KCxTPB: Dune Part Two

Weird Weird three to one. Welcome to the Projection Booth and the Culture Cast. It's a special crossover episode. I'm your host, Mike White, joining me, of course, as the host of the Culture Cast. Mister Chris Tashio, I prefer to be known as Chris Muadie.

You shall now be known as I am the strength at the base of the pillar. You always stroke the base. Don't forget the balls, don't forget them. We are back talking about Denis Villeneuve's Dune Dune Part two. I see strength in you, and now you need a war name.

It's time. I am Paul Frady, Duke of a rocket that is a night dude. Is there a better name for this? Or is it just Doune Part two? Is that what we're calling this?

I mean it, I think obviously, given that the narrative of the piece is a continuation of the last movie, not really a sequel, I think part two makes sense. Yeah, Chris, what did you think of Doune Part two? I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I enjoyed the first one. Oh yeah. I felt that while there were things in it that are again I think just a product of what the narrative is.

I think that it still has its problems. I'm not a big fan of Timothy shallow May's energy and what he brings to most things I've seen him, and he's just I don't know. I got about halfway through Wonka and I was like, this is so fucking twee and then he just that energy. He brings that energy all the time. And I think, for me, this might be the best I've seen him personally, because in terms of all I actually find the Paul character to be better executed in this movie than in anything else I've seen other than the TV show.

But that doesn't that never counted. That doesn't count now because it's a TV show, but because you're given plenty of time to do it, more time than these movies got. But I enjoyed it more. I think that the additions to the cast kind of amount to very little, if anything at all, other than Austin Butler. Uh, I'm not surprised to see that it looks like Christopher Walkin and Florence Pugh were on set one day.

Maybe I don't know, Like it's very weird. Some of the stuff is weird. And I mean, again, if you are to take a step back and look at David Lynch's doing, which I know you and I both have in the last two years since this movie came out, we've recorded commentaries, and I mean, you know, right after I saw this movie, like I watched Done one, I watched Doune two, I came home, I watched The Spice Diver at it. Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, the Spice Diver edit.

The original version of the movie has its own problems, and this movie somewhat falls into similar traps just based on the way the narrative is executed. But I actually think that this movie does a better job at finishing the story of the first book then I was expecting it to, given how poorly it executed the first half of the story. And I'm actually interested to see if they do make a third movie, because the narrative where it's left is more interesting than where the Lynch One leaves it. The Lynch One kind of leaves it, you know, blue Sky on Mars a little bit right at the end, which I mean it really that ending of the David Lynch always reminds me of total recall because it has that like and we changed everything and now it's all good and as two people who enjoy the book, that is not how the book at not even close, and this ends closer to the way the book at it closer, But yeah, I mean I'm talking about Yeah, I'm talking more about the broad narrative strokes of We're not left with the character of Paul at the end being like, oh, he's a babyface, white meat, good guy and there's no complexity to his character.

And I'm not saying that's the case with Kyle McLaughlin, but here there is a focus put on the intern struggle of Paul, which I do appreciate because that's part of the narrative. That is what makes the way the narrative is told so important, and I appreciate that Villeneuve and John Spates brought that to this. But look, it's three hours. That's a long time, and the last movie is three hours, So it's six hours of epic as fuck. Dune made to look epic and execute it epically, and it's going to resonate with a lot of people, and for the spectacle of it.

I enjoyed it for what it is. In terms of Doune it does not fire on all cylinders. But if we're talking about this solely as an epic piece of filmmaking, I think it checks all the box. But in terms of it being a good adaptation of Dune, that is a lot more subjective. Objectively, it's a well made, nice to look at film that looks like everything else to Neville, notovas made, which is to say it's well shot because he knows what he's doing.

What about you, mister Mike White, Yeah, I definitely enjoyed this one a lot more than the first movie as well. I don't know why. Was it just because there's no dumpkin Idaho in this one? I don't I don't think so. Way you didn't like Jason Momoa.

He was he was fine. He was fine, and it was nice to see Gurney again. I rewatching the first one. I was just like, man, doctor UEI got such a raw deal. That guy's barely in the movie, and it's really just not a whole lot of explanation of the Imperial conditioning and how Pider broke it and all these things.

I mean, Pider is barely in that movie as well. I'll tell you who else is barely in this movie, Aliyah. It is remarkable to me. So I over last weekend I interviewed Max every who wrote The Masterpiece of Disarray, the book about the David Lynch Stune, and he was like, Oh, well, you know, they there's that whole fast forwarding moment in Dune, the David Lynch Stune where it's like in the two standards years that followed blah blah blah blah blah, and they just fast forward through the narrative. And he was like, Oh, they do the same thing and doing part two.

And I was like, actually, they don't, because this whole movie takes place over a ninety month or less period of time. Because Jessica's pregnant at the beginning and she's still pregnant at the end, we never get to see Alia. I just kept wondering, how the hell are they gonna do Aliyah? Are they gonna do a little girl? They're gonna do some sort of bizarro cg creature like that awful baby in those Twilight movies.

Like, what were they gonna do with Aliyah? Well, we'll solve the problem by just not doing anything with her. We'll show her in the womb, and we'll show Anna Taylor Joy and a dream, that's it. So it is odd that Aliah of the Knife does not show up in this movie. There's some weird changes, and there's some that I like a lot.

I'm really glad that Gurny Halleck finally gets his revenge against the Beast or Bond, but then that battle quote quote is so anti climactic. I'm just like some much better that he didn't, you know that it was just strange. Yeah, I have the thing with Iliah. You know, obviously before the movie came out, there was a lot of talk of who is Anya Taylor Joy playing? And she's an I mean she's not even credited and on top of everything else, I mean she's literally uncredited, and I don't.

Yeah, I again, in a lot of ways, this movie reminds me of after reading Jurassic Park. And this is how I felt about rewatching Spielberg's Jurassic Park, which is, you know, this is fine for what it is in terms of being a big, loud, entertaining movie that is well made by someone who understands how to shoot a film well and understands how to make a film well, and Steven Spielberg is at the top of that. I think Dnieville knew of it as well. But yeah, the prop God, you know, the fucking problem with Dune is the dude, steaks are really hard to convey. And this movie I think does a semi decent job at conveying the stakes towards the end, with the great houses showing up and nuking them in space and all, I mean, all of the things that we don't really see in the original movie.

We understand the stakes here. But to your point, because one of the characters who is such a big part of this who will be part of the next movie, assumingly they make a next movie the Dune, it won't even be Dune Part two through her part three, it'll be Dune Messiah. Like, I don't even know how they could call it Dune Part three. I guess they could. But that's that's the thing.

It's like, you lead one of the biggest characters out to tease another movie, I guess is what it ends up kind of feeling like. It's like, well, if you like Anya Taylor Joy and if this movie makes money, she's gonna be in the next movie. And she's I mean again, she may even take the place of Timothy shallowy. He may not even be in the next movie. They may jump it forward in head ahead, in time far enough where he's played by somebody else.

Theoretically, I don't know if they would do that, given that he is the quantity that he is, I mean, given what he brings to the franchise as a whole, because he's pretty much the face of it. I'm him and Zendaiah are. But yeah, to leave the character of Aliyah out, to give one of the main character's deaths to Paula trade's, by the way, spoilers. I'm assuming that assume that. Oh yeah, yeah, sorrybody.

