TV/Movies Megathread

[crazy canuck]

I didn't like Dune either.  I tried to read it during Highschool and gave up.  I later read as an adult but it still wasn't very good.  There was a lot that annoyed me, the emperor is clearly stated that he's a "political animal" but his plot to destroy a rival house is convoluted and stupid.  There is a classification of doctors that are defined as incapable of betraying their charges (I think they were called "suck doctors" which should be a good enough of a indication that you shouldn't hire them), but some of the bad guys kidnap the doctors wife and thus gets him to betray his employers.  Gee, why didn't anyone else think of that?

A few things here.

The thing you were trying to remember is Suk conditioning.  Not a suck doctor 

It was part of the training for all Imperial physicians.  It is not that it did not occur to anyone to check on the doctor's wife.  Everyone thought his wife had been killed by the Harkonnens.  Even the Doctor at first.  It was part of the elaborate plot conceived by the Harkonnen mentat.  It fooled even the Duke consort who was herself a Bene Gesserit.  What she sensed was the doctors hatred of the Harkonnens.  Which was entirely accurate, but also masked the fact his Suk conditioning had a flaw.

As for the Emporer's plot, it is clumsy in the movie and that may be what you are remembering.  In the book it is well executed.  I did in fact work.  The book is about an insurgency which arose after the plot to destroy House Atreides succeeded.

[The Minsky Moment]

Citizen Kane fully merits its reputation.

Dune is a very much at the top end of SciFi, although its relative position may recede as there seems to be a trend for the genre to attract higher quality writers over time.

The comparison to LOTR is a bit apples to oranges - both involve extensive world building but that's about it.  No surprise that Tolkien is the superior English prose stylist.  Tolkien's world is more meticulously thought out, but he had the advantage of borrowing heavily from existing folk legends.  Herbert's Dune is a really creative act of the imagination - I guess Asimov pointed the way with a sort of Space Roman Empire and a sort of space feudal Europe in Foundation but Herbert goes way beyond that.

There is no question that reading the Dune series again in my late 20s after having read it before in my teens was a bit of a comedown: the plot seams are more obvious, the aphorisms and insights a lot less trenchant. But it doesn't fall into Ayn Randy cardboard preachiness and it still really works well as imaginative fiction, IMO it would be uncharitable to say otherwise.

[The Brain]

Conspiracy. B-list Nazis gather at posh house to sit down and decide the answer to the Jewish question. I liked it (the movie) a lot, but then I really like movies about work meetings and stuff, like Margin Call. I haven't read much about the conference so I cannot say much about historical accuracy, but it felt fairly realistic. NB: the Nazi from Conspiracy Theory wasn't there, ironically enough.

[Syt]

Conspiracy. B-list Nazis gather at posh house to sit down and decide the answer to the Jewish question. I liked it (the movie) a lot, but then I really like movies about work meetings and stuff, like Margin Call. I haven't read much about the conference so I cannot say much about historical accuracy, but it felt fairly realistic. NB: the Nazi from Conspiracy Theory wasn't there, ironically enough.

IMDB says this (I've not verified the claims, though):

Since detailed records of the Wannsee Conference did not survive World War II, minor details of the movie (such as the seating arrangement at the conference table, what was actually served for lunch, and who was wearing a uniform compared to who wasn't) were totally up to the guess of the producers, and not based on any historical evidence. The producers and writer did have access to more primary material than it might seem at first. During his trial in Israel, Adolf Eichmann provided many details about the subject of the movie, even down to specific conversations, the general tone of the meeting, and other details. In particular, it's worth noting that a good bit of the dialogue in the movie is lifted verbatim from relevant memos and speeches by Nazi officials that were preserved, are part of the historical record, and cited by numerous sources. Many specific locutions used by the men in the movie can be found as cited, for instance, in Gitta Sereny's book "Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth" as well as other sources. The single-page, neutered summary of the meeting that survived in the files of the German Foreign Office is far from the only primary source used by the filmmakers.

[Sheilbh]

Conspiracy. B-list Nazis gather at posh house to sit down and decide the answer to the Jewish question. I liked it (the movie) a lot, but then I really like movies about work meetings and stuff, like Margin Call. I haven't read much about the conference so I cannot say much about historical accuracy, but it felt fairly realistic. NB: the Nazi from Conspiracy Theory wasn't there, ironically enough.

Yeah I thought it was excellent. Great cast and very well made.

[The Brain]

Conspiracy. B-list Nazis gather at posh house to sit down and decide the answer to the Jewish question. I liked it (the movie) a lot, but then I really like movies about work meetings and stuff, like Margin Call. I haven't read much about the conference so I cannot say much about historical accuracy, but it felt fairly realistic. NB: the Nazi from Conspiracy Theory wasn't there, ironically enough.

