Thoughts. Plots. Expressions. Body language. Almost nothing physically happens, and the dialogue needs the characters inner interpretation(s).
I'm sure the director would've done it if he could. It's an iconic scene in the book.
Yueh isn’t an obvious traitor.
Baron Harkonnen lies to the emperor after and says he was a fake imperial doctor.
Even Hawat doesn’t figure it out, he’s convinced it’s Lady Jessica.
The Atreides knew exactly what the Harkonnens were going to do, the things that caught them off guard were using a Suk doctor (somehow bypassing his impossible to bypass conditioning), spending 50 years worth of spice profits to move Sarduakar to the planet (so the emperor’s force was 10x what they expected) and using artillery to pin the surviving Atreides troops in the caves. No one still uses artillery and it’s broken down for metal scrap after.
You really should read the books. There’s reasons for things playing out the way they do. Denis Villeneuve has already taken liberties with the storyline (like Lynch and Harrison did) which deviate from the books. That’s film making necessity (in their eyes). The banquet scene could never be properly conveyed on film, but it is such an important part in the book. This is just one example of how Dune could never be truly presented from book to screen. The books simply contain too much nuance for it to truly be presented properly on the screen. That’s just reality.
Yeah I mean we're missing the smugglers, the whole slopping water on the floor for the poor people at the front to drink (and the servant sneakily selling it), then the follow up of wasting water part way through the meal, Paul firing off at people and showing he's actually quite on the ball.
Lots of nuance and also showing how they're different from the harkonnens, personally I think that scene in the books also works to give more life to each charecter.
When I read the first book after seeing the movie, I had the exact same thought: it was lamentable this scene didn't make it into the film. I suspect DV's strong aversion to dialogue (he has often said he'd rather make films with no dialogue) turned him off to recreating this scene.
No, Denis Villeneuve has said he won’t be releasing deleted footage. The cast has discussed filming it and there are some stills from the scene as well.
I agree with the general sentiment of the chat: it would have been hard to translate the dinner scene on film but I do agree that there was a sincere lack of the paranoia of House Atreides in trying to suss out the Harkonnen spy. Part 1 really should have spent the set up of the movie dealing with that paranoia (whether it includes the dinner scene or not).
I personally think they should have included the scene between Jessica and Hawat where they both accuse the other of being the spy. Or included more scenes like this one because it would have helped create the tensions of that paranoia AND this scene in particular would have been a better introduction to the concept of the Voice than Jessica and Paul eating breakfast in the beginning. Just my personal thoughts tho…
That being said, adaptations do take some liberties with the stories they adapt so another way they could have introduced the concept of the Voice would be to have Jessica communicate with Paul during the dinner scene or something like that.
The dinner scene kind of jumped out at me, last time I read the book, I kept forgetting there was more Dune to enjoy and yet here it is!
I don't feel robbed by it's absence, but I do sorely miss how Jessica herself had come under some suspicions, and Yueh's shenanagons went unnoticed because of it. That was such a rich irony that went almost unmentioned in either film.
You know…Guerny…seriously, how the fuck do you set up security around your single most important military installation so one Doctor can infiltrate it and totally disable it…?!
It’s a bit ridiculous…but just accept it as a plot point…not much else we can do, lol.
THIS! I’ve said it multiple times. The dinner before the attack was of incredible importance to the shift in the story. Especially for Paul. It was basically his final night as an “innocent”. It showed a cross section of Arrakis’ intrigue, and they could’ve easily used the smugglers importance in the film. I was really excited by the prospect of the new films, but they didn’t do anything the way I hoped they would. They even lessened the Mentat roles and all but erased The Baron in the second film. Such a waste.
The dinner scene is fantastic writing, great plotting and storytelling, but would have killed the film. It just wouldn't have fit. You'd have to introduce too many one scene characters.
As great as the scene is, it just doesn't work in a film..
I love that scene in the book too, but I think it was a wise decision not to include it in the movie. That dinner scene involves way too many players and plot-lines. Plus a LOT of it is unspoken.
Part of the success of that movie was that did NOT try to include everything. It took just a few interesting threads, and took its time with them.
The dinner scene is way more than just a scene. It's a whole exploration of a number of sociological concepts that would have taken too much runtime for not enough return for the audience.
The movie didn't need the dinner scene.
