#56. 'Dune'
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The main review is Dune (Denis Villeneuve's adaptation, only "Part One" of Frank Herbert's novel), which topped the box office at $41 million domestically ($220+ million worldwide) and got its sequel greenlit by Warner Bros. the following Monday, with large-format/IMAX screens accounting for roughly half the domestic gross. Sonny, who saw it first in Dolby then again in IMAX, loves it as a "big loud movie" built for a big loud room, praising Hans Zimmer's score, the production design, and nearly the whole cast (Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin), while singling out Dave Bautista as miscast (playing Beast Rabban too angry and unrestrained compared to his subtler Blade Runner 2049 turn) and griping that the marketing dishonestly buried both the "Part One" framing and how little screen time Zendaya actually gets (~7 minutes); JVL, who watched on his laptop and had actually finished the notoriously trashy novel for the episode, likes the film more than the book, admires the sound design and screenwriting choices (the invented Jamis storyline, Beast Rabban's expanded role) but mocks the book's and movie's nonsensical "no computers but interstellar spice-trip navigation" logic and its incongruous bagpipes. Vic, who watched at home on TV after reading a critic's ("Pod's") review as a cheat sheet, admits he was only "shockingly" a little confused and runs it through his Quadrant grades: Plot B, Duration D, Action/Violence A+, and Sex/Nudity F (nothing on screen despite the book's gay-pedophile Baron Harkonnen material being scrubbed out), landing on an overall C+ — cue the recurring "quadrants are a fraud" needling. The long opening stretch covers JVL's discovery of the DTC swim-trunk brand Chubbies and its surprisingly huge revenue (much mockery of its short-inseam suits and names like "Protect the Cock"); Sonny recounting how he lost his glasses in an Uber after the DC IMAX screening and is now stuck wearing a bent backup pair; and Vic's annual complaints that Halloween is a "garbage holiday," which stuns JVL into confessing he genuinely loves it, ranking it third behind Thanksgiving and Christmas.
From the show notes
JVL makes a discovery. Sonny loses something. Vic badmouths Halloween. And how does Dune play in a theater, on a TV, and on a laptop? All that and more on this week's episode, which again reinforces the idea that the quadrants are a fraud.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00My planet Arrakis is so beautiful when the sun is low. Rolling over the sands, you can see spice in the air. The outsiders ravage our lands in front of our eyes. Their cruelty to my people is all I've known. What's to become of our world?
?00:00:40Pull.
Vic00:00:52Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder. The Sub-Beacon is a production of the Sub-Beacon. The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. And don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, what's going on?
JVL00:01:15Boys, I have some help for Sonny, but it's a little bit too late.
Vic00:01:24Help for what?
JVL00:01:25Remember the show when Sonny needed to buy a bathing suit? Yes. Yes. He was like, I gotta buy a bathing suit. I ain't even drunk.
Vic00:01:34What kind? Because it's like too short, too much leg, too much leg showing.
JVL00:01:38Yeah. Well, I found the hottest men's bathing suit in America. It's from a brand new company. Called? Called Chubbies. Oh, yes. I see those. I get those ads.
Sonny00:01:57Is this SponCon?
JVL00:01:59Chubbies is a DTC, direct-to-consumer. They're like the Warby Parker of men's, or maybe the Lula Roe of men's bathing suits.
Vic00:02:09And they specialize in five and a half inch cut suits.
JVL00:02:13So, you know, a little on the short side. If you have, just judging from the website, if you have a bunch of tattoos on your thigh, Chubbies will display those in most cases. So, you want to make sure people see the little... The little crest of, I don't know, St. Patrick or whatever that you got, you know, right on the top of your thigh. Like, Chubbies will make sure the people at the beach see that. Now, I can't tell if Chubbies is a lifestyle brand because as you go through the website and look at the... There's always two types of pictures for each bottle of suit. And they have like an infinite number of patterns. Again, like Lula Roe. And they sell out. And they all have... They all have funny names, like Protect the Cock. And it has... What? It has roosters on it, though. Like Macho.
Vic00:03:07Really?
JVL00:03:08Really? And a lot of these photos have pictures of gentlemen at the pool together with buddies wearing matching five and a quarter inch Chubbies.
Vic00:03:23I see.
JVL00:03:23And which is average. It's just an average thing to do. That sort of thing. And it's amazing. But the point is, I want you guys to notice how I found Chubbies. I found Chubbies while I was reading through one of my favorite financial newsletters called Petition, which our buddy Dan actually got me hooked up on. It's great. Mostly this is a newsletter, the authors of which deal with distressed assets. But they were writing about Chubbies because the parent company to Chubbies... Chubbies is going public in a week or two. And Chubbies, which sells men's swimwear with names like Protect the Cock, did $129 million of revenue last year. Wow. Wow. But you know what? You guys are right. Capitalism is doing great.
Vic00:04:23Well, why would that be bad news?
JVL00:04:27It's great news.
Vic00:04:28A lot of people seem to like it.
JVL00:04:29Clearly, everybody wants Chubbies.
Vic00:04:31It's responding to the market. Sonny, what's the matter?
Sonny00:04:38Vic, move back from the mic a little bit. What did I tell you? You're a little bit close.
JVL00:04:41The thing is, the market for this product was actually very soft. So to speak. And then Chubbies got in there, and they really firmed up their entire, what's the term of art? Consumer marketplace, or total addressable consumer space. And now, they are just at full mast. I mean, they are.
Vic00:05:08Again, if they're making that much money, and people are buying it, then that's great. I don't see what the problem is.
JVL00:05:15That is a sign that capitalism is working great.
Vic00:05:17Yeah. Why not? People are into it.
Sonny00:05:20I don't think this is quite as damning as you make it out to be, JBL. Just because people want to buy their... Differently-lifestyled swim trunks, that's fine. That's fine. That's totally fine.
JVL00:05:41What's funny, though, is I'm pretty sure that the chubbies are not actually a gay thing. I mean, I was joking about it. Who said anything about that? I was joking about it being a niche lifestyle brand. But actually, I don't think it is. I thought you meant, like, single men. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, buddies who like... I like to go to Sandals Resorts together.
Vic00:06:02Sandals is great. You know, the one thing that I noticed, because it appears on, like, my Google Ads, I've never searched for it, it just appeared, is the man modeling it is a little bit, is like a little bit on the heavier side. Why would that be? You know? So not like a thin guy, kind of like, well, I guess he looks kind of chubby. No, well, it's that sort of a thick furry, hairy. No, but he's like... You know, I guess, I don't know if it's middle age, and I don't know if they're making assumptions about my weight or something. I don't know what that means, but there it is.
Sonny00:06:36Don't they know that you're running 100 miles a week now?
Vic00:06:38I ran six and a half this morning, to no avail, because I'm like, my weight's still the same. Anyway.
JVL00:06:43I just want to say, boys, that Christmas is coming, and I'm going to get you each a chubby.
Vic00:06:49Oh, oh. Well, okay. No, I don't need that. Is it strictly... But it's not just, obviously, swimwear, but it's underwear, right? They do everything.
JVL00:06:57I mean, I'm sure. You pay extra. You can get...
Vic00:07:01That's fine. That's fine. Thank you. Is that it? Is that it, JVL? Was that the whole thing? It was about chubbies? How are you, fellas? But how about, like, is it up there with... I figured it's in the same category as bonobos.
