#-the narrative of the story and WHY Baron was frightening and made to be so! you got ALL THE CLUES in the story itself that Riz is aroace-
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Behold Dune: An Exclusive Look at Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and More
Timothée Chalamet remembers the darkness. It was the summer of 2019, and the cast and crew of Dune had ventured deep into the sandstone and granite canyons of southern Jordan, leaving in the middle of the night so they could catch the dawn on camera. The light spilling over the chasms gave the landscape an otherworldly feel. It was what they had come for.
“It was really surreal,” says Chalamet. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth.”
They weren’t on Earth anymore, anyway. They were on a deadly, dust-dry battleground planet called Arrakis. In Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 sci-fi novel, Arrakis is the only known location of the galaxy’s most vital resource, the mind-altering, time-and-space-warping “spice.” In the new film adaptation, directed by Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, Chalamet stars as the young royal Paul Atreides, the proverbial stranger in a very strange land, who’s fighting to protect this hostile new home even as it threatens to destroy him. Humans are the aliens on Arrakis. The dominant species on that world are immense, voracious sandworms that burrow through the barren drifts like subterranean dragons.
For the infinite seas of sand that give the story its title, the production moved to remote regions outside Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where the temperatures rivaled the fiction in Herbert’s story. “I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees,” says Chalamet. During the shoot, he and the other actors were costumed in what the world of Dune calls “stillsuits”—thick, rubbery armor that preserves the body’s moisture, even gathering tiny bits from the breath exhaled through the nose. In the story, the suits are life-giving. In real life, they were agony. “The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees,” says Chalamet. “They put a cap on it out there, if it gets too hot. I forget what the exact number is, but you can’t keep working.” The circumstances fed the story they were there to tell: “In a really grounded way, it was helpful to be in the stillsuits and to be at that level of exhaustion.”
It wouldn’t be Dune if it were easy. Herbert’s novel became a sci-fi touchstone in the 1960s, heralded for its world-building and ecological subtext, as well as its intricate (some say impenetrable) plot focusing on two families struggling for supremacy over Arrakis. The book created ripples that many see in everything from Star Wars to Alien to Game of Thrones. Still, for decades, the novel itself has defied adaptation. In the ’70s, the wild man experimental filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky mounted a quest to film it, but Hollywood considered the project too risky. David Lynch brought Dune to the big screen in a 1984 feature, but it was derided as an incomprehensible mess and a blight on his filmography. In 2000, a Dune miniseries on what’s now the SyFy channel became a hit for the cable network, but it is now only dimly remembered.
Villeneuve intends to create a Dune that has so far only existed in the imagination of readers. The key, he says, was to break the sprawling narrative in half. When Dune hits theaters on December 18, it will only be half the novel, with Warner Bros. agreeing to tell the story in two films, similar to the studio’s approach with Stephen King’s It and It Chapter Two. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” says Villeneuve. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.”
For Villeneuve, this 55-year-old story about a planet being mined to death was not merely a space adventure, but a prophecy. “No matter what you believe, Earth is changing, and we will have to adapt,” he says. “That’s why I think that Dune, this book, was written in the 20th century. It was a distant portrait of the reality of the oil and the capitalism and the exploitation—the overexploitation—of Earth. Today, things are just worse. It’s a coming-of-age story, but also a call for action for the youth.”
Chalamet’s character, Paul, thinks he’s just a boy struggling to find a place in the world, but he actually possesses the ability to change it. He has a supernatural gift to harness and unleash energy, lead others, and meld with the heart of his new home world. Think Greta Thunberg, only she’s a Jedi with a degree from Hogwarts. Paul comes from a powerful galactic family with a name that sounds like a constellation—the House Atreides. His father and mother, Duke Leto (played by Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), take their son from their lush, Scandinavian-like home world to preside over spice extraction on Arrakis. What follows is a clash with the criminal, politically connected House Harkonnen, led by the monstrous Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård), a mammoth with merciless appetites. The baron, created with full-body prosthetics, is like a rhino in human form. This version of the character is less of a madman and more of a predator. “As much as I deeply love the book, I felt that the baron was flirting very often with caricature,” says Villeneuve. “And I tried to bring him a bit more dimension. That’s why I brought in Stellan. Stellan has something in the eyes. You feel that there’s someone thinking, thinking, thinking—that has tension and is calculating inside, deep in the eyes. I can testify, it can be quite frightening.”
