I Just Watched (Films)

[Pew-Pew]

Just a quick note: I'm pretty sure the shields are for stopping fast projectiles. Paul has to learn a fighting style that has a slower strike so it can get through personal shields. If a lasgun (laser) hits a shield it causes an atomic-style explosion (in the books at least, not seen the film yet).

[Animalmother]

When I first saw the personal shields in the 80's film I thought it was the coolest effect ever. Now it looks like 2 guys wearing plastic boxes

[Achtung Englander]

quick Dune question

Spoiler

So spice is needed to navigate interstallar travel because it induces foresight. Paul saw into the future when he breathed it in. So did any of the Harkonnen or the Emperor men see a future where Paul would rebel ?

[Achtung Englander]

fun Dune fact. Denis Villeneuve muted Rebecca Ferguson from his Whatsapp group chat because she was so excited with how the first film came out that she kept sending him messages about the second film. Looks like she did his head in.

[Sly Boots]

quick Dune question

Spoiler

So spice is needed to navigate interstallar travel because it induces foresight. Paul saw into the future when he breathed it in. So did any of the Harkonnen or the Emperor men see a future where Paul would rebel ?

Spoiler

Pretty sure it cannot be used in that way by normal human beings. The Navigators are mutants who have been exposed to massive amounts of melange, and Paul himself is the product of the Bene Gesserit's generations-long breeding programme to produce a human being capable of prescience, called the Kwisatz Haderach. It does confer some beneficial properties like a longer lifespan, but it's incredibly addictive and withdrawal is fatal.

Also the prescience itself is presented as being very complex rather than linear - Paul is able to discern an almost infinite number of possible futures, as do rare others who are able to use spice for prescience, but his Kwisatz Haderach powers enable him to navigate this (I think this may also be how the Navigators themselves use it). This is why the Bene Gesserit have devoted decades (possibly centuries) into trying to create a KH.

[Achtung Englander]

Holy shit you know Dune stuff Sly, brilliant

[Sly Boots]

Holy shit you know Dune stuff Sly, brilliant

Ha, Pew remembered the shield stuff better than me!

It's probably been 15 years since I last read it, but I did read it probably 3-4 times in my adolescence.

[Solitaire]

Are the shields penetrated by a slow strike of a dagger in the books too? It doesn't make sense to me that a bullet would penetrate the shield but a fast moving blade wouldn't.

Spoiler

Bullets don't penetrate. Are you talking about those huge bombs? They slow down and sink through the shield.

Dune is, by far, the book I've read the most, starting at around age 15, back in the mid-80s. I've read it five times, and half-way through a sixth reading starting earlier this year. I'm happy to contribute to the discussion

[Hatredsheart]

For anyone interested in learning more about the Dune universe this guy's channel has a lot of decent content

[Achtung Englander]

I shall watch that video. I knew of Dune only from the 1984 film, but upon seeing a competent version of the book, makes it really intruguing. I will read the book over Xmas

[Sly Boots]

It's genuinely one of my favourite books.

[Raid]

After seeing so many recommendations to read it, I started it last night.

LA Confidential - From what I remember this was a pretty big deal in the 90s / early 2000s, and I think to some extent it still holds up to a new viewer in 2021. It's a little slow, perhaps dreary in places, not helped by the melancholy trumpet-solo soundtrack (which I actually really like, but it imparts a very particular noir-ish atmosphere to proceedings), but it's a decent story. I can't say I was a huge fan of the acting in it; I'm not a big Russell Crowe fan, Pearce has this constant pouting look on his face for the whole film, and Spacey.... well Spacey is just a bit sinister to watch these days given the whole sexually propositioning a minor allegation, and there's a scene in this where he tells a very nervous young man to sleep with a much older public official for blackmail purposes, and said young man is murdered for it. It's difficult to ignore the more modern context of that.

[Hatredsheart]

Just watched The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition on 4k. Clarity and colour accuracy is amazing, the horrible greenish tinge of the bluray is thankfully gone. So good, just as I remember it in the cinema though the weakest of the trilogy ( in my opinion).

[eny]

Time to dig out this classic methinks:

[Hatredsheart]

Such a good movie, 'tis on Netflix atm so that's one for me when I finish my LotR trilogy rewatch.