Dune: Part Two

LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS.

Follow the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

Dune: Part Two (2023)
directed by: Denis Villeneuve

starring: Timothée Chalamet – Zendaya – Rebecca Ferguson – Javier Bardem – Josh Brolin – Austin Butler

adventure – science fiction

167 min

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Transcript (via Apple Podcasts)

Hi there, welcome back to The Reel Film Chronicles podcast.

As always, I’m Nathan.

And I’m Brian.

And in this week’s very special episode, we’re going to be talking about a little movie called Dune Part Two.

This is a very special episode.

We talked about the first Dune, no, basically three years ago now, I think.

2021.

This is the second part of the Dune adaptation by Denis Villeneuve.

The first one, what, 2021?

I mean, everybody loved it, right?

We loved it.

I don’t remember what we rated it.

Maybe we’ll reveal that later on when we talk about ratings for part two.

But this is like a hotly anticipated movie.

Got pushed back a couple of times.

It got moved around.

Like it had a late 2023 release.

It got moved around there.

And then we had a writers and actor strike.

And they opted to push it back to 2024 in March, which is when we’re recording this.

We’re kind of both fresh off of viewing this in theaters.

And yeah, I’m kind of excited, but also a little nervous of talking about this movie.

I think that first episode we did on the first Dune was really good.

I haven’t listened to it in a little while, but it was like, it was fun.

And it’s like, there’s expectation on this movie.

There’s expectation to be as good as the first one.

There’s expectation on this podcast to be as good as the first one, our first episode of it.

No.

Very, very-

Ryan, we must recite the litany against hype.

Hype is the mind killer.

No, hype is the expectation killer.

I must not hype.

So yeah, we’re gonna come in this way, clear expectation, like no burden of expectation.

Just like watching the second movie, no burden of expectation.

It’s gonna go in, we’re gonna have a good time.

Talk about the movie, what we enjoyed, what we didn’t enjoy.

Comparisons to the book adaptation, I think that, or comparisons to the book adaptations they made in the movie.

I think that’s really interesting.

It’s always an interesting conversation to see when you’re translating stories across media to see kind of what works and what doesn’t.

But yeah, there’s all kinds of ins and outs and all kinds of great conversation surrounding this movie.

So there’s two things I just wanted to mention before we jump into the main feature discussion.

One, Apple Podcasts has started doing transcriptions in their episodes.

So if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, I think the transcriptions are just available to you.

I’m also going to rip those out and plop them on to our website, reelfilmchronicles.com.

It doesn’t really differentiate between speakers.

So it doesn’t say, like, hey, this is Speaker One or this is Brian or this is Nathan talking.

But all the text is kind of there.

So at least a neat way to follow along is I think even when I was playing with it, you could sort of select the text that you’re reading and then actually just go like press play and it goes directly to that spot in the podcast, which is kind of neat.

The second aspect is one that we always throw out there is that we’ll be discussing spoilers without a band throughout the episode, so I mean consider this your spoiler warning.

And you mentioned the book comparison.

Would it be safe to say we’ll talk about what happened in the book and compared to the movie, like if you haven’t read the book, do we want to spoil it that much or does it even matter at this point?

I mean, the book’s been around for…

We’re only going to talk about, really I want to touch on, there’s a couple key differences.

I’m not going to go into detail about the book.

There are a couple of key differences that we need to address in talking about the plot of Dune Two or Dune Part Two.

Effectively, in my mind, if you’ve watched Dune Part Two, you’ve kind of spoiled the book for yourself.

All the major plot beats are there.

All the major plot beats are there.

There’s going to be minor little differences here and there, but it’s like generally, you know what’s going on.

So we might bring it up.

Since watching the first Dune, I did finish reading the first Dune book.

Nice.

It’s been a couple of years now, so even my details on that are a little fuzzy.

And you’ve gone further.

You’ve read most of the series, Frank Herbert’s original six.

Yeah, I just have to read Chapter House Dune, which was the last one that he wrote before he passed.

From what I understand, it’s almost like he started a new trilogy and he didn’t quite get to finish it.

So it kind of almost sounds like almost like a bit of a cliffhanger.

But yeah, the original six like books that Frank Herbert wrote is really like, that’s like the core of the Dune universe and his son Brian Herbert took over and wrote a bunch more stories in that in that universe.

But really, I think the six core books are really that that makes up Dune really the core, the heart of Dune, I should say.

I don’t want to want to disenfranchise fans of Brian Herbert’s work here.

Everything I’ve read says his work is garbage.

Yeah, ditto.

I was trying to be nice about it though, Brian.

Honestly, you know, it’s probably like kind of nice if you if you’re really into the Dune, you’ve read the main series a couple times, you probably are gonna venture into his work.

But I think he works with different fantasy authors as well to continue it on.

But in any event, we’re not talking about all that stuff.

We got to get into the movie here.

Like this movie, we’re talking about expectations.

The expectation on this was was pretty big, but let’s huge keep in mind here.

The first movie came out basically in the pandemic.

It saw a day and day release with digital streaming.

So the theatrical run was like, I think, lessened because of that.

The run up to this movie, it’s theater only.

It’s filmed entirely in like a larger IMAX aspect ratio, like the anticipation, the expectation for this movie to look gorgeous and be a huge film was definitely there.

And we can have after release, it seems to be there.

Critics, audiences are loving it.

The box office, people are going out to see this, which is kind of nice to see people going out to watch sci fi.

Because a lot of the times these movies don’t necessarily do that well.

And to watch something that’s a bit more cerebral and like there’s action beats, of course, in this, but like Dune is the story so dense thematically.

I’m talking about everything like, you know, from politics to religion, to philosophy, to society.

There’s so many different things going on in the books and even kind of the streamlined version in the movies, they’re still so dense and so much of that stuff is still maintained.

So to have something that cerebral, you know, pulling that viewership, I think in the first couple of weeks, they’ve almost outperformed their entire theatrical run of the original Dune or they’re getting close to it.

Yes.

So like, it’s definitely, it’s picking up steam.

So it’s great to see.

So right off the bat, did this movie meet your expectations?

I can’t say that it did.

I would have to say it exceeded my expectations.

To see what I did there.

No, it was, it was everything I thought it was going to be and more.

I mean, so one, one thing going through, in my experience, if there’s a movie adaptation of a book, typically if I read the book first, the movie somehow always doesn’t seem to live up to the original book, or I seem to be more disappointed in the movie version.

Usually the other way, if I watch the movie first and read the book, it doesn’t have the same effect on the book.

I can love the both.

So coming out of Dune Part Two, I was kind of faced with that dilemma again, but really, you know, watching it and thinking about it, really Dune Part Two was a turning point for me in my appreciation of simultaneously appreciating the movie and book versions.

And it happened through random, I was browsing through the movie subreddits and people discussing the movie and somebody made a point.

And I don’t know why it stuck with me this time, but like, you know, all the changes in the movie, you know, made sense and translating to that medium and anything that it kind of left out or changed.

Like you have the original book, you still have the original book, right?

You have the original source material.

So you have both versions to enjoy it’s like, okay, that hit me.

I don’t know why that was was just a mundane random statement by some Reddit user.

And I was like, okay, yeah, I was I was able to make peace.

I was like, yeah, I enjoy the movie for that version of the story.

And I still have the book.

I can enjoy that version for that version of the story.

But honestly, like all the changes that Denis Villeneuve made in the story and the plot and the characters actually made perfect sense.

It was almost in a way, it was almost like Frank Herbert had a more strict editor and help them to streamline the story.

And this is what it kind of would come out with because really he gets down to the fundamentally there’s a bunch of different themes and sub themes going on in Dune.

But there’s one theme kind of running throughout that Denis really latches on to and I think shows that he really was a fan of the source material, really was a fan of the books and really distilled this down to its, still doing down to its very essence thematically.

And so like all the plot kind of follow from supporting that theme.

So yeah, it was incredibly well done for an unfilmable novel.

Denis Villeneuve kind of made an incredible film out of an unfilmable novel.

So it was pretty amazing.

How about you?

What were your first impressions seeing this movie, Brian?

Yeah, I was pretty blown away.

I think I still fell under the influence of the book and looking for these elements of the book that maybe weren’t there in the movie.

And initially I walked away and be like, oh, did I misremember something or why didn’t they put this in here?

But I mean, I’m a big advocate of these properties like the formats can live on their own and they are their own thing.

Right?

And I think to give a story, way back when Jurassic Park came out, like 93, my dad got me the book and actually read the book, I think before I saw the movie, I got blasted through it.

I was so eager to get through it.

And there were entire sequences in that book that were never in the first Jurassic Park movie.

They were like the, there’s a pterodactyl scene that was held off for the third movie.

And I was like initially confused and kind of disappointed back then.

And then I think I came to realize at a young age, it’s like, oh, they are different things.

They don’t necessarily have to be a perfect adaptation.

And maybe it’s better because of that, because they’re different formats.

Like it’s a different medium.

And that’s the thing too.

You have to kind of realize like some things that work really well in a book do not translate well on screen and vice versa.

Sometimes something that works well in a visual medium just doesn’t.

If you translate one for one to a book form, it just doesn’t work that well.

So watching it from that perspective, I was like, yeah, all the changes in my mind, and we’ll go through a couple of the big ones, made perfect sense in the context of translating this for the big screen and really being aware of that medium in a way that maybe the 1984 version of Dune wasn’t.

So seeing this on the big screen, I was excited.

I ended up watching the 2021, the first part twice in the past month before watching this one.

And I really grew to like that.

I think I gave it four and a half stars, honestly, that first movie, because it felt like it was the first part of it wasn’t like a complete film.

It was the first half of the story.

But I started to appreciate my first part more and more to the point where I felt the opposite effect here, where it was like, oh, we’re just getting like just nonstop stuff going on and we’re not taking it slow.

