In re the movie
Saw it and my take is basically everyone else's: pretty good, not a classic but certainly not an embarrassment, about as good as I'd hope for in a big Hollywood adaptation. Villeneuve is, as ever, a high-level visual and auditory stylist but mediocre with plot, script, actors. I laughed every time Oscar Isaac (who tbf does his best and is class as always) portentously said "desert power" or the million times they showed the bull's head (symbolism AND foreshadowing, it's 2-for-1).
The worldbuilding was very cool, they did a great job of making it feel like a fully realized culture that was recognizably human but also deeply alien across the gulf of 10,000 years. Also a very solid job of conveying masses of information without tons of clunky exposition or whispered voice-over, like the Lynch version ("know then that is the year 10191..."). The ornithopters were cool. The shielded knife-fighting was mostly cool. The Sardaukaur throat-singing interlude was THE BEST.
Hitting the imperialism angle right on the nose was verrry 2021. Like, it's pretty clear subtext - it's a goddamn Cold War allegory - already, and it backfires; Lawrence of Arabia was 100x more insightful on imperialism yunno, 60 years ago.
The casting is fine. No problems with Momoa. Duncan Idaho is kind of a bro so it's actually appropriate (also if you know where the character eventually winds up, the idea of Momoa continuing to play him is hilarious). Really hoping Feyd-Rautha is in part II cos he's way more interesting/important than Rabban.