Don't leave your comfort zone easily

Young people often hear older kids mention several games, including Might & Magic, Red Alert, and Dune. Then himself had a computer, "red alert" has been up to the second generation, the "red alert 1" and makes the same studio production and fellow RTS class "dune 2" but I always did not have the opportunity to personally to fit to play, only know "dune" adapted from the movie of the same, then also heard that the film is lame. Bizarrely, that film was directed by my favorite David Lynch, and the book on which the film is based, Dune, is a beloved sci-fi classic. One plus one is less than one, which shows how difficult it is to adapt dune's story.

Later, I briefly read the original dune novel myself, and felt that the previous adaptation had crashed, perhaps because the original volume was too large. But just like the sandworm in the story, the monster can't be tamed. The key is to meet the right person. David Lynch is certainly strong, but his personal style is hard to reconcile with Dune's story. Villeneuve took over the helm of the new Dune in 2016, and everyone felt the project was secure.

A little background on the story. The main characters are the Etreedy family, which can be seen as the Starks in a Song of Ice and Fire. Lord Leto Etreedy smells like Ned Stark, and Paul Etreedy smells like Bran Stark. Lord Leto, like Ned Stark, had been appointed by the king, and was far from home.

Son Paul was able to hang on because he had a mother, Jessica, who hung on. Jessica is a member of the Sorority of Benny Jesserit, a sort of society of hexenbiests. Sororities use superpowers like code words.

The emperor's commission requires the Estridis to move to the planet Erakos, the main stage of the film. Because of the yellow sand everywhere, it is also called dune Planet. Erakos is important because of its abundance of spices. In the words of the original work, the importance of spices is that "whoever has mastered the spice has mastered the universe". Spices can not only delay aging, but more importantly, have the ability to predict the future, which shows its importance. The tech tree in Dune's world doesn't quite look like our own, and it took 200 years for humans to take back control after the pre-story AI wars, where people no longer rely on smart devices and prefer to do things themselves, whether they're using their brains or their hands. Spices are the fuel of the human body, similar to the strategic importance of real-world fossil fuels.

Another force in the film is the Hacknan family. They've been controlling the spice gathering business in Erakos, and now the Estridis have stepped in, directly affecting their financial lifeline. The emperor had brought the House of Estrade in to set them against each other, to crush the House of Harknan, and to kill off Lord Lettoestrade, who was too high up for his own good.

In addition to the menacingly greedy Hahnan clan, the greater danger on Erakos comes from giant sandworms, which are over 400 meters long and can instantly swallow a spice harvester several times the size of a real-world tank.

But not everyone seems to shun them, as the native inhabitants of Erakos, the Fremans, are known to worship them. The main character will also learn how to live with sandworms during his time with the Fremans in the future.

Faced with a huge and complex world view, Dune is not a typical monster film, although there are monsters like sand worm. Sand worm is more like the embodiment of fear in the film.

The paving and final presentation of sandworms in the film are very similar to godzilla in 2014 in terms of rhythm control. The fearsome monster remains hidden for most of the film, but only in the second half of the film does it appear in the form of a panoramic view, which is released after a long time of repression and meets the audience's expectations and curiosity at the most appropriate time.

And, like Godzilla, sandworms are the biggest threat in the first half of the story because of the lack of knowledge about them. When the monsters actually meet the main character, they don't seem to be so hostile to the main character, and even feel a bit of predestined fate and secret intimacy.

Sandworms are one of the most feared creatures in the Story of Dune, though outsiders like the Estridis may be more afraid of them than they are feared by the native Fremans. Whether it is the housekeeper who presents the crystal tooth dagger when the protagonist family just arrives at the planet Erakos, or the ecologist Dr. Keynes who is generous and calm at the moment of life and death, they all show their fanatical worship and loyalty to sand worms.

But when the story progresses to the sandworm-Paul confrontation near the end, the attitude of the Fremans towards sandworm-worms that has been set up earlier comes into play. What we see is not just a game between an emotionless hunter and prey, but more like a silent communication between two creatures.