Like we did the first one to like really build up the characters.

So I was initially like, kind of let down from a couple of different angles.

But the more and more I think about this, like I’m definitely, I’m going to go see this again in theaters like soon, I want to get like that experience going on.

I really love this movie.

Like I like reading about some of the differences and I appreciate what they did for the movie.

They like keep it in that movie medium and make it its own consistent, comprehensive and just like his own vision.

As you said, like you could tell he’s a fan of the original source material.

There’s just, it was just so good.

And this is sci-fi, like I like sci-fi.

I don’t go out of my way to see a lot of it.

The stuff is so good.

I love so much stuff in this movie.

Like the world building they do is so awesome.

And it’s like when we first talked about Dune Part One in our podcast episode, I hadn’t read the book yet.

And I feel like I was just learning more and more where it’s like there was hints of the greater world.

And you were able to fill in those details where it’s just like, oh, this is part of that.

And it’s like, oh, there’s just little hints of everything going on here.

This one, we get even more of that.

We get to see more of that Harkonnen home world and some of their rituals and things.

You’re like, oh, this is a whole society here, a whole human colony.

That’s just like, this is what’s going on over here.

Like, why is there a planet black and white?

Like, you know, it’s just-

Who cares?

It looks awesome.

It looks awesome.

It’s just like, but it was just so neat.

Like everything was so neat.

And even at the end of the movie where I think the warships from the other houses were showing up and be like, I don’t think we’ve talked about the other houses at all during this movie.

What are their deal?

Like, I want to know more and more about this.

It’s like they left me begging for a third movie.

Like that couldn’t come soon enough after watching this movie.

So this movie, it definitely like it wowed me.

It floored me.

It was awesome.

It was a fun experience seeing this in theater.

It was just really satisfying to like get what feels like the second part of maybe a trilogy now.

And it did finish roughly around the same spot as the book for what I remember.

So it’s like it’s still one story, but it’s like it teases you with so much more.

It leaves you wanting more.

And I love it.

Well, really to set aside maybe some spoilers.

I won’t get into extreme details, but really like Dune and Dune Messiah.

Dune Messiah is the second book in the series, but really you read those two together and that feels almost like here’s a complete story or really Paul’s complete story, right?

So like there have been rumblings.

I think Denis has hinted at this, that he would like to make a third Dune movie based on Dune Messiah to kind of round out the trilogy and really finish off Paul Atreides’ story or Paul Mardib’s story and I think that would, yeah, I think for anybody out there who’s read Dune Messiah, you’ll know what I’m talking about in terms of like both the theme and the plot, like Dune Messiah is a perfect companion piece to do and it really, it feels like a complete story.

So it would be, unless this is like Abed’s worst timeline from community, then I’m hopeful that we’re going to get that third Dune movie, especially with Denis Villeneuve being the fan that he is and being obviously, with the work that was put into this movie, obviously he’s invested in the movie on a personal level.

So really, really hoping to see, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, but we’re hoping to see that third movie trilogy.

But to your point, Brian, I wanted to say, this is a movie, do yourself a favor, go see this on the big screen.

This is one of those movies that really does benefit.

I really wish I would have seen or been able to see Dune One on the big screen, kicking myself a little bit now.

I think I missed it because it was kind of in the middle of the pandemic.

Abed had a very short re-release of, here in my town, was here for a weekend in the IMAX format and I managed to squeeze it in.

I didn’t even know it was coming.

I had a friend message me at the last minute.

It was just like, we got to go see Dune in theaters.

I’m like, that’s right now?

That’s happening?

Let’s go drop everything.

Yeah, Brian’s calling.

So yeah, if Brian’s boss is listening, that’s why he had to call in sick last week.

But no, this reminded me of Dune One and Two reminded me a lot of The Green Knights visually in just like every frame of Dune, that both Dune movies could be a painting you hang up on your wall.

Just every shot was just so beautifully composed, so beautifully crafted, the lighting, the set design, the composition of how the characters and different elements were framed together.

I mean, it’s just a beautiful, beautiful movie to look at.

And there were honestly some moments where I was getting chills down my spine.

There were a couple of moments, even though I knew it was coming.

I read the books, like, okay, I’m waiting for this to come.

And when it finally came, when Paul finally embraces his role as the son, Al-Ghaib, the wrongly foretold messiah of the Fremen, and he gets up on the stage, and he’s giving his speech, and there’s like silence, and a couple of people, a couple of the Fremen stand up, and he’s like, you know, using his powers to prove that he’s the messiah.

And it’s like, there was just chills down my spine watching that on the big screen.

It was amazingly well done.

So like, do yourself a favour, check it out on the big screen.

Without a doubt.

I want to throw out, I mean, obviously, Denis Villeneuve, this is his vision, like adapted.

He’s a master.

He’s one of my favourite directors.

He’s a master at throwing this stuff.

Yeah, he’s great.

But he worked with cinematographer, Greg Fraser, who’s also done the first Dune.

He’s also done the Crater, which came out earlier.

Oh yeah.

Which looked absolutely gorgeous.

The Batman looked drop dead gorgeous, every frame of it.

He did Rogue One, which I think is probably one of the more, I want to say visually interesting Star Wars movies, especially when you get into-

Disney-era Star Wars movies, I’ll say.

I’ll concede that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Zero Dark Thirty, just to name another one, but there’s some serious talent here.

And that’s one of the things I really like.

About this big budget film, it has a big budget, about $180 billion, I think.

You can see that money on screen.

You can see everything was there for his vision.

And it’s so consistent.

It’s like, I didn’t look at all the details of all the special effects houses that went, who created what scenes.

Maybe it was the same place that did everything, because I couldn’t tell.

It all looked consistently good.

Because you watch, I mean, you mentioned Marvel.

It’s like the fight scenes are maybe farmed out to a different VFX company than some of the other visual effects scenes.

And it was like, there’s a little, you can tell the difference in some of the quality.

Here, I think they literally, they must have gave them the time to make it good.

It’s like they must have gave them the proper time to do what they need to do and make it look consistent throughout the entire film, which now, which doesn’t seem like maybe such a great compliment, like 30 years ago to make a film look consistently good.

But now, in our age of Marvel movies, it’s like, yeah, this is a big accomplishment.

Hey, you have consistently good VFX throughout.

Yeah, I think I was watching an episode of Corridor Crew, maybe, or I don’t know if they’re specifically talking about Dune, but somebody was saying, I think one of the guests was saying about how if the director has a consistent and clear vision early on with minimal changes, if they do the time upfront to think about these things, like for example, how they want the world to look, how they want, in this case, what does the sand worm look like?

What does the stillsuit look like?

What does Siege Tapper look like?

And you make those decisions early in the process, and you tweak them as you go, but don’t make whole cloth changes to everything.

It makes the job, the special effects are just so much easier, and they can spend all that time tweaking things and making it better instead of the director coming back halfway through and saying, it’s like, no, no, you know what?

I want the sand worms to have six arms, and I want them to be three times as big and be purple.

And it’s like, well, then we have to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch where this one had felt like Denis Villeneuve obviously had a clear vision early on before they even started filming.

And so that gave the costume designers, the VFX artists, the set and production designers, gave them time to really focus in and refine that vision.

And it all comes together on the screen.

It’s one of those movies that you think the color palette in the desert is like, well, what can you do with that?

You can do a lot.

Yeah.

And that’s it.

There’s actual real lighting in this movie.

Yeah, exactly.

Shots put in there.

I saw a snippet of an interview with Dave Bautista and he was talking about comparing some of his Marvel experiences, filming with VFX and green and blue screens and all this, compared to Dune.

And I think a lot of his scenes in Dune were interior shots.

It wasn’t a lot of blue screen.

It was they built the sets.

They built these rooms and had actors standing in the rooms, which almost seems crazy to talk about because there’s so much discussion about, like they call it the volume, basically like these giant wraparound LED screens that are like above and are all around you.

And you have a group of actors like acting and they’re able to see like where they are and have like the scene, like these screens move with them.

It’s like rendering the background in real time, right?

It’s crazy.

It’s amazing technology, but it’s not like a secure, you can’t use it for everything all the time, right?

It has its place.

Yeah.

And they say it really suffers when you bring in a lot of, I mean, we talked about before, I think, off the podcast ages ago, where it’s like, you can’t run around on these sets, like these virtual sets.

It’s like when you notice people running, you’re like, oh yeah, they jogged for like three or four feet before they had to stop, before they’re going to hit one of these screens.

And one of the other negatives of it is you can’t put in a lot of people.

If there’s one or two people, you can put them into this virtual environment.

But a lot of these scenes, like you’re thinking about that end sequence there with the emperor surrounded by people, like you have the whole cast in one room.

You can’t put them into a virtual screen.

You have to build that room.

You have to light it properly and everyone’s in costume.

It looks so good.

And they can all act and look at each other.

It’s amazing.

Yeah, again, it’s not saying that practical sets are better than CGI.

It’s about using them in the proper context and using them to their best effect.

So there’s certain things that are better to have practical.

There are certain things better to do with VFX.

There’s certain things you can do better with the volume set up.

There’s certain things you can do better on a practical set.

So it’s about optimizing and using what’s best for the context of that scene, and using all those techniques together.

And when you have someone as talented as Villeneuve, being able to decide like, no, not deciding.

He knows when each effect, what each setting is proper for the scene.

But he wants to convey the story and the acting through.

It’s amazing.

The acting.

Timothée Chalamet, I always miss it.

Timothée Chalamet.

Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya.

I mean, the list goes on.

Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Partista, Christopher Walken.

I mean, I was surprised to see him cast in there.

I was like, they need an emperor in there.

He did a good job, I think.

Lea Saito, Stellan Skarsgård, like people are back for the first one.

Stilgar by Javier Bardem.

The amount of talent here is fantastic.

How do you feel about the actors?

