Dune (2021)

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Hollywood has a future.

I can’t remember the last I was so excited to see a new movie coming out (well, probably Mortal Kombat and still hope for Batman). The anticipation was worth it. As opposed to the other movies that somehow got me interested (Old -like, The Many Saints of Newark – dislike), I knew this one was going to be a hit.

How big of a hit, I did not.

I’m going to say this once: if I were to have all the budget available, I’ll do this film and hire the same production and the same actors. Because I’ve been waiting for this movie for the past 25 years.

Here’s a little history of my relationship with the Dune universe. It all started when I was around 10, with the video strategy game on the computer, Dune 2.

It was introduced to me by a school colleague, as an alternative to Blizzard’s Warcraft (also 2). I was with Blizzard, he was with Westood – I think Blizzard did well over the years. I knew about Dune but it was different that Warcraft and I didn’t want to learn it at first.

The thing about Dune is that it wasn’t just the game and its narrative. It had an entire universe and a huge fanbase outside of the gaming scope, and once you hear the story, you can start imagining things happen. It’s still a good story today – as opposed to many other Sci-Fies – and in the mind of a 12-year old boy, it’s all he needs.

I’ve read the first Dune book sometimes in high school. I found the Romanian translation but I went for the English one (in 2021 you couldn’t order it from the internet and you could only find a copy to read from British Council – or my high school library).

I can’t remember much, but I do remember it was not as easy read as I expected.

I loved it because it was different than the other universe I was ready at the time (Asimov) – and of course, because it was connected to the game.

Dune 2000 is what I played most but sadly I can’t remember much. I’ll probably do a search and play a short one – nowadays all these old games can run in your browser, you don’t even need to download anything.

In 1997 I was in France for the first time and I landed in a Carrefour store. Romania didn’t have a store like that – we had markets but never something similar, they were just emerging. And I remember I bought three VHS tapes for my collection (I knew but didn’t care about the palm-SECAM system – essentially the french VHS tapes are recorded in a different system and you need a special VCR to play them in full colour, otherwise they are B/W – fortunately, I had one of those fancy VCRs).

Stree Fighter with JCVD, Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stalone (didn’t we have the best childhood) and… Dune. The 1984 David Lynch movie. I knew who David Lynch and Kyle MchLanchan – the actor who played Paul Atreids were – I used to watch Twin Peaks. Why was a 6-year-old was watching Twin Peaks? That’s probably a story for another time.

When I played the Dune games my friend was telling me about the book and the fact that it might also be a movie. You can’t imagine the feeling of wanting to see something that you didn’t know existed and it turned out it actually did. Nowadays, information is at the tip of our fingers.

For for many years, the info was based on rumours and one can only hope to be true. Like when you heard that they might do another Batman movie and Jim Carey will be in it.

So I watched the movie many times – it wasn’t bad considering the times it was released. But obviously event an 11-year-old kid could tell that the movies from the games were far better than this one.

But still, I was fascinated by the universe. I even consider learning how to code so that I could build a different map/scenario/mission for Dune.

So now you see there’s quite a history between me and the Dune brand. As said, I would have hired the crew and the movie would have ended up the way it did. I’ll probably watch it again this year. Yes, it was that cool.

And also looking forward to the upcoming parts.

Now, I’m waiting for The Foundation to finish so I can binge-watch it!

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