Reviews

I could rant about pretty much every detail here, but the bottom line is that this is just really poorly written. I honestly cannot blame the actors for doing a poor job conveying it, because these non-progressing-dialogues and stale one-dimensional characters just don't work. They work for maybe the first episode, and then you evolve the characters and subject matters, make them do some investigation of themselves and what they're saying - make things dynamic - but instead they just repeat the same stuff throughout the entire season while the plot just creeps on ever so slowly.

We have to endure Sheldon's mental struggle (which also gets old really fast, but seems to never end) as we inch towards how they get their powers, and when they finally get to that point, it's just bleh. I cannot think of another word to describe this massive arc completion point: it is cliche, boring, predictable, flat. There is no narrative substance to it. I've seen Star Trek original series episodes that were paced faster than this with more intricate and interesting conclusions (and that show was slow!)

Then at the end we get the big twist for which there was not a single piece of groundwork laid in the story so far (well, with some stretching you could say there are 'indicators', but really not to justify the direction they suddenly take things). I guess to set us up for a second season, but that feels a bit pointless as the twist you *can* see coming from halfway season 1 is that there never will be a season 2.

Rarely do I come across a movie that holds together as loosely as this. Where to start? (Warning, mayor spoilers ahead, don't read this if you plan to watch the movie)

First of all there is the premise: To be able to record memories of people so their lives can be stored after their deaths. This is what justifies the practice of these so called cutters, and the counter-argument that is voices that this is an invasion of privacy, and that God alone is to see through the eyes of others. Well, in fact there is more to it. In any ethical society, these devices can never be implemented without consent of the carrier. The invasion of privacy is reason enough for this. We all have our secrets we don't need anyone to see, especially after our deaths when we aren't around to defend ourselves against misinterpretation. Would in fact such technology ever be deviced and implemented, there would have to be an exit option: an option to have these devices removed. Instead, in the movie it requires electromagnetic tattoos to disable these devices from further recording.

This alone makes no sense. There being no agreement of consent of the carrier to be signed, nor active tracking of carriers to make sure they are informed of their implant and sign an agreement after all (which would have made the main characters situation quite the different one) makes absolutely no sense if this technology were developed in a society of western ethics (not saying other world ethics wouldn't dictate the same, but this movie is all about the typical ethical dilemma's of the direction the western world is taking). Yet, the plot revolves around exposing a scandal which should change the way we'd view such technology, namely that the man behind the corporation owning the technology abused his daughter... ??? How cheap is that? Why not stick to the moral dilemma of the technology itself, which would be way more interesting to explore. No, instead they go for old fashion discredit to something that should incite moral outrage. That people are to be killed to get the evidence for this seems no obstacle. I could go on about this 'ethical' foundation, but let's get to the next part.

Which is the technology. Here you have recordings of half a million hours, and they are edited by single individuals, with occasionally an assistant? Even if we cut out 60% in sleeping hours and boredom, they still have to go trough over 200.000 hours on their own? Impossible. Tasks like this you'd need huge teams for, judging material on relevance, doing research, editing the thing together. Plus of course you'd need boards of privacy protection and whathaveyounot regulating information and clearance, a vast system of security realising these regulations, etc. The idea that a single person is doing this at home is absurd.

And that makes one of the crucial points in the plot totally uncalled for, which is where the girl takes a shot at the cutting system, destroying the memory implant which the hoodlums are after, and which will eventually get the main character killed. See, it's already unimaginable that Alan (Robin) would be doing this job at home, but even if we accept this under the notion that we do a lot of work at home too these days on our company laptops: We have passwords on our laptops!! Here you have a computer system with the most sensitive information possible, and there is not a single password needed to activate it? No key or pass that needs to be inserted? No single way of keeping out those without clearance?? How extremely unlikely once again.. Companies protect information far less sensitive than this. Of course, would this device had been protected, the girlfriend wouldn't have been able to view her ex-boyfriends memory-card (what was it doing there anyway? Wasn't that guy dead already? Didn't the company have a storage room -lacking digital indexing btw- where they keep these cards in cardboard boxes so that they'd be exposed to the detrimental effects of the atmosphere?)