Is Timothée-

Like, can this guy act?

I was thinking about this last night.

There are some roles that are so iconic that you just can never think of recasting them, right?

I think Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones or Michael J.

Fox is Marty McFly.

Honestly, a little bit recency bias, obviously, but I think Timothée Chalamet and Paul Atreides all do respect to Kyle McLaughlin.

But to me, Timothée Chalamet, now that’s who I see when I read Dune.

When I think about Paul Modib, Paul Atreides, Ussul, whatever you want to call him, he embodied that role in a way that I don’t know if you’d ever be able to recast.

It’s the same thing as trying to recast Indiana Jones.

You can’t, he’s just an actor that so embodies that role.

It’s such an iconic role.

Dune has been an inspiration, notably Dune was a huge inspiration for Star Wars.

You look at, obviously, the Benny Gesserit or a huge influence on the Jedi, the voice and the force, clear through line there.

All this iconic imagery that’s inspired so much and to have him embody that role, really in part to see that evolution of that character, just phenomenal.

I think Rebecca Ferguson and Zendaya, props to both of them.

I think one of the great changes in the movie adaptation, especially part two, was that Chani and Jessica really felt, Chani especially, in the books, she was really just, her role was as a love interest for Paul and that was pretty much it.

In the movies, there’s been blowback about this.

It’s really weird to me because watching the movie is like, okay, now Chani feels like an actual person.

She has her own motivations and her own thoughts and feelings.

It feels like she has her own inner life and she’s making her own decisions and she has agency and she’s not just there as kind of window dressing.

I mean, all due respect to Frank Herbert, he wrote an incredibly amazing story that in many ways was ahead of its time.

But in all honesty, Frank Herbert was still a man of his time and some of the gender politics in the original Dune and the characters of the series kind of stand out.

I’ll put it politely, they stand out by today’s standards.

So having Chani be a fully fleshed out character and like Zendaya did an amazing job.

Also side note, Zendaya, like does she have a last name or is she like a singer or something?

And she had like, was I just like…

She’s just Zendaya.

Zendaya.

I was just curious.

I don’t know about her background, but then…

I’m not sure what exactly her background is.

She’s been acting for quite a while, but every credit is just Zendaya.

Yeah.

And then Rebecca Ferguson too, Lady Jessica, she had a bit more agency in the books, but this one really, really, I think fleshed out her role in using stoking religious zealotry and then manipulating that into a form of power, like a social power to propel Paul and hence herself into a position of power.

But those changes to the characters are really well done.

And like Rebecca Ferguson, she’s been killing it recently.

I love her in the Mission Impossible series.

She’s been killing it recently.

Zendaya has been killing it.

These are actors at the top of their game.

Javier Bardem, a Stilgar who…

Javier Bardem brought…

The character of Stilgar was surprisingly funny in this movie, unintentionally so.

And there was a dark humor, because in the books, I think Paul at one point laments that Stilgar essentially became such a believer in the Lisan al-Ghaib, the Messiah.

And in the books, I believe Paul talks about how he sees Stilgar as like he’s been lessened almost because he’s given in so much to his belief where before he was kind of more independent and more forceful.

And so it’s almost like in the movie, as well, you get that sense of that there’s this tragic downfall of like, these people are getting so overwhelmed by their religious beliefs and their religious zealotry and going so far off the deep end that somehow like they’re losing themselves in that.

You really see that in Stilgar who is, he’s funny at times.

There’s that scene where Paul says, yeah, I’m not the Lisan al-Ghaib, I’m not the savior.

And then he’s with the older guys from the Southern tribe who are like true believers.

He’s like, look how humble he is.

Of course, the true Messiah wouldn’t admit he’s the Messiah.

So like that taking somebody liking that, I think to Life of Brian, there’s like a gag on that as well.

It’s humorous, but it’s also like, it’s a dark humor, right?

So there’s funny bits, but it’s not like, haha.

It’s laugh out loud funny.

I was laughing in the theater, but it’s a dark, dark humor, right?

And I think that’s where like the book is able to expand more on the religion and like how far these people are going in their beliefs, where the movie doesn’t really, it almost becomes the butt of the joke.

And maybe it’s part of the time, like our society is just like less religious now and whatnot, right?

And it’s just like, we see and we’re told in the movie that the Bene Gesserit have implemented, like they’ve, they’ve incepted the society with these ideas of like the chosen one, their Messiah.

Yeah, but it’s just like they’re, they’re, they’re engineering it to become true.

And it’s like, oh, we see these people and it’s, I think that’s where it’s dark humor.

It’s like, they’re believing it, like they’re devoting their lives to it.

And we see the greater aspect of it, of how they’re effectively kind of being tricked throughout it all.

Is that, is that a great, there’s no effectively about it.

It absolutely is.

That’s not hope.

No, all you’re talking about is the missionary of protectiva, which is the Benny Jesser.

What they do is part of their tool of tricks or part of their bag of tricks is they’ll go to different societies kind of undercover and they’ll plant these ideas like political and religious ideas so that they use it as a tool so that essentially what they’re doing is like you’re pulling like an inception, but they’re like inception on like the level of society or level of a culture so that if they’re ever like in a situation on a planet where they’re in trouble, they’ll know what the local cultures and religious beliefs are because they helped shape those religious beliefs and they helped shape those cultures.

So like this idea that every culture has this messianic prophecy, right?

There’s a prophecy that foretells the coming of a Messiah that’s going to save our people.

And it’s like, oh yeah, that exists in all cultures now because the Bene Gesserit planted that idea in every society and planted like specific ideas in every society.

And you see that come into play where like literally the prophecy of the Messiah, the Lisan al-Ghaib, it was planted by the Bene Gesserit or grew out of the initial idea planted by the Bene Gesserit.

So it’s complete and utter nonsense.

Paul knows it because he knows how the Bene Gesserit work.

He figures out how they work.

And Jessica obviously knows it because she’s a Bene Gesserit.

So the whole thing is just showing how in keeping with that underlying theme, which I mentioned before, but I didn’t actually articulate, but the underlying theme of the movie and the book itself was essentially it was a warning against charismatic leaders, but gaining so much power.

People look at, I’ve seen these criticisms, some people criticizing it for being, oh, it’s perpetuating the white savior myth.

It’s like, no, the whole point and why Frank Herbert wrote Dune Messiah was to explicitly show that people weren’t picking up on the subtext of the original Dune is like, no, the whole thing was deconstructing the trope of this chosen one and the hero.

What happens with Paul in the books?

He gains power, he consolidates political power and religious power.

He becomes the emperor at the end of the movie and he sends the feminine out on a holy war, a jihad, a crusade.

When you see in Dune Messiah, literally cost the lives of billions in the name of bringing peace and order and stability, he brings war and tyranny.

The whole movie was built around this and you see that breakdown of Paul.

It’s a tragedy in some sense, a personal tragedy for Paul to fall down that same rabbit hole that so many other people have fallen down, but a tragedy on a social scale.

To see Jessica and the Bene Gesserit, for their own personal gain, to try and gain power, they plant these ideas that can then be manipulated by a charismatic leader like Paul to bring about these horrible consequences.

The whole thing is just so tragic, but it’s perfectly centered around that theme, and the whole movie streamlined around that.

When you watch it, and you’re watching Paul, he’s the protagonist, but he’s not a good guy.

It’s so frightening by the end, right?

He’s built up at the beginning as the hero.

The savior, right?

He is the hero.

He’s the savior.

It’s just like, he’s going to be the one.

Then we go down this movie, and he’s driven by revenge, right?

He wants revenge.

He knows all the stuff that’s going on.

He has visions.

He has different visions of the future.

After, I think he drinks the worm, the water of life, the worm juice there.

It refines his visions, and he sees-

The water of life.

The war afterwards.

He sees what he’s going to be able to do is cost the lives of millions or billions of people, I think he says, and the great famines and all this.

His future is actually looking pretty bleak.

I love that the movie-

I want to say it’s super obvious.

I think it should be almost a surprise for people near the end to see the degradation of the hero turning mad with power and going beyond his original intentions.

We see that through Chani where she’s disgusted at the end.

She does not bow to him.

She walks away from him because we need that in there to be like, yeah, he’s not going down a good road here.

He’s told her about the horrible things that are going to happen afterwards.

He’s actively choosing to continue down that path.

He didn’t have to go become emperor.

He could have taken his revenge on the baron.

That’s what he wanted.

Revenge, to avenge his father’s death, his murder.

It was just really well done.

It’s kind of funny, I just want to tell a quick story here where this does come through in the book as well.

Obviously, there’s a lot more nuance and elements to the book.

By the end of the book, you’re like, man, Paul is a messed up dude.

They’re taking advantage of these people.

They’re doing bad things.

I go to my local bookstore to buy Dune Messiah, the second book in the series.

I bring up to the cash and the guys are like, oh, you’re getting into Dune with the movie coming out.

I’m like, yeah, I saw the movie.

I tried reading the first Dune, but a story within a story.

I found it a lot easier to read Dune after watching the movie because I could visualize the different actors.

Like you said, Timothée is like, he’s Paul Atreides.

It’s so easy to just put him into every scene in the book, especially with the names and everything, because there’s a lot of Arabic and Middle Eastern names that I use throughout Herbert’s work there.

But he’s telling me, he’s just like, are you prepared for this book?

Are you prepared to go down the road?

Because there’s a lot of people who are taken by surprise on how things turn out.

I’m like, I don’t think they’re going to turn out good for Paul.

And he’s like, okay, so you know, you have a sense of where things are going.

I’m like, I hope so.

I’m like, I’m not expecting Paul to be like Neo from The Matrix here.

He’s not going to save the entire universe.

I think he’s going to throw the universe into some turmoil here.

I just love that story.

Everything you talked before about that theme, and it’s so well done, and I’m glad it’s in here and it’s present.

