#241. 'Dune: Part Two'
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All three hosts review Dune: Part Two, which topped the box office in its opening weekend with $82.5 million. Sonny is the most positive of the three: he loves the scale and sound design, singles out Javier Bardem's Stilgar as the movie's comic and dramatic highlight, and says Timothée Chalamet's "Braveheart"-style call to jihad finally sold him on Chalamet as a screen presence, though he thinks the film runs 45 minutes to an hour too long. JVL is the most negative, calling it a slog he enjoyed less than Madame Web, objecting to the film's "space fantasy" logic (a starfaring civilization settling disputes with swords), and arguing the movie is uncomfortably sympathetic to jihadists in a post-9/11 world, even as he credits Denis Villeneuve with using Zendaya's Chani to signal the filmmakers' own skepticism of Paul's messianic turn. Mike splits the difference, praising the visuals, costumes (especially the Bene Gesserit), and the performances from Rebecca Ferguson and Bardem, but faulting the film's underlying amorality and Zendaya's anachronistic, "she feels like she's from 2024" performance. Much of the back half of the discussion is a debate over the film's choice to cut the novel's two-year time jump between Chani becoming Paul's follower and the war beginning, which the hosts agree hollowed out Rabban and Feyd-Rautha's arcs and forced Chani into an outsized, tension-manufacturing role to compensate. The opening stretch is dominated by Sonny's bizarre true story about a tree-cutting scam hitting his neighborhood, plugs for an upcoming live Across the Movie Aisle screening of Arrival in DC, Mike's rundown of a flu-and-strep outbreak in his household, box-office chat about Migration and the upcoming Kung Fu Panda 4, and JVL's running feud with Anya Taylor-Joy's ubiquitous casting.
From the show notes
SB: "If I were the messiah I would simply not be humble about it." Also: here's a link to the event Sonny mentioned in the opening few moments. If you come make sure to say hi to him!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00"My allegiance is to you. Do you believe me?" "This is a form of power that our world has not yet seen. The ultimate power." "I want you to know, I will love you as long as I breathe." "You will never lose me as long as you stay who you are." "Consider what you're about to do, you fool Atreides." "Styling!"
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who know you walk without rhythm so you don't attract the worm, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Become a patron. You can listen to brand new episodes every Friday morning. Bonus episodes on Monday when we do them. Maybe we should start another bonus series one of these days. Hey, if you want to offer suggestions for a bonus series that we'll ignore, you can comment, but you can only comment if you're a patron and you can only
Sonny00:01:20be a patron at subbeacon.com. I've watched the first three episodes. It's like Game of Thrones, Japan. I do like-
JVL00:01:29I like the way they think.
Sonny00:01:30Some Catholic and Protestant- I like the way they think. Tension. All right. So, join us over at subbeacon.com.
Mike00:01:38Any watchmaking? Oh, that's the-
JVL00:01:40Watchmaking. I have gone so deep into like the Japanese denim, Japanese watchmaking, Japanese automotive stuff. I just, oh. Talk about Japanese art, JVL.
Sonny00:01:53You're going to show up wearing like a kimono on one of these weeks. Get a little top knot going. But not this week. Not this week. This week we are talking- The mysteries of the desert.
Mike00:02:06Yeah, exactly.
Sonny00:02:07The desert peoples.
Mike00:02:08We'll be talking about Dune II. You know, I'm trying to get through this, Sonny. I'm just going to keep interrupting you. I got a formula. I got a formula.
Sonny00:02:15The people listening at home right now are getting so mad at me. They're like, "Just let him do his bit. Just let him do-" All right, fine.
Mike00:02:20It's not even a bit. It's not even a bit. Now you've elevated it to a level that it doesn't even deserve. We'll be talking about Dune II later in the show. But first, now the freeform conversation can begin. Let's see how everyone is doing. Sonny, you seem game to talk. What's going on with you? You've got a story to tell us.
