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I'm actually digging the new Liet Kynes, if they're going to change a character's appearance so radically, Kynes is actually a pretty good candidate for that, and this shot is totally workable as "Imperial Planetologist gone native" (actually, as much as I like Max von Sydow, in a visual performance, I think this incarnation fits the role of a person split between worlds much better when set among the rest of the cast).



The shots of the rest of the cast are similarly awesome, the more I see about this flick, the more excited I am for it.

I can't speak to the dude playing paul but the rest of the cast doesn't have a dud among them. I wasn't excited at all until I saw the cast in this.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm actually digging the new Liet Kynes, if they're going to change a character's appearance so radically, Kynes is actually a pretty good candidate for that, and this shot is totally workable as "Imperial Planetologist gone native" (actually, as much as I like Max von Sydow, in a visual performance, I think this incarnation fits the role of a person split between worlds much better when set among the rest of the cast).

Spoiler:

The shots of the rest of the cast are similarly awesome, the more I see about this flick, the more excited I am for it.

It's been years since I last read Dune. Was Liet Kynes ever given a physical description? I've not seen Sharon Duncan-Brewster in anything, but I agree that she looks convincing in this photo.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm actually digging the new Liet Kynes, if they're going to change a character's appearance so radically, Kynes is actually a pretty good candidate for that, and this shot is totally workable as "Imperial Planetologist gone native" (actually, as much as I like Max von Sydow, in a visual performance, I think this incarnation fits the role of a person split between worlds much better when set among the rest of the cast).

I'm going to put on my Dune nerd hat and clarify that Liet was born a Fremen on Arrakis. His/her father Pardot was the planetologist who moved there and went native, marrying a Fremen. Liet then continued his work.

Of course, it's completely possible that they blend these two characters for this film. It's very common for people tend to mix them up anyway. Actually, Lynch might have done that with his film...I can't remember. Von Sydow definitely didn't make for a believable native Fremen.

And yeah, if they're going to gender swap, Liet Kynes is a fine choice. Makes the relationship with Chani mother-daughter, and I don't think the saga has too many of those overall. Fathers seem more prominent.

I'm always pessimistic about a Dune film but these images combined with the fact they are splitting the book into two films is making me more optimistic.

Even at two 150(?) minute movies, it seems like a lot of ground to cover. I expect that there will be changes, and I'm okay with that. What it seems like Villeneuve is going to get right(er) that Lynch really didn't are the *themes* from the book. Ecology, religion and politics, power, etc.

 gorgon wrote:
What it seems like Villeneuve is going to get right(er) that Lynch really didn't are the *themes* from the book. Ecology, religion and politics, power, etc.

They had pretty powerful blue eyes in the original film, so chances are its contacts. Plus a bit of contrast boosting over the whole photo in general to boost up the colours.

It looks great! I love the casting!

Getting kinda excited for this.

In an unrelated tangent, I saw one of those captioned “how to correctly wash your hands for long enough” replacing “Happy Birthday” with the litany against fear.

Covid is the mind killer...

More stills/images coming soon, empire magazine come out tomorrow and vanity fair has a larger dune coverage over the coming weeks (june issue). Also mcfarlane toys is confirmed to be producing a line of figures and stuff. With all this stuff due out soon I can only imagine a trailer will be out by july.

I need a trailer for this! The snapshots so far look very promising.

Better images of the ornithopters on set, the above one is the sandstorm damaged one used to escape. Bottom one is the more militaristic atreides variant.

The top one looks so much like CGI it has to be a practical effect.

The second looks more like what I would expect from a civilization with thousands of years of space travel experience than the near-futuristic first one. However the sheer number of exposed joints and hydraulics seems a bit clunky for a product of 912th generation ornithopter technology.

Still excited, though!

Yeah the top one is real, it has the lower area of the window taped up with cardboard for whatever reason. And the wings are missing from it's sockets. The director has a fetish for brutalist imagery so the second one takes a lot of cues from that kind of architecture.

https://trailer-track.com/2020/08/19/in-the-pipeline-the-dune-trailer-is-done-it-exists-its-rated-its-ready-and-its-coming-for-real-this-time/

A trailer for this has been approved for canadian release with tenet around aug 27th. So we should finally have a good look at this movie by the end of next week. I am kind of surprised it took this long to get any footage but I guess they didn't want to market it that much with the covid going on. The december 18 release date of this movie is still an uncertainty.

I can’t wait for the trailer memes... like where someone replaces every character saying “spice” with Armand Assante shouting “laaawwww”.

That is one nice art book, can't wait to see all the merch they'll have for this film. Some minis/models of the ornithopters are a must, i'd think.