That’s the thing that makes you so excited for the third one is just like, how bad is it going to be?

Who’s the hero that’s going to stand up against him later on?

It could be a bleak story, but a good one.

I want to read a couple of quotes by Frank Herbert here.

He said, the bottom line of the Dune trilogy is, beware of heroes.

Much better to rely on your own judgment and your own mistakes, he also said, Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader, because my view of history says that mistakes made by a leader or made in a leader’s name are amplified by the numbers who follow without question.

So this idea of, obviously he was a failed Messiah because he was a Messiah built on a lie.

The prophecy was planted artificially by the Bene Gesserit, not by divine intervention, but by more mundane political and power-hungry machinations.

But I like what you touched on with Chani.

One of the really smart things they did with her character was essentially made her almost like the voice of reason or the voice of skepticism when everyone else was starting to believe in the myth of Paul Muad’Dib as the messiah, as the prophesied one who would lead them into freedom and reform Dune into a paradise.

And she’s the one who stands up and is like, no, I’m not going to bow down to him.

He’s obviously not a messiah.

He’s just a regular dude.

And all that kind of skepticism and doubt was actually in Paul’s own mind in the novel.

So he was constantly at war with himself deciding, do I follow this path or do I?

Because he could see multiple different versions of the future depending on, oh, if I make this choice, I can see this will happen.

And so it was really smart because it’s really tough to have that kind of internal dialogue in a movie in that medium.

So to have Chani take on that role, that was really, really smart on the part of the filmmakers and then have her, it was a huge departure at the end because in the book, he makes it clear that he’s marrying the princess Rulon played by Florence Pugh, who does a great job with comparatively limited screen time.

But it’s clear in the book that when he marries the princess, he specifically tells her is like, yeah, we’re gonna be married in name only.

You’re not gonna know my touch or my love.

You’re not gonna bear my children.

I’m gonna take Chani as my concubine and she’ll be my wife and all but name.

And it was a very, it was again, it was in the 60s.

That was probably, that probably made a lot of sense.

But to have essentially, if you look at Dune Part One and Part Two as one continuous story, to have it open with Chani’s narration and close with Chani kind of writing out in defiance of what Paul has become or in mourning of what Paul has become, you know, to have her frame that story makes a whole lot more sense and gives a whole lot more weight to that character.

So I think that was a really smart, one of the smart changes in this.

So good.

Yeah.

Do we want to talk about that scene on Gaty Prime with Fade Rautha Harkonnen?

Yeah, the whole like, I think that’s one of the most visually stunning scenes.

That’s one of the ones that’s getting a lot of attention in terms of how visually stunning it is.

But also I’ve been a couple of years since I’ve read the first Dune book, but I don’t remember Fade Rautha being as fleshed out in the books or in the book as he was in the movie.

So I really appreciated them taking a little bit extra time and to show that.

I think what the movie does really well, it really succinct storytelling is showing how the Benny Gesserit are manipulating things behind the scenes.

Where it’s like, oh yeah, they wanted Jessica to bear a daughter so that he would marry Fade Rautha and they would produce the Kwisach Haderach.

That was the all-powerful being that the Benny Gesserit were trying to create so they could manipulate them for their own bidding.

But then it showed like, okay, so they have the idea and there’s a quote or there’s a recurring phrase in Dune was like, oh, there’s plans within plans within plans.

But to show like, oh yeah, Fade Rautha, they give him the Gom Jabbar test at one point as well, a little bit later on to show like, oh yeah, they were manipulating bloodlines and getting different people to marry.

It’s like, they had like, different options to produce the Kwisatch Haderach.

So like, like setting Fade Rautha up is like, oh yeah, if, if Paul Muad’Dib or Paul Atreides, if he gets killed, it’s like, well, we have this guy over here, but they probably have like a dozen different potential candidates where they could breed out their Kwisatch Haderach, right?

So it’s like, it was really smart.

Yeah, that was a great payoff for the first one, because they, she even mentions, I can’t remember, it’s like the leader of the Benny Jesser.

It was just like, yeah, other things going on here, just in case.

And it’s like, now it pays off here, we’re going to focus on this guy and him seeing, getting the test.

And you’re like, this guy is, well, he’s a villain through and through.

But I like that they established like what kind of person he is.

And they immediately like know his weaknesses so they can control him.

That was really cool.

When the Betty Gesserit, who’s the character, she’s not the Reverend Mother, the leader of the women there?

Reverend Mother Gaius Mahayam?

They effectively lose control.

He is the…

Kwisatz Haderach.

Yes, thank you.

I’m trying to pretend to try to pronounce that.

He is Vat and they lose control of Paula, right?

It’s just like, oh man, this is not good for us.

They’re worse than they are.

And I kind of like…

There’s that scene where they’re about to duel and she’s saying something and he just uses the voice on her to tell her to stop talking.

It’s so powerful, it knocks her back.

It knocks her back and I like the other guy just like he raises his eyebrows like, oh, this guy is good.

This is not a power that you normally see because it’s…

It’s pretty much an all-female group, which is like, men don’t usually have this ability and this is why he’s like going against the thing.

It’s like this guy didn’t, clearly wasn’t being trained in the ways himself, I don’t think.

But I really like that part where it’s like, it’s not…

Where Star Wars takes like the force and like the force influence speech there or whatever it’s called.

And it’s like, I don’t think in Star Wars you could use the voice against other people who are like equally as trained as you.

It’s like here, it doesn’t matter how good you are at the voice and like how much command you have.

If someone uses it on you, you’re following their command.

It’s just like, it takes you by surprise and it’s really effective throughout the movie.

And when he uses it sparingly, it really hammers home to the audience.

It’s like, yeah, this guy is disrupting the Emperor’s plans.

He’s disrupting the Harkidens.

He’s going to upset the Benny Jester.

He is going off the rails into his own thing.

And Lady Jessica gives a look, Rebecca Ferguson, great little acting there.

She gives a look, is like, I did this.

Her whole thing is like, I love how Paul’s ascending.

He’s like the face of it, but Lady Jessica is like the power behind the throne almost.

She’s like, yeah, no, Paul is still my son and I have influence over him.

And so I’m, since she’s right here, you look at, to borrow from the religions that, modern day religions, you look at how much the Virgin Mary is venerated, the mother of Christ, right?

She’s almost as a deity into herself.

So it’s like, when Frank Herbert was writing this, he pulled in specifically religious elements from modern day.

So that would not be lost on Lady Jessica.

Sorry, going back to Gaty Prime, I got us off a tangent.

That whole thing, the whole scene was done in black and white.

I don’t think this was from the books at all, but the in-universe explanation in the movie seems to be that they have a black son.

I don’t care if that makes sense or not.

It looks so damn cool, especially when you see their scenes when there’s characters inside on Gaty Prime and they start to walk outside.

And it’s like, goes from color to black and white as they go out into the harsh environment.

It’s like, this looks so amazing.

I didn’t confirm this, but apparently they filmed all of those outdoor scenes in infrared vision, which gives it that really stark black and white.

We’ve become a little more familiar with that visual medium through security cameras and stuff.

I’ve even seen it in my own home.

I have a camera pointed at my front door inside and there’s a piece of cloth on a speaker that’s just in frame.

It’s black when you see it, but in infrared, it’s white.

That’s exactly as you say, the people coming out in robes, there are these black robes that come out into the outdoors.

Now they’re in that infrared or the black sun and the robes turn white.

It’s such a neat visual effect.

Maybe that’s why it felt almost uncanny.

It was unsettling watching the whole thing.

One of the big changes that people, one of the more controversial changes is that Thurfer Hawat, the mantat of the Atreides, he was completely excised from part two of the story where in the original Dune novels he had a bit more going on where he was working for their Harkonnens.

He was kind of manipulated into working for them.

Like he had poison and they would give him the antidote every day, but he was manipulating things behind the scenes.

I think smartly for the movie to keep things a bit more streamlined, a bit more tight, he was excised.

There’s so much cool stuff that they could have shown.

But yeah, in this case, you know, Fade Rautha, obviously it was set up where he would fight slaves, but they would be drugged ahead of time, so it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

In this case, I think in the books, it was Thurfer Hawat who did this, but in the movie it was Baron Harkonnen.

He sent one of the slaves out without being drugged, so he was at full capacity.

And he says something about, it was like, yeah, now we’ll get to see who he really is.

And so he, like, Fede Rautha goes out there, played by, was it, Austin Butler.

Amazing, amazing job.

I didn’t really know this kid.

I think his big breakout role was really Elvis Presley and Elvis, like, last year, the year before.

I haven’t actually seen him.

This is my first time seeing him.

Phenomenal job.

This kid’s going places.

He was sadistic, but also there was like a twisted sense of honor where he was like, he defeats the first two drug slaves, no problem.

But this last guy, one of the captured Atreides soldiers from the first movie, and he’s like putting up more of a fight.

And he looks up at his uncle and he’s like, and he decides he has the shields on, right?

To protect himself.

So he’s like, he takes off the shield.

So it’s like, no, I’m going to fight him.

Like, no more advantages.

Like he’s not poisoned or he’s not drugged up.

And so it’s like, know what?

I’m going to take the shield off.

I’m going to prove myself against an equal opponent.

And he goes and fights.

And, you know, I love Baron Harkin and go back.

He’s like, there he is.

He’s like, oh, you revealed his two characters.

Like he’s a psychopath.

And I think they, the Benny Jessert, when they’re talking and they’re plotting, they literally call him like, yeah, no, he’s a sociopath.

He is, he is, he’s not right in the head, but he’s, he’s got this weird twisted kind of sense of honor where he’s like, no, I’m going to fight this battle and prove to everyone, maybe it’s a sense of pride, maybe, and prove to everyone that’s like, yeah, I earn this, right?

It’s not just because they’re all drugged.