JVL00:07:18I don't think it is, but maybe I'm wrong. Right? What do I know? Things that I see, but I don't buy. Or DaBaby. DaBaby's a thing. What is that? It's a wrapper. It's a wrapper. I learned it today. Oh.
Sonny00:07:32DaBaby. Canceled wrapper. It's a baby. Sonny... DaBaby. Not a baby, not the baby. DaBaby. Baby. DaBaby. DaBaby.
JVL00:07:40Sonny, how are you? DaBaby, bonobos, chubbies. These all sound like DTC brands. Yeah.
Sonny00:07:46I don't know what's going on here.
Vic00:07:48Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:07:50I did something dumb. I did something dumb on Monday. Sporarity. So I... I... This is... This is... It's hard to explain exactly what happened, but I'll just run you through the whole sequence of events. I got into an Uber after watching Dune. I watched Dune on IMAX when it's on a big, big screen. On Monday?
JVL00:08:16I thought you were going to go to see the French Dispatch.
Sonny00:08:18I saw both. Oof, man. I saw... I made... I made a shallow... Shallow Monday for me.
JVL00:08:26Shallomania?
Sonny00:08:27Timothy's Shallow Monday for me.
Vic00:08:29It's a...
Sonny00:08:30Yes, continue. So, I got out of Dune, which I wanted to watch again before to prep for this show. I wanted to watch it in IMAX as God intended. And I called... It was raining, if you remember, in Washington, D.C., where I was very briefly for like 30 hours. I got into an Uber that I had called. I took my ride back to the hotel. And as I was getting out of the Uber... Now, remember, if you ride in an Uber now, you have to wear a mask. Yeah. You have to wear a mask. Mostly. And it's hot and it's humid because of the rain. I'm like fumbling with my umbrella, which I had brought, which I had actually had the foresight to bring. But I've got this mask on and it's fogging. I'm taking off my glasses. So I take my glasses off and I hook them into my shirt, you know, just like in the buttons of the shirt. And we're riding and we get to the stop. We stop. I get out. And as I'm getting out, I'm like, again, I'm kind of fumbling with the umbrella, whatever. Get out of the car and get into the hotel. Say hi. Say hi to the people at the front desk. Hi, I'm back. Hey. And they're like, oh, good to see you, sir. Welcome back.
Vic00:09:55What is this? It's Carlton?
Sonny00:09:57It was the Hamilton. I was staying at the Hamilton. What? Very, very nice. It's like 14th and K.
Vic00:10:04I didn't know. I thought it was just a restaurant.
Sonny00:10:06No. What?
JVL00:10:07So it's a restaurant and a hotel.
Sonny00:10:09Oh, my God. No, you're thinking of the Hamilton in the- Yes. The where-
Vic00:10:16Yeah. The very nice hotel. Oh, across from the Wooler.
Sonny00:10:20Hamilton Hotel is different.
Vic00:10:21It's 14th and K. Oh, sorry.
Sonny00:10:24So anyway, I get back up to my room and I take my mask off and I reach down to put my glasses back on. And they were gone. They had fallen out of my shirt into the car and I was like, oh, no. So I immediately called the distress line on Uber. I was like, you have to connect me with this guy. And I called the number and it sends me right into his voicemail box where I cannot leave a message because it is full of people who have previously left their glasses in the car. So I tried a couple of times because I was like, maybe I can get him to come right back. Did you know the direct number?
Vic00:10:58Did you try the direct number?
Sonny00:10:59No, no, there was no direct number. There's no direct number. It's like they have like a they have like a essentially a program that you call that routes you through Seattle or wherever because they don't want they they Uber does not want the driver to have your number because they don't want they don't want drivers harassing people. So anyway, long story short, long story short, I managed to lose my glasses in a car, which I like have never never has never happened. To me, I've never lost a pair of glasses anywhere. I've never lost left them at a restaurant. I've never, you know, left them on an airplane or on a bus. But but because of because of this mask mandate, it's this has cost me more than the mask mandate is worth. I think we got to get rid of them. Get rid of all the masks. I'm with you.
JVL00:11:49No, no.
Sonny00:11:50I mean, I just like I was just I was I was like, so I was I was I was mostly embarrassed by it. Frankly, I was like, how did I how did I do this to myself? So now I have to wear these glasses, which I don't know if you can see them in the in the video, but they are they are at about if you are making a trapezoid here, these would not be 90. These are not 90 degree angles. These are like 120 degree angles.
Vic00:12:15You know, they're like my glasses.
Sonny00:12:17Yeah. Well, you could wear these. They would be very comfortable for you. But look at this. You know, mine. Mine are. Yeah, exactly. They're actually like your natural size.
Vic00:12:24If only if only people could see this question.
JVL00:12:27Yes. How did you get back to Tejas?
Sonny00:12:32Well, luckily, my my prescription is actually very low. I really only need them for for driving. And I only need them for driving to see street signs. Like if I know where I'm going, it's fine. I only need them to see like the the like I mean, like the literal street signs, not like speed limit numbers or whatever. Luckily, though, in my car, I had my prescription sunglasses, so I just put those on.
JVL00:12:56But your car was in Texas. Right. Yeah. I mean, how did you get? Well, I was I was I was into the airport from the place where you needed to go to another place.
Sonny00:13:07How did you find your gate? I don't need glasses that badly. I honestly don't need my my prescription is very light. I would not. My prescription is very light. It's like one point two five and point seven.
Vic00:13:18I would not be able to drive without. Well, I mean, well, this would be so I would be like, yeah, I am.
Sonny00:13:24I technically I technically need them for my on my driver's license. It says, you know. Uh, you need you need glasses to drive.
JVL00:13:32But just for walking around, you would show up at the airport and you would walk over to what looks like the American Airlines counters and you would explain the situation and they would like an old lady get you a guide who would who would drive you on a little shuttle that would take you from place to place. So Mr. Wheelchair, Mr. Mattis, this is your gate for your airplane.
Sonny00:13:56They could put a little card on you without without the glasses.
Vic00:13:59I lost child without the glasses. I'd end up at Etihad. I would I would be walking into Etihad next stop.
Sonny00:14:06So all of a sudden you suddenly you walk out of the airport in Saudi Arabia, right?
Vic00:14:11With with with the alcohol from the duty free. And then I'm getting arrested for that because it's blasting blast furnace.
JVL00:14:16Right.
Vic00:14:16That's right.
Sonny00:14:17No, it was it was very I mean, like, luckily, again, luckily, I am my glasses are more aesthetic, frankly, than than functional. Oh, hipster. So, uh, no. But I need that. I need them to drive. But just to get around to, like, call it, call a car.
JVL00:14:34And the next thing you know, you're going to tell us that the elbow patches on your blazers aren't covering holes. They're just decorative.
Sonny00:14:43I never you know, I never I never have had a tweed blazer with elbow patches or corduroy blazer with elbow because I don't see you anymore.
Vic00:14:53Sonny, do you still wear a lot of cardigans?
Sonny00:14:56I wore one to the Bulwark. I wore one to the staff meeting because it was because it's like 50 to 55, 65 degrees. And it was you were dying to break that out. Perfect. And I have not been able to wear one all. You know, I haven't been able to wear one since, like, February here in Texas. Yeah.
Vic00:15:13So, well, Victorino, how are you, buddy?
JVL00:15:16I'm doing fine.
Vic00:15:17But, you know, it's like everything is happening so fast and now it's Halloween. It's confusing. It's confusing. It's disorienting. It's scary. Halloween is upon us.