The dinner is much like the scouring of the Shire, important but ultimately not worth the time that would need to be taken from other things. Ultimately what I personally would have wanted to see would be a tiny, low budget theater performance that let the actors and script shine.
Well that's the thing they had to cut a lot content just to put into one film
Ironically It's almost impossible to adapt
Although clearly after the film's second success is became clear that this truly is the air to frank herbert
>(genuinely overlong) pre-fall chapters of the novel
Personally, I think the pre-fall section is the best part of the book. Though I also prefer Part 1 to Part 2 (and Lynch's film to Villeneuve's duology) so I imagine this a minority opinion.
That was my favorite scene in the book. So many complicated pieces slot together nicely, it's one of a few scenes that I'm sad was cut but I understand. It's very difficult to portray the hidden thoughts in cinema.
The hunter-seeker scene is shorter than you think, and it actually serves the purpose of keeping alive and developing the Harkonnen threat in the audience's mind. The main character comes close to dying in his own bedroom. The cause is a man who had spent *weeks* sealed within the walls. All the Atreides can do is flail their guards around rather impotently.
This paints a very concise picture of a) the Harkonnens, b) the Atreides, and c) the precise nature of the former's threat by the latter.
However that scene is also a key scene for Thufir’s development and in the movie that’s a character dead-end. Knit against the scene, it’s iconic, but does lose some of its impact in the “ignore Thufir/mentat” decision.
It is a hard thing to fit into any of the movies especially given the run times they already have. It could have been done but probably not well enough to fit in the films organically.
Worse yet, the conversation between Jessica and Yeuh that sets up the situation with Yeuh's wife would have only added maybe 3 minutes to the runtime, but would have saved a lot of confusion. A bunch of my friends asked me why Yeuh betrayed the Atreides since at the time I was the only one who'd read the book.
IIRC this was in the leaked script and also filmed. However, it’s tricky. In the novel, Yueh’s betrayal is not played as surprise, and so we can be given that insight. In a movie, a scene in which Yueh gives away his personal connection to the Harkonnens might serve the unwanted effect that attentive viewers guess the story immediately.
I remember I was hoping they’d let the viewer in on it from the start. This Hitchcock device of showing the audience a ticking bomb that the characters aren’t aware of yet is much more exciting, and Herbert buys himself chapters of chapters of talking and intrigue with that bomb ticking, having no need for great spectacle.
It’s not in the [final shooting script](https://d2bu9v0mnky9ur.cloudfront.net/academy2021/scripts/duneMxFtT98NYwBsMltl20211109/dune_final_shooting_script_6_19_20.pdf), and there’s no indication that it was filmed.
Between characters inner thoughts and subtle coded hand signals being so prominent I wonder how feasible those types of scenes are.
That's very real. Much of the tension in the dinner scene comes specifically from Jessica's internal monologuing. The two major ones are her internally chastising Paul; he's moving too quickly, playing his hand too early, and noticing the attempted assassination in the airheaded teenage girl. I think specifically she says *They thought to lure Paul with sex!*
I guess that’s the tradeoffs between mediums. The books allow for things like thoughts to play such a big part. The movies can bring imagery and awesome things to life, but have to be more overt and simplified than books.
here's a thought... why not have the internal monologues? I know it's hard to pull off, but it's a crucial part of Dune (at least for me it was). Jessica's thought processes are everything and explains so much more. idk I loved the first movie ahd watched it a couple times to understand what was going on in more detail, but I read the books afterwards and couldn't enjoy the second movie as much, it really lacks something, if I hadn't read the books there's so much I wouldn't understand. Like Kayns in the movies is not really a clear character at all and I could go on and on, but point being that internal monologues would be cool to see in a movie
It would've become too much 'tell-don't-show'. Villeneuve is a very visual storyteller and tries to explain as little as necessary through dialogue. David Lynch' Dune has those internal monologues and every time it comes off as clunky and awkward. I also think how it was handled in the movie with Jessica, it strongly supported her character. She's much more evil in the movies than in the books, and I think if we got to hear her internal monologues we would've lost the mysterious aura she gives off. As it is now we never really know her intentions, especially in the second film, which makes her a much more threatening antagonist. As for Liet Kynes, I didn't think he was that strong of a character in the book, and don't think we lost aot of his/her character in the movies. The only thing we really lost was their connection to Chani and Stilgar which honestly I don't mind. Some backstory is lost but I don't think it's that unclear what her goal was in the first film.
