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As someone who has not read the books but certainly enjoyed the first film (never seen Lynch's take either, though the memes from that have percolated into my brain), and also enjoy Villineuve's brand of filmmaking (Blade Runner 2049 was a triumph, I don't think Scott himself could have made such a sequel) it hit all the buttons I'd want but also left me somewhat dissatisfied.
Mainly:
A) Minimal additional worldbuilding. The tiny bits and hints of 'how things work', some of which were directly stated and some which were merely hinted made the first film engaging and rewards a second watch. Second one seemed to throw certain concepts at us without giving out the information needed to understand what it means. Lack of mentats and guild navigators has me wondering WHY a shortage of spice was such a critical issue for anyone but the Harkonnens who had to make a lot of money fast.
B) Christopher Walken can monologue with the best of them and always delivers. Even when the movie is shit. Feels like a huge waste to not give him his minute or so to shine, EVEN IF the minute was used to purposefully show the emperor's desperation and decline.
C) Similarly, the motivation and stakes of the emperor arriving on Arrakis seemed unclear. Might have been helpful to know just how much his attempted show of power on Arrakis 'cost' him to pull off, given how we're informed that the earlier anti-Atreides battalions mostly bankrupt the Harkonnens, bringing the full army to bear must have been prohibitive. How much did it deplete the emperor's wealth to show up? Was there anything particularly special about his ship?
D) This is going to sound 'heretical' (heh) but SO MUCH of the movie was set in the desert environment that it made the universe really feel smallish. Yes, I get that Arrakis is literally the most important planet there is, and the entire universe hinges on who controls it. It's the damn title of the series. But it's worth noting that the scenes on Gaedi-Prime this time around were the most memorable overall for me, so I kind of wanted to see the 'diversity' of environments present in the imperium. Being honest, though, this was probably compensated for by peeling back the layers on Fremen culture (which also counts as worldbuilding, so partially obviating my first complaint up there).
That said, hard to be truly critical of such a well-crafted experience. Feyd-Rautha. I have no notes, honestly. The brilliant move of having him sound like Baron Harkonnen immediately makes you disdain him by association, while explaining said Baron's affection for the guy and why he's the preferred heir. He's established as clear danger/threat but also very much NOT invincible, which is to say actually tactical and intelligent and not just handed everything he needs to threaten the protagonist by plot fiat.
All-in-all, the one who honestly carried the films for me was Lady Jessica. As an effective personification of the Bene Gesserit's influence, virtually every scene she's in you can see her nudging outcomes but you're never certain where. There was no point when she seemed irrelevant and even the slightly more ridiculous concept of her chatting it up with her unborn child was done with gravitas. Hats off.
You comment on the lack of reference to the Butleran Jihad, but I think part of the brilliance of the two films is managing to DEFY straitforward analogy to 'present day' political, economic, or cultural issues. The movie manages to be meaty and yet escapist at the same time, I was more than happy to immerse myself in the world (despite craving more detail) that they had crafted and forget real world issues for 3 hours. Reminded me of when movies were consistently able to present epic, mindblowing entertainment that carried you out of your own world for the duration.
I agree on all these points. My main concern with the first film was how bland things tended to be in terms of aesthetics, acting, and culture. This film improved:
(1) Somewhat on aesthetics. I liked the Harkonnen stuff. I liked the biomorphic technology: a recurring theme in Herbert's work is the idea of making a plausible future by implementing or magnifying tropes inspired by recurring patterns in human history (aristocracy, verbal manipulation, women attaining power through manipulation and intrigue rather than brute force etc.) and biomorphic technology is all around us without us noticing, e.g. velcro.
(2) Acting. The actor playing Feyd was weird in a good way, Paul's mother was suitably insane and menacing, Javier Berdem is a god of acting, and even Zendaya was less flat (acting-wise).
(3) Culture. Lots of time with the Fremen and the Harkonnens. I wanted more Islamo-futurism and I got it. My main complaint would be that the Harkonnens should have had more Spartan themes. While that doesn't fit the books, I think it (a) helps audiences to understand how the Harkonnens represent a dehumanized future with an alien culture, where humanity is ceasing to be recognisable to us, and (b) gives more explanation of the Harkonnen appeal, given that the wild sex, drugs, and rock n roll weren't going to be represented on screen. Dune One showed how the Harkonnens rule by fear, but no empire survives on fear alone; Dune Two gave more hints of what Harkonnen culture and legitimation might be like, but I wanted more, especially if it satirises modern Spartan cults. Ideally, I would have liked more discipline, more survival of the fittest, more homeroticism, to extents that offend gymbros and wokists alike.
Any Dune film is going to be full of missed opportunities. This film missed somewhat fewer than the first.
Yep. Granting that the director is going to pick and choose what gets emphasized and also what makes it in at all so one should really only judge how well he used what he included and not on HOW MUCH they managed to squeeze in, this was an amazing job.
Have to agree on making the Harkonnens a Sparta analogue. While I loved how it was used, I think making the Harkonnen uniforms be basically black space leather with minimal adornment was a... tame choice? Made it easy to pick them out on screen, but I had also understood that Harkonnens prefer a certain amount of ostentatious gaudiness.
The visual cue "WE ARE THE BAD GUYS" every time one of them is on screen was mostly unneeded.
I agree on the black space leather. In the Dune video games (Dune II and IIRC Emperor of Dune) the Harkonnens are mostly in red, which is cool because it's a colour associated both with allure (red fruit, roses, red lips etc.) and violence (blood). The Sci-Fi miniseries goes with similar aesthetics and generally portrays the Harkonnens as cool/sexy, which helps explain how e.g. Feyd could plausibly have sufficient popularity among the Great Houses to become Emperor. I thought Dune Part Two did a good damage mitigation job on this point, by making Feyd more honourable than he is in the books; I don't know if that was deliberate, but it helped.
Incorporating red into their color themes would have undoubtedly improved the design in my eyes.
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