Sonny00:15:31Are you talking about just the passage of time? The passage of time. Just in general? Just in general. Just in a general sense?
Vic00:15:35You know, age. But it's...
Sonny00:15:38You see visions of a man in black robes speeding towards you when you close your eyes? I do.
Vic00:15:43But thank goodness he's in costume. But it's like, you know, at my house, like my daughter, it's constantly Halloween talk about. I can't wait for Halloween. The costumes of Halloween. Non-stop about the different... I mean, and it starts early on. Because they're always thinking about the next Halloween. And you know they're going to change their mind, you know, within a month. And then it goes on forever. But here we are. It's ready upon us. And I'm just not... I'm not a... I'm just... I don't know if I've been a Halloween person in decades.
JVL00:16:13Halloween's garbage. It's a gutter holiday.
Vic00:16:15So I assume you're the same way. You're not a Halloween... You don't go all out.
JVL00:16:19You're not like, we got it.
Vic00:16:20The costumes? Costumes were your kids probably. Although some of your kids are maybe still young that they're sort of...
Sonny00:16:27They're young enough that they're into it. They're still very into it. I mean, they're kids. They love Halloween. But no, I've been done... I've been done with Halloween since like 16. Yeah. Garbage holiday for idiots.
Vic00:16:39JVL, you're not... You're shaking your head. I love it. Oh, you do? So you're the other way around.
Sonny00:16:44I find this fascinating. I find it fascinating that you're a Halloween person.
JVL00:16:48Yes, me too. I am shocked. Love it. Third best holiday in the year. Of the year. Not even close for me.
Vic00:16:56Thanksgiving, Christmas...
JVL00:16:57What are top two? Thanksgiving, Christmas... Christmas, Halloween.
Sonny00:17:01Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, strong number one.
Vic00:17:03Strong number one. I love Thanksgiving. Yep.
Sonny00:17:05Maybe July 4th, number two.
JVL00:17:07Who needs July 4th?
Sonny00:17:09I like July 4th.
JVL00:17:09I'd put July 4th with like Arbor Day. So do you yourself...
Sonny00:17:14Christmas, there's a lot of crap you have to do too. You got to put up decorations. Not this year. So what do I...
Vic00:17:19Do you do Halloween decorations in your house? Are you one of those houses?
JVL00:17:23Not anymore. I mean, I have in the past. But I am aspirationally a Halloween person. Like, I really wish I had the time to get the dry ice in the cauldron out front. Right, to do this thing. So that it's building out fog.
Vic00:17:40So you actually feel like jealous of the other homes that do it up?
JVL00:17:43I do, because we've done that a few times. And I loved doing it. I just... I don't know. I just haven't had time. Do you yourself... Over the last couple of years. Yeah. My life's been a little busy.
Vic00:17:54Yes. There is a scary house down the street. And it's actually... It's a townhouse. So it's narrow. But I have to say... So they don't have... They don't put all the inflatables because they don't have a front yard like other homes do. But this house, it was genuinely scary. They have a very tall, non-inflatable... More like a plasticky... But it's like a two-story tall pumpkin man. And it's just very scary. And not... So it has like...
Sonny00:18:24Like a pumpkin head?
Vic00:18:25Full body.
Sonny00:18:26Like Ichabod Crane style?
Vic00:18:28Yes, like Ichabod Crane. Crane style, right. So it's a full body, skinny body. But it's got like glowing fire lungs and stuff. And then the eyes... The scariest part is the eyes blink.
Sonny00:18:40It's not like Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas?
Vic00:18:45No, no, no, no, no. It's an actual orange pumpkin head. So it's like a pumpkin head. A pumpkin head. And the eyes blink. I don't know how that works, but it's very freaky. It's magic. It's because it's alive. It's because it's alive. You know, I avoid... On my running route, I go on the other side of the street.
Sonny00:19:03The pumpkin man has come for your soul. Well, it's looking for... Because the passage of time has led to you dying in the next few days here.
Vic00:19:10The pumpkin man is like... The pumpkin man actually treats me like a fellow... Because he thinks that it's the same head. It's a pumpkin head. It's like, oh, a fellow pumpkin head. Hello. Do you get... The pumpkin man is just sitting there going, what do you do?
JVL00:19:22Why is that one allowed to walk around? I sit right here.
Sonny00:19:27How is he... He must be a rich pumpkin. Pumpkin man.
JVL00:19:30He must be one of those loaded pumpkin men. I bet he has a single family home and not a townhouse.
Vic00:19:37That's right. That's right. The pumpkin man gets to drive.
JVL00:19:41One of those ghetto $3 million townhouses in Arlington. Oh, look at those people in the $3 million townhouse.
Vic00:19:50Do you get dressed up for Halloween as a grown man, as an adult, JVL?
JVL00:19:55I haven't, again, in a very long while. But you would like... I used to enjoy doing a little Clark Kent action where I would wear glasses and, you know, dress shirt. Oh, right. But I have, like, my little Superman T-shirt underneath with it just open a little bit at the collar.
Vic00:20:12Do you do a thing with, like, the pins, safety pins to have it sort of, like, open?
JVL00:20:16No, no, just naturally over my pecs. And, you know, I mean, the greatest costume that never actually came together was the year pre-Children. Of course, pre-Children, back when everything was good. When Shannon and I were going to go as Margot and Richie Tenenbaum. Oh. Which would have been amazing and also kind of pervy.
Sonny00:20:40Save it for next week. That's right.
Vic00:20:41That's for next week's show.
Sonny00:20:42We'll be talking French Dispatch next week.
Vic00:20:44Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's playing at the Shirlington Artsy Theater, so I'll be checking that out. The only thing.
Sonny00:20:49You're going to dig it.
Vic00:20:51Ooh.
Sonny00:20:52Got a quadrant, strong quadrant movie. Really?
Vic00:20:54Great. I was going to say, with Halloween, the only thing that I do like to do. When I have time is roast pumpkin seeds. I'm into that. No, Sonny.
Sonny00:21:05You know what? You know what? You know what pumpkin seeds taste like? They taste like burnt sunflowers.
Vic00:21:10Not the way I make mine. Plus, it's very good for digestion. You're going to love the way. Sonny, you would love mine, and it's also good. Much like the season of autumn, it's like a leaf blower. It's good for you that way.
JVL00:21:24Do you put a little bit of melange spice on your pumpkin seeds? Do you put some spice on it?
Vic00:21:28Speaking of melange. Speaking of which. Spice. Over the weekend, Dune climbed its way to the top of the box office with $41 million. How did it ever make that much? Followed by Halloween Kills in second place with $14.5 million. And in third place, No Time to Die with $12.2 million. Box office thoughts. This is a movie that came out simultaneously at home and in theaters. And Sonny, did you have strong feelings about IMAX? I don't think you really wrote about or expressed that on social media.
Sonny00:21:59People should watch it however they want. People should watch it on their refrigerators.
JVL00:22:03You can do that.
Sonny00:22:06The box office is interesting because this is the biggest of the Warner Brothers openings since they started doing the simultaneous theatrical and HBO Max releases. It grossed $40 million or so in the United States. It is over $220 million worldwide. Interestingly, only like $20. $23 million or so in China. China is not a big market for high concept sci-fi, which is kind of interesting. But it was a good enough opening that they greenlit the sequel on Monday. So we are getting Dune Part 2.
Vic00:22:48This was a big thing early on that you had written about because it's like there was no agreement. It's not like Lord of the Rings. Everybody is all here in one shot. That's a problem.