I can’t hold my own in a real actual battle, right?

I do like that.

Like the Baron, I think he talks to him afterwards.

He’s just like, that was your birthday gift right there, like having him not drugged.

I love that he was like super angry with him.

It was like he was ready to kill his uncle.

It’s like, what are you doing, Egg of Earth?

They’re trying to have some fun just killing some slaves.

What are you doing?

Putting me in real mortal danger.

He makes him more of a legend.

And I think to your point of like improving his character, making him more like honorable and like he’s following certain codes, even as twisted as he is.

I believe in the book I read in his duel with Paul, he ends up, he like nicks him with like a poison blade at one point.

Oh, he tries to cheat and hit him with a poison blade.

Oh yeah.

Exactly.

And it’s like in the movie version, no, there’s no poison blades or anything.

He legitimately tags him with a stab to the gut.

And it’s just Paul is just too good to like let that slow him down.

But it makes him more honorable.

It made him just like, it’s a little more tragic.

It’s like he is in, he’s still a sociopath, but in their little world, the Harkonnen world, like he’s still was an honorable guy to the end essentially.

Yeah, I love that final battle too, where like Paul does like, made that knife chip and shatter.

And then he says, made thy knife chip and shatter.

It’s almost like he’s discovered, like, oh, that’s interesting.

I like that.

I think I’ll take that.

But by the whole, was he mocking it or was he like embracing it?

I think it was like half and half where he was like, almost like he was going to take it and twist it to his own twisted purposes.

But the whole scene of Gaty Prime and like the fireworks were almost like liquid fireworks in the sky.

Yeah, that was surreal.

The whole black and white sequence, that was super amazing.

And then of course, was it Leah Sidoux playing Lady Fenrig, showing again, like I think through a couple really quick, really efficient beats with the Benny Jesser, just showing how they’re manipulating things behind the scenes in the books.

They use their sexuality a lot to manipulate people.

That was really shown really clearly where she’s like leading him to the bedroom.

They do the Gom Jabbar test, and she also gets pregnant with his child right away.

So it’s like, yeah, we got the bloodline locked down.

We’re good to go.

But I love that whole scene where she’s in that corridor where she’s not supposed to be, and he starts walking with her and talking.

And the camera is doing close ups of them as they’re kind of walking together.

And then there’s a shot where they’re outside her chamber, and he looks around and he doesn’t know how he got there.

I thought that was really cool.

It was like, okay, she’s manipulating him, either using the voice or using some kind of psychological trick where he doesn’t even know time and space.

I was like, oh, it’s like, okay, the Benny Jesser, they got some tricks up their sleeves.

That was a neat way to show, don’t tell, right?

It’s like, oh, that was Chef’s Kiss.

And it also, I mean, that scene too, where it’s just like, oh yeah, she’s pregnant.

She’s got the bloodline going.

In your mind after the movie is over, like, fade here, he’s dead, but like, he has a kid coming who possibly wants revenge or something for a future installment to like continue.

Because in the back of your head, you know, there’s a lot of novel to source from.

It’s like, there’s a lot of characters.

This kid is going to become a character at some point as well.

Or not, who knows.

Lots can happen in 15 years.

There’s a 15 year time jump between Dune and Dune Messiah.

That was the one of the other things that when I was reading the book years ago and I’m watching the movie, I’m like, I’m pretty sure a lot of time passed in the book.

And I was kind of verified myself afterwards.

I think two or three years passed at least before he started taking on the training of the Fremen.

And they started going out on the raids against the Harkonnen, the Spice Harvesters.

That was another major change from the books, the movies, and it bears some commentary.

Because in the book, there’s a two year time jump, during which time obviously, you know, Lady Jessica is established to be pregnant.

So she bears Paul’s sister that time in the books, Aliyah.

And then also, I’ve forgotten about this, but Paul and Chani actually had a son originally, who was then killed before they’d gone on their raid of Arakine when the Emperor shows up.

I think it was smart for them not to do it, because one of the big changes from the book to the movie was that Aliyah, by the end of the movie, still hasn’t been born.

Aliyah is Paul’s sister.

In the movie, she’s still unborn.

I think it was a really, really smart decision not to have her born because I just watched the 1984 version of Dune and to have a two-year-old character running around behaving like an adult.

Spoiler alert, in the books, Aliyah, at two years old, the tender age of two years old, she murders the Baron Harkonnen to get revenge.

She’s like, and that’s where it gets kind of weird because she’s super advanced, like age, physically and everything, and mentally, because of the water of life that she was exposed to during the pregnancy, and it’s like probably a wise move to get revenge.

Yeah, in the books, it’s super messed up because she gets full adult consciousness and awareness as a fetus in the womb, which, psychologically, that’s going to scar anybody.

Plus, you got the a thousand generations of memories you have access to through that whole process of becoming a Reverend Mother.

It was enough that they were able to communicate, like just talk to each other in the movie.

It’s like Jessica and Aaliyah.

Yeah.

I thought that was like they got across the essence of the character was like, this character is not right.

It’s super creepy having Lady Jessica literally talking to her fetus, her unborn daughter this whole time.

And then we get that really awesome surprise.

I didn’t look up the cast beforehand, so like it was a super surprise.

It’s like flash forward, Anya Taylor-Joy, spoilers, shows up as a future version of Aaliyah that I think Paul has a vision of the future and she’s telling him like, yeah, I love you, brother, and you’re doing the right thing.

And for those, I don’t want to spoil everything for people who haven’t yet read Dune Messiah and that stuff, but Aaliyah plays a huge role in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

There’s a huge role for her to play.

So even if it’s just Dune Messiah, that’s going to be awesome to see her if they do this and Anya Taylor-Joy is back.

It’s amazing.

But they captured the essence of Aaliyah really as this to use the Dune speak.

And I think they bring up this word at one point, abomination, where she’s like, yeah, it’s not natural for this fetus.

It’s not healthy for this fetus to have full adult awareness, to have the memories of a thousand generations and to be not yet even born.

That has some serious, serious psychological side effects later on.

And to have Lady Jessica creepily talking to her womb about how they’re going to manipulate the unbeliever, convert the unbelievers, you know, at one point in the movie.

And like and her walking back and forth talking to her like there’s conversations where like Paul is talking to Jessica and Jessica is like, oh yeah, your sister doesn’t think you should do this.

Or your sister thinks you should come south with us to the stronghold of the firm and true believers as is weird back and forth.

It’s like it’s super eerie and it’s super weird.

There’s a couple of shots of the fetus in the womb.

And I think it gets across the essence of the character of Aliyah without going.

I don’t think there’s a don’t think even if you had CGI, even if you had the best child actor in the world, I don’t think there’s an uncanny valley.

I think there’s human, there’s something psychologically human or something about human psychology where you just cannot cross that border.

We have a toddler behaving and talking like an adult and it would just like it would take you out of the movie.

I think it works in a comedic setting, right?

I think you could play for comedy, but for like in a more grounded, realistic take, like there’s no amount of CGI.

There’s no amount of two-year-old actors out there, the quality of two-year-old actors that could pull this off and make it and not pull you completely out of the story and have them going around murdering people and doing stuff.

I thought it was a perfect way to encapsulate Alia and then have Paul in the movie version.

He’s the one who kills Baron Harkonnen.

I think it was a perfect kind of narrative symmetry where he gets revenge for the death of his father.

I love that when he kills Baron Harkonnen and is like, yeah, hi grandfather, you’re going to die like an animal.

It’s like so cold and so harsh.

It’s like, oh my God, this is-

That was one of the big reveals at the end, which I kind of forgot about from the book is that Jessica is the Baron’s daughter.

Yeah.

She didn’t know-

It becomes knowledge to her.

She didn’t know until that moment when she drank the water of life, that gives her all this knowledge.

But that was kind of surreal seeing that.

Were there any other things that took you by surprise in the movie?

That one took me by surprise, but just because I didn’t remember from the book.

It’s funny because they mention it so much and it comes into play huge.

That combined heritage comes into play in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, especially.

But I hadn’t thought about it.

So when he said it again, he’s like, oh yeah, that’s right.

There was that kind of complication to these two great houses.

Obviously, again, it was to show that manipulation by the Benny Jesser.

They were controlling the bloodlines and deciding who was marrying who behind the scenes, kind of like without people even knowing that they were being manipulated.

It’s a great way to show that I forgot about that.

Yeah, I think the destruction of Siege Taber, I don’t think that happened in the book, but in the movie.

I was reading in the book, basically, I don’t think they destroyed it.

They raid it and they’re inside and it’s like there might be a mass murder happening or they control it.

Just some light treason as they would say in the rest of the film.

Just some light war crimes.

Some light war crimes, you know?

Yeah.

But yeah, seeing that destruction on screen was like, oh my God, because in the movie, it focuses on, this is a pool of water.

This isn’t really the only reservoir of water that we really see until that moment.

It was just like, oh, this is only, this is the dead’s water.

This is their water returned to us.

And it’s like nobody drinks from this.

And then seeing it destroyed like that later on was like, oof.

Like I had had an extra impact, I think, when you watch it.

I mean, to them, to the Fremen who live on this desert planet, who live such this really kind of, when you think about like a really pathetic life, pathetic in the sense of pathos, not in sense of being, but like to have to recycle their own sweat and urine just to survive, living in such squalid conditions.

And then see like, yeah, there are desert people, they value water more than anything else.

And they’re saving up that water because they have this dream of essentially using that water to terraform their planet.

And it’s like to see what water meant to them, to see like Siege Tapper where you had like, that was Stilgar’s home and Chinese home, and it becomes Paul and Jessica’s home.

And to see that destroyed, there was a great way to really up the stakes in the movie in a really visual format where you see like, oh yeah, there you see the explosions, you say, oh yeah, like this is where we spent most of the time with most of our main characters and to have their home destroyed.

