🎬 #209 Not a Film, But...
Trailers don’t look, feel or sound much better than this. Looks like Denis Villeneuve is set to own Christmas, while Christopher Nolan takes summer. The edit, the music, the chant, the sheer textural quality packed into every frame of the Dune: Part 3 trailer all suggest this could be the most adult, most epic, and potentially darkest film of the trilogy yet. It looks absolutely stunning as everyone has come to expect from Denis. That’s why this week I’ve decided to write a bit about it, and strongly advise you to watch the trailer which is linked at the bottom of the newsletter. It’s an excellent piece of filmmaking in its own right.
Please enjoy
Bry
FILM: Dune: Part Three [Teaser Trailer]
2026 Dir Denis Villeneuve
2 mins 29 seconds
The shot above is just one of many in the trailer that hints at Denis’ vision for this final chapter in the Dune trilogy. The mood is even darker, more battled hardened - maybe more sombre, and everything feels incredibly well designed. As with every film in the trilogy, every detail is meticulously fine tuned - from the pattern on a glove to the texture of an awning.
Those small details matter enormously in a world like Dune. When you believe in the tiniest details, and when everything looks practical, lived-in, and purposeful, something clicks. You begin to understand how this world works. You understand its rituals, and the beliefs that sit behind them. From there, everything expands outward: you buy the design, you buy the world, you buy the belief system, and ultimately, you buy the characters.
That’s what makes it so powerful. The storytelling builds from the smallest details to the most epic themes, until everything fuses into one incredibly rich and transporting whole.
There isn’t a design or shot that doesn’t have a beautiful patina on it. Everything is layered with intricate texture, even if that is grit suspended in the air. It’s the Dune world but expanded - made even more unique. It’s gorgeous. Verve, without trying to have verve. Just framing things simply and directly, but with costume, atmosphere and lighting - colouring in the most beautiful of images.
Linus Sandgren picks up DOP duties from Greg Fraser [he won the Oscar for Dune Part 1 ] this time around. With Denis revealing they shot the majority of the film on film this time, with a significant amount of sequences shot on IMAX. The Arrakis dessert meanwhile was still shot digitally - to get that crispness that Denis said he was always after. At a trailer event he also mentioned that this will be a very different Dune film, a different pace and cadence. He wanted to give people an unexpected film from what has gone before. This is very much a thriller he said.
Enjoy the trailer, if you haven’t seen it and enjoy it again if you have.