The new version of the movie "Dune", which took three and a half years and 165 million dollars to shoot and produce, finally came out. This time, it was director Denis Villeneuve who tried to break the "dune curse". The Canadian director is as famous as Christopher Nolan, and has brought many sci-fi masterpieces such as "Arrival" and "Blade Runner 2049" with good reputation at the box office.
Before him, many well-known names had fallen into the quagmire of the film adaptation of "Dune", including Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch.
This eight-year-old novel, first published in 1965, is the first of the six "Dune Series" by the American science fiction giant Frank Herbert (1920-1986), and has a similar position in the history of science fiction. Asimov's "base" series. Whether it is the movie "Star Wars", the game "Red Alert", or "Game of Thrones", "Wheel of Time", etc., its birth has been influenced by "Dune".
As a leader in the "soft science fiction" world, the "Dune" series demonstrates Herbert's powerful and detailed worldview construction ability. A book fan once joked that "Dune" is a work that requires dozens of pages of "Empire Terminology Database" and "Map Notes" in the appendix of the work to be read smoothly on the bedside.
The novel does not have a large number of detailed descriptions of the development of science and technology like "hard science fiction", and it is even a science fiction work that earlier proposed the "anti-intellectual" discussion. At the beginning of the book, the author explained the background of the times through the mouth of the role: a long time ago, people wanted to be free, so they left the thinking to the machine to do it, which would only cause other people to rely on the machine to enslave them. Therefore, after a "holy war" to abandon artificial intelligence, people abide by the "Orange God Bible", "You must not create a machine that thinks like a human."
This also explains to a certain extent, why the story happened in 10191, but the world in the film is full of contradictions: on the one hand, the hard and cold cocoon-shaped giant spacecraft is suspended in space, making people tremble; on the other hand, feudal, The shadow of colonization and religion is so strong.
The magnificent scenes, ups and downs and depth of the theme presented in the book "Sand Dunes" are a fatal attraction for directors. As Villeneuve said in an interview with The New York Times, when he was 14 years old, in a small library near the school, when he first saw "Dune", he was deeply attracted by the cover. The background of the book cover is the vast expanse of golden desert. A dark-skinned man looks forward, his white eyes are clear blue, his eyes are sharp enough to penetrate everything. Since his youth, he has been eager to bring the dune world in his mind to the screen.
In terms of pictures, even though many of the epic scenes in the novel have not yet appeared on the screen, the dune world of Villeneuve still leaves a deep impression on people.
As a book fan, there will be many moments for "feelings" to come true. Even the soft seat sofa deep in the theater can't help but sit upright. Some of these scenes are calm and poetic, such as a flapping-wing plane flying over smooth and undulating sand dunes, as small as dark spots; others are full of conflicts and metaphors, such as the Virgin wearing a black net veil approaching the protagonist Paul with Gormtz ·Etradi, perform the terrible "pain test"; for example, when a huge sandworm breaks through the sand, raising the dust to cover the sky, opening a big mouth about eighty meters in diameter, staring at you, Countless sharp, transparent fangs stand like a mane, slowly creeping with the breath, shining with a crystal cold light in the moonlight...
It is worth mentioning that a movie from the composer Hans Zimmer (Hans Zimmer) The soundtrack played a vital role, allowing these images to gain in-depth texture penetration. Jimo is also a fan of "Dune". For more than 40 years, he has been thinking about what kind of music can interpret this exotic planet. "Sand Dune" provides fertile ground for the sound experiment he is good at.
In the film, the Virgin is about to leave in a spacecraft after testing Paul. Paul's mother, Jessica, stood in half-darkness, her jaw trembling slightly with fear and anxiety. Ahead, the black figure of the Virgin gradually stepped into the chaotic light. The background music is a whisper like many women chanting. The spacecraft took off, and the noisy whispers turned into high-pitched and sharp chants, until the light faded and the sound of the wind extinguished.
The musical narrative not only highlights the atmosphere of terror and anxiety, but also strengthens the shaping of this religious ruling group. They rely on religion and implanted prophecies to gain power. Whispers and chants represent the control and perfusion of faith.
However, out of the picture and music, the two-and-a-half-hour movie can only be regarded as the prologue from the story. When a subject matter enough to be shot into a series is squeezed into the movie, its tailoring and selection of story width and character depth will inevitably leave many regrets.
In addition to his meticulous portrayal and description, the reading stimulation Herbert brings to readers is also embodied in the humanistic discussion of practical issues under the envelope of the future world. More than half a century later, the spread of themes related to ecology, religion, politics, and philosophy in "Dune" is still like a mirror, placing the current reality under a strong light, and it continues to respond to people's curiosity about future development. And worry.
One of the important topics is the questioning of "heroes". This is by no means a "shuangwen" that simply tells the birth of a hero, not only because the characters are multifaceted and show complex human struggles, but also because the author Herbert has always maintained cold doubts about the "hero" itself. This question is spread between the lines of the novel like grass snakes and gray lines.
The story structure of "Dune" is that the desert planet Erakos lives on the spice producer and guardian, that is, the huge sandworm called the "creator" by the local aboriginal Fremans. Spices are regarded as the treasure of the universe, which can prolong life, improve predictability, and are the basis for the operation of interstellar transportation. As the only planet in the universe that can produce spice, Erlacos has become a field of battle for political forces of various factions. At the beginning of the story, the Utredi family, where the protagonist Paul belongs, is lured into a trap and suffered a bloody massacre. Afterwards, in the interlocking operation of conspiracy and destiny, Paul completed his revenge, but fell into the fortune of destiny and embarked on the road of "savior".
In the postscript of Dune, Herbert’s son described his father’s insistence on this point of view, “Through a careful study of politics, my father believed that heroes would make mistakes... and such mistakes would be simplified by followers who follow blindly. Herbert wrote a foreshadowing motto in "Dune": "Remember, the person we are discussing is Muadib, who ordered the skin of the enemy to be peeled off and made a drum of war, and he would destroy it by waving his hands. In his words: I’m Quesatz Hadrak. This reason is enough.’” In another dramatic scene, Herbert wrote through the mouth of the character Said, "Don't let your people fall into the hands of heroes. There is no more terrible disaster than this."
In the first sequel "Savior of the Dunes" published in 1969, Herbert continued to tell about the life of Paul Etridi after the successful revenge on the throne of the empire. The dark side of the protagonist was more thoroughly presented, while "blind "Following the danger brought by charismatic leaders" has also become one of the main themes of the work, even if some Dune fans cannot accept the story of the hero falling into the altar.
As a prologue, Villeneuve divided the story of "Dune" into two parts. Although the just-released "Dune" is only the first part, through the dreams and hallucinations that flash in Paul's mind from time to time, we can already see the prophecy that is about to be fulfilled. As the story progresses, Paul's heart has undergone tremendous changes with regard to the rumors of the "Savior", from dismissive contempt, to tearful fear and resistance, to a calm jump in excitement. As the narrator whispered in the movie, "When you take a life, you take your own."
According to previous reports, if the new version of "Dune" is ideal at the box office, the crew will start the production of the sequel at the end of next year. The simultaneous release of streaming media also adds uncertainty to its final box office performance. If all goes well, a character who is contrary to the typical Hollywood hero image will move from the book to the screen, to the dangerous and deadly magnificent dream.
