[Cause]

QuickTidal, on 07 July 2026 - 12:44 PM, said:

Cause, on 21 December 2025 - 06:00 PM, said:

Did you enjoy Avatar back in 2009 but now it’s 2025 and you crave something fresh. So you ask yourself wouldn’t it be cool if I could use generative ai to recreate the film but different.

Now you no longer have to, because that’s exactly what avatar 3 is.

I finally got around to seeing this (never got a chance in theatres, not for lack of trying, busy life) and I would disagree, it's more certainly a continuation of the story that played out in 1 and 2,

Spoiler

especially the character growth of Neytiri who goes through it in this, grieving the loss of her firstborn, trying to wrangle her second born, hating the adopted child of the humans (Quaritch's kid Spider), and butting heads with Jake...she runs the gamut here while also still being a categorical badass. And Lo'ak going through the pangs of the loss of his brother, and his own need to step up from his reckless ways to learn how to lead and how to do the right thing, in the right moment. The story of the Tulkun was also rewarding as it felt like such a cool facet of Pandora to have sentient speaking whales that have an ancient culture, and their attack on the military was great as it showed how outmatched the humans STILL are when the Pandoran's unite...the Mangkwan are the only reason that the Navi' forces ended up on the backfoot at all until the squid attacks.

I think these movies are best when they immerse you in the world and culture on a slice-of-life level where you almost forget it's a fiction story. When the boys and Tiseya are riding the Tulkun it feels like a BBC documentary.

Also, I'm not sure I'd call some of the best work Weta have ever done "Generative AI" really. I found the effects in this to be nigh-exquisite.

If I had one complaint it would be that Edie Falco is not at all scary as the General of the human forces, and that Parker (Ribisi's RDA head character) doesn't feel as much of an entity here...but then he's always been greyer as a character, not fully evil...

Otherwise, we enjoyed it. I hope 4 and 5 get made as I think the story needs a solid ending and I think that needs to start to happen in the 4th...I know that Cameron said that Neytiri ends up on a human ship and sees what happened to earth in the 4th film and that changes the series in big ways.

The CGI was amazing, that wasnt my point regarding the AI. The story had fresh plot points but it also hit several of the same beats as the 1st and 2nd movie. I literally had deja vu in once scence in particular. Jake Sully in particular had his story go full circle.

[QuickTidal]

Cause, on 07 July 2026 - 03:44 PM, said:

The CGI was amazing, that wasnt my point regarding the AI. The story had fresh plot points but it also hit several of the same beats as the 1st and 2nd movie. I literally had deja vu in once scence in particular. Jake Sully in particular had his story go full circle.

Ah okay. That's a fair statement, Jake is kind of already where he needs to be by the 3rd film, so yeah he's kind of repeating moments of similarity. I will say that his almost turn regarding Spider was a fresh piece of material for him. But yeah, the Toruk Makto stuff is samey samey.

[Tsundoku]

It runs about 30 mins, but damn it's interesting. Give at least the first 5 mins a go and see if it grabs you.

[QuickTidal]

I assume people have seen this, but here you go if you haven't. Looks as dope as the previous two films.

[Macros]

I'll give him an interesting.

I don't disagree at all with the morally grey, writers dont understand good old good and evil now.

Walter White shouldn't be the standard.

I've never really been a fan of bad guys as the central focus of shows, like SoA or Tulsa King or the like. They are bad people.
Period.

I wont gove fake wizard too much credit as some of his points were loaded at regendering a character (Alsan for example) I dont think that matters, ots their actions and how heroes are belittled matters.

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 09 July 2026 - 06:28 AM, said:

It runs about 30 mins, but damn it's interesting. Give at least the first 5 mins a go and see if it grabs you.

This is rage-bait ranting, tinged by right-wing clickbait...and if you need 30 minutes to make your point, you've lost me...and never mind that his thesis is deeply flawed by using pop culture media as a monolith to hammer at the point to begin with.

total nonsense.

EDIT: and I want to tear that fake beard off his face. It's stupid and distracting.