The director has also expanded the role of Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica. She’s a member of the Bene Gesserit, a sect of women who can read minds, control people with their voice (again, a precursor to the Jedi mind trick), and manipulate the balance of power in the universe. In the script, which Villeneuve wrote with Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts, she is even more fearsome than before. The studio’s plot synopsis describes her as a “warrior priestess.” As Villeneuve jokes, “It’s better than ‘space nun.’ ”
Lady Jessica’s duty is to deliver a savior to the universe—and now she has a greater role in defending and training Paul too. “She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work in the book, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level. There were some shifts he did, and they are beautifully portrayed now.”
In an intriguing change to the source material, Villeneuve has also updated Dr. Liet Kynes, the leading ecologist on Arrakis and an independent power broker amid the various warring factions. Although always depicted as a white man, the character is now played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Rogue One), a black woman. “What Denis had stated to me was there was a lack of female characters in his cast, and he had always been very feminist, pro-women, and wanted to write the role for a woman,” Duncan-Brewster says. “This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people. Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?”
As fans will know, there’s a vast menagerie of other characters populating Dune. There are humans called “mentats,” augmented with computerlike minds. Paul is mentored by two of them. There are also the bravado warriors Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck, played by Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin. Dave Bautista plays a sinister Harkonnen enforcer Glossu Rabban, and Charlotte Rampling has a key role as the Bene Gesserit reverend mother. The list goes on. In the seemingly unlivable wilds of Arrakis, Javier Bardem leads the Fremen tribe as Stilgar, and Zendaya costars as a mystery woman named Chani, who haunts Paul in his dreams as a vision with glowing blue eyes.
The breadth of Dune is what has made it so confounding for others to adapt. “It’s a book that tackles politics, religion, ecology, spirituality—and with a lot of characters,” says Villeneuve. “I think that’s why it’s so difficult. Honestly, it’s by far the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life.” After finishing this first movie, he’ll just have to do it all over again.
#timmy#timothee chalamet#dune 2020#paul atreides#denis villeneuve#zendaya#Rebecca Ferguson#Oscar Isaac#Josh Brolin#my edit
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“It was really surreal,” says Chalamet. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth.”
***
For the infinite seas of sand that give the story its title, the production moved to remote regions outside Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where the temperatures rivaled the fiction in Herbert’s story. “I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees,” says Chalamet. During the shoot, he and the other actors were costumed in what the world of Dune calls “stillsuits”—thick, rubbery armor that preserves the body’s moisture, even gathering tiny bits from the breath exhaled through the nose. In the story, the suits are life-giving. In real life, they were agony. “The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees,” says Chalamet. “They put a cap on it out there, if it gets too hot. I forget what the exact number is, but you can’t keep working.” The circumstances fed the story they were there to tell: “In a really grounded way, it was helpful to be in the stillsuits and to be at that level of exhaustion.”
***
Villeneuve intends to create a Dune that has so far only existed in the imagination of readers. The key, he says, was to break the sprawling narrative in half. When Dune hits theaters on December 18, it will only be half the novel, with Warner Bros. agreeing to tell the story in two films, similar to the studio’s approach with Stephen King’s It and It Chapter Two. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” says Villeneuve. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.”
For Villeneuve, this 55-year-old story about a planet being mined to death was not merely a space adventure, but a prophecy. “No matter what you believe, Earth is changing, and we will have to adapt,” he says. “That’s why I think that Dune, this book, was written in the 20th century. It was a distant portrait of the reality of the oil and the capitalism and the exploitation—the overexploitation—of Earth. Today, things are just worse. It’s a coming-of-age story, but also a call for action for the youth.”
Chalamet’s character, Paul, thinks he’s just a boy struggling to find a place in the world, but he actually possesses the ability to change it. He has a supernatural gift to harness and unleash energy, lead others, and meld with the heart of his new home world. Think Greta Thunberg, only she’s a Jedi with a degree from Hogwarts. Paul comes from a powerful galactic family with a name that sounds like a constellation—the House Atreides. His father and mother, Duke Leto (played by Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), take their son from their lush, Scandinavian-like home world to preside over spice extraction on Arrakis. What follows is a clash with the criminal, politically connected House Harkonnen, led by the monstrous Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård), a mammoth with merciless appetites. The baron, created with full-body prosthetics, is like a rhino in human form. This version of the character is less of a madman and more of a predator. “As much as I deeply love the book, I felt that the baron was flirting very often with caricature,” says Villeneuve. “And I tried to bring him a bit more dimension. That’s why I brought in Stellan. Stellan has something in the eyes. You feel that there’s someone thinking, thinking, thinking—that has tension and is calculating inside, deep in the eyes. I can testify, it can be quite frightening.”