Sonny00:02:42Yes. Well, before I do that, though, I just wanted to let folks know, you're actually finding out about this before the listeners of the other podcast that this is for, probably. But we're doing another live across the movie aisle show. I know there's a lot of overlap between Sub-Beacon and across the movie aisle listeners. So if you want to hang out with me and Peter and Alyssa, and Mike Warren's going to come, I'm going to make Mike Warren come watch Arrival. We're going to watch Arrival at the DC Drafthouse, the Bryant Street Drafthouse, which is... I've never actually been there before. I've only been to the Crystal City
Mike00:03:12one. I've thought about it already. I just got to see if it works for my schedule. But it sounds like a great event. So you should go. It'll be fun. It's going to be
Sonny00:03:22April 9th at the... Again, that's Tuesday, April 9th. I think tickets are $7 because it's a Tuesday show. We're in the big screen. We're in the big auditorium. We have to sell like 250 tickets to this thing. So I'm kind of... We'll see how that goes. I'm holding my breath there. But you should come. You should hang out. It'll be fun. All right. So that's that. That's out of the way. Arrival across the movie aisle.
JVL00:03:49Arrival. It's a real feel-good movie. That's the kind of film you want to bring people together.
Sonny00:03:54It's a great movie. I don't want to...
JVL00:03:56The movie's about dead children. That's how you move
Sonny00:03:59tickets. Shut up. Don't... Spoiler for people. All right. All right. So there's that. What I wanted to talk about today, though... So here is... I don't think I told this story on the show when it happened like a month ago. So I want to tell it now because I was just thinking about how crazy it was. So friends of ours in the neighborhood bought a house. They bought a house in the neighborhood. They're basically trading houses. They're going from one house to the other. And I don't... Well, I'm just going to make some... I'm going to make some facts up here as I go along because I don't want to... But so they go to the house that they have purchased and they pull up outside of it and they see that one of the two trees that's in the front, one of the two, probably 60 or 70 year old, you know, live oak trees in the front yard has been cut down. What? Has been cut down. The previous owners have apparently, they believe, have cut this tree down for some reason. And they're like, what happened? Did they get struck by lightning? You know what happened? So they call up the previous owner. I'm sorry, they have not yet taken possession of the house? They have not taken possession of the house. Have they closed on the house? I believe they were in the process of closing on the house. They had not actually closed on the house.
JVL00:05:26I bet this is a contractual breach.
Sonny00:05:29So they go to the family. They're like, what happened? What happened to the tree? And they're like, what are you talking about? And they said, the tree in the front yard, the tree got cut down. Why'd you cut the tree down? And they say, we don't know. I don't have any idea what you're talking about. What are you talking about? We didn't cut the tree down because the people aren't living in the house anymore. They've moved. They live in another state. They're selling the house essentially remotely through a realtor or whatever. They're like, what on earth are you talking about? Why would we have somebody come cut the tree down? We didn't have anybody come cut the tree down. But sure enough, tree has been cut down. It turns out what has happened was, it's the craziest thing I've ever... 100% true story. A tree cutting company was contacted by somebody who sent them pictures from the real estate listing. They sent them pictures from the real estate listing and they said, "Hey, we need to cut these trees down. Can you come cut the trees down?" And so they came and without meeting in person with anyone, without talking to any individual, just started cutting the tree down, cut it all the way down, right down to the stump, took all the limbs down, took the whole tree. This is a several thousand dollar operation.
JVL00:06:49I don't know if you guys... Who did they bill?
Sonny00:06:51Yeah. As best as anybody can tell, nobody got paid for this. The number that reached out is a spoof. It's been spoofed. And this has happened in multiple locations around the city. Somebody, for some reason, is finding houses that have trees in front of them that are listed on Zillow or Redfin or whatever, contacting multiple tree companies. So what happened? One of the things that they learned as they were trying to figure out what happened was that multiple tree companies had been around trying to figure out who's going to pay for this, blah, blah, blah. And finally, somebody just came out and did it. Somebody just came out and did it. It's the craziest. They contacted the police. Police came out and they're like, "Yeah, this is happening a couple places." There was a news story about it. It was on the local CBS affiliate. But somebody is apparently randomly getting trees cut down in front of the homes where people are no longer living and nobody knows why or how to stop it. What is the... Yeah, nobody knows what the motive is. Nobody knows what the motive is. At first, it's one of these things where you could imagine a vindictive neighbor doing this, right? I bet it's one of the kids doing one of those TikTok challenges I've read about. You could imagine a vindictive neighbor like, I hate those people. They moved out. I'm going to really stick it to them by ruining the sale of this house and getting the tree cut down. Nobody has any idea. It's totally random. It doesn't seem to be targeting any neighborhood or individuals. It's just like some crazy person, some genuinely deranged person is on Redfin or Zillow or something and calling up random tree cutting companies to come and take down trees. So like, it's the weirdest story I think I've ever heard. So anyway, it's bizarre. Long story short, the people who are buying the house, they decided to go through with it because they didn't, they really liked the house and like, but I, if that happened to me, I would want that person executed. I would want that person put in prison for a hundred years and then at the end of the hundred years have their head cut off.
