I'm sure I'm late to the party here.

I watched the first film and was intensely bored by it. I've got mixed feelings about the source novels (genuinely mixed) and didn't really go in with a ton of enthusiasm. But I watched with friends, one of whom insisted that the second film is really good and worth getting to and the other who wanted to get to the second film cos she fancies Florence Pugh.

Anyway, yeah, a bunch of us watched it and everyone was bored by it except that friend who insisted the second film is good who was loving every minute. It's a very visually engaging film, gorgeous to look at. But suffers from, due to its scope, not really having time to let us get to know anyone. Just a bunch of people you don't really care about doing stuff *they* care about but you don't.

Months went by without much enthusiasm to watch the second film so I ended up watching it on my own in a moment of having nothing better to do.

The first half was boring in the same way as the first one. Then at about the midpoint something happened and I found myself engrossed. Something had clicked and I suddenly found myself caring about what was happening. I was *really* enjoying it. And it also did some alchemy and made all the stuff that came before retroactively interesting.

The next few days I rewatched both films several times and really enjoyed them from start to finish. Artistically they're gorgeous, never had a problem with that. Absolute visual treat.

But they also quite deftly kinda iron out something that was a bit shaky in the books - being a kinda critique of space-facism/colonialism while also making that space-facism seem really cool.The films more successfully reconcile those two things than the books did.

So yeah, despite kinda hating 3/4 of the experience first time though I now love these films. Anyone else seen both?




 

I have seen both and eh, I dunno, they haven't particularly stayed with me for long or made me form a strong opinion. Yes some of the visuals are mightily impressive, sound as well actually.
I think in many ways, the bit of the books I most liked the idea of (of what I read, at least) is the part that comes next with everything kind of going out of Paul's control, and I don't know if they're filming that.

I'm guessing you didn't watch either film in an iMax cinema with the benefit of a massive screen and an even more massive soundstage. Both films are designed to provide an epic and visceral experience with more immediate grab than a tube of no-more-nails extra strong. I'm also willing to bet that your friend who loved the second film so much had seen at least that one at a cinema. I took my in-laws to see it at an iMax, and even they, who are normally contemptuous of anything later than Lawrence of Arabia, thought it was good. It is occasionally like sitting next to a jet-fighter, with overwhelming sound and vibratiion.

That aside, I enjoyed both films and I've also watched them since. I did a review after watching the first one here which I don't think is unreasonable, except that I've done the rewatching and probably like them both more.

Other points. I liked the books when I read them, but I was only 18 and going through a period of devouring around 3 or 4 books a week. I kind of remember them, but I have no real idea whether TV shows and films have affected my memory. In any case, a book is a book and a film is a film. Some people get angry when there are plot changes, which is understandable if the aim of a film is to somehow act-out the book, but the best films, I think, stand on their own whether they are "true" to the text or not. They aren't the book. If only a book will do, what's the point of the film? That said, sometimes there are things being set out in a book, which are worth sticking to in a film if they are "the point" of the story. If you don't then the director risks losing the logic or ethics of the story. Could be fine if their is something else to say instead, but if there isn't...

And yes, getting to like a film after first being bored by it. Sounds like my experience with Stalker. I was immediately caught up in the atmosphere and visuals of Stalker, but it has a relentless quality like some extended bit of modern jazz, and it lost me around a third of the way through. I came back to it a year or so later when somebody gave me an awful copy on a CD. Somehow watching it again, I kind of got it, in a way I hadn't before. I love it now and it must be one of my favourite films.

Yeah the last film I saw in a cinema was Casino, at release. It's been a while!

Honestly though, I was never much affected by the cinema experience. I very much enjoyed going to the cinema, but I never felt that the film was a different experience there. Which, honestly, I think comes down to my being very gullible/suggestible. I get totally absorbed regardless of what I'm watching on, if the film's good, I'm totally *in* it. I mean I probably watched the most films in my life on a shitty 14" portable TV with a really shitty signal.

So, while I could be wrong of course, I'm not convinced I would've felt differently had I seen it in a cinema. I was totally entranced by the first film cos, like you say, the beautiful pictures and amazing soundtrack (which I forgot to mention), even while being bored.

And yeah, 2001 is like that for me. When I first watched it at whatever tiny age I absolutely hated it. Thought it was beautiful but empty and pointless. I like it a little more each time I watch it and I'm now at the point where I enjoy it quite a lot.

