Concept: A young man struggles with the political legacy of leading his clan and with the religious expectations of perhaps being “the One” in a futuristic, multi-world fantasy that takes place mainly on a desert planet.

• • Based on the famed sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, the 800+ page book has had its own moviemaking legacy that Hollywood has struggled with. Studios have wrestled to make the books into marketable movie product over the past thirty years, producing one in the early 80s by David Lynch that was generally panned, and a minor mini-series on the Sy-Fi channel about 20 years ago. The major challenge is that the novel is epic, with many characters and many things going on (political intrigue in both politics and religion, wars, faith, etc.).
  • Seeing this movie, you can see how George Lucas ripped out a whole bunch of ideas for his Star Wars universe. “Star Wars” is essentially Dune-lite and sugar-coated.
  • “Dune” is entertaining, with great large-scale battles and one-on-one fights, characterization, drama, and as mentioned before—lots of intrigue.
  • I first had the impression that this would be a very Young Adult movie, even though the novels were not YA; but I was pleasantly disproven. The movie has enough intellectual “meat,” maturity, and depth while also having lots of action.
  • But when I say “intellectual,” I’m not saying this is a cerebral movie. “2001” or “Solaris” this is not. I’m just saying that it’s not vapid or brain-dead, like many movie spectacles that try to pass as science fiction. So essentially if you like movie epics, you should see this one (which is best viewed in as big a screen and as good a sound system as possible).
  • Viewed on an Optoma HD28DSE projector, 92” screen, Netflix on Roku 3. Details and lines were soft, making me suspect that this was shot on film and not digital video (which brings out the details more but loses a certain filmic quality).

Dune: Part One (2021) 85%