[poseidonsvoice]

Just got back after watching it. I was pretty much glued to the screen. My wife turned to me and said, "What? 2 hrs and 40 minutes has passed?" That pretty much sums it up for me! Can't wait for part 2!

Best,
Anand.

[Folsom]

I've heard all sorts of things... I should probably check it out.

[jaywills]

Saw it yesterday at the IMAX with my 27 y/o daughter, we've both read the first three books.  Thought it was well done for the material they had to cover.  Must echo an earlier complaint about the sometimes muddled dialogue, washed out by the other environmental sounds.  Happened two or three times, unfortunately obscuring some useful background comment.  All in all, I'd give it an "A," so far.  Hope the sequel gets made and is the equal of this first part.

[WGH]

Must echo an earlier complaint about the sometimes muddled dialogue, washed out by the other environmental sounds.  Happened two or three times, unfortunately obscuring some useful background comment.

I have seen twice and have not experienced any dialog problems. First in a Cinemark XD theater and again at home. I wanted to see Dune on the big screen. My brother and wife preferred to watch it at my house along with my Smoked Indoor Ribs with Homemade BBQ Sauce.

I'm glad I saw Dune in the theater first on a state-of-the-art sound system. The experience gave me inspiration to fine tune my 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos setup. I got the sound real close to the theater experience.

The Dune soundtrack is the clearest I have heard in any film, definitely demo quality. The bass is deep, tight and well controlled along with clear dialog. In past films a Hans Zimmer soundtrack is too loud and oppressive. This time he has controlled his impulses and has made a soundtrack that in perfectly balance with the visuals. Surround and Dolby Atmos are used through the film setting the atmosphere, the big palace rooms are sonically huge.

Because the sound is so clear I think audio systems are turned up a lot louder than usual, mine was at -14 and I never play movies that loud and yet my diner guests never complained even once. At that volume the huge dynamics will overtax many systems, add in the extensive use of surround sound and it is easy to see how the dialog may suffer. The dialog was actually slightly clearer at home than in the theater but only in comparison, I didn't miss any words in the theater either.

Like everything in audio, new electronics or dynamic sound will reveal the deficiencies of older equipment, speakers or room acoustics.

[Big Red Machine]

MXT theater and I missed several lines as well that were unintelligible.  Next year I'll buy the disc and use subtitles to find out what I missed.

[Tyson]

I think Villeneuve is following Christopher Nolan's lead on some of the dialog.  The idea is that when there's ambient noise going on that's overwhelmingly loud, that will make anything that anyone is saying become drowned out. 

[Daryl Zero]

I really liked Dune 2021 and really despised Lynch's version (I have been a Lynch fan for other things). I thought the Sci-Fi mini-series was decent. My wife and daughter who know little to nothing about Dune liked it as well.

The good news is that WB has greenlit the second half which would come out in two years.

I don't think some of the criticism is really fair in that it would be really impossible for a director, even in a long series to do everything in the books. The director has to pick the things that he thinks is important along with audience comprehension including non-book readers.

For example, there was no reason to have Feyd appear in part one since his story doesn't really begin until midway in the book and the first movie ended right before that spot. It just would have been another character introduced but with no reason to be in part one of the movie especially if they didn't do a part 2.

Yeah, they eliminated a lot of the early machinations and the Atreides' attempts to deal with the merchant, smuggler and upper classes of Arrakis. Some of the boardroom scenes were things I liked but I understood why they weren't in the movie.

Anyone expecting every single moment in the books is going to be disappointed no matter who makes this movie. I think the book hit all the important high spots and did it well. Even as I found myself privately grousing about where the Paul v. Jamis' amtal fight occurred (in the rocks rather than the sietch) and some of the other missing things such as Lady Jessica's attempt to interfere and Chani's side taking. 

[tortugaranger]

Loved the movie overall and especially enjoyed the soundtrack which seemed to fit perfectly. I was just listening to the Hans Zimmer soundtrack which is awesome all on its own.

[Letitroll98]

Saw it on Monday at the $5 show.  Which is actually a $9 show.  They give you a bag of free popcorn, ask if you want butter, then of course you need water, which is $4.  Anyway, the movie was good, I thought the compromises were well taken skipping all the exposition of the Lynch movie. 