Another minor technical detail is the reading of memory of living people; "it can't be recorded"... yet it can be viewed on a monitor... meaning there is a feed, and any feed can be recorded.. what are we moviegoers taken for, total retards? For a movie pretending to have this intellectual dilemma theme about it, I find stuff like this quite the insult to our intelligence..

All of this makes the whole movie feel like a cheap setup, which it is for otherwise the plot couldn't have taken the turns it took, and which totally destroys any credibility.

The music was OK. The acting was mediocre. I liked the detail of Alan leaving the door open on purpose when interviewing the young girl, the face tattoo's those anti-folks walked around with looked OK, and the way the movie was shot wasn't half bad either. But that's not enough. A movie like this needs a foundation that actually compels the mind, and they should have worked with the ethical dilemmas the premise brought forth, not turn it into the cheap generic thriller it actually became..

What on earth has this movie to do with Isaac Asimov? I've read some of his stuff, but other than his three robot laws, I see no similarities between his work and this 115 minute commercial. Acting is poor, no better than in your average TV show, the dialogues are crap, either there to remind of us the stereotypical 'cop with a grudge' Smith is performing (you might forget that when he keeps talking about his vintage 2004 shoes)) or... I actually don't know why there is dialogue at all really.

Worse is: this movie revolves around a plot that is broken at the level of it's foundation. This plot is build on a 'logic' (which "you can't deny") that is simply false. Because (spoiler ahead) the whole idea is that this robots turn society into a fascist state to protect human kind from itself in order to uphold the first law which is 'not to allow harm to happen to human beings'. Yet: (a) they harm tons of human beings in the process of their revolution (and the law specifically states individual human beings, not human kind at large, so where did they get this utilitarian notion that it's OK to harm a whole bunch to protect a slightly bigger bunch?) and (b) harm comes not only through physical injury; it also comes through psychological injury, and massive oppression and containment does just this (which is why people rebelled against it then, and always will). This is well-known of course, we need the freedom to express ourselves and explore our social environments, we need a freedom to interact with- and challenge the world around us: it is in our human nature! This has nothing to do with the romantic babbling of free will that is being used in the movie; this is a matter of human psychology, and if the robot superbrain would have actually studied some of the many documents on psychology there already were in vintage year 2004 she would have come to this conclusion herself. Or hey, why not send in someone with understanding of human society and behavior to have a chat with this robot brain (which would have no doubt been open to such audience), or was the entire world suddenly comprised of tinheads like mr. Smith here who rather brings his point across using bullets?

Asimov took care of building a philosophical foundation for his works, have the dialogues bring out the mature personalities of his characters, have social and political developments actually make sense in a broader scheme... none of this can be found in the movie. Frankly, I find it a disgrace to see his name attached to a movie made by folks who I doubt even read any of his work.

If you're looking for a cheap action movie, this one fits the bill. If you're looking for thought-through science fiction, spare yourself this travesty. If the makers had spend as much time on the story (and it's underlying philosophy) as they did on product placement, it might have... well.. actually, no, I don't see how these folks could have ever made something out of this.

I've read 4 out of 6 books (still waiting for that summer i can dig in to the rest), played the video games, seen the movie (the David Lynch one that is), and so far I was never let down by this great mysterious world of dune.. .. till i watched the miniseries..

Where to start? Lets start with casting. The only characters I enjoyed, who actually had some kind of charisma going on, were Liet Kynes, the Bene Geserit Matriarch and the Emperors daughter (who was rather cute). The rest just did not at any point had the 'feel' of the characters they were suppose to portray. Jessica was way too uncertain of everything going on around her, much unlike the keen Bene Geserit one would expect her to be (she seemed an emotional wreck to me), Paul was too much of a 'pretty boy', Gurney lacked his old wise warrior charm (and was too fat for a weapons master), Duncan Idaho (a rather underlit character in this series anyway) would go totally unnoticed by anyone not aware of his role in the story, and about every character in there was just off. Only Harkonnen were somewhat convincing, but mainly due to the rest being so unconvincing in both appearance and acting.