JVL00:09:32That's what I would want. JVL. First of all, has any law been broken?
Sonny00:09:42You can't, yes, 100%. You can't just, well, I, well, the question is who is breaking the law?
JVL00:09:49Is it the tree trimming company or is it? The tree trimming company doing it without
Sonny00:09:53a signed contract first? It has to be fraud. It has to be fraud. What kind of fraud? You can't,
JVL00:09:58why are fraud? It's not their fault. I've just asked them to come out. It's not my fault. They
Sonny00:10:03didn't meet me to sign a contract. You cannot represent yourself as the owner of a property and ask a company to come do work on that property. Like imagine if you called up a, I don't know, like a concrete company and said, hey, we want a new concrete driveway in this house across the street. That would have to be a crime of some sort. That's fraud or something.
Mike00:10:23But yes, but I think JVL is hitting on something, which is there's a, there's a best practices failure here because the, the, the, the tree companies should be, there should be a contract or a, uh, at the very least a knock on the door to say,
Sonny00:10:42hey, we're hearing tremors or whoever, uh, whichever like fly by night tree trimming company was, uh, you know, needs to be needs to obviously needs to be held accountable on some level for
JVL00:10:54this. I will believe that there is a reason that this scam can succeed. Seed with a tree trimming service in a way that it could not succeed with a paving company or a normal landscaping service or a plumber or an electrician, which is that the tree service people are all fly by night. Yes. Uh, like that. And that I think is because the nature of the insurance costs associated with it. Correct. Right. The insurance costs of tree removal are so high that almost none of the companies that do it are really bonded and licensed. And this is why I'm sure you guys have had this experience. Uh, you get a knock on your door. It's, you know, some guys like, Hey, we're doing some tree work for your neighbor over there. Do you guys have anything, you know, while we're here, we can give you a discount and it's, it's purely, yeah, I'd like you to take that tree down 500 bucks cash. Okay. Right. That's. And so you could do that in a way. Here's the other thing. Uh, a It seems like the remedy for this is pretty easy. You don't have to educate the consumers. You just have to educate the tree people. So please just sit down with the yellow pages and call all 50
Sonny00:12:08trees and just say, Hey, people have advertising. They're all, it's all like cell phones from neighbor to neighbor. Well, this is, this is, so we got, we got, uh, we got the trees trimmed in, in front of our house and it was, you know, we, we, it was, it was so, uh, I'm sorry. Let me, let me rephrase. So we, we have four big trees on, on our property. Uh, two in the front and two in the back. And the two in the front was a situation where the guys were going around house to house, like, Hey, we were doing trees. We'll do these trees for like 200 bucks. And those were the, the trees in the front where I just needed some, I needed some branches, like, uh, basically taken away from the roof line. I just needed, I need like, it wasn't, it wasn't anything fancy. There was like, I would have been hard to do any real damage with them because they weren't heavy. They were just kind of long and overhanging. And I was like, yes, this is here. Let me go. Oh, go to the Wells Fargo ATM. And I will get you $200. Uh, the, the one in the back was a little bit trickier because it was, it was bigger and it's, it's kind of over my neighbor's property as well. So I went to my neighbor and I was like, Hey, you guys got your trees done not too long ago. Who was the guy you called? And he just gave me a cell phone number. He's like, it's Pablo's trees. And it's like, okay, let me get Pablo out here. And he, and he did it. It was, it was a little more. Cause again, it was a, it was a bit, it's a bigger, it was a bigger job, but like, that's, that is, and you know, there are, there are absolutely like tree removal companies with the big stump grinders and you know, they, they come out and they bring in six guys and they like rope off the whole street. And, but, uh, neither of my, and those are thousands of dollars, right? Those are, that's like, that's like a $5,000 job. The last thing I'll say is
JVL00:13:43that this is a case where I am in a hundred percent agreement with Sonny, but if this person is caught and I was on the jury, I don't even care if there isn't a law there to be broken or if it's, really is technically the fault of the tree remove guys. I would basically vote for the electric chair for the person doing this. I mean, again, it's like, it's here's, here's my,