I find the cinema experience can add something to some films, nothing to others (or even make them much, much worse). The difference was more noticeable when our home tv was a 19" CRT, less so since we upgraded to the slightly less obsolete 1080p we have now. I'm not fond of watching anything more engaging than a few minutes of video on a computer display, and never intentionally watched video on my phone or tablet. I've never been to an imax despite ample opportunities, I guess it's on my fukkit list somewhere well below the top.

Our cinemas here are mostly shitty multiplexes parked out by big box stores, with poor climate control, beatdown seating, wildly overpriced shit food (we bring our own), and preteen staff. The films they run lately range from dumb to dumber garbage. I have to say that any film (and this includes the recent Dunes) with carpet-bombed promotion and run on multiple screens with "AVX" (vibrating seats, deafening volume), 3D, etc. put me right off (safe to assume it's probably for idiots). So yeah, I haven't seen the newest Dunes even though I once held Villeneuve in higher estimation than too clever hollywood sellout. Also I already saw the Lynch version, which I considered pretty near perfect at the time, and another TV series version that wasn't entirely awful and provided some plot exposition MIA in the Lynch. When I have 6-8 hours to kill and there's literally nothing else I might give it a go. Maybe I'll love it!

Yeah, I did always enjoy the cinema. The bombast of seeing stuff on a really big telly with really big speakers is fun. Loved it when I was a kid and it was a twice-yearly treat. And loved it as a young adult either with friends or, as I liked to do, sneaking off and going on my own when I was supposed to be at school or uni.

But I've never enjoyed a film less or more in the cinema than the same film on shitty VHS, a shitty 14" portable with a shit signal or a laptop screen. I've never personally experienced that sense of a film being one you *have* to see in the cinema to have the full experience or whatever. When I'm engrossed in a film the physical medium just dissolves and I'm in it.

And yeah I'm glad my cinema-going ended before all the mega-cinemas with vibro-chairs and stuff that does sound awful.

BUT. And I know this is controversial. I like people talking during films. Even answering their phones or whatever. It's a social experience and people who whinge about that kinda stuff annoy me a bit. It feels misanthropic. If you want to watch a film in silence you can do that at home. Cinema's social by design, it's the point.

There's a well known view that the intention of the artist is unimportant. All that matters is your experience of the work. Not going to get into that too much, but it does seem to me that if Villeneuve spent an awful lot of time with his sound team, designing and tuning a soundscape to accompany his images and dialogue, then it was at least a bit important to him that the film should be experienced with that soundscape. At the very least, if you go along with him and try to experience the film that way, then you're not being wrong or idiotic.

Neither is it somehow wrong not to have that experience - especially if it doesn't bother, interest, attract, or otherwise entice you - and if it doesn't detract from your enjoyment. I watched the vast majority of films that I've seen on TV screens a minute fraction of the size of a cinema screen, frequently, until well into the 1970s in black and white and on shitty CRTs. I recall a particularly hot summer in 1978 with 6 people crammed around a university hall of residence kitchen table watching the Godfather on a massive 17 inch B&W CRT. We thought it was great. Would we rather have had a 65" colour TV with a couple of big stereo speakers? Probably.

 

I take your first point (and I'm definitely not a death of the author person). But I'm not convinced that cinema speakers are *necessarily* hugely better at that than good headphones or whatever. I may be kidding myself with that, it's been a long time since I went to the cinema.

(I think there was more of an argument for cinemas being a unique experience before they went digital. But even then it smelled fetishy to me)

The soundscape was amazing though.

Something that's bothering me with TV shows is when they have a soundscapey intro and a musical soundtrack. I generally want the opposite. If you're going to bother me with a fucking intro, at least have a tune I can hum that gets me in the mood rather than a vague melange of nothing. And *during* the show, don't distract me with music, give me a nice moody soundscape.

 

I watched the American House of Cards (Kevin Spacey) as much for the opening theme music and visual montage as much as for the actual episodes, and sometimes play the audio for background noise. The show unfortunately turned out to be prescient.

sex offender in the White House?

Dunno if it was *prescient*. Other than saying presidents are cunts. That's more postscient.

Underwood was a political-insider dem who instituted a federal jobs programme on taking office. Which is kinda the polar opposite of Trump.

Good show though. Until it went to shit. I remember the 90s British one being better but it's been a *very* long time since I've seen it.

Prescient in showing "a ruthless politician seeking revenge." Not prescient in failing to predict what has occurred, but IMO a fairly accurate reflection of the kinds and level of corruption that facilitated it, all tied up in a bow.

Yeah, hardly the first.

I dunno, I think he better fits Clinton.