Sonny00:22:58We can talk about it. But it's a problem not doing these things back to back. You open yourself up to a lot of different issues. But yeah, no, I mean, it's a good weekend. It's still kind of a black box because we don't have any idea how many people watched it on HBO Max. We don't have any idea how many subs it drove. We don't really know anything there. I still think there's a universe in which... This movie comes out in a totally normal marketplace, sans HBO Max or anything like that, and it grosses about $40 million at the box office. I mean, I think that that is not an unreasonable... So this is a thing that I have been saying for the last six months or so, or 10 months or so, is that I think Dune actually was helped by this release strategy a lot because the people who were really into it and wanted to see it in theaters were going to go see it in theaters. And the people who weren't into it and weren't going to see it weren't going to see it either way. But the people who were kind of into it and, you know, maybe they wanted to see it, maybe they didn't, they can just stay home and watch it on HBO Max. So it pumps up the HBO Max numbers. It leads to, I mean, again, I think that the box office would have been in the $40 to $50 million range in a totally normal marketplace. What is very interesting, what is very interesting is the split on the... the large format theaters and the regular theaters. So large format theaters accounted for something like 50% of the domestic box office, $20 million. That is, that is two and a half to three times larger than that percentage usually is. Usually that percentage is in the 15 to 20% range, which means that the people who wanted to go see it wanted to go, they were, they were convinced that the, uh, the way to see it, you got to go see it in IMAX or in TV. Dolby or on 4DX or whatever the, uh, you know, all the, all the different, uh, large format type things, um, uh, which I think is probably the best way to see it. I think that is, I think that's, I think that's correct. Uh, so I don't know. I mean, like the, the, the, the big question is, is this, is this a lot of money? Is it enough money? Um, is it, is this a success or a failure? And the, the, the easy answer is to say, yes, it's a success. Look, they greenlit. The slightly more difficult answer is to say, it might be a success. We don't know without seeing the HBO max numbers. Um, and, and, uh, uh, another answer is, well, I mean, look, this is not really that far off of what Blade Runner 2049 did at a similar budget, uh, with a similar advertising campaign. And that movie was a colossal failure. Everyone agrees that that movie was a gigantic bomb. Um, so I don't know. I mean, in a normal, in a normal. Uh, environment, this movie has to gross 550 to $600 million at the box office worldwide to break even, uh, a $220 million opening weekend. That is going to, it's going to come in, in the 400 to 500 range, probably, which would be under the, under the number that you would consider break even again, hard to say without figuring in all the HBO max stuff. I just don't, I don't, I don't know what the answer is. And it's very frustrating to me. I don't, I don't like not knowing what the answer is, but.
Vic00:26:28Do you think that, uh, the, the diehard fans, uh, of Dune, uh, book and movie will be also repeat viewers in theaters? Yes.
JVL00:26:39So, you know, I mean, this was the great thing about Titanic.
Vic00:26:45I mean, just the, the teenagers, you know, the teenage girls just had lied just, you know, over and over again. Right. I mean, this is what it was generating.
Sonny00:26:52I mean, I, I think, I think they, I don't have any actual data obviously, but I, I, I hear anecdotally. That the repeat business is fairly strong for this already. It's going to be interesting because Eternals, so Eternals comes out next weekend. It comes out November 5th, which means that, uh, the, that Dune will be taken out of all the large format theaters will be taken out of IMAX, et cetera, et cetera. That's for sure. Um, and I will be, I will be very curious to see what the, even more than the first to second weekend drop, which will be an interesting number of itself. I'm, I'm more interested to see what the second to third weekend drop is. Cause I think that could actually be a bigger drop. Which it would be unusual.
Vic00:27:30Yeah. Uh, so, uh, again, we're talking obviously this, uh, this week, uh, about, uh, Dune. Denis Villeneuve's remake. Denis Villeneuve's.
Sonny00:27:40No, not a remake. Oh, is that what you're calling a remake? It's not a remake. It's just a new adaptation. It's just a new adaptation. It's not a, it's not a remake.
Vic00:27:46He's not remaking David Lynch's.
Sonny00:27:47He's not remaking David Lynch's Dune.
Vic00:27:49Enhancing it.
Sonny00:27:51He's just, he's just, he's just doing a new adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel. One half of Frank Herbert's novel. One half. Part one. He's, he's.
Vic00:27:58This is Dune part one should be the actual title is part one.
Sonny00:28:02Well, so we can discuss that.
JVL00:28:03Well, he said, did you notice that little tag, which I thought to myself, I can't believe Warner let him do that.
Sonny00:28:10Well, so what's very interesting. So from, from.
Vic00:28:13The executives were sitting at, when they first watched it, like, what the, that's what they were thinking.
Sonny00:28:17For the last year and a half, for the last year and a half, they've been telling everybody in interviews, Denis, Denis Villeneuve, he only adapted the first half of the book. It's only the first half. You know, this is the, this is part one. We're, we're all considering this part one. Yes. We left it at a place where it feels like it's all a complete story if we don't make a sequel, but this is only the first half of the book. And I, I, so like I was aware of this. I don't know if you guys, I'm actually curious. Did you know that this was only going to be the first half of the book JBL?
Vic00:28:47Yes.
Sonny00:28:48Did you know it was only going to be the first half of the book Vic?
JVL00:28:51Not until I read pods review for us.
Sonny00:28:53Okay.
JVL00:28:54So there was no possible way that your average movie view movie goer knew was part one. Until they saw that on the screen. And even then they only flashed on the screen for like a second and a half.
Sonny00:29:04Yeah. So here's, here's, what's very interesting to me is that they have the advertising campaign for this movie has hidden a great number of things or two big things. I'll put up two big things. The first big thing is that this is one half of a movie. They have not, they have not advertised this as doing part one. And I like, I went, I, I, I talked about this a lot in my review that this is one half of one movie. And, and a lot of people don't know that. A lot of people on Twitter were like, how can you complain about this? They've been saying from the beginning that it's only part one. And I'm just like, all right, dickheads point to me any place in the trailers, in the posters, in the TV spots where this is called Dune part one, as it is called at the start of this movie. They have hidden this. They have hidden this from the average movie going. I understand why I understand why people don't, people aren't like, Oh, I got to, well, I'm signing up for 17 parts of this. What am I? Who do they think I am? I get it. I get it. But they have, they have, they have intentionally hidden it. The second thing is that they have greatly overhyped the amount of the movie that Zendaya is in. Zendaya is front and center of all of the trailers, all of the posters, all of the posters, all of the TV spots. It is her kind of wisp, her hair with like wispily blowing in the desert wind. And she's, you know, telling, telling Paul Atreides, who's played by Timothee Chalamet, how beautiful Arrakis is. She's in all of the spots and she's in all of the spots for a lot of time. And she is in this movie for, I think the official number is like seven minutes. I think she's in this movie for exact, it's for, it's either seven minutes or 10 minutes of the 150 minute movie that she is in. And look, that, again, I, she'll show, she will have a bigger part in part two, which is going to get made now. So like, she's going to be in more of that movie. That is, that is more of her story. But if I was a... If I was a Zendaya stan, if I was, if I was, if I stand Den Zaya, I would be very annoyed by this movie. I would be very annoyed by the, the kind of misleading advertising.
Vic00:31:10Right. You, you would feel as, as I, as I would say on the show, you would feel gypped. So. Can't say that.
Sonny00:31:16I would, I would never say that. That was Vic Mattis who said that.