OK potentially dumb question but...

In the Dune-verse FTL is accomplished by Navigators folding space with their minds. This is fueled by Spice. So far so good.

Spice is only found on Arrakis. There are no other intelligent races. So, how did we get there in the first place?

Sleeper ships? Generation ships? Some previous FTL method outlawed by the Butlerian Jihad? Naturally-occuring Navigators who did not use Spice?

I am sure it's answered somewhere but have no idea where to look.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
OK potentially dumb question but...

In the Dune-verse FTL is accomplished by Navigators folding space with their minds. This is fueled by Spice. So far so good.

Spice is only found on Arrakis. There are no other intelligent races. So, how did we get there in the first place?

Sleeper ships? Generation ships? Some previous FTL method outlawed by the Butlerian Jihad? Naturally-occuring Navigators who did not use Spice?

I am sure it's answered somewhere but have no idea where to look.

The engines fold space. The Navigators just steer, using prescience fueled by melange. You can fold space without a Navigator, but there's a higher chance you lose the ship. Before space fold engines, I believe they had a regular, slower form of FTL travel.

Yeah, the “folding space with your mind” is just from the David Lynch film; I don’t think the original book(s) specified the FTL mechanism, just that you need a precognitive human to navigate safely. The subject is developed further in the expanded universe novels, and I think that before the Butlerian Jihad they just used advanced computers to plot a course. I haven’t read all of those books, but I think it’s implied that development of human navigators was part of the reason we were able to beat the machines, because they allowed human fleets to outmanoeuvre the AI.

I thought the first wave of expanse was done using AI before the Butlerian Jihad. Spice allowed humans to take over all the operations that used to be handled by thinking computers.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops, ninja’ed

Thanks! In my defense it has been 25 years since I read them...

 Jadenim wrote:
Yeah, the “folding space with your mind” is just from the David Lynch film; I don’t think the original book(s) specified the FTL mechanism, just that you need a precognitive human to navigate safely. The subject is developed further in the expanded universe novels, and I think that before the Butlerian Jihad they just used advanced computers to plot a course. I haven’t read all of those books, but I think it’s implied that development of human navigators was part of the reason we were able to beat the machines, because they allowed human fleets to outmanoeuvre the AI.

The Kwisatz Haderach creating rain is similarly a Lynch Film Exclusive(TM)! Melange really only grants longevity and prescience. Which are awesome, but not full-on superpowers.

In the prequels, Norma Cenva created the spacefold engine. She also became the first Navigator IIRC, thereby solving how to fold space *safely*. This was after she was the first to tap into Bene Gesserit powers like Other Memory, prescience and molecular control. Before all of that, she was a genius inventor and the brains behind Tio Holtzman.

Rey had *nothin'* on Norma. Navigator/near-Mentat/pseudo-Reverend Mother/inventor of everything. It got kinda silly IMO, but it is what it is.

 gorgon wrote:

The Kwisatz Haderach creating rain is similarly a Lynch Film Exclusive(TM)!

you are watching the wrong cut

How did they get around the denizens hiding in the warp though?

Have to admit the cast for this looks amazing. Just missing Sting.

Other point is has Stellan Skarsgård presumably been laying on the pies bigtime to get some bulk on for the role (or do a Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder-style fat suit?)

The Baron is one thing I disliked in the first film. To me the baron has to look huge, bug enough to really warrant needing anti-gravity suspenders to allow him to walk. A bloated monster fat on the industry and excess his house has brought him.

I'm pretty sure there was some other form of FTL before the Holtzman engine was developed (by Norma Cenva), but it was MUCH slower than folding space (none of the travel times given in the Butlerian Jihad stories make sense if the ships are sublight only). The Holtzman engines are fast but due to the various gravitational interactions that can't easily be accounted for even with a computer they are risky. Having a prescient Navigator aboard to literally see the future and know if a course is safe takes the risk out of it, but technically you don't NEED a Navigator. The "Schools of Dune" trilogy (which takes place a little while after the Jihad stories) makes mention of this as only one company has Navigators; the others have to take a chance if they want to use Holtzman engines.

 Overread wrote:
The Baron is one thing I disliked in the first film. To me the baron has to look huge, bug enough to really warrant needing anti-gravity suspenders to allow him to walk. A bloated monster fat on the industry and excess his house has brought him.

If anyone was curious as to how the baron is going to look in the new film.

People have been seeing the trailer in theaters already and leaking images of almost the whole thing. Honestly I think this movie looks perfect, probably the closest the book has ever been to being brought to life.

So the Spacer's Guild doesn't really have a monopoly on space travel, just a monopoly on fast and reliable space travel.

That's good, makes for more story possibilities.