Bringing me to the second part, the acting: it was like watching a stage play. But one rehearsed only like 2 days before. Lines were spoken out dry and hollow, as though they didn't even know what they would contribute to the storyline (which I doubt anyway). Lips moved, sounds could be heard, but the bodies hardly ever spoke (this is were the Harkonnen were the only ones seeming to understand their roles). Of course this has also to do with the directing, making me decide never to want to see anything of this director again. For in Dune (the books) their is often a sense of ritual and cultural depth through interactions.. now however we are confronted with cheap pretentious 'ritualized' actions and figurative acting (like the villagers and the fremen) which was absolutely horrendous.. actions made no sense, lacked coherency and almost everybody seemed uncomfortable performing them. And what bothered me most amidst all this were the accents! It seemed like every actor there was speaking with some strange fake accent which had somehow had to contribute to an offworld feel, but instead made acting even more unnatural and inarticulate (since already a lot of mumbling was going on).

Camera angles where plain, no use of interesting close ups (which is understandable if u consider most the faces to be highly uninteresting), fighting scenes where .. can I say 'pathetic'? All I was missing were those "whack" "dong" images from the old batman series flying over the screen to cover up the lack of spark and aggression.. Movements were slow and u could see the actors forcing themselves into a 'rythm' as tough they were performing a just learned dance (u know how people seem to stick forward their face and hold it their a few seconds waiting to get punched in it without any intention to avoid or block it, after which turning back that face in the same mode again without any sense of defensive attitude because he is to be punched in it again (usually they get hit 3 times that manner before falling on the ground).. as one would never ever see in real fighting and which these days should not be tolerated in filmed media, since we've seen by now -think matrix- there is no need for such poor choreography.) (Mind especially where angry mobs 'tear apart' beast raban and u see one villager thrusting his knife up and down in midair not at a single point actually hitting anything, apparently without the intention of ever doing so.. it greatly captured the fighting scene ambiance throughout the whole movie).

Next there is scenery... well what can i say? It is way too obvious we are looking at indoor action. About every scene is bluescreen, colors are often way too bright, and most scenes are highly overlit. Buildings etc. themselves looked like they were taken from some old Egyptian movie. Special effects where abominable: makes u think they hired some students who just discovered the special effects tool (like when young girls discover their mothers make up set), going at it without any sense of originality and refinement. Too bright, too standard, too obviously animated. (And whatever was that navigator alien suppose to be? ugh!) U could even see when to expect animated effects to appear in a scene, cuz the coloring would get somewhat grainy. Effects didn't blend at all, and were simply not realistic (like when the city of Arrakis had been attacked, which happens twice, for which both the exact same effects are being used, u see black smoke going straight up.. not going sideways, not dispersing -but just turning transparent-, not behaving in any way smoke behaves).. pathetic, truly.

But it gets worse: the costumes! It ain't enough to make deserts look like computer stills or indoor piles of sand, and have actors lacking every bit of "dune-ism", the costumes simply ridiculed every bit of cultural integrity we want to find in the Houses and populations. They obviously tried to create some sense of cultural integrity by throwing together elements of ancient Greek, china, France and medieval stories, but i had the feeling i was looking at a mix of some poor robin hood play mixed with alice in wonderland. Especially the Sardaukar, which not only -like most crew- were poorly cast (small nerdy men instead of the strong hardened tools of destruction their inhuman training should have made them), but they reminded me of those card-soldiers from alice in wonderland (fluffy hats? since when do the most feared soldiers wear fluffy hats?!). Costumes were too simply designed, plainly colored and lacking detail, not looking endurable at all; here again one has the feeling of looking at a stage-play, put together by the local acting club (from whom we don't expect too fancy clothes). People at fancy fairs look more impressive then what we are presented with here.

Storyline itself was poor. Details which one would expect are left out (as Duncan Idaho lacks any significance he should have, harkonnen cruelty is underlit, and the abrupt development in the 2nd and 3th part on behalf of fremen warfare feels like a lot is being left out), while other details are overlit (Pauls ability to see the future doesn't become really relevant till the 2nd and 3th book -book, not miniserie chapter-, and its relevance in no way is made clear in these miniseries) and even made up (what on earth is with the water falling down from Pauls balcony after he is recognized 'voice from outer world'??)

Music; just some Egyptian like tunes every now and then, nothing to rouse excitement or create tension. Not the slightest attempt to compensate for the sheer lack of ambiance that dominates the series.

I am a great dune fan, so I was looking forward to seeing these series.. but truly, and I'm sorry to say, i don't think a dune-fan can be let down any more than this.