I went to an IMAX screening of Dune about 3 weeks ago. That was the first time I ever stepped into a cinema since early 2019 (I think) lol.
All I could say is that having first read Herbert’s Dune about four decades ago, it seems to capture the book vision and the latest big screen version has a clear story arc, the pacing was quite good & you can follow it without needing exposition.
Most fantastic of all - sound effects in the cinema, especially the near realistic looking ornithopters with that sounds & the feeling of the reverbnation that had me shook a bit with visceral reaction, all with Zimmer’s music emanating menace & suspense tension.
I was intrigued by the ornithopters which I read online were made by the British company BGI and two of them flew in the film. I am not sure how unless they were scale models as mechanical flying machines like the ornithopters which are essentially same as the dragonflies are too large to operate in Earth’s air density, I had to go back to my worst undergraduate subject, fluid dynamics to see that it’s dependent on the Reynolds number (see
What is Reynolds Number? | SimWiki | SimScale). Actual dragonfly is very small and efficient, but in the past million of years ago Earth’s oxygen concentration was higher so dragonfly grew large with a wingspan of over 2 feet. But certainly not one as large as the one in Villeneuve’s Dune.
Villeneuve seems to have used mainly visual motifs to condense Herbert’s dense materials into 3 hrs, quite admirable but I feel devalued Herbert’s work a bit.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the second part!