Vic00:31:21You're not allowed to say that anymore. Since when? Okay. Sonny, how about a big boy review? Dude. Try to keep it to within 30 minutes.
Sonny00:31:28Dune, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is about the House Atreides, which is sent by the emperor to the planet Arrakis to mine the spice. The Harkonnens who were in charge of the spice, which is exceptionally valuable because without the spice, you can't do the interstellar travel. The Harkonnens are angry about this and they attack the Atreides with the aid of the emperor who has decided to back the Harkonnens in their power play because he is afraid of the Atreides. Clan, in the midst of all of this, we are introduced to the son of the duke of the House of Atreides, who is the chosen one, the Bene Gesserit, the sex witches, as they are known in the books. Less sex here, it's just more witches in the movie, have been crossbreeding the houses for years. To find somebody who could see through time, I guess. That's probably Paul, Paul Atreides, who's played by Timothy Chalamet. I don't know, big explosions, big fights. They're in the desert for a while, they come to the Fremen, Stronghold, the Fremen are the Arab surrogates of this desert world, they are the kind of nomadic Arab tribes who live in the sand and wear things called still suits, which collect, I don't, none of this matters, none of this matters, here's, here's, here's, here's all that really matters, here's all that really matters.
Vic00:33:09Such a great review, go ahead.
Sonny00:33:11Big loud movie, it's a big loud movie, you see it in a big loud theater, it's fantastic, it just goes right through you.
Vic00:33:19It's Hans Zimmer, Hans Zimmer.
Sonny00:33:22Hans Zimmer, Hans Zimmer, it is Hans Zimmer, my favorite, my favorite Hans Zimmer moment in this movie is... It is as, it's as the Atreides are leaving their home planet of Caledon, and, and the, the, the music just goes to like 11, and it's like you're, all of a sudden you're in like a Prague rock concert, because he's like kind of staring off into the sun, and, and it's like, and I was just like, oh, this is, this is a bit much, Hans, it's a bit much, you're really, you're doing it, you're going for it. I don't know, I like this movie a lot, I liked, I liked all, I liked every, I liked every actor in it, even Timothee Chalamet, I'm not going to say anything nice about him, but I won't say anything bad either, Oscar Isaac is great, Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Timothee Chalamet's mother is great, I loved Stellan Skarsgård, who's basically playing Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. He put on so much weight for this role. Big and fat, and like rubbing his head with sweat rolling off it, I love, I love Jason Momoa, his kind of like bro fighter guy, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, the warrior, and the war master. I love everybody in this movie, except weirdly Dave Bautista, who I think is slightly, who is playing the role wrong. He's just too, he's too angry and too...
Vic00:34:39Did he remind you too much of Guardians of the Galaxy? Bald Dave Bautista?
Sonny00:34:44No, no, no, I mean, it's the opposite. He's like, he, so, do you guys remember Blade Runner 2049, the opening scene with Dave Bautista? He's the best thing in that movie. Yeah, yeah. And that's a movie I like a lot. I like that movie a lot, but he is the best thing in it, and he's doing something very interesting there. It's a subtle, it's a subtle restrained performance that suddenly bursts into violence, and in this movie, he's just, like, angry and raging all the time, and, like, that is kind of the character. I'm not, I'm wrong to say that he's playing the character wrong. It's just, like, it, it, it's not, it's not compelling on screen. But, yeah, I actually, I really like this movie. I'm, I'm, I, I am, I'm, I am still somewhat annoyed that it is, it is only part one, and that they have not yet even begun filming part two, so it's going to be... It's going to be a couple years before that, that comes out, but, uh, I, I quite enjoyed it. Um, again, I saw, I saw it in a Dolby theater for the press screening, then I saw it again in IMAX, uh, and it is, uh, it's a thing that is best experienced on your Peloton, watching it in portrait mode.
Vic00:35:46JVL, how did you watch this movie, and what did you think?
JVL00:35:50I watched it on my laptop, but I, I used my good headphones, I mean, not my great headphones, but my medium. Headphones.
Sonny00:35:59Your status, your status.
JVL00:36:01And, uh, Vic, am I, I don't want to assume, please don't take this the wrong way, were you a little confused about what was going on?
Vic00:36:11Shockingly, only a little bit.
JVL00:36:14Okay, can I, can I just spill, because I, I, I did go to the trouble of.
Vic00:36:18Believe me, I have questions.
JVL00:36:20So, Sonny, when you said it was sort of complicated and, you know, none of it matters, it's really not complicated at all, it's a very simple story, there's a boy named Paul, and he is young Duke of Atreides, which is simple enough, uh, he goes to a Bene Genserit and has to pass the Gom Jabbar so he can become the Queez of Tzadarach, and then he goes to Arrakis where he meets Silgar and the Fremen, and they take him to their ch, Silgar, because they think he's the least on Agaib, so Paul becomes Maudib, and then taking Spice and riding a Maker so that he can defeat the Tzadikar and their Mentots. So it's, I mean, this, it's, it's the most straight line story that you could possibly tell. It's just pointless. Point A to point B to point C.
Sonny00:37:01I will say that, I will say that the, the, uh, the way that the, the film actually portrays this is all very, is, is actually very simple. It's too simple, actually. It, like, you just are told a bunch of things are happening. Like, the Emperor is going to attack the, the Atreides house with the Harkonnens. Like, it's just, it's all tell, not show.
JVL00:37:21But, but why? So, so, before we, before, before we get into it, Victorino, may I have quadrants?
Vic00:37:27Oh, sure. Oh, sure. I feel like I kind of cheated because what happened was, in Pod's review, he spends two paragraphs actually explaining the background and what is happening. And I had read that before I saw it. Oh, so you studied the CliffsNotes before you saw the movie. The Pod, CliffsNotes, and so I was like, oh, I see what's happening here because they need the spice and it's like, as Pod explains, it's their oil and then they have to, you know, they're the ones who are going to be running it and refining it and so they have the power and so they're just, it's a transfer of power but they've been betrayed, okay, that works for me and they think that the sun is the second coming or the messiah rather. So, with that in mind, let's see here. The Mahdi, not the messiah. The Mahdi, that's right, the Mahdi. And it's funny that she doesn't, they don't, she says Mahdi when, you know, Persian was in the Mahdi, I think, but the other thing is what I really found fascinating, I found so many things fascinating about this movie is, not having read the book, it strikes me as Frank Herbert did not go out of his way to create wackiness. He crazy, never before created words, but rather just took them from everywhere. I mean, it's sort of like Middle Eastern roots and things like that and maybe make something so like the Mahdi, for example, right?
Sonny00:38:39I would say, I would say that the, I would say that the movie does a very good job. Of new words? Of, of, of making, of making all of this very accessible. Oh, oh. Because that, that book is, well JBL, you just read it, right?
JVL00:38:52I literally finished it today. Oh my God. And I mean, the number of times that the word is, the word jihad appears in the book. So like I said. It is like every third page. Yeah. Jihad this, jihad that.
Vic00:39:05So it's, it's Arabic heavy?
JVL00:39:08Yes. Well, I mean, he was, he was obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia. This is, I mean, look, I don't want to, we don't need to get into the history of Frank Herbert's Dune. Right. But this is a guy who was writing in the sixties who was obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia and taking shrooms. Okay. And surprise, he came up with a science fiction masterpiece that is about a dude writing a book, running around the desert, a Westerner, a blue eyed Westerner, running around the desert, leading the savages to salvation while taking psychotropic drugs.
