Film Reviews by MP

I waited a while before reviewing so I could rewatch the 2 recent Dune films.

These prequels are excellent - set 10000 years before the films. Technology has been perfected to a certain level but then paused and maybe has even dropped a bit over the next 10000 years. This was a excellent feature, both the technology and society are stagnated and going nowhere. There are no external threats and closest to this was machine inteligence which was stamped out leading to the technological stagnation.

I loved the choice of actresses for the two leading Harkonnen roles as 20ish and 50ish year olds, they look so plausible as being the same people at different ages that I had to google to see if they are actually related (they are not). But the triumph of casting is a bit of a easter egg, don't want to cause spoilers but there is a big Atredies meeting and one of them is was clearly picked to be similar to Duke Leto in the films (although 300 generations apart) - a lovely touch.

On plot it is mostly politics and backstabbing which is fine but I would say that the world building and ambience is actually a better part of the film and you can see that serious money was spent on this.

If there is a series 2 then I will certainly be renting it.

Glorious visuals and excellent characters especially Austin Butler as Feyd Harkonnen. It really is part 2, do not consider watching this unless you have watched part 1 recently. The audio is wonderful, turn up the bass and listen to it in full glory.

My only criticism is that it is just too long. I am sure that 30 mins could be cropped from the standard version which would make it more watchable, this 30 mins could be put back in a directors cut to keep everyone happy.

Disk 1 (episodes 1-3) was OK and probably just intended as character introduction but from there on it just kept getting better and better. The episode inspired by Alien was great and will hopefully lead to some plots in the future. The characters from a book episode was totally ludicrous and has no place in a scifi universe but I loved it! A episode made for fans to enjoy.

The best episode in S1 is the last one and on the same disk is the original series episode that it is based on. This is excellently done and shows how different decisions between Pike and Kirk would have very different consequences.

All filmed during deepest darkest Covid times so it is a miracle that this got made at all.

This is a arthouse film that would have vanished into the background without a A list actor to make it stand out. Nicholas Cage provided this star appeal and also did a great job with the main character. It is very watchable and I certainly enjoyed it but it really is a arthouse film just with a flashing star light above it. If you dont like arthouse films then you might not be so keen. The entire plot could probably be summarised in less words than this review so I suggest just sitting back and enjoying the experience.

Time travel programs need to be very careful to avoid internal inconcistancies and this series blew that totally

Protagonists:

Main character is a problem so lets prevent her from ever being born. Lets do this by slashing her with a knife then comparing everyone with the possible surname with this DNA. Why not just slash the target a bit deeper/poison/gun etc to kill her instead of just taking the DNA sample and going through this convoluted and ineffectual way to prevent her from being?

They also kill the grandmother of a secondary character and nothing happens which proves that the future of the characters is not determined by this past but there is also a major last episode in S1 that shows that the future is determined by this past (character A talks to character B and this is referred to 60 years later).

I wanted to like it but time travel stories need very careful plotting. I would have stuck with it except that the last episode in S1 had the hero in her super suit show that it had basically unlimited powers (a force field to deflect a falling building). This is a terrible plot device as it can be pulled out from anywhere when things are bad to fix any situation.

The film is almost exactly like the book which in this case actually works out as a bad thing, for example the clan talk in grunts and gestures but with english subtitles. Despite this the subtleties of clan culture are somehow lost in the translation.

It is also in a 4:3 aspect ratio as in TV productions from a few decades ago and this gave it a cheap feel.

The structure of this show is some government agents who look into apparently supernatural events - sounds very X file like.

Where it falls down though is that they have their own resident madman/genius scientist who seems to have been involved in everything and provides ludicrous explanations for everything which always turn out to be true.

I was optimistic but it just did not work out for me,