It was a really great way visually of showing how they were upping the stakes or what the motivation for the main characters was, right?

I got to talk about Dave Partista’s character here for a few moments.

The Beast Rabban, right?

The Beast.

This one surprised me.

He was in it a little more than I thought he was going to be.

And I thought he was a little more nuanced in this one because like, presumably like I’m watching this and like they’re launching their attacks against the Harkidins and their Spice production.

And it’s like, in my mind, years are passing.

I don’t know if that’s actually happening in the movie or not.

But Rabban, like, he sends out like groups of people to sort of like fight the Fremen, but it’s kind of half-hearted when their later plans are revealed.

It’s like the Baron finds out and just like, oh, we’re going to, I’m going to send in Fade here later.

And his first move is like just launching, like just destroying an entire mountain, right?

It’s just like with all these missiles, you’re like Rabban could have done this the entire time, but chose not to.

And there’s like this element where he’s like, I think this Baron guy might actually be going a bit too far.

It’s like there might be some earned respect.

I think this Baron guy might not be on the up enough.

I don’t know.

My uncle might be a little crazy, but he’s a little unhinged himself.

But there must be some earned respect there for the Fremen people.

And part of it is the arrogance of the Harkonnen, who don’t even believe that there’s that many Fremen.

But he’s been fighting them for years now and not really using any real strategy.

And then he actually gets down on the ground with his troops and they’re just taken out so easily.

And he just turns tail and starts running.

It’s like, oh yeah, this guy.

Well, it’s really interesting how they set him up.

He’s almost like the blunt object.

He’s like a hammer.

And then Fade Rautha was really like the scalpel.

He’s competent.

He can get the job done.

Raban is never set up as a leader.

I think in the books, I could be mistaken, but I think it was part of the Baron’s plan, is send Raban as an incompetent leader.

And then later on you send Fade Rautha in.

And he’s almost like, because he’s competent, that he’s almost a savior to the people and lift it up.

So I think in the books, that was made more explicit.

I think rightfully so in the movies, they were focused on the theme of, you know, Paul’s journey of becoming this tyrant.

Again, using the words of Dune, tyrant becomes especially important later on.

You know, focusing on that as opposed to some of the, you know, trimming some of these, some of these kind of side branches and really, you know, having Raban be there to show is like, oh yeah, this guy is, he’s a beast, he’s an animal, he’s, he only knows his violence.

But then like Fade Rautha comes in and he, Fade Rautha is a master of both violence, but also kind of manipulation and he’s intelligent.

And like that scene where he like knocks Raban to the ground and is like, kiss my boot.

Brother is like, this just shows like Raban is like built up to be this big, tough guy.

And he’s really, he runs from fights.

He is servile to his brother.

He’s like, there’s a big build.

I love how this is a big build up.

I think maybe other people might have found it anticlimactic, but there’s a big build up.

Like when Gurney Halleck comes back and they’re doing the raid on the Capitol, Arakeen, and he meets up with Raban, he’s like, oh, Gurney Halleck back from the dead.

He thinks it’s going to be this big blowout fight.

And it’s like Gurney just takes this guy down.

It was like, no problem.

It was like, I love that.

He was built up to be this big machine.

He was like, no, it was all hype.

And he was like, it was all overblown.

I also too love talking about Dave Bautista and why he’s my favorite of the wrestler turn actors is because can you imagine someone like The Rock allowing his character to be forced to the ground and kiss somebody else’s boot or to be killed off in like two seconds?

No, because Dave Bautista is there.

He’s there to serve the, he’s there to do what the character needs and what the story needs.

He’s will, he doesn’t like, there’s no trace of ego there, right?

Where he’s like, no, my character is going to be a servile coward who kisses his brother’s boots.

It doesn’t fight back.

And then like goes to loses a fight against his bitter rival in three seconds.

Like that’s, I think that speaks to the Dave Bautista’s ability as a collaborator, which I think if you’re working in movies as an actor in front of or behind the camera, you have to be a collaborator.

And to me, that just shows like he’s got no ego, right?

He just goes and does what the character needs and does what the movie needs.

And it was so great to see like, I love that.

There’s a subversion of expectations where you expect Raban to be this big boss.

He’s not even like a mid-level boss.

He’s just a regular goon, right?

It’s nepotism.

He happened to be born in the right family, right?

And there’s a scene where it’s outside the Baron’s, his little oil chamber of healing.

The oil chamber of healing.

Raban is going up and you hear the screams of the Baron’s assistants being murdered inside.

And he just sort of looks at the guards and it’s just like, yeah, it’s just, it’s those little looks here and there.

That’s like that acting really comes through.

And it’s just like, oh yeah, this guy is a true psycho in here.

Also, I got to shout out to the real heroes of the story, the HR department of the Harkonnen regime, because to deal with the amount of just random deaths, because they were just like, well, Fade is like, he gets a knife, he tests the point of it on his tongue, and then he tests like the long blade part by just killing whoever’s standing next to him.

It’s just like, man, you got to give it to the Harkonnen Human Resources Department.

They’re probably working overtime to deal with all these incidents.

That’s a movie I want to see.

Incredible.

Just incredible.

Yeah, there’s one other change that I really liked in the movie version.

It had to do with the Fremen, where it was shown in Dune Part Two, where the Southern Fremen and the Northern Fremen tribes, they were kind of different in terms of their culture, in terms of their religious beliefs, where the Southern Fremen tribes are really hardcore into the, into the religious beliefs of the Messiah and all the prophecy.

The Northern tribes were a bit more skeptical and they didn’t buy into all necessarily all the, the Son of El-Gaib or the Messiah prophecies as much.

And I thought that was such a great idea, because that wasn’t in the books at all.

In the books, the Fremen culture is a lot more monolithic and they’re just like, they’re just there and like they all kind of believe and do the same thing all the time.

So to see that also is kind of neat to see like the young Fremen, they were talking about like, what are you talking about?

Like the Messiah, it’s all made up, it’s nonsense.

And see the older Fremen was like, hey, show some respect.

Like Muad’Dib is the Messiah.

Like you got to believe like it’s important.

Like don’t interrupt my prayers.

I’m trying to pray here.

Do you like the difference between old and young?

Did you see the difference between like, oh, the North, they believe this and the South believe this and just gives that a bit more color and a bit more, like they felt like an actual, you know, a real group of people, a real society.

We’re like, oh yeah, they’re not all monolithic.

They don’t all just, they’re not just like a bunch of like a colony of ants who just like follow the leader.

It’s like, oh yeah, they’re individual tribes and individual seaches.

And you know, the younger generation is going to be more skeptical of stuff the older generation believes.

It’s like, oh yeah, that’s made them feel like a real people, like more fully fleshed out in a way that you never really got that sense in the book.

So that was a really like a subtle change, but a really, really effective change in building up the character of the Fremen.

Really, really, really, really enjoyed that.

It was a really great decision.

Another little scene that I enjoyed was the baby worm.

That one caught me by surprise.

I don’t remember for the book, but I was just like, what is this little thing?

And the little tiny standworm comes out and then they extract the juices from them, that blue Gatorade.

Never look at blue Gatorade the same after this movie.

Yeah, but it was also like, I don’t know, I like that.

It’s like we have his little stand home here, and then we have his water tomb.

It’s just like, we’re going to drown the worm.

It’s like these things can be killed.

They’ve got to be pretty tiny, which kind of brings us into the main centerpiece, the action finale, assault on Arakeen.

What were they even attacking?

I mean, I know it was the Emperor’s ship.

Well, it was like Arakeen, which was the capital of Arrakis, aka Dune.

But essentially, it was also cool too, because sometimes descriptions of geography in books can be a little bit kind of amorphous, and I can’t always visualize it.

But the shield wall was essentially a mountain range that protected Arakeen from the worms.

The worms couldn’t go through it, because there was a mountain range.

There was sheer rock down through it.

They were attacking the capital where the Harkons had set up.

That’s where the emperor had come and brought his gold ship there.

This chrome ship?

Chrome, yeah.

That was a great shot too, with the chrome ship comes alive.

The landscape was reflecting on the bottom.

It was like, oh my God, that was amazing.

So they had to use the family atomics from the Atreides family atomics, blow up the shield wall.

Essentially, they’re blowing up a hole in a mountain range.

Honestly, I was a bit lost there.

Because for some reason, I was thinking about the books where they literally launched their lasers at the shield wall to blow it up, creating those atomic blasts.

But in the movie and maybe in the book as well, they just straight up used the atomics that every house has stored.

Well, I think the reason that they wouldn’t use, because I love how it’s perfectly balanced in the books, whereas you have personal shields that can protect you against projectiles.

Then you have lasers, like, okay, lasers.

But then lasers hitting a shield will create, potentially create an atomic level explosion.

But that explosion can happen anywhere along the path of that laser.

It could happen closer to the shield.

It could happen closer to the laser.

So that’s why you don’t see, or you see lasers being used judiciously throughout the movie.

They’ll just go all willy-nilly because you could create atomic explosion right in your face.

So that’s the reason why they don’t do that, even though they know that that causes the explosion.

So there’s a perfect really logical explanation in the books, why this, or in the world building of Dune, why they use the atomics and not the shield laser explosion.

That was me nerding out for 30 seconds on that.

That’s what this podcast is right now.

Actually, Brian.

Well, no, I was legitimately confused, not confused, confused, but I remember a big explosion in the movie.

I was like, did they use the atomics there?

I thought I remembered lasers in the book, and it’s just like it all comes together, it all makes sense now.

That’s why I need to go watch it a second time.

Blow the hole in the shield wall, blowing a hole in the mountain range using atomics, and then that allows for the army riding on the backs of sandworms and stuff to get through, which was to see the sandworms in all their glory.

Oh my God.

You can even see it in the trailer there, where it’s like the three sandworms come out of the dust storm.