I mean, we hadn't really spoiled anything yet other than Anya Taylor Joy, who again we she said they everybody knew she was gonna be red carpet. Yeah, if you were looking at zay Dalia in the robot dress, you were looking at on it on your Taylor Joy. So yeah, exactly, and that and that's the thing. It's like, I was, similarly to yourself, just waiting for her to show up, and yeah, they I think they That's one of the biggest fumbles is her character not big in the movie, but then cutting to her in the womb a lot, which I again, it's an interesting choice. I don't know how well it works.

Uh, but yeah, for me, the things that work are the introspect you introspective scenes about Paul scrappling with what this means to be part of a formula that you have no business writing. I mean, you're a cog in the machine. You are a one small cog in this giant machine. To the point where we see you know, LEAs Ad and Austin Butler and Charlotte Rampling. Like, there's a lot of Benny Jesuit stuff in this movie that's not in the original movie.

It's obviously in the book. But again, I don't if there's not another movie, it serves no goddamn purpose. And I know there's gonna be a TV show supposedly on HBO Max, but a lot of the stuff that happens in the movie just it feels like it feels like to me, they should have done both movies back to back and and in doing that it would have allowed them to deal with some of the problems, which is it feels like they're retroactively filling in the problems of the first movie's backstory in the second movie, and Zach comes from not having it well thought out at the start, which is why I am surprised that they didn't do this like a Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings, where all of it is created it once.

There's not you know, there's no universe where the last movie is a good movie if it's the only one that exists, because it literally doesn't tell an entire fucking story. To your point, I really do appreciate that they went in so hard on Basically, Jessica is the villain of the piece. I think, yeah, pretty much, she's the one who realizes, oh, there are all of these believers in the South. I'm going to go to the South and I'm going to talk to them and basically build up the base for Paul being the messiah here. Or actually I don't even think she she doesn't even think that Paul is the Messiah.

She says at one point that she's going to give birth to the Quiza's Hatarak, and that is Aliah's character. So she's just kind of setting the way for Paul to gain all of this power. And then she thinks that she's going to, you know, assert that with with Aliyah, who she has this you know, complete psychic bond with their literally two brains in the same body. I kind of appreciate that. I like that, and I don't know how much I like that Stillgar becomes a true believer and that he is always looking for signs.

I kind of like the way that they played it in the Lynch version, where it's just like and he shall know your ways as if they were as if bonn to them. Like those kind of things are like again it is the legend, you know, those kind of things. But with this, it's like, see see what he did. Oh, he knows, he knows everything before. See he's he's the Messiah, He's Makhti, He's the one.

He's Lisana. I mean, take a drink every time, Stillgar says Lisa and Algaeb and you're gonna be flat out within the first hour, right. But I do like this idea of like the different factions of Fremen and that the Northerners are a little more skeptical and the Southerners are a bunch of yokels. So it's like I can kind of see some metaphors going on here. Yeah, and what's also you know what's also interesting, is you, Like you mentioned with Rebecca Ferguson's character kind of being the villain of the piece.

Almost all of the characters that are not given a lot in the original film are given a lot here, like multiple scenes that take five to ten minutes. I mean you, in a lot of ways. You could even make the case that the second half of the movie is Austin Butler's because he is the focus. Once he shows up, he is. There's not a whole lot of scenes left in the movie that don't have him at least sulking in the outskirts and or just murdering people outright, which that's the thing I think for me.

Fade Ralpha is a really interesting character that seems a little one note because he could have been given his own movie the way that they're portraying him here, and he doesn't seem able to overcome the you know, the prophecy that they keep talking about. It's like, is he has nothing to do with it? But maybe he does, and I don't does that is that in the book? I remember that in the book there are basically three people that would have been the Crease that's Hatarak, at least at that point in the Dune Story. One of them is Paul of course, one of them is faed Ralpha, and the third one is missing from this movie, and that's Count Fenring.

I guess was going to be played by Tim Blake Nelson, right, and was talking about being cut out of the movie. He was cut out of the movie. They filmed his scene. Yes, so see you later, Ben Affleck, right, But yeah, I would have loved to have seen that. I really, I mean the way that he talks in the books.

I thought that Jeff Goldblum would have been a perfect Count Fendring because he has that whole uh uh stutter thing that he does. I'm like, that'd be perfect. Why not cast him? But I guess he's too busy planning on the next Thor movie. Yeah, you know, And that's the thing, you know, we we haven't really talked about other than Austin Butler, like the people that show up in this movie that are cast in the bigger roles.

Uh, why is Chris walking in this movie again? Because he was in that video for uh fat Boy Slim, which has the line walk without rhythm and you want to attract the worm. So this is a whole bit and joke that is happening here. Yeah, kind of feels like it. It kind of feels like it.

If you want me to be honest with you, I was wondering if that was gonna be your answer, because that would have been the answer I would have given. It's like, is this like a fat boy slim thing that they're just trying to be funny about, Like, yeah, that's what it feels like. It feels like this is a mean come to life. This feels like, you know, I'm the Juggernaut bitch. But it's like, oh see here it is.

Yeah, he he should well, he could have been played by anybody. Walkin is always great, and but he barely has a presence here, and I really kind of wish that he had had more of a presence. I think it's really smart the way that they introduce him in the Lynch movie right up front, and which I think is how it is in the book right well, it gives you the understanding of what the stakes are. I mean, look, he's not even in the last movie. The the Emperor is not in the last movie.

Princess Erwan is not in the last movie. Fade. Ralph is not in the last movie. The Beast Bond is in the last movie the Beast, for Bond's barely in this movie. Yeah, he just goes nuts all the time.

Yeah, good for Dave Batisa getting a check from this movie. But man, like the amount of sidelining that his character has taken, and understandably so given the way that the narrative they're having it play out here goes but yeah, I mean even in a lot of respects Stellin scars Guard gets sidelined. Who for me, probably the best part of the first movie is Stellen scars Guard. And now it's like, like we mentioned, you know, the character of you know, the Paul's mother ends up being the villain. So yeah, of course he's not gonna have as big of a part, right because he's not the villain.

She Yeah, they still kind of drop the ball when it comes to the frem and guerilla activity. Like we get to see I think two spice harvester explosions and attacks, which is okay, now we only have I think one in the Latin, the Lynch one, But then am I misremembering? Is the second spice harvester actually Gurney Halleck and the Yeah okay, so we really don't have two. Well wait, we see one being like blown up from like a like a wide shot, but we're not like on the ground with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the thing about Austin Butler, I mean I kind of like his scenes. I kind of like this whole shooting in ultra violet or sorry, infrared film, so everything is super stark, black and white. I like that effect that they're doing. I guess that's what life is like on Geidee Prime and those bizarro like ink blot as, the explosions, the fireworks. I kind of like that, And I really kind of like that whole scene.

But at the same time, he's basically doing a Stellin Scarsguard impersonation, which is weird, Like his voice is just there are times when will speak to the other and it sounds like the same person as speaking. And I was watching a video was it last week about Austin Butler talking about that, and apparently he really like he really got a rise out of Stellin Scar's Guard, who was like, how hell can you do my voice? I mean, it is a weird choice. I will say it's it's mildly amusing that I think if if he had been given a little bit more time on screen. You could say that bade Ralpha in this movie is a is a like is a really great villain for cinema.

Like, he has a great look, he's portrayed by a great actor. I think what he does when given the opportunity, just like fucking killing people with wanted abandon that is an that's an interesting character trait because again, like it makes you understand and realize where this guy is coming from. But there's just not enough of him, and it is a it is a lot of non act like non verbal acting that he's doing. It's a lot of physical presence, not verbal. And yeah, when he opens his mouth, it's it does just sound like Stellin's Guard's guard.

