Dune was everything I wanted it to be. It has also made me feel sad.

I’ve viewed Dune twice now, the second occasion in IMAX. It was an amazing experience.

I got the perfect seat as well. Row H, seat 15 – right dead centre of the theatre. I was at perfect eye level to catch every mesmerizing shot as Hans Zimmer’s booming score reverberated around the theatre and vibrated through the floor.

I had been eagerly waiting this movie for some time. I read Frank Herbert’s novel roughly twelve years ago and enjoyed it and I hoped one day the right person would come to make a big screen adaptation – when I heard that finally a big budget adaptation would be made, I was excited. That was amplified further when news broke that the man at the helm would be Denis Villeneuve who’s work includes Sicario, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. He also said that adapting Dune was his dream project. Then there was the stellar cast pulled together, the aforementioned Zimmer placed in charge of the music score and the year long postponement following the Covid 19 shut down. Anticipation in the weeks running up were getting bigger and bigger.

But the cynic in me feared that it might disappoint. As much as I have enjoyed Denis Villeneuve’s films, they have had a reputation of being slow. There was also the news earlier in the year were Warner Brothers announced it would release all new movie releases to it’s U.S. streaming platform, HBO MAX, the same day as cinema releases. Also, Part Two of the adaptation was not in commission in the run up to the films release which maybe was a sign the studio execs perhaps did not have the faith in it to be a smash hit or did not believe it would make the financial returns to justify a follow up – Don’t immediately release to platforms then? More on that later.

To my delight, it was everything I hoped for. An epic Sci Fi film experience that transports the viewer to another world. It’s not just that it’s a visual treat, it even feels real. The costumes look authentic, they don’t look silly which is so hard to pull off in a Sci Fi film. The spacecrafts looks real, from the way they move and sound and the locations, whether it’s the vast sand barren of Arrakis or the dark and wet Giedi Prime, home world of House Harkkonen, look so authentic. The best compliment I could give it is that I was in a close-to-packed IMAX theatre and absolutely everyone was fully transfixed on what they were watching and it did not feel like 2 hours and 20 minutes of your time was stolen.

It’s a next level work of art as well with generations of film-making rolled in to one film. You can see the evolution of Sci Fi cinema in the movie, you can see the influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner and David Lynch’s 1984 attempt of the same work. More than that, it felt like I was watching a grand, era defining film that will inspire generations or at least I hope it does. It’s up there with the best cinema experiences I’ve ever had. Up there with seeing Jurassic Park when I was 7, Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring when I was 13, The Dark Knight when I was 20, Inception when I was 22…but then that’s when I began to feel sad.

There’s a melancholic feel to experiencing Dune as well. If you’re a keen enough film buff, you’ll know that cinema is becoming less of a magical place in recent years. I don’t mean the overall quality of films being released has become poorer (I actually believe there’s more good films being released than ever but that’s for another piece) it’s more that less movies now are being released specifically designed for the cinema experience.

I wrote earlier about Warner Bros. deciding to release the movie on HBO MAX the same day as the cinema release in the U.S. They explained their decision to do that was because of uncertainty of the cinema’s being opened due to the on-going Covid-19 pandemic. That’s understandable but it’s just becoming more normal for movies to jump straight into release to a streaming platform. A lot of people now are just happy to stay at home and watch films or binge-watch box sets on the many streaming services and sites that are easily accessible via the internet. By gosh have we done lots of it in the past 18 months. So instead of throwing millions at marketing and advertising a new film under it’s banner, a film studio will now just release a new movie onto a streaming platform. It makes financial sense.

Even Marvel, the Box Office juggernaut of the past decade, is pushing more of it’s releases to Disney+ sooner than expected. Black Widow was given a premium pass release to coincide with it’s cinema release and Shang-Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings is being released to the platform by the end of November and I predict that if Eternals doesn’t perform as strongly as hoped, it will be released to Disney+ in time for Christmas. Then if you look at the pre-arranged releases for Marvel Phase 4, you’ll notice there’s largely more TV based projects than there are film projects, a sign that even they are slowly tapping out from the cinema market.

This isn’t a complaint of streaming platforms. I don’t know what I‘d do without Netflix, Disney+, NOW TV etc. If anything I should be praising them for helping me save money from forking dozens of pounds week after week on cinema releases. But Dune is proof that there is still appetite among movie lovers for that exhilarating, big cinema experience. Denis Villeneuve himself encouraged people to buy a ticket and experience his movie in the cinema because that’s exactly why he made it, he wants people to enjoy his movie in a theatre, not at home on a laptop or phone screen. But that’s just the way it’s going and it really makes me feel sorry for the young cinema goers of today. I do not know if they’ll get their awe-inspiring moments like I got with Jurassic Park, LOTR or Dark Knight because you don’t get those feelings or reactions on small devices. That’s why I really, really hope that there were some young film goers in that audience with me who felt those spine-tingling, booming moments.

There’s something about Dune that made me feel like I was experiencing an ending…the end of big cinema. Well, at least until Part 2 is released. I have that to look forward to.