Sure, I agree the inner monologue does come off as cluncky, that's why I said it's hard to pull off. I guess you're right about Vileneuve's style but still, as the OP said the dinner scene and a lot more dialogues could've been good. Like dialogues with Leto and his men etc. Kynes is still arguably pretty important, it's his/her vision that started it all with the fremen. I had a bigger problem with the pacing of the second movie, with Alia not being born, sure the fetus thing works, but the timing doesn't work, Paul goes through so much more over the years, with him becoming more and more fremen and more man, having a child with Chani, losing that child etc. just shows how/why he gets on the path to genocide much better. In the movie the whole thing was less than 9 months, since Jessica was already pregnant in the beggining and the child is never born. I liked part one better tbh. but sure visuals, sound, desing, everything was pretty epic and I enjoyed it overall
There were some issues with the second movie. The time skip being cut out removes child reverend mother Alia and the development of the relationship between Paul and Chani. As it is from the end of part 2, if they go forward with the romance of Paul and Chani, it will feel very unnatural. She's essentially in the spot of an antagonist to his family, position as a leader, and him personally.
In books we have a theme of Kynes's relation with his father and what Kynes' dreams were, his intentions... I remembered him very well from the book. He was the person that lived with a dream to make a desert planet a heaven. It alone did something to me.
There’s an introduction of the internal monologues at the end of Part 2 and when it happened it really made me think “I’m so glad they didn’t fill these two movies with this on top of the dialogue”
They are actually kind of awkward in lynchs dune i think. Like almost comedic. they remind me of that scene from wolf of wall street.. "Is she fucking flirting with me?"
The scene would be incredibly boring, misleading and narratively useless without hearing the inner monologues. The ones complaining that it was omitted would be complaining even more that it was shortened or simplified or changed to suit the film.
> The ones complaining that it was omitted would be complaining even more that it was shortened or simplified or changed to suit the film. Damned if you do, damned if you don't The scriptwriters (Denis and Eric Roth?) are both (1) skilled screenwriters, and (2) childhood fans of Dune If they couldn't make the dinner scene work without being clunky and taking away from the movie as a whole, then I trust their decision to omit it
My thing is, what does it really add? In the book, where there is no limit to the amount of detail and context you can stuff in, it works well. It fleshes out the peripheral political, social and economic world we're reading about and adds more depth via the traitor subplot. For a film, where the director has to take pains to balance details with not overwhelming a largely uninitiated audience, not so much. Even as stripped down as the films are there's still a ton of names, factions and plot points to keep track of that people who have read the book and already know the story take for granted. I don't know, I've read the book probably five times over the decades and it's a fine segment, but I honestly don't get the hype for it. It involves a bunch of characters you've never met and don't see again and that's pointless in a film where you have to make choices.
Probably something like Jessica tapping her stemware twice, picking up the glass, and then putting it down without taking a drink. She looks at Leto, and they subtitle it something like “Harkonnen spy.” All we need after is an Oscar Isaac reaction shot. Then Leto tells the room an obvious lie that his own men barely react to. Throw in the word “garment” in his lie, and then maybe Gurney makes up an excuse to leave the room.
I don’t think so. Having watched many movies and series with tension created on dinner scenes just by an interchange of characters that you know shouldn’t be together, is fairly doable by an experienced director/writer to summarize it in few interchanges.
Have you seen the Dune 2000 miniseries version? It handled the pre-attack parts much better than the 2 theatrical movies. It has a big dinner scene.
The GUILD... does not TAKE... your ORDERS
So goofy
\*gestures wildly and goes back to idle posture
I have! It’s great.
I genuinely do consider the dinner scene to be unfilmable, I don't think either attempt worked. It's by far my favorite scene in the book but there's just too many internal monologues and it just doesn't translate to the screen well at all
I wonder if they filmed it and cut it. There’s promotional material of Rebecca Ferguson in a red evening formal dress we never saw her wear, and I think some other things that suggested it being from the dinner scene. We’ll probably never see it though. Denis Villeneuve has stayed on multiple occasions that he doesn’t do directors cuts or extended editions, because what he releases to theaters IS his vision, and that he doesn’t let the studio make changes for time. I’m not quite sure I believe that, but I’ll believe that he finds a way to fit his vision in a running length that is acceptable to tatters and studios. And of course every film has things that get cut in editing because they end up running the pace, interrupting flow, or just being superfluous after changes were made to other scenes. I’d still like to see what, if anything, was done for the dinner scene that would have been in part one. Part two was also missing the Jamis funeral scene - with how important Jamis is later in the movie (his memory helping Paul learn the desert), I’d have liked to see the “I was a friend of Jamis” scene. That was as important, if not more, than the pouring of his water into the sacred cistern.