It's it's impressive but fucking bizarre at the same time, Like he's doing a almost perfect like younger stellon Scars guard. But yeah, you can't do that in the scene with the guy if you're standing with your back to the camera. That's how that works, you know. Well, I guess we'll wait for this movie to come out on physical media so we can watch the subtitled version to know who is talking. Yeah, hopefully they do the italics for the person whose mouth you don't see in the right or recognize the character.

Yeah, the whole thing with with Fade Ralph. That is very interesting because I'm tired to keep saying in the book, you know, but in the book there's this whole thing about him in the gladiatorial arena. I think he's killing his thousandth person that right right night. And there's this whole thing about how every person that goes into that gladiatorial arena has been pre programmed. So if he says a word to them, and I can't remember what the word is, but when he says a word to them, their muscles tense up or they sull like relax or I can't remember which one it is.

But that's basically like his safety valve, so that if anybody is winning, he can just say that word and then use that moment of hesitation to murder them. And he also has this whole thing of like a the plate, you know, the thing that we've seen on stings her like that is a thing as well, and there says all these like plans within plans of how he wants to get the slave master or the gladiatorial guy like murdered and like or pin all this stuff on him, and yeah, it's just you know, this whole like political back and forth between him and his uncle. We don't really get any of that stuff other than oh that one a treaty slave drugged and then the uncle, you know, the baron are called, is like, oh, well, now you look like a hero because everybody knows that that slag wasn't drunk, So do you look like you're a really tough guy.

It's like, oh, okay, but really his story doesn't go anywhere. And what's really bizarre to me is having recently seen Blade Runner twenty forty nine, the scene where he gets his knives. The guy comes in and gives him his knives and he takes it and he just banks two of these slave girls or whatever they are, hamm girls around him, and I'm like, this is exactly what Jared Leto does to the one replicant that he has, because he's like, oh, she's not perfect, she can't have babies or whatever, so he just stir up kills her. And I'm like, this is almost the exact same scene. It's very bizarre.

Yeah, I couldn't help but think about Blade Runner twenty forty nine a lot while watching the first the first Dune, and then this movie. Look, I love Dune a lot. I love the book, I love the original movie. These movies are fine. I think Blade Runner twenty forty nine is a better sci fi movie than these two dude movies, which is kind of weird to say, but I think I've also gained a larger appreciation of Blade Runner twenty forty nine in the last year and a half since you and I did the episode on your show for it.

I really like that movie a lot. I like it more than the original Blade Runner probably. I think it goes. I think it goes more interesting directions. I mean, look, Rutger Howard's not in it, so that's the big problem.

But the twenty forty nine has a very good performance by Ryan Gosling. And that's the thing. I mean, Bill nude in these sci fi movies. He knows how to get good performances out of his actors. I just think that the issue in Dune is it's a little it's a little bit too late.

Someone like the thing with Austin Butler and Fade Routh that feels like a little too much too late. You're introducing him in the third act of your movie. He should have been a looming threat and presence from the start. These movies have suffered from being two movies, and I know as well as you do that in the next however long year, two years, there will be a cut of this movie online where somebody rearranges the movie best they can to better suit the original narrative. Here's the thing.

Half of the fucking scenes that they need are in the either of these movies because they didn't include them because they streamlined the narrative down, which is fine. Again, that's the issue with Dune. Dune is such a broad narrative that asks a lot of the people enjoying it, both the physical copies of the book, the audio books, or I mean really the source material. It asks a lot of you as a reader. It asks you to be an active, engaged reader because it's a high concept sci fi world.

This movie, I don't think really had your part of it in this movie. Again, it still kind of feels boring, like it kind of makes all of this feel very Is it wrong to say it makes it feel very paring, Like it feels like Earth in a lot of ways, like This feels like a very earthly conflict and it doesn't feel like a conflict of the stars. And I'm not saying it needs to be Star Wars. And I know people will say that Dune was copied to make Star Wars, which I mean, if you're talking about Joseph Campbell, then yes, everything copies Joseph Campbell, not just Star Wars copy. Dude.

Dune is working off with the same tenants that Joseph Campbell came up with, So yeah, they're very similar. But I think that if anything, these movies suffer from not being one movie more than I think the first movie suffers more now with the second movie coming out of them not just being one singular well, and had they shot the two movies back to back, maybe we would have had Stephen McKinley through the whole thing. Because the thing I didn't say the about that stuff with Fate Raltha is that at one point Fate is like, oh, well, though for how it was the one who came up with this plan, and then later on Baron Harkone it's like, oh, I think that through for how it was probably behind us, and then we have the whole thing of thu for and how he gets, you know, taken over by the Harconins and just this whole thing.

Of course there's no heart plugs in the book, right, but you know this whole thing of like do you need my life, old friend and gives though for the blade, and Thuffer actually has like a spike that's in his hand that he's gonna kill Paul with, but he ends up just letting himself die rather than betray the House of Treaties. You also get that whole thing too, and I'm kind of glad that they cut it down because Thufer thought in the book that Lady Jessica was behind the death of Duke Lado, and then also Jernie Halleck thinks that Jessica's behind the duke of the death of Duke Lado as well. And so you have this whole scene in the book of like him holding a knife to her back and then Paul talking about like you you haven't heard my mother crying at night and all this stuff Jessica and Paul.

I know, Paul says at one point, you know where my feelings, I feel nothing, And but he has like the visions of like the skull of his father and the painting of Duke Lto and everything. But Jessica doesn't really seem to talk about him very much at all, and she just seems much more driven, like I'm saying as far as like, oh, we have this opportunity, I'm going to exploit this legend and bring my son to power and basically thrust him into this role whether he likes it or not. But yeah, I think the idea of being back to back. But then again, you know, I guess you just like five months into it, you're like, oh, yeah, Chris Walkin, can you fly over here to wherever we're shooting this thing and become part of this, because yeah, just to have that non integration of some of these characters is a little strange, even if you just introduced them briefly up front.

And frankly, I wouldn't have minded seeing Austin Butler in one of those big Todd pieces with the wings and everything. Yeah. The uh. You know, for as much as people were kind of extolding how great the production designed of the original movie looked, they didn't really do a whole lot more here. They kind of just were like, you saw it once, We're gonna do it again.

They And you know, I'm not saying Dude needs to be fantastical, but I think it does. And I think Yodorowski's Dune, I think that the Dude mini series are both very good examples of doune done in a way that is interesting to look at. Look, this movie is shot like a Roger Deakins movie, for fuck's sake, and it's not a Roger deacons movie. It's not. It's shot by the guy who shot the last Dude movie as well.

So it all feels of a piece, but it all feels very epic, and it's trying to convey its epicness through the visuals and not as much through what the characters are doing. And look, that scene between Austin Butler and Timothy Shallowy at the end of the film where they're fighting well lit looks great, not compelling, because no, there's nothing compelling about these two characters meaning for the first time and fighting and dying immediately. And look, I know that's the way it is in the book, and I know that's the way it is in the original movie. And in a lot of ways, my gripe here, my complaint here, could be leveled against the original movie that yes, Fade Rauza just is there and dies. But in the original movie, Fade Ralpha is just there and then he just dies.

So that's fine. You haven't invested in him, so it doesn't matter that you're killing him. In a lot of ways, he's just a device for the plot to function through. In this movie, you give half of the third act to Austin Butler and then he just boop is dead, just the way he dies in the last one. And the fight is maybe two minutes longer than the original movie.

It's still just as protracted, it's still just as okay, like he's actually just gonna kill him right here, right now. Again, Like if you don't know the narrative, it might seem interesting. And that's the thing. Like I wish one of the people we could have on this episode with us would be somebody who has never read the book and has not seen the Lynch movie, because I feel like this movie's entertaining for the person who hasn't seen those things. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing.