Sonny00:14:08because you know what you're stealing. You're not stealing property. It's not like you're stealing firewood. It's like vandalism. You're stealing time. You're stealing 60 years of tree growth. That's what you were stealing. You were stealing the time of the person who came out to
JVL00:14:22cut it down and the per you're stealing. You're just vandalizing everybody. But you can, you can
Sonny00:14:27you can remedy that. You can pay the people who came out to take it, right? You can, you cannot, you cannot put a new 60 year old tree in that spot. That doesn't exist. It would cost a lot
JVL00:14:37of money. This is like what they do with the masters, right? The masters, they lose a 60 year old tree. They literally spend the $500,000 or whatever it is to put it. So you know what I would say? Make them do that. Make them do the full masters. And it doesn't matter if they have to spend the rest of their lives as an indentured servant to pay off the tree, then so be it.
Sonny00:14:57Like the Seinfeld episode where he has to be the butler.
Mike00:15:01My butler. The only thing I will say about tree, I just have an interesting anecdote or factoid about our tree guy, which we haven't had him for a few years, but I mainly interface with his nephew, Junior. But Arturo, his uncle is the, is the main tree guy. Arturo is deaf and deaf. And dumb. And he communicates with his fellow workers with clicks and whistles. And you can't believe it until you see it, until you see him like up a tree and like with the chainsaw and like, like clicking and whistling and like making noises down to his work. And it's clicking,
Sonny00:15:52clicking, like snapping his fingers or clicking with like a clicker, like a dog with like vocal
Mike00:15:57clicks, like, like an Aborigine. Yeah, totally. Totally. And, and, and it's, it works and it's amazing. It's, it's amazing. It's an incredible thing. So, so it's incredible. And I'm so proud
JVL00:16:09of him for finding a way to have a career. I would say though, that climbing up trees and wielding chainsaws does seem like a career path in which having the ability to hear would be super useful. So that you could hear if the, the thing you're standing on is cracking and about to buckle under you or no, you know, it's when, when, when you lose, exactly. When you lose your senses, you know, your other senses are heightened. Yes. Yeah. He's like daredevil. He feels through the vibrations. He is the tree
Mike00:16:44guy, a daredevil tree guy. Uh, okay. Uh, thank you, Sonny JVL. What is going on with you? I,
JVL00:16:51I remand all of my time to our discussion of this stupid fucking movie and, uh, Michael, how are
Mike00:16:57you? Oh, I'm miserable. Um, my, thank you for asking my, uh, I have two kids currently as we, um, as we record, uh, who are sick. I will say one is back at school. Um, but then the other one got sick, like halfway through the first one sick and it turned out to be flu. Um, which was kind of a surprise. Um, got the flu shot, but of course the flu shot is not, is not, uh, you know, doesn't, doesn't take care of it all. Um, but we had, the experience of having a neighbor kid who was also sick and listen to this. The neighbor kid was like complaining for like three days that like his side hurt and they took him to the hospital because they, and they thought he had a kidney stone, which I've never heard of a nine-year-old with a kidney stone. Um, but I guess they can have it. And it turned out he had strep throat and like the infection had like, he like didn't say anything about his throat hurting or anything like that. And the infection of like somehow moved to the side of his, of his abdomen or something. Anyway, um, bottom line is this kid had strep throat. We thought my, his buddy is my, my nine-year-old, uh, had strep throat as well. Turned out to be the flu. And now his six-year-old brother has the flu. And basically I'm just bracing for everybody else in my house to get the flu. And I'm hoping it doesn't happen. The toddler like really does not need to have the flu. I can survive it. Um, my wife can survive it, but that's what we're bracing. Sorry. That sucks. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Let's talk about the box office because the movie we're talking about Dune part two is the number one movie at the box office. Shocking, uh, grossing over the first weekend, 82 and a half million dollars. Uh, guys, what do we think about this?