I'll stick to DamiLee on Youtube if I want longer form videos that dive into the realistic aspects of nerdy (through architecture).

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 09 July 2026 - 03:29 PM

[Primateus]

QuickTidal, on 07 July 2026 - 12:44 PM, said:

Cause, on 21 December 2025 - 06:00 PM, said:

Did you enjoy Avatar back in 2009 but now it's 2025 and you crave something fresh. So you ask yourself wouldn't it be cool if I could use generative ai to recreate the film but different.

Now you no longer have to, because that's exactly what avatar 3 is.

I finally got around to seeing this (never got a chance in theatres, not for lack of trying, busy life) and I would disagree, it's more certainly a continuation of the story that played out in 1 and 2,

Spoiler

especially the character growth of Neytiri who goes through it in this, grieving the loss of her firstborn, trying to wrangle her second born, hating the adopted child of the humans (Quaritch's kid Spider), and butting heads with Jake...she runs the gamut here while also still being a categorical badass. And Lo'ak going through the pangs of the loss of his brother, and his own need to step up from his reckless ways to learn how to lead and how to do the right thing, in the right moment. The story of the Tulkun was also rewarding as it felt like such a cool facet of Pandora to have sentient speaking whales that have an ancient culture, and their attack on the military was great as it showed how outmatched the humans STILL are when the Pandoran's unite...the Mangkwan are the only reason that the Navi' forces ended up on the backfoot at all until the squid attacks.

I think these movies are best when they immerse you in the world and culture on a slice-of-life level where you almost forget it's a fiction story. When the boys and Tiseya are riding the Tulkun it feels like a BBC documentary.

Also, I'm not sure I'd call some of the best work Weta have ever done "Generative AI" really. I found the effects in this to be nigh-exquisite.

If I had one complaint it would be that Edie Falco is not at all scary as the General of the human forces, and that Parker (Ribisi's RDA head character) doesn't feel as much of an entity here...but then he's always been greyer as a character, not fully evil...

Otherwise, we enjoyed it. I hope 4 and 5 get made as I think the story needs a solid ending and I think that needs to start to happen in the 4th...I know that Cameron said that Neytiri ends up on a human ship and sees what happened to earth in the 4th film and that changes the series in big ways.

I didn't like 3, because it just cemented the lesson from the second movie, which is that in the future, apparently humanity has become technologically advanced alongside becoming dumber and dumber.

They were acting like idiots all throughout the movie. I know they're (we're) the villains, but is it too much to ask to have a bad guy who's some kind of intelligent?

The stupidity of the first movie can be, if not forgiven, then at least understood. They didn't really know what, exactly, they were dealing with. Not really. So they stormed in fully cocked, and got their collective asses handed to them. In the second, they just kept being stupid, albeit along different angles.

And in the third movie? Hey, let's do the same thing we've been doing all along. Nevermind it didn't work before, nevermind our people keep getting slaughtered and Earth is dying, nevermind that we're supposed to be professionals. No, let's just have General Sir Anthony Mahogany Melchett's spirit do all our planning for us.

[QuickTidal]

Primateus, on 09 July 2026 - 04:02 PM, said:

They were acting like idiots all throughout the movie. I know they're (we're) the villains, but is it too much to ask to have a bad guy who's some kind of intelligent?

Oh, see I figured this was the point.

That the only competent person on the "bad" human side was Quaritch in the first one, everyone else including Parker on the company side made stupid decisions circling avarice. Which is why it feels so much like Edie Falco's General character is a moron here, caught up in exactly the things the stupid humans were in film 1...and Navii Quaritch tries to tell her and she refuses to listen. Even Parker in this one attempts to show them they are being morons, nada. Quaritch is even aware that the longer than Jake sits in the cell, the better his odds at escaping his fate...and what do you know, that's accurate. The marine biologist who frees him is like "This is dumb, this is a dumb way to colonize a world"...I think that's the intent. That most of humanity are either stupid or avarcisiouly trying to save what's left of earth. 20 billion people squabbling in the economic and environmental ruins of the planet, and their only hope is Pandora, a place that's getting harder and harder to conquer and they are getting more and more desperate to get it. I think that's why there are like 100 reporters there...humanity is on borrowed time, and humans en masse in a rush are panicky, stupid, and make boneheaded calls from desperation.