And the Sardaukar, who are the elite army, we focus on 20 or 30 of them in the frame, and some of them just turn around and start running.

Another guy in the frame, he’s holding his sword like, I’m going to fight a worm today.

It’s just like he’s not giving up, and they just get consumed and just die.

I love how the Sardaukar were still built up.

They’re still both of these great warriors.

The Sardaukar were the emperors, special elite troops.

I love how after the explosion of the shield wall, all the boulders are coming down, the pieces of the mountain are coming down, crushing people.

I love how it shows them getting back up and reforming their lines again.

It’s like, okay, they are disciplined.

These guys are hardcore.

They’re not going to let a little thing like an exploding mountain stop them.

And even when the worms come, it’s like it’s an atomic blast.

How much radiation could that be?

No problem.

And the worms come and a couple of them run, but they still like hold their lines.

Okay, the Sardaukar, they’re a legitimate threat.

They’re legitimate.

They’re not just going to roll over.

They’re not a bunch of stormtroopers who are just going to fall down one shot.

It’s like they are a legitimate threat.

That was really cool to show the Sardaukar.

They’re living up to their reputation, right?

Man, I mean, it was bonkers.

But there’s one more thing I wanted to mention.

They do ride the worms.

You get to see that.

It’s pretty awesome.

We do not get to see anybody get off of a worm.

So I kind of want to know because they, like, when they’re, like, when Lady Jessica is going down south, she’s got a tent on top of the worm, like, we got 30 people riding on a worm.

Like, this thing can transport lots of people.

It’s huge.

We don’t get to see how they get off of the worm.

Like, is the worm always in motion?

Is it like a horse?

Can you bring it to a stop?

Yeah, I think it’s…

These worms are pretty, like, violent and aggressive, right?

They can be.

So I think, first of all, A, when Paul goes out to do his final trial and ride the worm, that whole scene from him putting the thumper in and the worm coming across and, like, still garg, like, it’s like a little commuter thing.

It’s like, oh, no, not that big.

It’s like the biggest worm anybody ever seen.

And he comes to the dune and he’s, like, falling down with the sand as it goes through the dune.

And he’s, like, getting the hooks into the worm’s, like, segmented body there.

The whole scene was, like, even though they kind of showed that a little bit in the trailers, like, it was still one of those scenes, like, to see it on the big screen was just amazing.

But to your point, they can actually bring worms to a stop.

They show it in other books.

I don’t know if they talk about it in the first book.

I just know because other books are more recent in my mind.

So they can’t bring them to a stop.

But even because what they’re doing is when they pull up the, it’s like a bunch of ridges and they expose it.

They’ve prevented it from, like, going into the sand, right?

Yeah, they expose, like, there’s a softer kind of underbelly, I guess, of, like, the sandworm doesn’t want sand getting into all its, like, soft pink fleshy parts.

But if you, like, if you pull up one side more than the other, it’ll turn to a certain direction and you can actually, they can stop them, they can, or they can, what they can do is pull up besides, my theory was, like, you see, like, when Paul gets on his, he’s standing on top of a dune and the sandworm kind of, he’s using geography to his advantage.

So my thought was to get, like, the baskets on top and stuff when they come to a stop, it’s like, oh, they pull up beside, like, a big dune and they just, like, kind of unload there.

So it’s like, almost like an airport unloading zone.

It’s like, use the geography.

Sandport, yeah.

Use your, yeah, sandport.

Use the geography to your advantage, right?

It’s like, you pull up beside a nice dune, get everybody and their luggage offloaded, and then deal with, like, you know, Fremont customs, which I assume is going to be a couple of deaths going through Fremont customs, at least, or a couple of duels to the death, probably.

A couple of duels to the death.

I feel like they do enjoy their duel to the death.

I mean, the entire, like, the emperor, like, Paul challenged him to a duel to the death to take the throne.

As one will.

And Faye, you know, volunteer, be like, I’ll be your champion.

I mean, that’s how I got my promotion to work.

I challenged my boss to a duel, and I defeated him, and then I took his position in his corner office.

I mean, that’s not how you do it.

It’s your job, right?

Duel to the death.

There’s one thing I wanted to see was like, because I think the gift, Lady Jessica, one of the crisp knives, which is like one of the teeth of the word.

And I was like, I want to see more of that.

And I think there’s more discussion of it in the books.

I wanted to see like Paul pull out like his crisp knife.

That’s like really sweet.

And I wanted to see that thing cut other knives.

And well, isn’t is he?

I can’t remember.

Is he using a crisp knife in the final final duel with Faye Drotha there?

It wasn’t clear to me.

And I think that’s where it’s just like, oh, I need to see more of these.

I don’t think they even see it again.

Yeah, you don’t really see him again afterwards.

But it’s like, yeah, it’s just little.

But man, so freaking epic.

Yeah, so so much stuff.

Another thing I’m glad they left out was in the books after he kills Jamis, which happened at the beginning of the first movie.

It goes into a whole thing where he or Paul inherited Jamis’s wife and family afterwards.

I remember that.

Yeah.

I’m glad they left that out.

That again, that was like a product of its time.

It feels like we’re obviously patriarchal society.

And it’s like, oh, yeah.

And I think Frank Herbert was kind of pulling on kind of older tribal traditions.

But I’m glad they got rid of that.

The kind of awkward even Paul’s legitimate child with Chani is killed before they do their their main raid.

And I remember reading the book and it was like Paul had already become like kind of unhinged at that point.

And as I recall, he didn’t really care that much that his kid had been killed.

He seems very just like books.

He seems very callous, like Chani is stricken with grief and Lady Jessica’s comforter.

Yeah, they’re a lot more like Lady Jessica is a lot more like a lot closer to Chani in the books.

They’re not super.

They’re not BFFs, but she’s they’re not as antagonistic because they are in the movies.

Great choice of movies, by the way.

But yeah, like by that point, like you can see, like Paul is already becoming kind of power mad in the books.

But it also clears up because there’s a he’s Leto the second.

But then they have twins later on and a boy and a girl who is also the boys also named Leto the second.

So it’s like I think that they were smart to clear that up.

It’s like there’s only one Leto the second now.

That’s pretty fair.

Oh, man.

Is there anything else we want to throw out there before we get into ratings here?

Um, no, I think we covered kind of all the all the major points.

It was just a couple of points just really gave me chills when Paul Moody was doing his, you know, his when he finally embraced the role of Lisan El-Gaib, he embraced the role of savior of Messiah.

Like it was there were chills kind of running down my spine when when that final that like when the Atomics blew up the mountain and then the Sandworms coming through chills with that final duel with like perfectly silhouetted against the sun and that in that room.

And there was no music playing.

I think for the whole fight, there’s no soundtrack.

It was just the sound of them fighting, literally getting chill.

Even though I knew how it ended, even though Paul knew how it ended.

Yeah, yeah.

It was like a credit to Denis Villeneuve as a storyteller to like build that tension into somebody.

Like we know one of the guys can see the future and how everything ends.

And he’s shown us the future.

He’s shown us his visions and they tell us, oh, I just drank the water of the worm here.

And now I can see with like perfect clarity.

We see the future.

Paul’s there.

He’s doing things and to have that fight.

I think this is the point you’re getting to.

It was just like, still have that tension, especially when he first gets stabbed.

You’re like, oh, maybe the future could be changed.

He was overconfident.

You know, it was like, how much are they going to deviate from the book?

I was like, that was really cool.

But that was also a nice call back to the first movie where he gets the better of Gernie Halleck when they’re dueling for a practice dueling.

But then he’s like, oh yeah, look down.

I was like, oh yeah, he would have joined me in death.

It’s almost like, you know, oh yeah, like he’s taking advantage of, obviously, he fades right with his pride, as Benny Gesserit said, and his arrogance.

But also it’s like a nice call back to the first movie.

So really, really well done.

But like everything in the movie, like all the things that were cut, like the, you know, there’s so much thematically going on, like with the anti or their distrust of technology and the world building.

We talked about the Butlerian Jihad, which is essentially purging like anything but the most basic of computing devices.

And that’s why they have Mentats, essentially human computers.

You know, that would have been cool to see, but I understand why they got rid of that part of the story because that was kind of tangential to the main underlying theme of the dangers of the charismatic leader.

And Paul was being trained as a Mentat in his youth.

Yeah, that’s the whole thing.

Like Paul was like he was a Mentat.

He was the Duke of like one of the most powerful families.

He was the leader of the, he became the leader of the Fremen, the messianic figure.

So we had like, you know, the political, intellectual, religious powers, all united into one under charismatic leader.

And like you see what happens.

That final, that final order he gives to the Fremen.

I think, what does he say?

Lead them to paradise?

Such a chilling line, especially you look at modern history and you look at some of these religious beliefs of some, some of the terrorists, terrorist acts that we’ve seen those beliefs about, oh, if I, if I die, you know, the service of my religion, I’ll go to paradise with, you know, 92 virgins or whatever it is.

So like that, that whole thing, lead them to paradise is such like an Orwellian kind of line of like, oh yeah, they’re going to lead them to paradise.

All right.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

It’s like, yeah.

And then to see Stilgar at the end.

And he’s like, ah, screaming as he gets on the ship to see Stilgar completely enveloped by that religious zealotry and by this holy mission, it was something smart where they showed specifically, I think in the ending of the first Dune book, they don’t specifically show the jihad.

I think they may mention of it, but to show like this movie ends, like they’re clearly going out to start their holy war, and this jihad, this crusade is like, oh yeah, this is Paul Muad’Dib, he’s the protagonist, he is not the good guy, right?

All of a sudden is like the reality of what has happened fully comes home to see these Stilgar and the other Fremen caught up in that fanaticism going off to wage war.

This is some really dark stuff, especially considering modern history, I mean really all of human history, but modern history in the past quarter century really.