They did film the dinner scene, there’s a still of Dr. Kynes from it. We did see Jessica wear the red dress too, albeit briefly, when Thufir tells [her](https://youtu.be/lC1dgSzcQvA?si=CFo4LGyQMoIeWRqd) and Leto about the Harkonnen operating the hunter-seeker.
Wow I forgot we did see her in it. It’s really a blink and you’ll miss it moment. Still, I think that dress had to be meant for something more than just that blip of a scene
I think the same, it’s such a formal dress to be wearing about the residence when there is no formalities happening (especially when comparing Jessica’s dresses during the house keeper and pregnancy scenes).
The sci-fi channel did okay with the dinner scene but they brought Irulan to arrakis for the scene which added a twist to it
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
That dinner scene sucked lmao. Paul just runs off like an upset child. I honestly liked the miniseries, but I think they get Paul pre-fremen wrong.
Cinematically speaking, the scene where he and the proncess talk against the blue of nighttime Arrakis was beautiful.
I agree, I think the miniseries got closest to Herbert's idea for the Kwisatz Hadarach, but early paul was too angsty in it imo. I did like that they gave Irulan something to do, seeing as she has big arcs in the next two books. It's also very campy which I love.
That dinner scene makes a change I love! Putting Irulan at the dinner, does so much prep for the ending. It allows the audience to feel like Irulan and Paul are ‘destined’ to be together, yet also does so much to show how and why the imperium has been ‘stable’ for so long.
Yeah. Irulan and Paul Atriedes in that version are a perfect match for one another. Whether she’s a good match for Paul Muad’dib Atriedes is another matter….
pre-fremen Paul literally was an upset child though?
No ... Not in the book
Mood is for cattle (or something like that)
The Gom Jabbar disagrees. If he can control himself through it, he should not be running around like an upset child.
I hated the costumes, effects, and casting of the miniseries. They could stay closer to the book because of the time compared to movie run time, but Alec Newman sucked as Paul. He looked 40 when Paul was supposed to be a 15 yr old on the small side, and William Hurt was closer to the Baron than the sleek hawk-like duke Leto is portrayed as.
Personally loved the costumes, and I dont really mind the casting, though Alec does look a little older than a teenage paul. The CGI used is the worst Ive ever seen, literally.
I’ve heard it said that the mini series handled the politics of Dune better than the movies did.
Definitely. It handled the background material more in depth.
No it didn't. The Miniseries dinner scene is crap. They skip \*all\* the politics, bantering, any form of development to have Paul dance with Irulan for whatever reason.
I think it would’ve been extremely challenging to portray this in 3-5 minutes without the internal dialogue that is a huge part of the scene. Part 1 of Dune is much better suited for a TV show but if that had happened we wouldn’t have gotten the Part 2 we did.
And, given the runtime, it probably would have needed to come at the expense of another scene.
Yes, the Hunter Seeker scene.
Hmmm, I see where you're going with it, but I think it's too tied into the major themes where it's needed. It's playing multiple roles by foreshadowing the desert mouse, demonstrating the scope of Atreides loyalty, their value of family ("they came for my son"), and the depth of the Harkonnen planning for the trap. The dinner scene is great for the political intrigue, but it would have to be justified as extending the film rather than losing these thematic threads.
Also showing how Paul won't gnaw off his leg in a trap (try to run away) but remain human (stay still and get a drop on the killer). Thematically, it is still important.
I feel like the hunter seeker scene played a role. It gave us some worldbuilding in the filmbook Paul was watching, it highlighted the danger of life on Arrakis and as a noble, and showcased the extremes Harkonnens would go to (the agent cemented into the wall weeks ago). The whole thing about having to stay still wasn't really well explained and the "it flies straight at Paul's eye and stops half a cm beforehand" was kind of goofy but still was interpretable by someone who hadn't read the books. The scene with Mapes and the crysknife, however, *that* was the epitome of both stupidly unnecessary and utterly confusing to anyone who hadn't read the books.