The director has also expanded the role of Paul��s mother, Lady Jessica. She’s a member of the Bene Gesserit, a sect of women who can read minds, control people with their voice (again, a precursor to the Jedi mind trick), and manipulate the balance of power in the universe. In the script, which Villeneuve wrote with Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts, she is even more fearsome than before. The studio’s plot synopsis describes her as a “warrior priestess.” As Villeneuve jokes, “It’s better than ‘space nun.’ ”
Lady Jessica’s duty is to deliver a savior to the universe—and now she has a greater role in defending and training Paul too. “She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work in the book, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level. There were some shifts he did, and they are beautifully portrayed now.”
In an intriguing change to the source material, Villeneuve has also updated Dr. Liet Kynes, the leading ecologist on Arrakis and an independent power broker amid the various warring factions. Although always depicted as a white man, the character is now played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Rogue One), a black woman. “What Denis had stated to me was there was a lack of female characters in his cast, and he had always been very feminist, pro-women, and wanted to write the role for a woman,” Duncan-Brewster says. “This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people. Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?”
***
The breadth of Dune is what has made it so confounding for others to adapt. “It’s a book that tackles politics, religion, ecology, spirituality—and with a lot of characters,” says Villeneuve. “I think that’s why it’s so difficult. Honestly, it’s by far the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life.” After finishing this first movie, he’ll just have to do it all over again.
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Clanless (Bloodbound AU) Chapter 5: Something Else
Catch up on my masterlist
It’s been a long time since I updated this series, so a quick recap if you don’t feel like reading parts 1-4 again: Chloe didn’t get the job at Raines Corp, she worked for The Baron instead but he turned her for reasons that aren’t yet clear. Jax rescued her and brought her into the fold of the Clanless. When The Baron came looking for her, they ended up killing him in her apartment and then fled with Lily (who is not a vampire). That should more or less catch you up :)
Pairing: Jax x MC (Chloe)
Warnings: Violence, blood, gore, a scarier side of Jax
Words: 2800
Summary: Chloe helps Lily get back to her normal life, but returns to a very angry and frightened Jax
Series Tags: @teamtomsato @walkerismychoice @sirbeepsalot @boneandfur @lizeboredom @jlouise88 @choicesarehard
Permatags: @choiceslife @blackcoffee85 @debramcg1106 @brightpinkpeppercorn
Chloe woke up in Jax’s bed, curled around Lily. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d fallen asleep; her dreams had been intense and abstract, shifting scenery and sensations that never quite oriented themselves to any sort of narrative. She didn’t feel as though she’d rested, but she didn’t feel like she needed rest, either.
Carefully she inched away from Lily and slid off the mattress to sit cross-legged on the floor. The only light was a small battery-powered lantern by the door, the kind she used to take camping as a girl scout. Jax was nowhere to be seen, not yet returned from the business he said he had to attend to. Chloe felt a warmth rise through her body as she remembered what they’d done in the dark before he left, the way every little touch from him had overwhelmed her body like an electric shock, the way his blood had tasted like honey in her mouth and his voice, god, that voice, the way his cries of pleasure had echoed in the small, quiet room…
She snapped back to reality, realizing she was breathing heavily and sweat was beading on her forehead.
Vampire feelings were going to take some getting used to.
“Chlo?”
She turned to see Lily groggily sitting up under the blankets, squinting at her without her glasses. “Hey Lil, how’d you sleep?” She spotted Lily’s glasses lying on the ground and handed them to her.
She yawned and stretched, eyes scanning the dim, spartan space. “Not bad I guess. Some nightmares.”
“Yeah,” Chloe whispered, guilt weighing heavily on her. “Lily, I’m so sorry I got you involved in all of this.”
“What? No!” Lily scooted to the edge of the mattress so she could wrap her arms around Chloe, hugging her tightly. “This is happening to you, Chlo. Don’t apologize to me. I just want to help you, in any way I can.”
“Aw, Lil.” She hugged her back, trying to ignore the annoying stirring of different hungers within her at the feel of a warm human body against hers. “You mean the world to me, but you deserve to get back to your life.”