Gripes, there are two.  They never showed a navigator.  I know it's a lot of precious screen time to bring the Spacing Guild into the story, but so pivotal to all that happens that I thought five minutes could have been carved out.  And why is Paul such a skinny little wimp?  He's a young man who's been continually trained in martial arts and combat skills for his entire life, you'd think he'd be a little beefier, somewhat more athletic.  I have no belief that the actor could handle a seventh grader from the wrestling team, much less an experienced Freman warrior.

Overall I thought they did a great job with an obviously difficult product that has thus far eluded a satisfactory treatment.  The director followed what I've always thought should be done, just tell the adventure story with as much of the atmosphere that can be included without slowing down the plot.  If not perfect, definitely the best version so far.  Glad to hear they're expediting part 2.

[WGH]

Loved the movie overall and especially enjoyed the soundtrack which seemed to fit perfectly. I was just listening to the Hans Zimmer soundtrack which is awesome all on its own.

NY Times has an interview with Hans Zimmer talking about the Dune soundtrack, there are plenty of clickable links to keep an audiophile entertained for an afternoon.

How Hans Zimmer Conjured the Otherworldly Sounds of ‘Dune’
The composer worked with a far-flung “band” of collaborators who sung, scraped metal, invented instruments and more for the score.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/movies/hans-zimmer-dune.html

More Dune fun:

'Dune’ | Anatomy of a Scene
The director Denis Villeneuve narrates a combat training sequence from his film, featuring Timothée Chalamet and Josh Brolin.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/movies/100000008038934/dune-scene.html

[SoCalWJS]

Local News this morning (KSBY SLO) had a blurb this morning that the Studio gave the Green Light to the Sequel/part 2, so at least we get to see more.

Confirmation at other sites:

https://www.polygon.com/22745107/dune-2-release-date-cast

[I.Greyhound Fan]

My wife and I along with my son and one of his friends just saw Dune in the theater on an Ultra screen.  I was disappointed, mainly due to half of the dialog being drowned out by the constant drone of the music. Even when there was no music there was unintelligible whispering.  It was ridiculous and I do not know what they were thinking. I was the only one of us that knew what was going on because I read the book, saw the original movie and the SyFy  miniseries.  We are not sure that we will see part 2 unless they fix that issue.  What a waste of money.

[Letitroll98]

You're not the only one viewing the movie in a high end theater complaining about the sound track being unintelligible.  I saw it our ancient theater in our little town, the absence of any high tech sound, and it was perfect.  Didn't miss a single word of dialogue.  Could there be something wrong in the codec?  If there is and people aren't demanding refunds nothing will be done to fix it.  If I couldn't hear the movie, and it wasn't a drive in, I'd want my money back.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

You're not the only one viewing the movie in a high end theater complaining about the sound track being unintelligible.  I saw it our ancient theater in our little town, the absence of any high tech sound, and it was perfect.  Didn't miss a single word of dialogue.  Could there be something wrong in the codec?  If there is and people aren't demanding refunds nothing will be done to fix it.  If I couldn't hear the movie, and it wasn't a drive in, I'd want my money back.

True, my son got online and found that other people are complaining about it.  I can't believe that they released the film this way.  Hopefully they will fix the issue with the next movie.

[routlaw]

FWIW I watched this film again a few nights ago on HBO Max with  same results. Normally my processor has the center channel up by 1.5 db but in order to have clear dialog I literally had to run it up another 5.5 db for a total of -7 db down on the center at the time this was mastered and released. Never experienced anything like this before. I could have bumped it up another .5 to 1 db also on many of the scenes especially where the mother was in a whispering mode to Paul.

My processor is about a month old, new and my speakers are Genesis. It’s not the equipment it’s the way it was released and mastered. Not that this helps any.