But I could be wrong. I do admit that there is a decent amount of repetition in the script for 3 from 1 and 2, but nothing that I felt was too egregious.

Now, I WILL say that the 4th movie needs to do something REALLY special to rise above this table setting. It can't be more of the same.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 09 July 2026 - 03:21 PM, said:

I assume people have seen this, but here you go if you haven't. Looks as dope as the previous two films.

1 and the first half of 2 were pretty great. I can only hope this isn't more of the rushed/dumbed-down/garbled story i thought that we got as the back half of 2.

[amphibian]

There's still a major lack of MENA representation in the film series as actors and writers that is actively holding this series back from being top line excellent.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 09 July 2026 - 05:50 PM, said:

There's still a major lack of MENA representation in the film series as actors and writers that is actively holding this series back from being top line excellent.

You've made this statement multiple times and I still don't get it. Dune takes place tens of thousands of years in the future in a distant galaxy. Humans would no longer be even close to the easily distinct racial and country genetic makeup of earth now.

As such, the cast is just pretty typically diverse for a sci-fi fantasy movie - there are all colours and races repped by actors in the film, Caucasian, Black, East asian, Latino, Polynesian, Arab, ect. to show a human diversity. Why would MENA specifically be a thing in a far-flung future timeline where humanity has spread to the stars?

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 09 July 2026 - 06:01 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

 QuickTidal, on 09 July 2026 - 03:26 PM, said:

 Tsundoku, on 09 July 2026 - 06:28 AM, said:

It runs about 30 mins, but damn it's interesting. Give at least the first 5 mins a go and see if it grabs you.

This is rage-bait ranting, tinged by right-wing clickbait...and if you need 30 minutes to make your point, you've lost me...and never mind that his thesis is deeply flawed by using pop culture media as a monolith to hammer at the point to begin with.

total nonsense.

EDIT: and I want to tear that fake beard off his face. It's stupid and distracting.

I'll stick to DamiLee on Youtube if I want longer form videos that dive into the realistic aspects of nerdy (through architecture).

Yeah plus anyone going on about culture war nonsense is someone to be avoided.

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 09 July 2026 - 06:00 PM, said:

amphibian, on 09 July 2026 - 05:50 PM, said:

There's still a major lack of MENA representation in the film series as actors and writers that is actively holding this series back from being top line excellent.

You've made this statement multiple times and I still don't get it. Dune takes place tens of thousands of years in the future in a distant galaxy. Humans would no longer be even close to the easily distinct racial and country genetic makeup of earth now.

As such, the cast is just pretty typically diverse for a sci-fi fantasy movie - there are all colours and races repped by actors in the film, Caucasian, Black, East asian, Latino, Polynesian, Arab, ect. to show a human diversity. Why would MENA specifically be a thing in a far-flung future timeline where humanity has spread to the stars?

To be honest I do think he's got a point to an extent. Sure, realistically the Dune culture may not be literally MENA/Arabic, but it is very definitely coded that way. In particular the Fremen are based in large part on the Bedouin, but more broadly part of the basis of the story is an oil exploitation allergory and I do not think it is at all a coincidence that Herbert chose to use Arabic cultural codifiers for the people being exploited. I don't think the story can or should escape its influences and themes in that respect, regardless of the actual logical consequences of that amount of time.



I don't think it holds the film back from being great - and there are more influences than just Bedouin so it isn't as simple as that- but I do think it'd have been good to have more specific MENA representation in lead roles.

This was in particular focus in film 1 because of the way Villeneuve chose to make the Fremen language much less specifically Arabic than the book (iirc precisely because it's been so long so it wouldn't be that close) and yet has Yueh just straight up speaking Mandarin. That was disrespectful. Like it's one or the other my guy.


Like I say, it isn't film-ruining, I think they're absolutely great movies, but I think it's a valid critique.


