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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28248 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

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My memory from the books is that Feyd-Rautha was, while certainly Harkonnen, actually both competent and powerful, in contrast to Rabban. It was his reliance on underhanded fighting tactics that made him an otherwise-comparable foil to Paul (who decides to not use the Voice during their battle, though he could easily have done so). I don't mind his portrayal overmuch, but portraying him as a skilled and even potentially noble fighter ("you fought well") is a definite and unnecessary departure from the text.

I just reread the book fight scene: underhanded Feyd and Paul are at such a level,with so many plans within plans, that it'd honestly be hard to show visually. Making Feyd honorable and having a more straightforward fight seems like an easy fix.

Since they cut out Hawat and a lot of the Feyd and Duke maneuvering around each other (here I simply give them a pass due to time), it's easy to also just "fix" the Coliseum scene by having Feyd show he's formidable but capable of being honorable. Otherwise you have to get into BG control words and Paul's inner struggle to try to play into the finale and...

I feel like most of the "Other Memory"-related plot points are included grudgingly, like Villeneuve knows he can't just abandon those entirely but kind of wishes he could. There are throwaway lines about knowing the past and predicting the future but unless you've read the books, I can't imagine getting much out of those. And if you haven't read the books, I can imagine being really confused about everything touching on the Water of Life. And they never address the "sandtrout" at all.

This is kind of my problem: it's hard to tell how all of this comes across to a totally virgin audience since I've known about some of the plot points so long. It seems that Vileneuve gave people enough to essentially grok what was going on (even putting aside Jamis' words and Jessica's own initiation, the Harkonnen reveal shows there's some ancestral memory shit going on - and how else could Alia be sentient?). But it feels a bit hollow from my perspective.

Making Feyd honorable and having a more straightforward fight seems like an easy fix.

The problem is the Harkkonnens are supposed to be utter monsters. The movie fails to show that, especially with Feyd. He's brutal, sure, but he lacks the terror-inducing psychotic insanity he's supposed to have. Worse, the movie likens him to Paul rather than contrasts him -- not only does Paul openly declare he's going to act like the Harkonnens, he treats Shaddam IV much the way Feyd treats Rabban.

he's going to act like the Harkonnens

I mean... if you've read the books, there's a very good reason for this.

It's probably common for fans of books with new movie/TV adaptations be overtly worried about new audiences understanding the plot without the (often frankly not all that necessary) context the books provide. I remember that when GoT TV series was announced a lot of posters on westeros.org were convinced that it's going to be pared down and dumbed down a lot since the "normie viewer" would never understand ASoIaF plots and so on, and then the first four seasons were pretty much straight adaptation from the books and the normies mostly understood it just fine.

Point taken. But, in our defense, iirc part of it was the worry that the writers would feel that way.

I remember watching the Harry Potter movies before reading the books, and was totally confused by parts of movies 3, 4, and 5. (These are some of the longest books, but don't have correspondingly larger movies than the first two.) Lots of other people I know IRL feel similarly.

GOT is different because they got a whole season to explain a book instead of just a movie.

For what it's worth, I don't consider the Harry Potter movies to be "stories" as such, but rather an "illustration" of the books. I'm not an art snob, and I'm not using that term derogatorily. They're very very good illustrations. But I don't think they stand alone the way Game of Thrones did. They were like "Passion of the Christ", but with wizards.

I find book five meandering and confusing. I know a lot of people love it, but I think Order of the Phoenix was the point where Rowling desperately needed an editor to tell her to cut it down, but she was too big at that point to be reined in.

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