[WGH]

Seems like understanding the dialog in Dune is hit and miss depending on the theater. There is a long Reddit thread complaining about the sound. Cinemark XD appears to be correctly calibrated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/qe6r23/dune_sound/

Hans Zimmer has also worked with Christopher Nolan on films that are hard to understand and too loud:

"Nolan also admitted in a 2017 interview with IndieWire that his team decided “a couple of films ago that we weren’t going to mix films for substandard theaters,” adding, “We’re mixing for well-aligned, great theaters.” For this reason, seeing “Tenet” or any Christopher Nolan movie in a theater with substandard audio equipment won’t make hearing his dialogue any easier. Nolan understands his films put a pressure on theaters to keep up with the best sound and projector systems, and he can’t mix his films to please every exhibitor."

“At a certain point, you have to decide if you’ve made the best possible version of the film and you’re trying to account for inadequacies in presentation,” Nolan told IndieWire. “That’s chasing the tail. It doesn’t work. I will say, with our sound mixes, we spent a lot of time and attention making sure that they work in as predictable a way possible.”


Dune Part 2 will be released in theaters 45 days before HBO Max, Denis Villeneuve was a bit upset at the simultaneously release.

"When Warner Bros. announced last year that it would be simultaneously releasing its entire slate of movies for 2021 in theaters and on streaming, Denis Villeneuve rushed to the barricades. “Frankly, to watch Dune on a television, the best way I can compare it is to drive a speedboat in your bathtub,” the director told Total Film. “For me, it’s ridiculous. It’s a movie that has been made as a tribute to the big-screen experience.” He even struck out at the studio in an open letter printed in Variety. “AT&T has hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history,” he wrote, referring to Warner’s corporate parent. “Filmmaking is a collaboration, reliant on the mutual trust of team work and Warner Bros. has declared they are no longer on the same team.”

I will be watching Dune Part 2 in a Cinemark XD theater.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

It is total BS that C. Nolan and many directors mix the audio for theaters with the latest and greatest sound systems.  Most theaters do not have those systems.  To quote a line from Star Trek-  "The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few".  In this instance it is true.  Maybe if people stop going to theaters and watching their movies for $10-18 a ticket things will change.  People should also complain to streaming services, HBO and the like.

[newzooreview]

I know folks with excellent hearing who watch most movies with subtitles due to the too frequent inaudibility of dialogue.

Having said that, I watched Dune in HDR on my new 16" MacBook Pro and the sound and video were excellent. The mini-LED screens on the new laptops are amazing. The sound is certainly not replicating even a modest home theatre, but it is clear and balanced. There is a taste of surround sound as well (although not as much as Apple seem to imply in their product descriptions—still there is something there.) It seems that Dolby Atmos is decoded correctly as well, at least as far as the volume, placement, and clarity of dialogue goes. The quiet dialogue was definitely quiet but was intelligible.

Since I don't have HDR or 4K on my full-size TV I'll probably watch a lot of movies on this new laptop. It isn't too bad in approximating a middle of the theatre perspective when it's sitting on my lap.

[routlaw]

It is total BS that C. Nolan and many directors mix the audio for theaters with the latest and greatest sound systems.  Most theaters do not have those systems.  To quote a line from Star Trek-  "The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few".  In this instance it is true.  Maybe if people stop going to theaters and watching their movies for $10-18 a ticket things will change.  People should also complain to streaming services, HBO and the like.

I agree with this. It’s arrogance above and beyond the call of duty. I haven’t been to a movie theater in decades and don’t feel my life has been compromised one iota for not going. We have a small HT with projector which we have enjoyed immensely through the years and will continue to do so. However it doesn’t matter how good or mediocre the audio gear is each channel has to be mastered to a set standard with LEVELS and clearly Dune was not released this way.

This type of arrogance is akin to the notion if you don’t have $25k speaker cables and $10K interconnects you’re just not getting your moneys worth of listening satisfaction. I’m not even sure there is Cinemark XD movie theater in my entire state and it wouldn’t be worth it to me if there was.

Thanks

[tortugaranger]

I've watched it twice on an iPad Pro in a quiet room. I do most of my movie/show watching on my iPad because I can both see and hear everything perfectly nearfield. I do have a 60 inch big screen TV as well but its sound is grossly inferior. However, I had problems hearing big parts of the dialog in Dune. I loved the forward presence of the soundtrack but you can't clearly hear parts of the dialog and can't blame all of that on the soundtrack. I thought that might have been a streaming glitch and not a "feature" of the movie. Perhaps not. Most unfortunate.