IMDB says this (I've not verified the claims, though):

Since detailed records of the Wannsee Conference did not survive World War II, minor details of the movie (such as the seating arrangement at the conference table, what was actually served for lunch, and who was wearing a uniform compared to who wasn't) were totally up to the guess of the producers, and not based on any historical evidence. The producers and writer did have access to more primary material than it might seem at first. During his trial in Israel, Adolf Eichmann provided many details about the subject of the movie, even down to specific conversations, the general tone of the meeting, and other details. In particular, it's worth noting that a good bit of the dialogue in the movie is lifted verbatim from relevant memos and speeches by Nazi officials that were preserved, are part of the historical record, and cited by numerous sources. Many specific locutions used by the men in the movie can be found as cited, for instance, in Gitta Sereny's book "Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth" as well as other sources. The single-page, neutered summary of the meeting that survived in the files of the German Foreign Office is far from the only primary source used by the filmmakers.

Interesting. Thanks.

[celedhring]

Brannagh's Heydrich might be one of his finest performances.

[Berkut]

So I watched the Dune movie. God, I knew it was supposed to be bad. But it was terrible.

The new one?

No....the old one.

The TV movie, or Lynch's Dune?  The Lynch movie was dumb but kinda fun because it was so dumb.

The thing for me about Lynch's Dune is it mostly looks fantastic.  The worms, the guild navigator, the stillsuits - a lot of trippy stuff going on.

I always said it was a great but deeply flawed movie.

Bullshit. It was just deeply, deeply stupid.

"Trippy" is not a pass for stupid bullshit ridiculousness.

A movie is a thing that has to work on its merits, not on whether or not it has "some trippy stuff going on".

[FunkMonk]

Conspiracy. B-list Nazis gather at posh house to sit down and decide the answer to the Jewish question. I liked it (the movie) a lot, but then I really like movies about work meetings and stuff, like Margin Call. I haven't read much about the conference so I cannot say much about historical accuracy, but it felt fairly realistic. NB: the Nazi from Conspiracy Theory wasn't there, ironically enough.

Yeah I thought it was excellent. Great cast and very well made.

It's a movie I watch every year or so to remind myself of how evil can appear completely normal. Doesn't hurt that the acting and writing are so good it feels like I'm watching actual footage of the meeting.

[grumbler]

Conspiracy. B-list Nazis gather at posh house to sit down and decide the answer to the Jewish question. I liked it (the movie) a lot, but then I really like movies about work meetings and stuff, like Margin Call. I haven't read much about the conference so I cannot say much about historical accuracy, but it felt fairly realistic. NB: the Nazi from Conspiracy Theory wasn't there, ironically enough.

Yeah, that was really well-done.  The businesslike working through all the potential solutions to the massive murder project they want to enact, before coming up with the Final Solution, was deeply chilling but utterly believable.  The whole "don't let the Fuhrer find out" side note was also very interesting, and apparently accurate.

[grumbler]

Bullshit. It was just deeply, deeply stupid.

"Trippy" is not a pass for stupid bullshit ridiculousness.

A movie is a thing that has to work on its merits, not on whether or not it has "some trippy stuff going on".

I actually disagree that a movie has to "work on its merits" to "work." Lots of Cohen Brothers movies don't "work on their merits" but are fun anyway (e.g. Barton Fink). 

[viper37]

I always liked Dune, I think it's a good movie.  Not great, unfortunately, but good.
Yes, it has flaws, it is a bit convoluted and it is campy.  But it's better than many other sci-fi movies of that time period.

I have it on blu ray and I still watch it from time to time.

Imho, the 2000 TV mini series was superior in quality, and gave a lot more details to the universe.  Sadly, it does not seem to exists in blu ray quality in english, only in german, at an insane price, for some weird reason.  The DVD are crap, and the low budget of television ca 2000 compared to regular movies does show.

[The Brain]

Ghost in the Shell (1995). In the future of 2029 cybernetics blurs the line between human and machine, and the only certainty is the importance of boobs and butts. Pretty good, I liked the environments, imagery, and tech interface stuff.

[Josephus]

I think it's quite a good film even apart from the technical level. But it is one of those films where if you're a certain age (and I am) you've first encountered it through the memes or the Simpsons

I get that.  You're unlikely to be surprised that Rosebud was the name of his sled, too.

SPOILER ALERT!

[Duque de Bragança]

Imho, the 2000 TV mini series was superior in quality, and gave a lot more details to the universe.  Sadly, it does not seem to exists in blu ray quality in english, only in german, at an insane price, for some weird reason.  The DVD are crap, and the low budget of television ca 2000 compared to regular movies does show.

Available in a French blu-ray as well, but zone B and 50 Hz (HDTV source?) so not viewable on most North American blu-ray players.
Discontinued so expensive now though I got it for cheap since it was discontinued during a sale.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Dune-Blu-ray/145246/

Not all of it is blu-ray quality, with some early CGI being just upscaled. It's a problem plaguing many series of that time cf. Babylon V, which only got a DVD release itself.