samratrc1417

I have no grouse against the photography, direction, costumes, location selection and the casting, but I have a big bone to pick with the storytelling and editing. I am amongst a significant number of people who haven't read the book and I didn't appreciate the huge jumps made in the movie. It felt like I was watching the movie and had nodded off during certain parts and had missed them. Then I woke up and couldn't make the connections having missed significant portions. That was how the editing of the movie was like. It was like they had tried to pack in too much information into one movie that could have been made into two. Maybe the studio didn't greenlight it and Denis Villeneuve had to made do with what I just saw.

Kind of reminded me of Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Another film based on a book. The first part was long, indulgent and told so little and yet beautiful and the second part was hurried, hackneyed and trying to cram in too much information. The same here. I am a bit surprised to see the high rating as I am pretty sure not that many have either watched the older Dune or have read the long rambling book. The first one was great. This one had the potential but screwed up. Was utterly disappointed. I have to repeat that I am still very amazed by the high ratings. The young people of today must be very Zen as they seem to be very satisfied with little.

I am not! Sorry!

The storytelling, photography, direction, characters (supposedly based on real life historical figures) that are seamlessly woven into this tale of political intrigue, combine to create a show that is immaculate. Just two episodes in, I am dying to watch the next episode which will be excrutiatingly dropped one at a time. Every week!

Was already a fan of Hiroyuki Sanada after watching him play the heroic Ujio in The Last Samurai. I was elated when he was cast. The British actor I hadn't seen before but he's excellent. And I am learning a lot about the history of the far east. I hadn't known about the involvement of the Portuguese in there.

More of the same please! My mind is blown...

I took it upon myself to write a review because I was a bit astounded by the low ratings. Then, it dawned on me that these ratings were given by little kids whose parents themselves were teenagers when these two used to rule the box office in India. They just don't get the nostalgia associated with watching Sunny and Bobby Deol discuss their careers and their personal lives and also the joy of seeing an elderly Dharamji speak about his sons. They just don't get the context, and yet they keep rating everything in sight. Case in point: crappy Marvel movies are in the IMDB Top-250 list displacing cinematic masterpieces. It's just sad that the internet allows little kids to rate things and ruin it for a lot of people. I have started to ignore ratings nowadays. Perfectly good things are badly rated, and utter mindless drivel ends up being highly rated. There is a reason kids are not allowed to vote in elections.

They don't know any better!