I'm just saying, Look, realistically, people like Jurassic Park, but people that like the Jurassic Park book may not like the Jurassic Park movie because it's not the same. It's much more mature adult book. It spends half the time talking about copies eating you know, amino acids or whatever. That the lysine contingency like that. I mean, that's like one line in the movie.

That's a whole thing. There's a whole lead up to the it's and you don't even know it's dinosaurs to begin within the book, Like the first half, like first third of the book is like is this a dinosaur book or what is this? And that's the thing here when you look at Dune, they don't explain what's going on in the first movie because they don't know there's going to be a second movie. So now it's like, oh, well we can just ritroactively explain things now. It's like, yeah, I guess, but it just it it doesn't really work that way.

This is not a TV show. This is not the first and second episode of a mini series. This is two movies. They should stand as two separate film. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm okay with the way that they handle that. I think just because this I do like this one a lot more, and I'm okay with some of the departures, you know, like I said, having Lady Jessica be so much more invested in the idea of making him this Also, you know that Johnny is like, you know what, fuck you man, if you're going to have the princess, fuck you. And she just walks away and there's none of this stuff. And I did notice so many things like have change over the years with gender roles and everything. Of course, we did the swap last time of Leah Kines being a woman rather than a man, which I was absolutely fine with, but I think we also got rid of Leah Kines being Channi's parent, and so there is that lack of echoing of the idea that both Channie and Paul lose their father.

Even if she had lost her mother that would have been something, but I think they just take that right out of there. So Paul's the only one that experiences that loss. He doesn't have that connection with Shanni, which was kind of fascinating to me. And then yeah, using Jessica as a villain rather than an ally, and she kind of drops out of the movie and out of the book, you know when it comes to the like her role, she just kind of disappears after a while. She's just there too, basically be like, hey, cut Elias some slack.

And so, of course we don't have Harah in this movie either. We don't have the Sons of Jamas either. That's okay. I'm alright with us, like just trimming down the fat. You know, we we've already seen that it works, okay to not have uh, Harah and Jomas in the movie from the short cut, the shorter version of Doune and really the kids.

I don't even think that the Sons of Jamas get one line in maybe either the books or the movie itself. Maybe they do in subsequent books. I don't know, but we just they just kind of are there, like they just show up, you know, Oh, Paul's about to ride a sand worm and these two kids are there. Why is that? I don't know, Like if you don't know the book, if you don't know the cut scenes, then they're just like, oh, these two little kids hang out with them, all right, that's pretty cool.

But yeah, I can see the changes that they made, and I almost all of them. I don't know narratively, and I think that's what we're both hitting on is narratively did they tell the best story that they could in the order that they did that they bolstered the right things and take emphasis away from the wrong things. Yeah, I don't know if they were truly successful in that, because to take us into this second Dune movie and introduce us, I mean, poor lady Fenrig, she is just so wasted. Other than to be like, Oh, I'm gonna fuck this guy and get pregnant by him so I can preserve this bloodline. That's her only purpose in this entire movie, and we don't even get to see the fucking you know.

It's just like, well, I guess they fucked because at some point she holds her hands over her stomach. I'm like, oh, yeah, all set, you know, And it's like, all right, I guess your only role is to be pregnant, you know. But yeah, to introduce her, to introduce the princess, to introduce the Emperor, to introduce Fate Routha, it's like, all right, Yeah, we are cramming a bunch of new characters in here that really don't have a whole lot to do. I mean, we're still they're still trying to get something for Princess earle On to do. So they give her like, you know, the narration gig again and she's keeping a diary or finding out things from her She basically is our voice over in this one.

But just still not enough, still not enough stuff. So I liked a lot of the changes, but not all. And then just the way that they handled the actual pacing of stops, like, yeah, they could do a better job. Yeah. Well, and we've we've talked a little bit about kind of the royal side of things, and I think it's also worth mentioning.

In terms of the Fremen characters, I actually think they do I mean other than other than still Gar, which is a big problem, the way that they paint still Gar in this movie. I actually like Zendaia in this movie. I think she's pretty good. I like Sandia. Yes it's a big departure from her character in the book, but I think if you have one character who's like okay, maybe not because that is I mean in the movie, her character is literally like, I am not okay with this.

You cannot solve everything. You know, only I can fix everything. And look, Paul knows that he's leaning into that intentionally, but at some point, you know, you can't undo what's been done, and that is where the movie leaves us, and that's why she leaves at the end. And I like that that is her character being given some agency here. She's not just oh, I love Paul and that's it.

No, she is firmly against Paul, embracing the visions that he's having. And I yeah, I find her to be immensely interesting as a character. And if they do make Dune Messiah, she's gonna be like forefront in that entire movie. I mean, look, maybe they don't recast Timothy shallow May. If they don't, that means they have to Castendaya back as well, So that would be that would be a good thing.

She I think she might be the best part of this movie. She's really good. I think she's really well suited for this role the way they've written it for her. I do really like her, Yes, and I like that she has more agency. The one thing that it's not really Chawny though, that's the problem, Like she is very much a completely different character.

Like that. I think we just have to note that just so that everybody listening understand, we are aware she is a completely different character from the book. Rat singular reasoning makes her a completely different character. The thing that I was so amazed because I was re listening to the book the other day and the whole thing with Paul taking the water of life right like I kind of like after Jessica takes it, she almost looks like an addict. She's just like, you gotta try this thing.

This is amazing. She looks like she's freaking strung out. And in the book the taking of the water of life for Paul, and it happens the way it does here where it's just like, I gotta take the water of life. And then boom to Jessica being like, hey, Channi, I called you here and I can't remember. She gives Channy some sort of like bullshit excuse.

She's like, Chinny, you got to get up to like this seek. And so Johnny comes up and she's like, oh, I'm sorry, I got to hear on her false pretenses. But uh, Paul, he uh took the water of life three weeks ago, and he's in this coma and only me with my Benny Jesuit training and able to determine that he's still alive. Otherwise we would have sucked all the water out of the sky and Johnny figures out she takes the water of life, puts it on her fingers, puts it on Paul's lips, he licks it or whatever. Wakes up.

Oh okay, I've done all this. It's so again anticlimactic. And I know that they shot that link shot it almost like that originally, but then was like, this scene needs something else. So the whole thing of him going out to the desert and having all the worms show up and they're like almost paying homage to moadeb and stuff. I'm like, yeah, that's what you deserve.

Like, it needs something epic, and it needs to cause ripples through the entire universe. Again, that line of you know, there's a place inside of women terrifying to us that we cannot look at, you know, this whole thing and like and you know, look in that place and you'll see me staring back and saying like that has gone as well. I'm like, yeah, right again, it's that man woman thing where we're changing it, and I'm absolutely fine with that, but I'm like, this should have been a bigger deal. When Paul takes the water of life rather than him just laying there, puts the little drops on his mouth and he's just like, Okay, yeah, I'm good now. And it's like they don't even give the impression that he's been out for like three weeks, right yeah, And you know that's the thing about Dune, and again, I just you know again, it's it's ironic that havyerberdems in this movie because I think Dune in a lot of ways is similar to No Country for Old Men.

It works as a book because on the book, you have no on the book. In terms of Dune, you have no budget in the on the page. In terms of No Country for Old Men, you don't have to have somebody narrating the character's internal monologue. It is done for you because the author wrote it. You don't I have to wonder what the character is thinking.