It would have to be substantially less subtle
Honestly, I love that scene in the book as well, but I think it’s inclusion in the film would have raised more questions than it answers and would likely just muddy up the pacing and eerie momentum that the film is steadily building. I thought it was a good choice to go ahead and place the focus on the Bene Gesserit and the Emperor’s plans using the Harkonnen as pawns.
My son displays a general garment and you claim it’s cut to your fit?
Druncan idaho
Drunken Idaho
The point of the H-S attack "They tried to kill my son!" was to me, highlighting the infinite hope of Leto: we know the Harkonnen are **scum**, but we continue to expect eternally that there is some bottom, some limit to their depravity. Unfortunately for Leto, there is not.
I wouldn't call Dr. Yueh an obvious traitor; the Suk doctors are conditioned to withstand corruption / manipulation. It always struck me sideways that he was able to be blackmailed so easily, given how difficult doing so is alleged to be... Completely agree that the dinner scene should have been included though! Count Fenring being omitted was a missed opportunity (IMO).
Count Fenring wasn't at the dinner in the book; or did you mean his absence at the end?
I misremembered; I've read Messiah twice in my life, and could sware Fenring was there. Oops!
He's not in Messiah at all
I stand corrected yet again. I read all 6 books back to back in my teens, then listened to them back to back on Audible after the first movie dropped. My timelines are apparently a bit of a blur...
> the Suk doctors are conditioned to withstand corruption / manipulation That's only true if it's mentioned or explained, OP is discussing things that should/could have been included in the 2021 movie
And explaining the Suk doctor's conditioning should/could have been included in the 2021 movie.
What “obvious traitor”??? Did you read the books and learn anything about the Suk Doctors???????? There is nothing obvious about one of them moving against their employer.
> Did you read the books and learn anything about the Suk Doctors? We can only take what we are presented, and that is not presented in the 2021 movie, which OP is talking about. None of the intrigue or politics that lead up the "obvious" traitor is presented, and OP laments that
According to the cast, it was filmed and cut out.
Im like 300 pages into the first novel and the omission of the dinner scene really grinds my gears. Also drunk khal drogo would have been fun.
Idk why but I really want drunk Jason Mamoa to yell, "My sword was first blooded on Grumman" I'd use it as my ringtone
That's a reasonable thing to desire
The year is 2058. Earth has been reduced to an apocalyptic husk, destroyed by climate collapse and endless war. Roving bands of marauders murder each other for what few resources remain. Human civilization, if you can call it that, hangs by the thinnest of threads. Only the savage survive. Somewhere amidst the endless carnage, someone is still complaining that the dinner scene was cut.
Fellowship of the Ring turns 23 this year.... and there are still people bringing up Tom Bombadil like Peter Jackson killed their childhood pet. Simply saying his name may summon them.
One of my favorite scenes from the book, hands down. Paul holding his own after Leto leaves him in charge, at 15 years old, is just so good. The Guild, the stillsuit maker, all these important people, all politically entangled, Idaho drunk, its just such an important point--maybe turning point--in the story. Why this scene is never in any movie version is beyond me. Is it in the SciFi miniseries?
All the important people promptly die or never appear again. The scene is long, thick with inner dialogue, rich with unexplained political allusions but empty of any actual political maneuvers that make sense, all for zero payoff. Why oh why don't film makers see the opportunity here? /s
The dinner scene is one of my favorite passages in the book, but not an easy one to do well, without breaking rhythm and imparting the proper messages. It as a deeply political moment. Measured words and meaningful silences. Lots of uncertainty also. That said, I do not think the possible Harkonnen spy(spies) is not a main topic, but the new equilibrium that the political powers at play in Arrakis were trying to define. It was war, by other means.
It is but it would be a little jarring in the movie. DV's movies weirdly more or less ignore all politics outside of the Atreidea - Harkonnen - Corrino conspiracy, so it would be kinda weird to suddenly introduce it and never follow up on it.
yep - and now I noticed that I forgot to put a "no" there (the original text was "but an easy one" instead of "not an easy one"). Indeed, Villeneuve focused way more on the religious part than the rest of the politics.
DV basically came out and said he doesn't like dialogue in movies, and politics is pretty much all dialogue. My guess is we're not gonna get much of that, ever.
Huh, that's gonna be interesting going forward since the entire next arc is mostly politicking and dialogue.