Sonny00:39:38Leading, leading them to salvation while also getting ready for intergalactic jihad. Yes. The, the, the sequels to the, I've never read the sequels, but my understanding is that it's all about spreading, spreading the religion of, of the Atreides house.
JVL00:39:54There are like 26 of these books.
Sonny00:39:56Yeah. There's a lot of them.
JVL00:39:57There are a lot of them. They're all trash. I have not read all of them. I've only read like two or three of them, but.
Vic00:40:03I would read the book unless it's long. Like, is it more than 200 pages? That to me is long.
Sonny00:40:10If I offered you. It would take you two years to read this book.
JVL00:40:12If I offered you $300, you could not finish this book. If I just said, look, I will pay you 300 bucks and it's on the honor system.
Vic00:40:21Right.
JVL00:40:22You would not be able to finish this book.
Vic00:40:23Or would it be like, like with a, with a time limit or just in general, not finish the book? Just in general. Just in general. No time limit. No time limit. We'll be in our seventies and I'm going to come knocking. I'll be there with my cane, you know, because of the gal. Like the old man in Squid Game. Yes. I finished it. Okay. Plot. So I plot. I gave it a B because you know what? I have questions, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I really came in with very low expectations. Yes. Well, again, I feel like I cheated. But you cheated. A little bit. Okay.
Sonny00:40:50You cheated a little bit, but no, I think this is about right. I mean, the movie, the movie, the movie does a very good job of moving you from point A to point B and keeping it going. And you don't, you don't really like think too much about how dumb it all is.
Vic00:41:04I also loved the, uh, the subtitles a lot of times. It's great. Even with the ghost silent one, I appreciate reading things could have done more of that duration. Duration was a D right? I mean, it's two and a half, uh, action violence. I gave it a plus. I found it to be very original in many ways and it wasn't, I wasn't, um, annoyed by, I think the CG. It looks very expensive to say you ever see these a lot of we've, we have gone through a lot of movies with really crappy CGI and that really distracts me. I hated it. Um, so this one was like, Hey, this is interesting.
JVL00:41:41You see every dollar on the screen.
Vic00:41:42You do.
Sonny00:41:43You really, you know, it's not, it was not that expensive. It was not that expensive. It was $160 million, which is like not, not, not, not, not an extravagant sum.
Vic00:41:52I also would like to know how much green screen did they use for let's obviously outside, but like, well, I don't know. I mean, they filmed on location. I assume at least some of it.
Sonny00:42:03Interiors everywhere. I mean, I like, you would never know. It's like finding out, it's like when I found out the movie
Vic00:42:08Zodiac was mostly green screen. Did you hear that?
Sonny00:42:10That's did you know, did you know that parasite was almost like tons and tons of green screen and parasite. Even like the home, even the home to build, to build the exteriors of that home, to build like the exteriors of the streets there, I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy. They use green screen for everything now.
Vic00:42:25Sex nudity.
Sonny00:42:26This me, I am actually behind a green screen. Screen right now, there's an artist filling in all of these books.
Vic00:42:31There's no way that it's such a neat background with the bookshelves and the posters, uh, and sex nudity. I gave it an F you know, shirtless, Timothee Chalamet, you know, does not count. But you know, if you like that sort of thing.
Sonny00:42:42How does this get an F, how does this get an F when everything else gets, uh, it's bees.
Vic00:42:46Because it's PG 13, but even for that, there's nothing. However, I almost was willing to withhold the grade, withhold the grade till part two, because they consummate, if not, if I'm not mistaken, having remembered the
JVL00:42:58first takes place entirely off screen in the book at least, uh, yeah, there's like,
Vic00:43:03there's, it's a gauzy image in the dune in David Lynch's dune in the book. It skips a lot of sand in there, huh? Not sure that I'm not into the same thing. It's not doing it on Arrakis is the most comfortable. I agree. I agree. It would be very chafing. So that, that was my thoughts. So I saw it right here in this very room, uh, on my TV.
Sonny00:43:26So you did not go to a theater.
Vic00:43:28And, and though I look back on it, I probably could have made, uh, uh, the ever, I mean, because after watching it, I thought to myself, wow, that would be something in IMAX. That's all I have to say. Uh, and, and so I do have a lot of questions, pros and cons. What are your questions? Well, no. Okay. Well, first of all, uh, excuse me. Um, I found it quite compelling, the movie, by the way, I, I really like this is interesting.
Sonny00:43:53What did you, what was the grade C plus C plus overall?
Vic00:43:56It could have been worse. It could have been worse. It could have been worse. Quadrants are a fraud. No, they're not. Uh, this movie is quite compelling.
JVL00:44:02C plus.
Vic00:44:03Well, I mean, you know, fraud, sex, nudity, fraud, fraud, what it is, uh, again, I felt like, okay. House. I mean, the stuff I found really fascinating, you know, the house harkening and things like that. And, uh, those people very interesting. I'd like to know more again, I guess you wanted more shots of the food feast.
Sonny00:44:22Oh yes.
Vic00:44:23As he said, she called him cousin. He says, yes.
Sonny00:44:27Well, I mean, they're right. I mean, it's royal house. They're all, you know,
Vic00:44:30That's amazing. Okay. So, uh, I like Jason Momoa. I liked him here better than Aquaman.
Sonny00:44:34I didn't.
JVL00:44:35I, you know how much I hated Aquaman? This was the part, honestly, that Jason Momoa was born to play. He's fantastic in this.
Vic00:44:42He's good. I like Josh Brolin, Rebecca Furtickson, you mentioned and Stellan Skaggs. Everybody's great. Again, visually stunning. Um,
JVL00:44:50Can I, can I say I'm just right here, Victorino, it isn't just that the stars are great. The, the performances in this movie are so striking that even minor characters who have a single scene, uh, the Herald, the Imperial Herald, who is this black man, woman, I don't even know, like semi androgynous person, the religious type figure who comes out to read a, to read a bowl does this phenomenal thing with his voice. And it just, again, it's just beautiful. It's so good. Yeah. The Shadow Mapes, who is the, uh, the, the maid who is hired once they get to Arrakis again, small role, she has two scenes in the whole movie. She's on screen for maybe a total of 30 seconds and she makes a, a huge impression.
Sonny00:45:44You know, who also is David Das, Das, Das, Malkia, whatever, uh, the, the guy, the mentat
Vic00:45:49for the Harkness, uh, he, uh, he was being paid because he has that kind of a face. There you go. Yeah. He has lower lips. Um, what's happening there?
Sonny00:46:00It's a mentat thing. Yeah. It's, it's the, it's how the mentats are marked. It's like the doctor has the diamond on his head.
Vic00:46:04Oh, right. He does. And then they calculate their stuff in their heads. I see. Thank you for that. Um, okay. The ending remark. Okay. A lot of cons, a lot of whispering. Am I missing something or is it just prayers? You know, Rebecca Ferguson, who I, you know, I hope she gets nominated because she's really good in this. I really liked her and yes, that's right. But a lot of whispering. So I feel like I missed, I, I just, you know, missed stuff. The ending really was like an end, like a fellowship of the rings ending. Do you remember how that ended? Didn't they? No, it was not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Sonny00:46:36no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it was, it was not like fellowship of the rings because fellowship of the rings had a big rousing ending that then set up the next movie. It had like an actual end. It had an end to it.
Vic00:46:46Wasn't it though? And this just stops. Wasn't it? This movie just stops. But at the. And that's a real problem. But the very end of fellowship of the rings, aren't they just walking through a mountain pass? Yes.