“But so do you.”
Chloe frowned. “Honestly, there’s nothing out there for me except for you. And it’s safer for me here. And...for you. I don’t know what I’m capable of, or what I could become…”
“Chloe. You’re still you. I trust you.”
She pulled away, standing and distancing herself. Lily’s smile fell, and Chloe realized that her fangs were out. “I don’t know what I am anymore, but it’s not who I was...and I don’t trust myself.”
Lily bit her lip, looking like she might cry. “So you’re staying. Here, underground, with this Jax guy.”
Chloe shrugged, allowing herself a small smile. “I mean, at least he’s cute, right?”
Lily stood in front of Chloe, pulling her back into her arms. “He’s like, offensively attractive, yes. But how do you know you can trust him?”
“I don’t,” she answered plainly, “but what else am I supposed to do?”
Lily didn’t answer, still clinging to Chloe, burying her face against her neck.
“Lil...do you have somewhere you can stay, other than the apartment? Until we know it’s safe to go back there?”
“Um…” she wiped at her tear-filled eyes. “I have a friend I could stay with, probably. Josh.”
Chloe cringed. “Josh? Is he a creep?”
Lily shrugged. “He’s like, the normal degree of creep. Manageable creep.”
“I feel like your standards for sleeping at somebody’s place should be higher than ‘manageable creep.’ What about Melanie?”
She shook her head, avoiding Chloe’s eyes. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Everything OK?”
“I dunno. Not OK enough for me to show up at her doorstep out of the blue.”
“Ugh, so, manageably creepy Josh then. Is it close?”
“Totally. Walkable, I think.”
Chloe nodded, not happy about the idea but also not having any better suggestions. Lily needed to be back above ground; she needed to get back to her job and her friends and her life. “Can I walk you there, then? Just to be sure?”
“I’d like that.”
The Shadow Den was surprisingly quiet as they made there way back to the tunnels that led to the city above. “I guess vampires sleep after all,” Lily noted as they slipped away unnoticed.
“Looks that way.” They found their way back to the alley with the hidden entrance, glancing around nervously to make sure they weren’t alerting anyone to the location. “Hey, want to grab a coffee?”
Lily’s face lit up. “Definitely. There’s a place just around the corner here.”
“Perfect.”
They stopped for a cup of barely-drinkable cappuccino from a cheap donut shop, sitting and trading stories and idle chit chat that didn’t involve vampires or ferals or murderous gangsters. They lingered in the shop for over an hour before finishing the walk to Manageably Creepy Josh’s place, where Chloe hugged Lily fiercely outside the apartment building’s door. “If he hurts you, I’ll kill him. For real.”
Lily laughed nervously. “I don’t doubt it, Vampire Bestie. I’ll be fine, OK? Just worry about yourself. Stay safe. Please.”
Chloe nodded. “I will. Stay in touch, OK? My phone’s dead now but I’m sure someone down there has a charger or something. I’ll figure it out.”
“Of course. Don’t be a stranger.”
Chloe walked back slowly, enjoying the feeling of normalcy after all the chaos of the past 36 hours. She returned to the shadow den feeling surprisingly light, eagerly looking for Jax.
He was in his room when she returned to it. “Chloe! I couldn’t find you anywhere! Are you OK? Where’s Lily?”
She laughed at his over-concern. “Relax, dude. I was just walking her home. Or, to her friend’s place, anyway.”
“Her friend’s place? What do you mean?”
“His apartment?”
“Above ground?”
“Where else would it be?”
Jax’s concern hardened into a scowl. “Fine. I’m not sure why you feel the need to lie to me, but I guess that’s your prerogative.”
Chloe felt her new-found temper rising to the surface again. “What the hell is your problem? I don’t appreciate being called a liar.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t appreciate being lied to.” He turned away from her but she grabbed his arm and spun him back around, furious.
“Seriously, what the hell is your problem?”
He glared at her for a moment, eyes burning red, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He held it up to her face, the lock screen showing. “This is my problem!”
She stared at the lock screen, puzzled. His wallpaper was just the default abstract pattern that came with the phone. There were no notifications. “Um...what are you trying to show me?”
He tapped at the phone’s screen angrily. “The time, Chloe! It’s 11:00 am!”
“So? I was gone for a couple hours, sue me.”
He stared at her, mouth agape. “Are you seriously not seeing the problem with your story here?”