You missed the opportunity for Drunken Idaho.
Strongly disagree
What is annoying about BOTH dune film adaptations is that the intrigue between the emperor, the great houses, and the spacing guild is the interesting part, and we don't get to spend any time in that world before the attack. The rest of the stuff with knives and psychedelics in the desert not so much.
Drunken Idaho
I wanted this scene too. But I honestly can't imagine how it could be done. This is the core problem with adapting Dune. Most of the books occurs in peoples inner musings. The dinner scene is a great example. Thoughts. Plots. Expressions. Body language. Almost nothing physically happens, and the dialogue needs the characters inner interpretation(s). I'm sure the director would've done it if he could. It's an iconic scene in the book.
Yueh isn’t an obvious traitor. Baron Harkonnen lies to the emperor after and says he was a fake imperial doctor. Even Hawat doesn’t figure it out, he’s convinced it’s Lady Jessica. The Atreides knew exactly what the Harkonnens were going to do, the things that caught them off guard were using a Suk doctor (somehow bypassing his impossible to bypass conditioning), spending 50 years worth of spice profits to move Sarduakar to the planet (so the emperor’s force was 10x what they expected) and using artillery to pin the surviving Atreides troops in the caves. No one still uses artillery and it’s broken down for metal scrap after.
You really should read the books. There’s reasons for things playing out the way they do. Denis Villeneuve has already taken liberties with the storyline (like Lynch and Harrison did) which deviate from the books. That’s film making necessity (in their eyes). The banquet scene could never be properly conveyed on film, but it is such an important part in the book. This is just one example of how Dune could never be truly presented from book to screen. The books simply contain too much nuance for it to truly be presented properly on the screen. That’s just reality.
Yeah I mean we're missing the smugglers, the whole slopping water on the floor for the poor people at the front to drink (and the servant sneakily selling it), then the follow up of wasting water part way through the meal, Paul firing off at people and showing he's actually quite on the ball. Lots of nuance and also showing how they're different from the harkonnens, personally I think that scene in the books also works to give more life to each charecter.
Why include important scenes from the book when we can have more of Chani acting completely out of character?!
When I read the first book after seeing the movie, I had the exact same thought: it was lamentable this scene didn't make it into the film. I suspect DV's strong aversion to dialogue (he has often said he'd rather make films with no dialogue) turned him off to recreating this scene.
It was filmed though, it just didn’t make the final cut.
Ohhh interesting, I missed that! Has this footage been released? Extended cut?
No, Denis Villeneuve has said he won’t be releasing deleted footage. The cast has discussed filming it and there are some stills from the scene as well.
I agree with the general sentiment of the chat: it would have been hard to translate the dinner scene on film but I do agree that there was a sincere lack of the paranoia of House Atreides in trying to suss out the Harkonnen spy. Part 1 really should have spent the set up of the movie dealing with that paranoia (whether it includes the dinner scene or not). I personally think they should have included the scene between Jessica and Hawat where they both accuse the other of being the spy. Or included more scenes like this one because it would have helped create the tensions of that paranoia AND this scene in particular would have been a better introduction to the concept of the Voice than Jessica and Paul eating breakfast in the beginning. Just my personal thoughts tho… That being said, adaptations do take some liberties with the stories they adapt so another way they could have introduced the concept of the Voice would be to have Jessica communicate with Paul during the dinner scene or something like that.
The dinner scene kind of jumped out at me, last time I read the book, I kept forgetting there was more Dune to enjoy and yet here it is! I don't feel robbed by it's absence, but I do sorely miss how Jessica herself had come under some suspicions, and Yueh's shenanagons went unnoticed because of it. That was such a rich irony that went almost unmentioned in either film.
You know…Guerny…seriously, how the fuck do you set up security around your single most important military installation so one Doctor can infiltrate it and totally disable it…?! It’s a bit ridiculous…but just accept it as a plot point…not much else we can do, lol.
THIS! I’ve said it multiple times. The dinner before the attack was of incredible importance to the shift in the story. Especially for Paul. It was basically his final night as an “innocent”. It showed a cross section of Arrakis’ intrigue, and they could’ve easily used the smugglers importance in the film. I was really excited by the prospect of the new films, but they didn’t do anything the way I hoped they would. They even lessened the Mentat roles and all but erased The Baron in the second film. Such a waste.