It’s an incredibly, incredibly poignant, prescient, frightening scene, powerful scene, we didn’t talk about cerebral sci-fi, it’s incredibly powerful.

Yeah, Denis Villeneuve was absolutely right, I think the choices he made to trim Aaliyah or hint at Aaliyah, trim some of the Mentat stuff, trim some of the characters.

I know there was Lady Fenrig was in there, Lord Fenrig, I think, Tim Blake Nelson I think actually filmed scenes as Lord Fenrig, but he got cut, probably rightfully so, for pacing.

It was really, really incredibly well done.

Like to me, Dune One and Dune Two form a single movie, in my mind.

I’m so, so glad we have both these movies now to tell this whole story and, you know, for an unfilmable novel, I think Denis Villeneuve made an impressive counterpoint to show how it can actually be filmed and be filmed well.

That’s one of the interesting things, the history of trying to adapt Dune is almost like its own myth where, yeah, I think they tried to make a series out of it before, even before David Lynch’s Dune, Jodorowsky’s Dune, I think.

Yes.

That was the most legendary failure, yeah.

Yeah, the budget blew out of proportion.

I don’t know the full detail.

We get David Lynch’s Dune, he like disowns the project afterwards.

He doesn’t like it.

But it gets like a cult following.

It’s like, it has its charms.

Yeah, there were a couple made for TV, like there are a couple of mini-series, like I think Dune and Children of Dune back in the early 2000s, what I didn’t know about.

I’m going to look these up now, track them down.

And you think, oh, this actually, if it’s unfilmable as a movie, yeah, let’s try it as a TV series.

And even now, when you’re reading about it, it’s like Villeneuve says he will definitely do like a part three.

That’ll be his trilogy.

But they also mentioned a TV series as well that may expand beyond the original trilogy to sort of continue the story.

And I think they’re calling it Dune Prophecy right now.

But yeah, there’s been different TV adaptations.

And it’s just like, there’s a lot of Dune out there.

And it’s really neat to, it’s an awesome time to be a fan.

And having a lot of people pulled in for like just the uncomparable quality of like this adaptation, the changes they made is just like, it makes so much sense for the format, the medium, and it’s just for the story of the characters.

Like everything works so well in this movie.

It’s awesome.

And like, I don’t know, it’s really neat to go back and experience the books again.

Yeah, I’ll definitely be continuing to read them.

I have to start up Dune Messiah next maybe.

Awesome.

Get through Children of Dune too before the inevitable third film comes out.

Yeah, I really hope that that’s going to come to fruition.

And I understand.

Yeah, there is some reticence, I think, among fans even, of trying to film some of the later Dune books, especially something like God Emperor of Dune where things get, A, really weird, but also B, it’s mostly just like people sitting in rooms talking about philosophies of power and religion and society.

And it’s like, it doesn’t maybe lend itself well cinematically, but yeah, I mean, one of the first thoughts I had was, like, there’s so much content and so much ground to cover.

In my mind, Dune makes perfect sense as like a Game of Thrones style TV show, where you can really delve into the mythology.

And it was incredibly large and fleshed out cast of characters that you can go into, you can spend whole episodes with, you know, Gurney Halleck or Thurfer Hawat and all these different people.

Like, I would honestly, now that I’ve gotten the movies, I love the movies, I love the books to see what they do, like to see how they would do this in a really high budget TV show.

Like, we’re still living, I think, in a golden age of TV.

You just see with, you know, there’s even ongoing Game of Thrones series.

They’re still popular, still really well done.

So to see like a Dune style TV show in that same level of quality and that same kind of level of care, I think it would work really well in terms of telling that, you know, unpacking like all that stuff in Dune.

There’s so much to unpack in Dune.

Like, you could have this run for 20 seasons, still not cover everything in Dune.

It is, to the credit of critics, like Dune is an incredibly dense book.

When you start reading it, there’s so much to be said.

So the fact that, you know, we got not just one movie so far, but like three movies made of this, and two of them were amazing.

And the other one was pretty good in its own right.

I’m not going to like the David Fincher, not David Fincher.

That would be, that would be hell of a Dune adaptation, David Lynch version.

Some eccentricities, but it was still, I had a good time watching it.

I mean, I think we’re incredibly lucky that we had that we were able to see, see these adaptations and have them be as good as they are.

Do you want to do ratings or are we good for that?

Yeah, I mean, I think people might be able to guess what we might rate this, but yeah, we can do ratings, I guess.

Yeah, so I mean, just a reminder, we use a five-star rating system with a possible like bonus on top.

Yeah, I think I know what your rating is, but hit me with it, please.

Yeah, I mean, Dune Part Two is obviously a five-star rating.

I think considering both Dunes together, I would give it five stars with the hearts.

I might give Dune Two alone, five stars with the heart maybe, but in my mind, I feel like two parts of one single story.

But yeah, an easy five stars and a heck of a way to start off really my 2024 film watching.

It’s like, that was the first 2024 film I’ve watched.

It’s going to be, I don’t want to say all downhill from here, but it’s going to be tough to maintain.

It’s a tough act to follow for the rest of the year.

How about you, Brian?

What was your rating on Dune Part Two?

Oddly enough, I think when I first logged in, I gave it five stars.

I was like, you know what?

I think maybe four and a half is more appropriate.

That’s why I recorded it as, I don’t know why.

I honestly don’t know.

I knew this was coming.

We talked about it for this life and time.

I’m loving it.

I’m really looking forward to going out and seeing this again.

It’s a five-star film.

The first film, I also gave four and a half, because as we talked about before, it felt like just half a movie.

But no, it’s five stars too.

It’s 10 stars for two parts.

Two like bonuses on top of all that.

I’d have to agree.

There’s no reason to rate it any lower.

This was just…

Yeah, I think it’s just being nitpicky and being like, I’m always reticent to rate things like 100% the first time I see them, like movies that is.

I always want to get things time to gestate, but it’s been a week since I’ve seen Dune Part Two.

And those first couple of days, I was going to watch another movie the same night, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch another movie.

I was still overwhelmed.

It took like two or three days to process everything I’ve seen on the screen.

Very few movies have that impact on me, where I’m just like, I’m in awe days, weeks after.

But even like a week later, it’s still pretty soon after watching it, but it’s enough time for the hype factor to die down, and I’m still loving this movie.

So I think to call this early in the game a five stars or six out of five, I think I’m comfortable with that.

That’s pretty fair.

Incredible.

Is that a wrap?

Do you want to do the ratings across the globe?

Ratings across the globe?

Yeah, I almost forgot about that.

They’re pretty high.

I shouldn’t even give you a hint at what they are, but yeah.

IMDb uses 10 stars, so what do you think is the average IMDb user rating for Dune Part Two?

8.7.

Very close.

It’s 8.9.

At the time of recording, it could fluctuate, but that’s really high for IMDb.

Super high, yeah.

Ron Tomato, they use a percentage, so 0 to 100.

Critic and audience, what do you think their ratings have landed at?

Critics, I’m going to say 89, and then audience, 93.

Close, but you’ve got to go higher, at 93% critic and 95% audience.

Oh, wow.

This is a huge movie.

And Letterbox, which is basically our platform of choice, that’s where you can find our profiles and all our ratings.

They also use the five-star system.

What do you think Letterbox average user rating is?

4.3.

4.6.

What?

Oh, my God.

4.6, and if you go to the Letterbox page, this is ranked number six amongst the Letterbox top 250 films of all time.

So take that however you will.

I think there’s going to be some shifting of that as it goes through.

I mean, like, I don’t know.

It’s always definitely recency bias.

Yeah.

100% for a lot of that stuff.

Speaking as a huge fan of the film, and I still think it’s like, okay, that seems pretty high for a movie that’s only been out for two weeks.

Yeah.

Pretty incredible.

Yeah.

But yeah, what a treat.

I mean, I couldn’t summarize it any better than you have already.

I mean, it’s just like, what a time to be alive.

What a time to be a movie lover.

Like, if you’re in the sci-fi at all, and based on all those ratings, like the audience rating and whatnot, it’s like, I think non-sci-fi fans can enjoy this.

I mean, there’s sci-fi elements to it, but as we mentioned before, it’s like there’s no computers.

There’s no crazy technology happening here.

There’s giant sand worms.

There’s sword fighting.

You know, there’s stuff going on.

It’s a lot more about the human relationships and the personal journeys of the characters than about…

There is crazy technology and world building, but it’s all kind of behind the scenes and it’s not…

You could set this story on planet Earth in modern day and with a few minor changes, like the political landscape and everything, but it’s about the character journeys and the character development.

So like, yes, incredibly…

It’s at once, it’s obviously a huge blockbuster action movie, but it’s an incredibly intimate movie.

And really, if you look back through Denis Villeneuve’s filmography, you can see all his stories.

You get the sense that these are all personal stories to him, going all the way back to Polytechnique and then Aux Indies and even more recently, Enemy and Prisoners.

Is it Prisoners or Prisoner?

I just lost all my street cred as a Denis Villeneuve fan.

But yeah, to see that, there’s always this intimacy to a Denis Villeneuve movie, even something like Blade Runner 2049, probably better analog, big budget, sci-fi, crazy technology, but the story is always about the characters and the character journeys and what’s going on, like their internal, where they end up, point A to point B, how they grow or how they fail, their triumphs and their tragedies.

And so I think that’s super accessible to really anybody, whether you’re a fan of sci-fi or not.

It’s about the characters and Denis Villeneuve understands that and it comes across and yeah, that’s what makes it accessible, I think.

As always, we appreciate you hanging out with us today and taking the time to listen to our podcast.

You can find us online over at reelfilmchronicles.com where we have not just a repository of podcast episodes but many of our written reviews as well.

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All the links should be within the show notes here.

So until next time, take care of yourself and others and be sure to enjoy your film journey.