Unrelatedly except tangenially: amph, have you read/had eyes on the recent SF debut The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed? It's not similar to Dune (it's a generation ship political SF thing) and I've only started really so I can't speak to its overall quality yet, but it's compelling early and, well, I bring it up coz it's very Arabic. It got great reviews.

QuickTidal, on 09 July 2026 - 03:26 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 09 July 2026 - 06:28 AM, said:

It runs about 30 mins, but damn it's interesting. Give at least the first 5 mins a go and see if it grabs you.

This is rage-bait ranting, tinged by right-wing clickbait...and if you need 30 minutes to make your point, you've lost me...and never mind that his thesis is deeply flawed by using pop culture media as a monolith to hammer at the point to begin with.

total nonsense.

EDIT: and I want to tear that fake beard off his face. It's stupid and distracting.

I'll stick to DamiLee on Youtube if I want longer form videos that dive into the realistic aspects of nerdy (through architecture).

Yeah I watched the first 10 minutes or so and sorry, but it's rubbish. Despite playing it tonally as 'both sides are equally silly har har' there's a definite 'conservativism is just wanting to preserve the original meaning and progressive adaptations are meaningless' thing, but on top of that, the idea that there are no new stories is idiotic. It'd be idiotic even if you only considered movies, it's even more idiotic when you compare the huge range of new stories being created in books, games, and television. He's pretty much literally only talking about what's being created in the big studio machines, and even then his point is garbled (how does the Gunn Superman movie dilute meaning from Superman? What are you talking about, man?).

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 09 July 2026 - 07:47 PM

[amphibian]

PG, thank you enormously for that response and the recommendation for the El Sayed book. I will start it next week.

The specific histories of MENA are interwoven into Dune to the point where there is considerable scholarship on what Herbert was using, his general thoughts on the histories of real world MENA and then-rather recent events covered all across the world via newspapers and radio in light of what was available in terms of connections to his "Arab friends"/reading/discourse/cultural attitudes of Orientalism etc.

I pointed earlier to Harris Durrani because that's a body of very good writing mostly available for free about how the blend of religion/culture/sci fi is there, yet it is extremely based in real life MENA history and characters. https://hdernity.med...ts-fe65e52da302

There are interviews of Herbert where he specifically talks about this intentionally present dynamic. I am not making this up and the movies are indeed poorer for the lack of MENA plus the usage of Mandarin for Yueh as PG notes above.

[Tsundoku]

Say what now?

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 09 July 2026 - 07:54 PM, said:

PG, thank you enormously for that response and the recommendation for the El Sayed book. I will start it next week.

The specific histories of MENA are interwoven into Dune to the point where there is considerable scholarship on what Herbert was using, his general thoughts on the histories of real world MENA and then-rather recent events covered all across the world via newspapers and radio in light of what was available in terms of connections to his "Arab friends"/reading/discourse/cultural attitudes of Orientalism etc.

I pointed earlier to Harris Durrani because that's a body of very good writing mostly available for free about how the blend of religion/culture/sci fi is there, yet it is extremely based in real life MENA history and characters. https://hdernity.med...ts-fe65e52da302

There are interviews of Herbert where he specifically talks about this intentionally present dynamic. I am not making this up and the movies are indeed poorer for the lack of MENA plus the usage of Mandarin for Yueh as PG notes above.

That's all fine, I need to know why you feel the ACTORS need to be such when diversity across a spectrum is instead present in the casting considering the far-flung future setting. I'm also not suggesting you are making anything up. I get that you take issue, which is why I ask the question. Either we hit diversity for the film, or we laser focus on races in casting. I don't know how helpful the latter would be when diversity in casting is the intent.

As to the Yueh/Mandarin VS Fremen partial arabic, that's a difference in evolution. The Fremen language is indeed derived originally from Arabic of Earth, but it has evolved as most languages do (Hell, try to understand English from 500 years ago...let alone 50,000 years of time in Dune) into something that's not quite Arabic, but still has Arabic markers. That's an intentional choice to show evolution of the language.

