No, this one is genuine. It's very good looking and sounding. But I was not moved, nor inspired to do a second viewing.

I read that part of the Villeneuve's shift was inspired by Herbert's feeling that people had misread the first book, and that's why he made Paul problematic sooner than later.

Exactly. Paul is the protagonist, but he's not a hero. I don't think the 1st book made that as clear as the 2nd. Villeneuve is using Chani to make that more clear sooner. I think it was a good change, so that the theme transfers to part 3 better than the shift that happens between books. It's also where the 1984 Dune movie totally whiffed.

tl;dr

Brian Herbert should finish Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.

Good lord, no.

Maybe Brandon Sanderson. But not Herbert.

I think he has a thing on his website for that.

Most recommended starting with Mistborn (The Final Empire), as it’s a fairly breezy read and gives you a good taste of his style. If you like it, finish that trilogy. I started with Stormlight (Way of Kings), but those are much larger, dense epic fantasy books. I think they are his best works so far, but it’s also not complete yet. The 5th Stormlight book releases later this year, and will wrap up the first half of the series, which is supposed to be a satisfying conclusion of the current arc, but there are 5 more books planned.

If you want a really easy read to give him a shot, I love Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, which are stand alone books from his kickstarter last year. With the caveat that almost all of his books are in the same universe, The Cosmere, so there are connections between all of them. You’ll get a bit more out of the stand alone books if you’re aware of everything, but it’s slight and not worth worrying about for those two in particular.

It all seems more complicated than it is, but unlike with Dune, there aren’t any real skips.

This is also a source of constant debate, so someone else might chime in and say something totally different. As long as you don’t read books within a series out of order, I think you can really just pick one and start.

They... sprayed water at you during Dune? Did the characters onscreen berate you afterwards?

They had mist sprayers on the back of the seat and big ones under the screen. Every time there was a lot of sand they sprayed mist, I guess to simulate sand? Didn't make sense. Then I'm watching the scene through fog.

The kids saw Top Gun Maverick at this theater. That kinda made sense. There were a few moments in the film where subtle seat movements added a little, like flying sequences. The sand worm riding was a straight up mechanical bull ride. You get no warning, so pray you don't have the straw in your drink near your face, or you're going to lose an eye. I guess if you were using the popcorn bucket for its intended purpose, it would save you from throwing popcorn everywhere.

My biggest complaint was that 99% wasn't subtle moment. It was hard jerks. Like somebody grabbing your chair and jerking it hard. They did it a ton during fight scenes. Totally distracting.

The fact that such a seat even exists is annoying as heck

Final review: to not see it on IMAX (or close) is not to really see it. I feel sorry for agoraphobics.

Truly the definitive experience.

Those are the seats I saw Scarface from in 1983. We got to the theater after the start time (before the movie, but after the time on the tickets), and every other seat was full. (Why you'd take a front row seat on the SIDE over the middle, I have no clue, but a bunch of people did, leaving us 2 seats dead center in the first row.)

There was no such thing as assigned seating then.

I had to pay a second time and go back a couple of weeks later because there was no way I was being left with that memory as my experience with Scarface.

Sitting that close, his little friend probably wasn’t so little.