Dune presents a really fascinating practical problem in adaptation in moving the story into a medium and mode with far less flexible norms of storytelling. Rather than, as with the MCU, saturating the film in a self-inoculating ironic or deprecating sensibility to preemptively curtail possible camp results from its self-seriousness, Dune’s tone manages to lock in fully. It’s in large part this, the grand scope of its story, and the on-time pacing of each beat that makes the film feel so spectacular. Most of the stylistic chops come in the form of production design and mise-en-scène rather than flashy cinematography, Villeneuve proving smart enough to step out of his own way and rely on fairly regular decoupage embellished with some truly beautiful shallow focus closeups. Privileging performance over bloated CGI spectacle helps ground this universe in the strength of its storytelling rather than in the lurid novelty of its world. Dune: Part Two feels like one of science fiction’s great achievements in moving images, particularly with regard to its unabashed affirmation of its genre in comparison to its post-genre contemporaries.