They're fucking telling you a lot of the time. And No Country for Old Men the movie suffers from that because the coens didn't do the thing they should have done, which is have some interior monologues of the characters. And in Dune, it's not the dunes boring, but Frank Herbert doesn't get bogged down in the shit of people of the action of it all. It's more it's not like and then Paul took his knife and swung it, and then somebody else swung it. There's not a lot of that in the book.

The book is more about this world and what's been going on and all these people pulling and pushing and grabbing and groping and for all for like the littlest piece of everything. And that is why for me, the Dune board game from the eighties is a good representation of the fucking universe of Dune because it's about four to five houses all competing for one thing that is so valuable. Your entire house can become the wealthiest house in the universe because of this one thing, because this one thing is so useful. And do you realize they're minding spice in this movie, because it gets pretty much the spice gets sidelined in this movie. It's it's weird like again, like it feels like Dune, it looks like Dune, but the things that they leave out and the things they just just kind of gloss over, some of that is what makes Dune dude.

Well. The thing that is also missing from this movie that I was very surprised about, No, Giltsmith, there's nothing to do. Yeah, yeah, and it's the guilty they get around how do you get around? Fuckings? Why is That's my point?

Why is the spice important? If not deal navigators who literally are using it and they transform their bodies through using spice doesn't matter. The ships just show up like okay, yeah, and like, look I get that in Lynches Dune. They don't explain this giant fucking monster in a in a water tank. They don't explain it.

They kind of say, well this is they say later on what the deal is? But I mean I would rather have it and it not explain then not have it at all and try to figure out why spice is so fucking important, right. Well, and the build navigators, well, first off, in the first movie, they're like, oh wow, it's really expensive to travel. Yeah, they're like how many solaaries did it take to get Like why are you asking this question? If this ultimately doesn't matter exactly, there's no talk about that when it comes to like the satellites and and all of this stuff and how many ships show up, and it's guild navigators that send back the all the ships of the of the Great Houses.

The whole lanz Rod is out there waiting, as opposed to this movie where it's just like, oh, all those guys are still up there, all right, well fuck them, We're gonna go jump in our ships and battle them. And I'm like, well, that seems really out of line, Like I don't recall a lot of space battles in these movies. But all right, uh, okay, sure if you're going to do that. But yeah, it feels like we're missing a major component. We've got the Benny Jesuret, but we don't have the Guilsman.

To me, like those two, it's like this. I know, the spice definitely plays a role when it comes to Beny Deserts and their power and everything, but of course it majorly plays a role for the Guildsmen and changes their whole body, changes everything, and like you know, they wear contacts so that their eyes don't have that same blue within blue that the Fremen have. You know, it's like, yeah, we're missing that. I would really like to know more of the power structure of what's going on here. But yeah, that's that's a nitpick, like because the story doesn't necessarily need it, and it does ultimately change how the end of the movie is Okay, you know, we're going in a different direction, So I'm not mad about that.

I'm not butt hurt by the changes that they're doing. Some of them, I'm just like that was an odd choice, and others I'm just like, Okay, yeah, we trim the narrative. It works well. Or like like I said, we give Gurney his his duke, you know, he finally gets to kill the beast or bonds. Bond for all intentsive purposes disappears from the second half of the Dune book.

It's like, you know, you get those shots even in Lynch's movie where it's like Paul Smith walking up a dune and looking really angry, and you know that whole like who is this Maad Tib? But that's about the whole thing, Like how they don't know who Moadib is, Like they figure that out pretty early in this one. There's no like, oh, oh, Paul is mowadeb Like we find that pretty early on in this one. Yeah, I mean, look, I as much as I as much as I enjoy the acting talents of Dave Batista, which I do, I'm not not joking. I think Dave Bautista is a great actor.

You wouldn't know it if you watched this movie and even the last one. I mean, that's the thing I like you did. I went back and rewatched the first one, and yeah, in a lot of ways, all it does is it sets him up to be a threat, and then he's not a threat in this movie. And it's like, why did you even set it up in the first movie because we didn't really see it pay off. We never really saw him do a lot.

In the last one. We got to see it. Fade Rautha do more in one or two scenes in this movie than Beast for Bond ever really gets to do more or less in this movie. The Beast Verbond fails over and over and over, and that's the reason Fade Route has brought in. That's the reason he ends up being in the position that he's in at the end of the movie, because he is no longer being trusted to keep order on a Rakis.

But again, what I don't gouy, Yeah, it's he uh. At least Gurnie Hallick gets to kill him. That's the thing. Speaking of No Country for Old Men, you got the two leads from that movie in here with Josh Brolin and Habby are bardeb who are really good in their respective roles as two of the kind of warring father figures for Paul in the in the second and third act of the movie. I really, I mean, look, what else can we say about Hobby or Bardem other than he's one of the great actors working right now.

Everything he's in is better for him being in it, and he always shows up in everything that I've seen him in. And look, Anton Sugar was a really great role for a really great actor who had already been doing a lot of good things. Just a lot of them Americans had seen it. That's the thing. I mean, everybody, Oh, how are your burden?

Yeah, he's He's amazing and that's why he's in this. And say with Josh Brolin, like my god, just give just give him a couple lines of dialogue and he choos through that shit like crazy. He is. I don't know, he he brings that like gruffness. It's a little bit of cowboy energy.

But it's needed here because I don't know, I just love I love Josh Brolin, and he's I think he's better suited playing these kinds of roles At this point in his career because not a little goes a long way. But Fanos is kind of like the career making role for Josh Brolin. I feel like, like that first Avengers movie is really good because of how good he is the performance that he turns in. So at this point, like he can He's similar for me to Robert Downey Junr. Like he can do no wrong because he like showed up for the one of the biggest movies of all time.

So yeah, needless to say, the supporting characters are given a fair amount of time in this movie, and they every actor for the most part that is one of those newer supporting characters or returning ones is given something to do other than the ones that aren't, which is the problem. Like the problem is like some are and some aren't, and the ones that aren't are given even less. You know, we always joke about Virginia Madsen in the original version of Doune as one line of moo of dialogue, right, it's like yes, father, yeah, father, And then in the Spice Diver version and the other versions, it's, you know, she introduces the movie and she's you know, in the know the known universe, but all of that, which is really great, and it's kind of, you know, it's so kind of just kind of comes out of nowhere.

It's you know, you get that shot and it's just her staring at the camera like it's so weird. So David Lynch, why is Florence Pew in this movie? Like that's the thing, Like the characters, some of the characters that do show up are great, but the ones that don't are so bad. It's like, why is Florence Pew in an extended cameo in this movie? Why is Chris Walking in an extended cameo in this movie?

Like they they are not given enough, or if they were given enough, it did not end up in the finished product. I think I'm okay. I'm a jumping subjects a little bit, but I think I'm okay with the riding of the worms in this one. You don't really get to see the worms when they're riding them, right, at least it's better than that so cheesy shot of McLaughlin going up the side of the worm. That's like, I still I saw Dune recently in the theaters and I laughed out loud when I saw them that shot.

It's just it's still just so cheesy. But I mean, I love that movie, so I forgive it that. But I think it's okay. The way that they handle the worms in this one, I think I just would have liked to have seen more of them when they're on top of the worms, and especially like, how do you get off of those things? Well, if the popcorn buckets from AMC or any indication, there are plenty of ways to get off with sandworms, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, that's the thing about the sandworms that I can't unsee now anytime I see them in the movie, as I just think of this like giant unintentional sexual device, like and or the worst conceived popcorn bucket, because even if it doesn't look like a fleshlight, did anybody try it out and pull popcorn out of that bucket that had butter on it through those tendrils? Because at what point are you just like now I need to wear like gloves or I need chopsticks to get the popcorn out, like cause it's impractical. And similarly to getting off the worms, we never see how it happens, so it might be just as impractical. There's like a giant ladder that they pull up to and it's just like they get off and climb down.