Of course, it would be wrong to dismiss Dune as just a monster movie. As anyone familiar with villeneuve knows, he eschews the gaudy, thrillingpace of storytelling in favor of a steady, earthy audiovisual language that quietly immerses the audience in his world of images.

In the process, the original elements of the story of Dune, including science fiction, philosophy, religion and ecology, have flowed naturally in front of the audience.

Dune doesn't take the straight-up, no-nonsense approach, but there are plenty of crisp, hard-core action scenes, like the night raids of Haknan's army and emperor Sadoka's army between Estridi's garrison, aquaman's mother and son "Hold the Door," and Paul's dream battle for the future. Often action movies, however realistic they may be, have a bit of vaudeville or dance in them, which makes them more flexible and fast-paced. Villeneuve, the director, always removes this kind of show off to the audience completely with his cool perspective, and uses the extreme realistic action scenes that are too simple to bring the audience a sense of pressure and lead the audience to find another kind of charm of action scenes.

Another aspect, in the dream of the actor Paul characterization, slow villeneuve tile director of idiomatic translation or after shot will often give a person a kind of can't fully grasp the initiative in a dream of weightlessness, dreaming, or movie, we are all more or less aware of himself is going through some kind of strange feeling in the world, but indulge myself cannot easily leave, Especially when the world is moving at a speed that is not commensurate with the speed at which our brains are working. Of course, if the dream is too bad to wake you up, or if the movie sucks enough to scare you away, there's no reason to be addicted to it.

Paul's dreams are prophetic, and the plot is reminiscent of Villeneuve's arrival, in which the female protagonist is given the ability to predict the future through contact with the nonlinear language of aliens. The protagonists of both films are those who predict that the road ahead will be difficult, but still overcome their fears and do nothing back. In addition, both sci-fi stories demonstrate the power of linguistics, but one is written and the other spoken. In addition to Arrival, there is a detail in Dune that reminds me of sicario, the director's other work. Did the Hacknan people learn how to build agents against Paul into concrete walls from Mexican drug lords thousands of years ago?

"Dune" original novel was born more than half a century ago, this film and television adaptation I think is quite successful, also can be regarded as breaking the "Dune" is not suitable for image "curse. Villeneuve certainly made a remarkable contribution. When the director is selected, those who follow dune will be relieved. Villeneuve has been a fan of the books on which Dune is based since he was a teenager, and he's known for his distinctive video style, so there's no need to worry about the classic being altered in the first place. After the success of Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, the anticipation for Dune has grown. As it turns out, Villeneuve did live up to expectations.

The story that is most difficult to turn into a film finally succeeds because of the era in which it was released. The progress of visual effect technology has provided basic guarantee for the feasibility of the surreal material world in novels being restored to the big screen. On the other hand, 21st century audiences are ready for epics with complex worldviews and relationships. The success of shows like "Game of Thrones" over the past decade has proven that rather than being a barrier to acceptance, the intrigue and diversity of character camps are what keeps viewers engaged.

Although the stage of this time has moved from the ancient fantasy world to the future science fiction world, the large number of classical architecture, costumes and ceremonies, as well as the sword and cold weapon combat, can still evoke a familiar and interesting experience of watching the drama or watching the movie for non-science fiction fans.

In the end, I, who always write where I write, rarely give a thought to the subject. The take-home message from Lord Leto and Game of Thrones' Ned Stark: Don't leave your comfort zone. But villeneuve's career, especially his last three sci-fi films, seems to have cultivated the genre into its comfort zone. At first glance, the process looks smooth, but if a director with a more flamboyant style, the challenges would have been exposed most incisively and vividly. After all, the pattern of these three films is bigger than the last one, the shooting cost is higher than the last one, and the error tolerance rate is lower than the last one.

Even so, Villeneuve has made it through. The reason, I think, is that Villeneuve has already perfected the audio-visual language. Once the foundation is established, the boundaries of your comfort zone are gradually expanded as you slowly and steadily expand the video world you can control. This is the ideal attitude towards your comfort zone.