Sonny00:46:56Same thing. Well, no. That's the trailer. At the end, they walk off into the marsh or something. I mean, they, they, they, basically the hobbits, so Sam and Frodo say to Aragorn, uh, we gotta go. Well, maybe it's the end of the two towns or something. And Aragorn was like, I would've, I would've followed you all the way. And they're like, we know, but we gotta go. We got, this is fucked. You guys are fucked up. We gotta get outta here.
Vic00:47:14I don't know about that. Okay. Questions. Why? So is this something that we learned in the sequel? Why does the emperor send house Atreides to take over the spice, uh, rack, uh, the spice, uh, the spice mines of Kessel, I'm getting confused here, uh, the, to take over control of the spice and then goes and attacks them. It's a setup. It's a setup involving the Bene Gesserit.
JVL00:47:40No. Oh. The, the, he needs, he wants them dead. However, he can't kill them on the planet they're in because the other houses will notice. However, by putting them on Arrakis, Arrakis has no satellites, but that's actually cause the Fremen, the Fremen are the reason they don't have any satellites cause they've been bribing the space guild, un, unimportant, uh, and, and, uh, and so this is why he is sent to Arrakis as a setup for them to die there out of sight. This is my question. Yes.
Vic00:48:12Okay. How does the spice actually work for space travel? It's not fuel. It's not like we've got to put the spice into the engines, you know, it's not like in, what was it? Star Trek movie where they, you know, where, uh, uh, what's his name? Uh, not Cromwell, uh, uh, you know, the, uh, the old actor, uh, is the guy who James Cromwell. James Cromwell. Yeah. Right. And he's the guy who designs and are able to then, you know, that was very technical. Okay.
JVL00:48:36We can reach out to space. Are you ready for this? Cause this really is the stupidest thing in the world. In the Dune universe, they are against computers. Computers are bad. Something happened and computers, it was right. Maybe it was Cyberdyne became self-aware who could say, well, this is the year 10, no computers. So they have faster than light travel. They can make interstellar journeys like that. Like it's crossing the street, but they refuse to use computers at all in any capacity. Anywhere. So everybody who's flying a ship is just, you're not doing it by hand. Like, you know, just winging it, just, oh, we're gonna approach our ship over here. We're gonna plop it down. And what the spices is the, the, uh, space guild uses their navigators. Take the spice. Cause it's just peyote and the peyote enables them to see into the future so that they can route faster than light around like space debris and asteroids. And stuff like that. And this we're supposed to believe that the first instance, whatever power source spaceships use, whether it is some sort of, uh, fusion reaction or something like that, those reactions are being managed by people with analog dials because they don't have a computer. Your refrigerator can't work without a microchip, but they are traveling across the stars purely by looking out the porthole with their eyeballs. And putting one hand on the steering wheel and high as a kite, high as a kite makes perfect sense. I'm glad Frank Herbert won his name. Frank Herbert actually is CW long bottom.
Vic00:50:23Okay. Uh, and lastly, why aren't there, cause again, there, well, I mean, it's interesting because I guess when it was written, I mean, it's his vision of the future versus like writing something now about what the future looks like. Um, why aren't there more projectile weapons? A lot of.
JVL00:50:40Swords. It's not, it's not his vision of the future again. It is him high on shrooms and deciding that I'm gonna rewrite. This is why I say he's CW. I'm gonna rewrite Lawrence of Arabia, but in, cause you remember the, the CW centric episode of mythic quest.
Vic00:50:57Yes.
JVL00:50:58Yes. All CW does is take things that are happening right now in the real world and just give them all weird names and pretend that they're the future. And so science, that's what Dune is. Wow.
Vic00:51:10Her, her and the Herbert fans are gonna be up in arms. Uh, so, so again, why not? Why not? Where, where are all the guns? Lasers, laser guns. Anything because they have shields, the only shields deflect the shield interstellar travel,
JVL00:51:23but the only way to kill a person is with, uh, or the needle, the needles, the project,
Sonny00:51:29the needle bullets, the needle. Can we just discuss the shields for a second? Because they're the, the least useful shields that have ever been made in a, in a, in a movie or a TV show or anything. It's like they, they like, they literally give you an initial buffer. It's just plot. It's just plot armor. It's literal plot armor. It's plot armor made literal. It's like, we can't kill these people right now. We want to be able to call them a little bit later. But like the, the, like, I mean the, my favorite is like the big bombs are being dropped out on the ship on the shield and then stop on the show and then vibrate through them and then blow them up. It's just like, what is, what's even the point at this point?
Vic00:52:04What's the point, you know, but it's, it's also like playing these video games where, you know, Uh, where you have your health level and then like, you know, it turns red and pink, but maybe in this case, only three hits and you're done, you know what I mean? It's like immediately it's red and then that's it. It's over. But I was, I, you know, and I remember, uh, the David Lynch version of this, which was interesting looking. Cause it was like a blocky thing that takes over their body and then, and then they can go charging against people, which is very interesting at that time, uh, in any event. Okay. Those are my questions.
JVL00:52:39I mean, so it's weird for me because I, I really don't like the book. Um, and so it's not quite fair, but the, I liked the movie better than the book. It's beautiful to look at. It's beautiful to look at. The performances are fantastic. There are, it's so highly stylized that even, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but when, when, uh, Paul is. Brought before the Reverend mother to face the Gom Jabbar, uh, is that the blocks? Yeah. But, but the Gom Jabbar is actually the needle that she holds. Even the way that she holds the needle in her hand is highly stylized. Like it's this where her fingers are positioned strangely on it. And so it's visually interesting. The sound design throughout, even on my mid to good headphones and not in an IMAX was sensation since just sensational that, uh, when they walk in, when Harkin and, uh, walks into the cone of silence and all of a sudden the whole sound drops off and they go to subtitles. That's wonderfully done, fascinating, wonderfully done without saying this is a cone of silence. It's a way to show us this is what they call the cone of silence. Uh, cool.
Sonny00:54:00The, when we go, they do actually say something lower the silence. Oh, do they?
JVL00:54:05Yeah. So when we go to the side of car planet. Uh, and we see the initiation ceremony for the set of car legions, there is a guy in their version of a minaret doing a call, which is again, just fabulous. And this is Hans Zimmer also, also bloodletting and bloodletting, um, but here's what I, here's what, what ultimately bugs me a little bit. So it looks amazing. And Denis Villeneuve has really sci-fied up the trappings here because the book is not a science fiction book. It is, it is just fantasy. It's pure. It is no different than game of Thrones, except they pretend no Star Wars has Star Wars is
Sonny00:54:55science fantasy. This is science fantasy. It's the same exact.
JVL00:54:59This is way more fantasy.
Sonny00:55:00Star Wars is based on Dune Star Wars. All of Star Wars is ripped off of Dune anyway. That's just a fact.
JVL00:55:08Tatooine, you're saying Tatooine is Arrakis. So like for, so there's all this interesting design work done in the service of pushing up the sci-fi trappings, but none of it makes any sense. Like for instance, when the Atreides ship is leaving Caladan, that ship is for some reason kept underwater and it's really cool when it rises up out of the lake, like the X-Men jet or something.
Vic00:55:35What were they doing under there?
JVL00:55:36I don't know. What were they doing under there?
?00:55:38I don't know.