Is that what it is? A giant bile of sand? Probably? Yeah, yeah, They're like pull up next to that do and I want to jump off? Yeah yeah, it is the I know how sharp the teeth of the maker is, so I don't know why you would stick your arm into that hole.

I mean it feels like the only thing that could be inside of that popcorn bucket is pain, right, I just it's it's like the It is like the height of capitalist idiot bullshit, the most boring dystopia that now we and the have co opted something that was very popular in Japanese theme parks, especially Disney theme parks, which was themed popcorn buckets. Now our movie theaters are doing it. But they never asked if they could and should. They just did. And look.

I have a ghost face popcorn bucket from AMC that my folks got me that's sitting in our living room. It's a cool little thing because it's like a ghost face head and you pop the top open, you put popcorn in it. Practical a thing that is impractical that looks like a giant pussy. It's it's gonna get laughed at, and it's like the word it's the best and worst kind of publicity because like again, like I said, with the worms in the movie, that's all I can see now. But at the same time, at least you move the needle.

I mean, I'm sure I don't know if anyone went and saw this movie because lull a popcorn bucket looks like a fleshlight what you might have gotten some people to be a little bit more interested in, dude. Otherwise I will say, Yeah, the sandworms are like uninteresting. It's like a very again, like that's the thing, Like all of this feels very just black still, Like the design of everything doesn't feel so fun. It's so prey like it feels you know, if I didn't know this was a danevil Neve movie, I would have told you it was a Chrysnolan movie. Like really like it feels like that, you know what I mean.

And if you know Chrystallan's style, it just hey, there's something that's removed here that I don't know what it is, a sense of fun, like sense of this could be entertaining. Well, it's not a Chrysnolan movie because it's a pretty straight a had linear narrative, and other than the Batman movies, I don't know if he knows how to tell a straight ahead linear narrative. Well, if he had adapted Dude, he might have just done like Batman and just done it linearly. Maybe. I don't know.

I mean, that's the thing. I feel like Danieville Neve, like all of his movies feel of a piece. And that's good because I like what he brings to things. I just don't think what he brings to Dune is the right thing. That's the thing.

Like, I don't know, like his idea of what Dune is and my idea and your idea and Frank Koerbert's idea. I feel like he's further in cinematic doune taror than he is the book Dude. And the book dude, I mean, look, yes, we can keep saying it over and over again. The book is a lot more interesting because it's a complex narrative. I have seen plenty of films that are complex narratives too.

That's not fair. Movies can be just as complex. Why are people still talking about Stanley Kubrick's films all this time later? It's not because there's not a lot to chew on. It's because there's more than enough, to the point of people wrapping themselves in conspiracy theories that you know, the shinings about the moon landing.

And that's the thing. I'm not saying Dune needed to be that, but done needed to be a thing where people could actually look at it for what it is, which is a very bizarre story about what happens when power goes to someone's head. I don't know if Dnievill Noova is necessarily super engaged with that idea. It doesn't seem like to me he is. Which again, like with Jurassic Park, like with other movies, you can take the idea and do your own thing with it, I mean, in a lot of ways.

One of my favorite movies, something we covered on the Projection Booth years ago, was Annihilation, which the book of Annihilation is like not even the same thing. It's not even the same It's it's so not even the same thing. I've read the book twice and I'm not sure I understand it. I get the movie. The movie has a lot going on.

It's an Alex Garland movie, but for me, that's more what I'm getting at. I like when someone takes the idea of something and does something with it that makes sense and doesn't devalue the franchise or the ip, but takes it and does something interesting with it. This just kind of turns it into a very straightforward story this movie, not as much as the last one. I mean again, they have those questions of all and whether or not he's going to embrace the power, but then he just kind of does and that's it. And it's like and then he does, and so he knows he's a hardcone it, so he's gonna be a harrdcon it the end and it's like, whoa You made that decision in the span of one scene, Like okay, yeah, it doesn't feel like there's a temptation, you know.

It feels like he needs to be tempted and then give in to the temptation and then revel in the temptation, right because dude, Messiah is a story about how Paul is not, in fact a good guy. He is in fact not able to control what he started, and in this narrative, you would be led to believe he had no interest in ever starting it to begin with, and in the book. That's also not the case. He's written differently. In the book, he doesn't necessarily bristle at the idea of being being given infinite power.

This it's like, I don't like the idea, Like why why? Why why? It's like, man, I also don't like that because you have to, like you understand why stop asking why. You might not like it, but you understand why they're doing this because there's always going to be a pull and push in the universe for power. And I mean they get it.

Princess Rlan gets it. She goes, You know, if you do this, it'll look like you know, the other houses will realize you did this, So you have to make sure that you don't look like the person who killed the atreates because then they won't trust you either. That's smart writing that character. Why it's so few and far between is kind of a shot. You know who else is missing from this movie that I just remembered, And I'm kind of glad that he is Lido, the son of Paul and Shawnnie, because he's in the book, but you barely even I don't even know if he's actually in a scene in the book, but they talk about him being down in the South and he's being protected down there.

They want to keep him away from Paul Mahla deeb so that he doesn't get injured, and then they eventually gets killed, and that's kind of a motivating factor a little bit for Paul, but not nearly as much as it should be for me. So it's like, I'm kind of glad you're not there. Also this whole thing of like, once they find Gurney and he's got all his smuggler friends, there's the whole question of, well, do we kill the smuggler friends. Oh, some of these smuggler friends joined you recently. Sounds like they might be Sadakar and they have a whole face off against the sada Car guys, and they eventually, I think they let two or three of them live and then they release them, and they're the ones that run in and tell, you know, the hart Conan's and the Emperor that Paul is coming and that Paul is moa deep yeah, I'm okay again with these changes, I'm okay because Lido the Baby was basically just a oh now it's personal type of moment for me.

Then now it's personal for this one is when the Beast for Bond destroys the one see itch and the water is destroyed. I'm like, oh, that that's the deal to me. I'm like shocked that the water was polluted and that all the rocks and everything fell into it. So I was like, Oh, that's terrible. But no, again, nobody seems to care.

Like they do have a scene where they go in and it seems like there's like refugees and stuff, and I'm just like, oh, this kind of reminds me a little bit of Palestine right now. But I'm sure that that was just a coincidence. But just to see somebody's homes being destroyed the are Conan's coming in there and like even torching the birds that live inside of the seats and everything, it's like they're leaving no one alive. Yeah, I'm okay with the things that they left out too, Like I don't know, I mean one of the things that kind of again I don't know if we mentioned it the first time we talked about the first movie, but this is the second time we're talking about the first movie now, and you mentioned the Sufi r Howood character.

They were even say mentat in these movies. That's right. Yeah, I don't think they say that Juice of Safu at all. I mean it's only real only if you're paying attention. You see that Pider and Thufer both had that little tattoo.

I mean, they don't have big bushy eyebrows that we had in the previous movie. There's no real mention that Benny Thylex or whatever the home plan of the mentat again, like you're saying, you know, the whole Frank Herbert originally was basing all of the stuff off of the Middle East and oil and the Russians, you know, obviously Vladimir Harconin. You know, like there's all of this history that he's building upon and basically casting it out into space. It feels like Villeneuve is taking all that stuff from space and putting it back here on Earth because it doesn't feel like these things are taking place on another planet. It feels like they're taking place in another country and they just have to travel to this country, this country of Iracas, in order to funck shit up and look.

