Without much compunction for the offense this may cause science-fiction fans and (actual) cinephiles alike, I heartily declare that Dune 2 is, put bluntly, an okay movie. Not a film, such a title would vest it with a certain unwarranted sophistication, but a movie, existing within the class of blockbusters that provide entertainment value but do not constitute artworks of generational significance.

Such utterances have exposed me to the wrath of the Dune 2 apostles. The dorm room to which I immediately returned after watching it at the Garden Theater, the group-chat with high school friends, the lunch I had with a film-student – all became sites of heretic-hunting. “It is the greatest movie of all time,” went the most grandiose of the claims I heard; even the comparatively milder assertions shared the same reverential outlook. I, therefore, having blasphemed the movie’s brilliance, patiently endured a litany of accusations concerning my philistine and dilettantish nature. And though I am likely to prompt a resurgence of such hostilities by spilling digital ink on the subject, I remain convinced that my stance is reasonable and worthy of defense.

Dune 2 was released in March of this year and has since been heralded as an epic science fiction movie for the ages. Adapted from a highly acclaimed book series, directed by the esteemed Denis Villueneve, and starring Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, it truly possesses all the trappings of a generational film. Over the course of the story, which centers on the conflict between the Fremen led by hero Paul Atreides, played by Chalamet, and the tyrannical House Harkonnen, there is much to admire; for instance, Han Zimmer’s harrowing, otherworldly soundtrack. The movie has an array of minor issues, such as cheesy dialogue – consider the line delivered by the killer of the Harkonnen antagonist Glossu Rabban: “For my Duke… and my friends” – which are frustrating yet can be easily overlooked. My principal objection and the chief source of my distaste pertains instead to its visual appearance, the very element for which Dune 2 is perhaps most commonly acclaimed. 

Let’s just say that I think ‘gorgeous,’ as used to describe the movie in the link above, is a strong word. Dune 2’s visual effects are, admittedly, breathtaking in their quality, imbuing extraordinary, phantasmagorical scenes with a potent realism that is conceivably akin to what one would encounter upon physically stepping into the world of the book. Take a battle scene, like that between the Fremen and a bewildering four legged machine, and it will be qualitatively superior to any prior, analogous scene produced by Hollywood. In general, the edges of the characters pop and the outlines of the backdrop cut through the screen, making each shot crisp and defined, while the picture overall remains smooth, unblemished as it is vivid. By the genius of digital manipulation, the movie takes what once was sequestered in the realm of the imagination, and liberates it into the realm of the tangible. 

And yet, it is precisely such computerized perfection that hinders it. Instead of further drawing me into the story and enlivening my viewing experience, it served as a contrived spectacle that, without stirring my imagination, enfeebled the movie’s ability to affect me. That is, the great sandworm scene, in which Paul Atreides adroitly wields a recalcitrant beast, belongs less to a work of art than to the graphics of a video game or the virtual-reality ride present at a theme park, more a source of intrigue for the technological feat it represents than its emotional heft. The close-ups of characters’ faces, which ought to express the complexities of their individual personhood, appear sterile and clean: unhuman and, therefore, uninteresting. The sharp definition, paradoxically, felt pixelated, and its smoothness came across at bottom as a lack of complexity; flat and unidimensional without much to say. 

The movie’s congenital insipidness is tremendously aggravated by, if not predicated upon, its lauded color scheme. Awash in a shallow, neon orange, the primary setting of the movie is seemingly composed of numerous color filters that were slapped onto the original footage, obscuring the naturally rich color of the Jordanian desert, where shooting took place, underneath. The black-and-white stadium scene, in which the Harkonnens stage gladiatorial fights, provides the paradigmatic example of the movie’s aesthetic sin, since, being rather bland – which I understand was the sentiment intentionally meant to be conveyed so as to illuminate the Harkonnen’s nature – it nonetheless felt so generic that it lost all visual standing in my eyes. 

In other words, the movie’s vapid aesthetic eliminates the enchantment cinema should evoke. As Tarantino explains, When you’re watching a movie, a film print, you are watching an illusion [because a film print is nothing but a series of still pictures], and that illusion to me is connected to the magic of movies. The faults of Dune 2 are thus perhaps symptomatic of the faults of contemporary cinema and its regrettable eschewal of film in favor of the digital camera, which subverts the magical illusion present in film print. In any case, Tarantino’s point, at the risk of being facetious, is clear: Apparently the whole world is okay with television in public [i.e. digital film, like Dune 2, is equivalent to mass-produced entertainment like television, rather than a product of expert craftsmanship]. 

To best illustrate my point, I implore you to watch or re-watch a film like David Lean’s 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, the book off which it is based was in fact a source of inspiration for Dune author Frank Herbert. The desert in such a film is not a backdrop, but an active character that, alive in its vitality, deepens the entire film by imparting it with a soul. Pause at random and the ensuing still frame could stand alone in a museum; by contrast, the cold, uniform orange frames of Dune 2’s desert will seem exceedingly banal. It does not escape me that I am committing a category error in imposing the standards for a historical film onto a science-fiction movie that aims to represent an alien, mythological world. In view of the original Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, however, I refuse to concede that Dune 2 was incapable of realizing an improved aesthetic that would have remained just as faithful to the story. 

In the spirit of honesty, I sheepishly confess that I have not watched the first Dune movie or read the books, conditions, if satisfied, would presumably have improved my movie-watching experience. But, assuming that form and content are not wholly interdependent, I think my principal reservation subsists notwithstanding the sum total of my knowledge of Dune lore. For there is something missing at the heart of the movie from which my dissatisfaction arises; and that void is a story without the magical quality that can charm viewers and transport them to a reality other than the laptop-dominated ones they inhabit in their regular lives – that story has been debased and become another iteration of the AI generated clips that circulate online and the graphics on electronic billboards, representations of a reality that is hyper defined on the edges and distinctly colorized, but functionally nugatory without that earthiness which warms the heart. 

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I went to an old-fashioned movie theater near my house this past summer. Its facade carried a large white billboard that protruded out over the sidewalk and exhibited physical black block letters that spelt out Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival. The attendant in the cylindrical hub centered in the foyer sold me a ticket, and I walked into the theater. The show I was attending was Rope, a murder mystery released in 1944. The projector started to whir, the lights dimmed, and a grainy, black and white picture appeared on the screen. I sat bewitched.

P.S. Stephen Spielbierg’s Thoughts: Dune 2 “is one of the most brilliant science fiction films I have ever seen.”