JVL00:55:38is that except that like going from wet to dry get it get it from water to sand yeah when baron harkin and his healing he's in his healing pool yeah that is that is a super cool shot and focusing on the way that those two liquids sort of don't mix together super cool why why is it like that
Vic00:56:01i don't know but it looks cool and there's a lot of there's a lot this is form irrespective
JVL00:56:09of function just a lot of like i'm gonna do super cool stuff on screen it's gonna look awesome see
Sonny00:56:16but i i think i disagree that i i think that i think trying to separate those two things doesn't make any sense for a movie like this this is spectacle this movie is spectacle and this is why it i really i really again i know i know you guys have better things to say about this with your lives but i would strongly recommend trying to see it in imax or dolby before it is out i will just my one for instance on this is you know the voice yeah i love that that the witches use when you when you hear it in a in a theater that has a subwoofer the size of your house running the sound it goes right through you i mean it just it just tears right through you feel like physical reaction to it you can understand why uh somebody would feel compelled to respond it's a look i i love that i thought it was great
JVL00:57:08um i a couple things that were interesting one the choice of rebecca ferguson is interesting uh not sure that we're supposed to be worried about paul getting a boner around his mom all the time because lady jessica should probably be a little bit older so she's not that hot maybe it's just me but
Sonny00:57:31but i think the benny jess red are always supposed to be pretty hot well you know
Vic00:57:34they're literal sex witches you know what that's interesting because you know the reverend mother was played by the actress from that other amazing movie from the quadrants uh swimming pool remember she was the english author i unfortunately yeah and they show all of her
JVL00:57:50anyway one of the swimming pool check it out one of the recurring plots uh one of the recurring points i should say of of the novel is that baron
Vic00:58:01harkonnen is gay yes and baron because he doesn't have it's all nephews right because
JVL00:58:07he likes to the reason he doesn't have his own kid is because he likes young boys who he fucks
Sonny00:58:13and then murders oh my gosh yeah this was and this is what he wanted to do to paul yes they have they have very very conspicuously taken out the uh gay pedophile psychopath aspect from his character i don't know why another thing i don't know why they got rid of all that here so when i i said
JVL00:58:35that i thought that it was a pretty pretty good adaptation as things go in terms of both cutting out but then pushing in one of the here's a good example the character beast rabban never actually appears on a page in the book huh people talk about him but he is never we never have a scene with him uh he never has any lines he does not speak he is just a character who is spoken about off page and i think that's a mistake for the movie and so the movie casts beast rabban which is a dave batista and gives him some business and that's a great choice this is again it's not just compressing i i really do think you know i don't love the source material but i think the job done in the adaptation is really quite skillful the only question i really had coming into this was how somebody who has not read the book was going to be able to follow it but vick if you could pick it up well i read that suggests
Vic00:59:35they did a very nice job i don't yeah i think so although again i i don't know how much harder it would have been had i not read uh the review earlier that gave me the setup so like going into it sort of knowing um but yeah i i found it you know it was great it was it was one sort of this little fantastical escape everything just will you know it's so big you gave it a c plus yeah quadrants are alive because the sex nudity it failed because
Sonny01:00:00the quadrants remain alive i like it but look enjoy vick enjoyed this movie quite a bit i did
Vic01:00:05but it's a c plus because one of the quadrants is sex nudity and pg-13 they had nothing there
JVL01:00:10was nothing going on i i will say this one here here is one thing that bugs me and it's in the book too the book makes references to things on earth which you shouldn't right when you're constructing a fantasy world you should not talk about people drinking coffee oh oh oh yeah you should not have things being measured in meters right that that that's not what you should do when you were living in a totally separate universe and the thing which jumped out at me in this film adaptation was the bagpipes we we live in a world that is so wildly fantastical that they've done away with computers and people take a drug that lets them see the future and they travel in these ships that look like dragonflies and shields and oh but bagpipes are a thing too yeah i got and they even have like little
Vic01:01:06tartan scottish no no i i was expect i was surprised he was wearing pants when he walked out of the ship i was expecting to see a kilt that said when that when the big when that
Sonny01:01:17big final assault uh starts like you know two-thirds of the way through the movie and gurney hallock runs out to the bagpipes i was like this oh great but don't show me the
JVL01:01:27guy playing bagpipes as part of their martial see what happens
Vic01:01:30to the fat general and gurney hallock or is that to be continued uh the mentat and
JVL01:01:37gurney hallock will return oh yes he's part two dune part two great suphir hawat thank
Sonny01:01:45you the mentat sadly duncan idaho is no longer yeah i got that one that one i believe victorino
JVL01:01:54one last question yes you know how sometimes we play tiger shark or
Vic01:02:00orca uh-huh fremen versus tuscan raider oh yeah uh uh uh fremen they got the moves they're jumping all over the place you know the the the tuscan raiders they're primitives you know and and they have what they have like oh i can't say that i'm sorry really i mean
JVL01:02:21i mean you know the indigenous people of tatooine are are primitives what do they got their
Vic01:02:26staffs the first peoples you know i mean they i mean to be fair they don't have much show
Sonny01:02:30yeah to be fair they're shown uh kidnapping and trussing up and i guess repeatedly raping anakin's mother in that uh that's right so i'm not right that's right so so i think no
Vic01:02:40question the fremen the fremen have got it going they got the moves you know uh including the guy who uh paul atreides kills who i guess fulfills the prophecy did he know when he died that was he communicating with him in the dream for real help me jamis
JVL01:03:00yes so this is again again this is a nice piece of screenwriting where in the book jamis is just your typical young buck in the tribe looking to make a name for himself and here we are foreshadowed that jamis will be his friend right we're told he's gonna be a friend and your guide and enter you into the world and then it turns out the way he becomes his friend and his guide is that he's the one who who paul will do will kill and that is not from the book this is i mean there's a little bit of there's a ceremony after his death or he says i am a friend of jamis but this is a very nice piece of writing uh which adds an extra depth and dimension that frankly the book does not have thank you for saving me years of my life because i was like wow this movie's so interesting i wonder what
Vic01:03:50the book is like okay that is all the time we're giving to this episode questions comments compliments tweet us at sonny bunch at victorina mattis again be sure to subscribe to us on patreon go to subbeacon.com we are there tell your friends until next time i i have a question but if you would uh allow me just to ask it at the very end okay so
JVL01:04:23go ahead what do you got victorino are you planning any trips to high bridge new jersey
Vic01:04:28oh yes you sent me that thing it looks fantastic it is a liquor store in high bridge which i assume when in like when in doubt whenever i've never heard of a place in jersey i assume it's somewhere north hunter because hunter in county yeah well there you go i i assume because it's like i pretty much know everything where i am on that same latitude and then south of me all the way down to cape may vineland you name whatever it is i'll i'm touching whatever i wear town i know these areas but things like that i'm like wow where is that place but uh it is a liquor store that is occupies occupied what was once a bank and beautifully
JVL01:05:09restored like 1930s i don't wpa design i yes i don't know many liquor stores that are like two floors like that is laid out almost like a library with like bookshelves everywhere and bins yes it
Vic01:05:30like where if you could if you could just spend time i love anytime i go to any bar i will sit there and just look at what do they have and i will go shelf by shelf that means i would be there for hours in that case thank you for sending that thank you for sending that along i must have so many it must have so many interesting things um so i just had one question uh the voice thing is that their only do they have other powers to benefit or is it just the voice so many powers you see is that and frankly for me i would want to master that because i think i would just probably have only like one request i would just master i'm sure it's fine
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