I think that that's been the issue with Dune as a storytelling device. The planet throughout these adaptations, the scale is never made clear, and I would I mean, you can level the same thing against Star Wars. Corisant is a city planet. It is one giant city as a planet. We only spend one micrometer of time in one micrometer of an area in Coruscant in those movies, similarly to Dune.

Stillgar is just the leader of the sitch that Paul ran into. There could have been up there are because again the Fremen after this movie and in the narrative, they go and take over the fucking universe. That's literally what happened. So there can't just be these like little group of assholes. And that's the thing, Like, that's what all of these things have really deprived the narrative of which is the Even as grand as this narrative is, it's not as grand as the actual these There should be establishing shots like Star Wars where we unders and like even Star Wars struggles to convey how grand and insane the movies are.

And I mean, look, I mean Phantom Menace gets a lot leveled against it because it's a big cgi you know, monstrosity, and there's a lot of problems with it, but in a lot of ways it helps expand the universe of Star Wars in a way that nothing else ever had, which is showing us that there's these really big, extravagant places, because in the original Star Wars it was just a lot of Matt paintings and small stuff. And look, they abused the CGI and the frequels a lot, but at the same time, there was a level of like, this is a They're traveling around the universe doing this and there's just none of that here. It seems like small groups of people. It's not that big of a deal. Yes, right at the end, we understand that the houses are part of this, but the conflict doesn't feel like something that in the next movie they're gonna go and then he took over the universe.

Really okay, and look, here's the thing. Kudos to ville Nu for showing something in these movies that again feels like an anachronism that has no place. They have nukes right watching the movie, they do attack the Harconins at least three times, and including like a blowing up of the whole refinery, which really sets Raban off. So I can they are doing a little bit more damage, but it still doesn't feel like and again, this is all taking place over nine months, unless the trades women take a lot longer to just state their pregnancies. Yeah.

Yeah, the conflict feels so truncated. And this is two movies. You're spending six hours talking about this and it still feels kind of truncated. Yeah, it's I don't know. Look, I don't know if anyone could ever make do feel grand unless you'd do it as a TV show.

I mean that's the thing. Game of Thrones would not have worked as a movie. Why because when they started jumping the shark in that show, not to spoil the show, but to spoil a thing that people had an issue with. Towards the end of that show, they were literally teleporting across the world that took weeks, months and years to travel sometimes. I mean, part of the narrative of Game of Thrones is an army crossing a sea to come and attack the you know, essentially Middle Earth in Game of Thrones, and in this it should have been the same thing.

I mean, look, this is a conquest of the planet that they get to eric Keene at the end, and it's like this is where the big conflict happens. This movie doesn't treat it that way, and neither does Lynch's movie for that matter, Like none of these movies do a very good job at conveying the scale of what the conflict of Dune is. That's because I genuinely think if this had been a TV mini series like three or four seasons, because I think you could break the book. You could break the book up into like two or three seasons of TV easily. Oh yeah, easily.

You could have the first season end with the Duke dying, with Duke Lido dying, and shit, that's a lot of castle intrigue. And you know, if people don't know that Doctor Huey is a turn quote, that could be the cliffhanger of episode one of the episodes, like this shit rights itself. No, instead, we're just gonna rush and make a movie. And here's what I don't get. You're telling me.

If Danisville Nova was like, I want to make a TV show of Dune, they wouldn't back fucking truck up to his house. M That's what I don't understand. I mean, we saw what they did with the Lord of the Rings, and the people who are directing Lord of the Rings were not dnee Ville Neuve level of directors. They're they're much more just like people work in TV and people who are used to working on high end TV shows. If you're worried about the budget, again, like this is a This would have been a bigger deal if it had been a TV show.

I genuinely feel like and I think that the up I think that the upscale version of the TV show where it's like a Game of Thrones level TV show where they are shelling out the big books for the CGI effects, would have been a better version of this, because this narrative needs time to breathe. That's why Dune is one book, and then there are how many other books? Oh, I don't know, like a million, is my point. Like, and you know everybody who's a big fan of Dune will say, well, you know, Frank Herbert's books are the books, and Brian Herbert's stuff is kind of you know, take it as you will, that's fair. But I mean, if you like Dune enough to continue reading, that must mean you see some value in that the original narrative and how it's going to be recontextualized or furthered in other things.

And this just doesn't feel as interesting or as grandiose, or that Paul will turn into a worm at some point. Like, none of that feels like a thing that's gonna be a thing here because this just seems way too grounded in reality to be dude, Yeah, good place to end that the weirdy way. They don't even say it, do they. I don't think they say the weirding way? No, they, And that's fucking part of this What the fuck Dune.

It's like making a Star Wars movie and never pulling out a lightsaber. Oh wait, you can do that, but not if you're telling the story about Jedis. You can't. And that's the problem. If you're telling a story about Jedis, lightsabers are expected.

If you're telling a story about the character of Paul, you need to use the word mentats. You need to say Harkonen's correctly, Like you have to talk about the weirding way, like you have to talk about those things because those are part and parcel to the narrative and they're not here. And look, call me a nitpicker, call me a hater, wherever the fuck you want to call me. It's fine. I enjoyed these movies for the movie versions that they're trying to be, but in terms of them being good adaptations of Frank Herbert's source material, they are not that.

And that's the thing. I genuinely wonder if people who watch these movies are even gonna look at the books, if they would go pick up the books, or would they just go, I'm good with this and this must be good. And that's what I wonder. I don't think that this would make me go out and read the books, because I think if I read the books, I'd be like, this isn't the movie that I liked and watch It's so different, okay. And I would not be surprised if there was a podcast in nineteen eighty four if the host of that would be seeing the exact same thing about Lynch's movie, Like, what the fuck is with these weirding modules?

That's not how the weirding wave works? And you don't you sound to attack these people. But I love it. I love what he did, and I love that they gave them this technology in order to do it, and it just made a lot of sense. I do have to wonder if there is a nod to Lynch in Villaineus film, which is when they take the Baron's body out to the desert and just leave it there.

And you get that weird shot of stellin Scar's guard out on the desert and you see all of the ants crawling around him and the ants go into his ear. It's so reminded me of blue velvet. Yeah, I've got to assume that's what that was. I was wondering if there was going to be some lynchy in to pay homage to a movie that I think I'm assuming didn't even know have likes that movie, uh or maybe sees a value in remaking it. But yeah, that would be my assumption as well.

If not, Like, what are you referencing? Please tell me? Yeah, yeah, that was odd to just throw him out into the desert like that. I did like that after he gets incapacitated the Baron that is, that he starts to crawl for the throne. I was like, Oh, that's pretty great.

He's still so hungry for power that he's crawling up to get to the throne. I kind of wish that it had been like almost a John Wick four type of thing of him constant like crawling up there and then getting thrown back down and crawling back up again, but that didn't happen. We needed a truncated finale to this seven hour series, you know, as a thing like that, the final conflict should have been more than five minutes because you've spent all this time telling us how important this is going to be and then it just kind of ends, just like a lot of the things in this movie, be like, you know what, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings leaves out a lot of stuff. I know people want to talk about Tom Bomb but Dyll being left out Tom Bob, but it wouldn't have added anything to the story the way Peter Jackson told it.

And that's the thing. The way Peter Jackson and Philip the Boyans and Fran Walsh interpreted Lord of the Rings through their lens is much more interesting to me personally than the way dannievil Move adapted and interpreted Dune through his lens. And that's that's all. And that's really all I can say. More is like, if this is for you, cool, I get why it is for me.