“Since my story is the truth, no, I don’t see a problem with it.”
“Chloe…” he laid a hand on her shoulder briefly but flinched away, staring at his own hand in confusion.
“What? Why are you being so weird?”
“I didn’t think I needed to tell you that you can’t go out in the daytime. The sun...it’s fatal to us.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide with panic. “What do you mean? What’s going to happen to me?”
He held out his hand again, studying it. Chloe watched as the burn on his palm quickly healed. “You...you really went outside? For hours?”
“I mean, we were indoors for maybe half of that but...yeah. What’s going to happen to me?”
He stepped closer, studying her face but not touching her. “You should’ve burned to death within minutes.”
She laughed, but it came out as a kind of hysterical cackle. “I felt fine. Great, in fact. Are you sure…”
He held out a hand, hovering an inch from her skin, marvelling at the heat radiating off of her. “What are you?” He asked, his voice quiet and shaky.
Her body was not under her own control as her hands reached out and grabbed him by both sides of his head, lifting him a few inches off the ground. A voice bellowed out from somewhere deep within her, loud enough to be heard over Jax’s anguished screams as his skin burned away under her hands. “I AM…”
Jax kicked out her knee hard enough to make her legs buckle out from underneath her, the two of them collapsing next to each other on the floor. He scrambled backwards, his face and ears covered in burns that blistered and healed as he caught his breath. She stared at him in horror, trying to comprehend what had just happened...how she had hurt him so badly.
“Jax, I...that wasn’t…”
He was already across the room, grabbing his sword off the wall.
“I’m so sorry,” she croaked, tears flowing down her face and boiling into steam on her skin. “Please don’t leave me. Please...what is happening to me?”
He knelt in front of her, his expression softening as his skin continued to heal. He set the sword down just out of her reach but within his own. “I don’t know what’s happening to you. But you just attacked me.”
She shook her head frantically. “It wasn’t me. I would never...I wasn’t in control. It was like something took over.”
He continued to silently study her face for a long moment before giving a small nod. “OK. I’ll help you.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, trying to get her quiet sobs under control.
“I have some rules.”
She frowned, meeting his eyes again. “Rules?”
“You don’t go anywhere without me.”
“OK. That’s fine.”
“And you especially don’t go out in the sun. Ever.”
“Fine.”
“And...I think you should feed off of Lily. Primarily.”
“What? Why?”
He finally met her eyes as he answered. “She knows what you are. She already knows the location here. And feeding off of someone you were close to before you were turned...it can help.”
“Help what?”
He looked at her sadly, biting his lip. “Help you not to turn feral.”
A cold dread settled in her chest. “Is that what this is? I’m turning?”
“No...I don’t think so. I’ve seen people turn. Too many. But this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Still...we should be cautious.”
She nodded in agreement but the feeling of dread didn’t lift at all. “I’ll ask her. Tomorrow. Is that alright?”
“Yes, that’s fine.” He kept staring at her, brow furrowed and sadness in his eyes. For the first time she felt uncomfortable under his gaze. Her own eyes moved to his sword, still at the ready.
“Can you not…”
He followed her gaze and frowned. “I don’t want you to feel threatened, but I can’t trust that...whatever that was...won’t come back.”
“And if it does, what then? You’re going to cut my head off?”
He winced. “Chloe…”
“Promise me you won’t hurt me.”
He looked at the ground, silent for far too long. “I’ll do what I have to do to keep my people safe.”
Her tears were back, her voice choked with sobs as she pleaded with him. “Jax please, no, just tell me you won’t hurt me. Please...”
He picked up the katana, rising to his feet. “Chloe...you need to calm down.”
She jumped to her feet, backing away from him. “Get away from me.”
“Chloe. Take a deep breath, OK? Try to relax.” He held one hand out towards her, but the other still held his katana, ready to strike.
She kept backing towards the door. “I’m leaving.”
He advanced towards her, closing the distance. “We agreed you would stay with me.”
She turned and ran for the door, moving fast enough to reach it in an instant...but so did he. “Let me go,” she pleaded through sobs. “Please let me go!” He didn’t reach for her, and she remembered that he wouldn’t touch her. Not while her skin was burning hot. She opened the door and backed into the corridor, staring him down defiantly.
His expression hardened as he lifted the katana, ready to fight, his eyes burning red now. “I said STOP!”
As her terror boiled over inside her, the world seemed to disappear in a flash of white.
And then darkness.
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