They did film it , the dinner scene
The dinner scene is fantastic writing, great plotting and storytelling, but would have killed the film. It just wouldn't have fit. You'd have to introduce too many one scene characters. As great as the scene is, it just doesn't work in a film..
I love that scene in the book too, but I think it was a wise decision not to include it in the movie. That dinner scene involves way too many players and plot-lines. Plus a LOT of it is unspoken. Part of the success of that movie was that did NOT try to include everything. It took just a few interesting threads, and took its time with them.
the movies looked good but I don't like what they did with the story. I watched it with a friend who hadn't read the book and had to explain a lot
The dinner scene is way more than just a scene. It's a whole exploration of a number of sociological concepts that would have taken too much runtime for not enough return for the audience. The movie didn't need the dinner scene.
My wife loves the dinner scene-- it's her favorite part-- and was so pissed it got left out
This scene would add up a lot to the movie, making us bond more with the caracters too before all the chaos
The dinner is much like the scouring of the Shire, important but ultimately not worth the time that would need to be taken from other things. Ultimately what I personally would have wanted to see would be a tiny, low budget theater performance that let the actors and script shine.
They didn't proceed with any scene with Thufir unfortunately.
Well that's the thing they had to cut a lot content just to put into one film Ironically It's almost impossible to adapt Although clearly after the film's second success is became clear that this truly is the air to frank herbert
>(genuinely overlong) pre-fall chapters of the novel Personally, I think the pre-fall section is the best part of the book. Though I also prefer Part 1 to Part 2 (and Lynch's film to Villeneuve's duology) so I imagine this a minority opinion.
I never liked the drunk Idaho scene. I didn't feel like it fit his character.
That was my favorite scene in the book. So many complicated pieces slot together nicely, it's one of a few scenes that I'm sad was cut but I understand. It's very difficult to portray the hidden thoughts in cinema.
When I was reading the book, after I watched Part 1. I remember reading that dinner and thinking "damn, why wasn't this in the movie!"
The hunter-seeker scene is shorter than you think, and it actually serves the purpose of keeping alive and developing the Harkonnen threat in the audience's mind. The main character comes close to dying in his own bedroom. The cause is a man who had spent *weeks* sealed within the walls. All the Atreides can do is flail their guards around rather impotently. This paints a very concise picture of a) the Harkonnens, b) the Atreides, and c) the precise nature of the former's threat by the latter.
However that scene is also a key scene for Thufir’s development and in the movie that’s a character dead-end. Knit against the scene, it’s iconic, but does lose some of its impact in the “ignore Thufir/mentat” decision.
I just got to that part of the book! The back and forth at the dinner table in the previous chapter was my favorite!
It is a hard thing to fit into any of the movies especially given the run times they already have. It could have been done but probably not well enough to fit in the films organically.
Yeah but Denis Villeneuve hates dialogue and that scene would have been wall to wall dialogue.
I’m honestly waiting for family guy to do Dune like they did Star Wars just to prove it can be done in 40 minutes lol
Worse yet, the conversation between Jessica and Yeuh that sets up the situation with Yeuh's wife would have only added maybe 3 minutes to the runtime, but would have saved a lot of confusion. A bunch of my friends asked me why Yeuh betrayed the Atreides since at the time I was the only one who'd read the book.
IIRC this was in the leaked script and also filmed. However, it’s tricky. In the novel, Yueh’s betrayal is not played as surprise, and so we can be given that insight. In a movie, a scene in which Yueh gives away his personal connection to the Harkonnens might serve the unwanted effect that attentive viewers guess the story immediately. I remember I was hoping they’d let the viewer in on it from the start. This Hitchcock device of showing the audience a ticking bomb that the characters aren’t aware of yet is much more exciting, and Herbert buys himself chapters of chapters of talking and intrigue with that bomb ticking, having no need for great spectacle.
It’s not in the [final shooting script](https://d2bu9v0mnky9ur.cloudfront.net/academy2021/scripts/duneMxFtT98NYwBsMltl20211109/dune_final_shooting_script_6_19_20.pdf), and there’s no indication that it was filmed.
There is a scene of Jessica and Dr. Yueh that didn’t make the final cut, I just assumed that was the scene of them talking.
Anyone remember that page Numbers for the dinner?
In my copy it's around 139-157
Starts at 136 in mine, pretty close
The new Dune is too sparse and empty