It is not the David Lynch one is because I appreciate the way he interpreted Doune through his lens of David Lynch more than Danieva move's lens. You know, Chris, there was no Scourge of the Shire in that Return of the Kings, and that's really a shame. I wanted to see Sharky right taking care of the Shire. That's the bad boys too, you know. Ending of the of Lord of the Rings is where it's like, oh, there's another one hundred pages you gotta deal with where where?

Yeah? Uh, where sarramon the White is now he escaped and he's in the Shire and he's yet no. You know, maybe if you're a big fan of the character Saramon, it disappoints you how he dies in the movies. But like, yeah, Chris Lee in that role, I think he kills it. That's the thing.

Like that character is in that movie a perfect amount, and he's used perfectly. And there were plenty of those kinds of characters here, like a fade. Rabon is a secondary villain the way Saramon is to sorrow kind of a waste. Austin Butler not as much of a waste, but also kind of a waste because it's the same time he wasn't in the last movie. If you had been in the last movie, I'd be like well, damn, he had a fully fleshed out character as opposed to just every time he's on screen he has to kill somebody, which I get is kind of neat, but it also feels like somebody just like dialing the multiplier up on like the how crazy this character just has to immediately be because we don't get a moment with him where he's not just like snarling, growling and looking weird, which again, he looks great, but it's just not a lot to him and and that's for me.

It's just there's a lot to see here, but there's not a lot of substance fun we get to wrap. Yeah, let's do it all right? Cool? Uh yeah, I'm trying to think of how to start. Uh, We'll get stabbed in the side by fade Ralpha.

It's stabbed here, and then later on it feels like the knife is up out of the chest and I'm just like, what what happened? How did that happen? Well? Did you see that at all? Is that just me?

And they were getting to the end of the day shoot and they just wanted to be done. And look, if you show somebody something shiny and bright, they won't worry about plot holes or where the knives moved to. I did notice that though, Okay, I'm glad it wasn't just me, No, it was not just you. John Spates wasn't doing a very good job and keeping that timeline in order. John Spates, who kind of shocked.

He is like after the Mummy, he wrote, he's written some horrible things. Yeah, and look, you know what to talk about another sci fi thing that I actually think has aged rather well in the years since it came out, Rombia. This is actually not as bad of a movie as I remember feeling it was when it first came out, and I think that's primarily due to the thing that came out afterwards made it look like a fucking like a van Go comparatively. But that's the thing. That's the thing.

Like, I actually think Dune two, Chapter two does not undervalue the last movie. I don't think it overvalues it. I think it's just about the same. But the thing that really soured me on this movie is just everything that they introduced feels so like there's not they don't give any of it enough time, and so they're introducing a lot of stuff and they're just kind of YadA YadA ing it and it's like, fine, that's fine, But for me, I need this to be a complete thing, and if there's a part three, maybe it will be. But maybe this added things that it really didn't know how to add, and it didn't land those additional things that it added.

Look, the original didn't either, but there are multiple versions of the original, So maybe that's where this line. Maybe when this comes out on Blu ray and four K maybe once Dude Messiah comes out. If it does, someone will take all three or these two and cut them and turn them into something else. There was not, if I remember correctly, an extended cut of the last movie. There may have been deleted scenes on the Blu Ray, but there was never an extended version of this like there was with Lord of the Rings.

So it's not like they shot all the things we're talking about. They made a choice to leave them out, and so if they never shot it, there's nothing to edit together. It's more just chronologically adding things in. But then at the same time, if you do that with these two movies, you'll have Austin Butler in the first hour of the first movie and then in the first hour of the second movie, which is like three hours later, so it's like, wait a second, maybe it doesn't really matter. So yeah, I'm glad we got to talk about this.

This was actually not a movie I was gonna go out and see because the last movie just wasn't my jam. But I'm glad I enjoyed it more, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I don't see myself sitting down and watching these very often. I imagine Andrea will occasionally throw them on like she does, and I'll just kind of watch them, and really, I'll think about the Lynch movie and just think about how much I like that, And again, not entirely faithful to the book, but I love the ride that it takes me on.

You know, I'm not advocating slavish devotion to any source material. I think that some of Villaineus's choices and here really made things better, and I liked what he was doing with a lot of this. It just he it still felt uneven. And I don't know if the cure would have been to do a hobbit to this and break it into three pieces, because you have enough story for this. You wouldn't have to go to the Silverillion or anything to take pieces from that and try to shove it into Dune.

You know, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. There's enough material to give you a nine hour version without much hesitation, you know, like you said, this would have made a fantastic TV series even just like one episode, season two, Season three, day in the life of a seech and just what life is like when you wake up in the morning. It's just the care for the water and all of these things, all the rituals that you have to go through. That would have been a fascinating thing to just follow some nobody Fremen and all of the shit that they have to go through in a day. When one of the most interesting characters in your entire film franchise as it is so far one and two is the guy who tends to the water in the first movie in the capital of Erickeine, and he's a more interesting character than Fade Rabon is.

Yeah, you've kind of failed and missed the point, which is the world of Dune is what's interesting, and the characters can be interesting in the focus, but the world is rich and full of things that are beyond compar hension. And that's Frank Herbert for you. And while I think we would both agree we can appreciate someone else interpreting it. At the end of the day, I might just advocate to go read the goddamn book with this one, because, like, the book is that good, it is that expansive. It does kind of feel like a fully fleshed out thing that you can wrap your arms around in its entirety and understand.

And like you said, the movies aren't that, but they could never be that unless they did it in a way that makes it where like you said, I understand day in the Life of a Harcone and even one eight Prime like take it. I mean, they do take advantage of it. But that's the thing. It's like, I want more. I want the world to be bigger and broader.

I want to sit with Sam and Frodo and watch them throw Bilbo a birthday party. You know, like, yes, it matters to the plot of the story, but it also matters in establishing the world and the rules and the connections between the characters and the shire. And there's there's more in the first movie than there is here. But that's a problem because it feels like they just ignored it in the second movie. It's like well, if you're gonna introduce all these characters, you need to do more of that.

Give this movie another thirty minutes, is what I'm saying. Maybe that's a bad thing. I don't know if it would have fixed it, but I think you and I are both kind of more on the fence on this one than we were on the last one in terms of enjoyment, so it might have teetered me more into this is what I would enjoy if those things that were added were better executed. Exactly. Yeah, I definitely like this one more.

I wasn't checking my watch while I was watching. This didn't feel like the slog that the first one feels like. But yeah, like I said, I don't see myself running out to watch this one again anytime soon. Yeah either. Well, Chris, thank you so much.

This was a lot of fun talking about Doom Part two with you. And when you're not talking about Doom Part two, what are you up to these days? Talking about movies? Because hey, I like watching movies and not being able to enjoy them anymore, don't you? The struggle of doing this?

Yeah, everything that I do and talk about in terms of audio can be found over Weirdingwaymedia dot com, which yes, is named for a thing from Done. So if you don't realize how much we love Done, it's right there in the name. That's all I'm saying. What about you, Mike, same thing. Everything that I do is available at We're doing theamedia dot com, including this podcast, and we should probably make sure to plug since this is both a projection booth culture cast crossover that we both have on our patreons.

At the ten dollars and up level. You can listen to us and our dear friend Richard HadAM talking about James Bond movies. Every single month. First of the month comes boom, new episode talking about James Bond. We're going to be doing that for a lot of months because there's a lot of James Bond out there, and maybe by the time we finish, there will be a new James Bond who knows so and you know us, we are going deep with this stuff.

We are you know, only the strong travel this deep, as Paul moa Deep once said,