Dr. Yueh is a highly trained medical scholar, and uses Mandarin as a secret obtuse language to speak with Paul (who is a polyglot) to keep their conversations private. This is because A. Mandarin is (at this point) an ancient dead language like Latin (otherwise it would not be useful as a secret language) that B. he learned in it's earth-bound version in his studies. It's not like the Mandarin is spoken broadly like the Fremen language, it's literally just what Dr. Yueh speaks to Paul on the sly.

[amphibian]

Some of the main actors and probably the writers/consultants in Dune should be MENA because there's this giant movie series that's specifically building on real MENA history, culture, fashion, religion, and landscapes without any members of that group being represented or much respected.

This is different from Star Trek where there's a purposeful religion free, post ethnicity dividing a society or some other setting where the real world underpinnings aren't so strong as they are in Dune.

As for the Mandarin thing, they couldn't have added some far future twist to make it not fully Mandarin? It's somewhere between lazy and "we are distancing ourselves from the Arabic core of this series, but happy to put in Mandarin straight up".

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 10 July 2026 - 11:47 AM, said:

Some of the main actors and probably the writers/consultants in Dune should be MENA because there's this giant movie series that's specifically building on real MENA history, culture, fashion, religion, and landscapes without any members of that group being represented or much respected.

Again, this is so strange to me about a sci fi fantasy series 50 thousand years in the future to hyper fixate on current earth cultures, which themselves have changed over even a few thousand years.

The argument that you can cast diversely when it's a fantasy because it's a fantasy (which is used often to explain why formerly white characters can be POC as time and paradigms in casting have shifted to be more inclusive; a good thing), should somehow be tossed aside when it's a far flung distant culture that has a planetary sect partially based originally on current earth Middle Eastern culture? There's a disconnect there for me. Beyond simply the adaptation. Either we cast diversely in the fantasy realm and try to make a tapestry, or we laser focus on a regional culture from earth in the mid-20th century...it can't be both. For my money the widely diverse cast works for me.

amphibian, on 10 July 2026 - 11:47 AM, said:

As for the Mandarin thing, they couldn't have added some far future twist to make it not fully Mandarin? It's somewhere between lazy and "we are distancing ourselves from the Arabic core of this series, but happy to put in Mandarin straight up".

You're ascribing malice where none was intended. "they are distancing themselves"? Come on. They feature Mandarin as a secret and dead language to use in private conversation...the Fremen speak an evolved Arabic on a distant planet that is common tongue to them and others. Why make it fully Mandarin? Because it's a dead language. You're essentially saying that they should - for their secret language - speak French amongst people who might understand French, instead of the root Latin amongst most people who would not understand Latin.

Again, I don't get it, but hey man, I get it's important to you, so I won't argue further.

[Tsundoku]

amphibian, on 10 July 2026 - 11:47 AM, said:

Some of the main actors and probably the writers/consultants in Dune should be MENA because there's this giant movie series that's specifically building on real MENA history, culture, fashion, religion, and landscapes without any members of that group being represented or much respected.

Christopher Nolan: Hold my beer.

Dune is set tens of thousands of years in the future. A future where Frank Herbert (apparently) intended to have a humanity that were closer to what we think of as aliens than humans of today.
The cultures of Dune have some similarities to and Herbert based some of them on current cultures. But to say MENA types straight up need more representation is missing the point.
It's not here. It's not now. Some cultural markers here and there may be similar, but it is not the humanity of today, not even remotely.
Any resemblance is because Herbert was using it as a frame of reference so we could understand something of what was going on.
It would be more accurate to cast actors with all sorts of multicultural or multiethnic backgrounds because that would probably more closely represent the genetic blurring that would have occurred. Didn't the Bene Gesserit set up whole breeding programs to try and keep things straight to try and bring about their (controllable) Qwizat whathisface? Among other projects?

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 10 July 2026 - 02:14 PM

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 10 July 2026 - 12:58 PM, said:

Qwizat whathisface?

Just a side note: I am going to make it this any time I re-read it now. LOL