Sonny00:18:53Well, uh, it's the $82 million is interesting. Cause that's exactly double the first. Uh, I have a long running theory that, uh, Dune was the series most helped by the pandemic that the, uh, the diehards were going to show up for the first one, regardless, uh, that the pandemic probably only cost them maybe 10 or 20% of the total box office. Uh, because lots of people weren't going to show up. Cause it's like, Oh, another Dune with Dune is Dune is a thing that lots of people kind of recognize and know, but like very few people are, or I don't know, not, it's not like Batman where people are like, I'm going to go see the new Batman movie. It's like Dune. They've tried to do Dune a bunch of times. That's what those, that's what the comic book guy likes. Yeah. So the, uh, uh, so Dune making Dune two making $82 million. You know, this movie is probably gonna make about, I would guess this movie ends up around 300 million domestic, 600, 700 million, um, uh, overseas, uh, or total, you know, between, between domestic and overseas. So I think that's, that's a good solid number means we're Dune Messiah, which I'm reading now and is an amusingly insane book. Um, question, question
Mike00:20:02about that, by the way, will, will it be called Dune part three? That's a, that's a, I would
Sonny00:20:09assume. No, I think they would probably call it Dune Messiah. Maybe they'd call it Dune part three. I don't know. Um, but that would be, uh, but that's a, that's a question for Warner brothers to, to deal with. Um, so yeah. And everything else is about as one would expect, you know, nothing else is really, uh, nothing else is really, uh, I think nothing grossed over $8 million, uh, at last weekend. Um, which sounds about right. Uh, migration still in the top, uh, six. Now it's number six, even though it's out on premium VOD. Yeah. It's out on, uh, is it, I think it's on Peacock too. Is it on Peacock? Is it on like Peacock proper? Is it, or do you have to pay extra for it? I paid Amazon, so I hope
JVL00:20:54it's not on Peacock. Yeah. Um, that is, let me just take a brief aside here. I texted you about this Sonny. Yeah. I mean, it's not bad, but I got so angry watching it because I felt so like aggressively mediocre. Yeah. Almost like it was trying to be as mediocre as possible. And I just, I hated it. There's no, I haven't hated an animated movie that much in a long time. I didn't, I didn't hate
Sonny00:21:22it, but it was, it's definitely the most paint by numbers. Book possible. Like it is, there's no, there's nothing original or kind of interesting or, you know, even the voice actors, it's like, Oh, they've got Awkwafina playing the streetwise, the streetwise pigeon. Yeah. That, that sounds about right. Um, so there, there was nothing in it that, uh, was shocking or, uh, unusual. It's fine. It's fine. I have seen it. I saw it twice in theaters. I took both kids one time and then I took one of the kids another time. Cause one of the kids had a, another event. And we needed something to do. And I was just like, let's go see migration again. They loved it. They, they both, but you know what they loved more was the, uh, the short in front of it. It was a minion short. They, they loved the minion short. They love, I don't know about your kids. My kids love minions. They, they are, everybody loves minions, minions
Mike00:22:18fanatics. My kids like minions, even though they've like not consumed a lot of minions content. Like they've, they've gotten it in small doses and they love what they've gotten, but they've like, they've never watched the initial, what was it called? Despicable
JVL00:22:34me movies or anything like that. So anyway, we've got to see me for coming. I think this
Sonny00:22:42year Kung Fu Panda four comes out next weekend and that, that movie is going to make $50 million cause there hasn't been a kid's movie in 12 weeks now. I'm already sick of Jack Black again. Well, Jack Black's delightful. He's so nice. He's delightful. He's so delightful. He's, he's, he's, he is like one of the, my understanding and look, I don't know the guy personally, so I don't know, but my understanding and from everything I've seen with him, like interacting with, you know, kids and fans or whatever, is that he is a genuinely decent guy and like, uh, like very, is like one of the people who is like not fake Hollywood nice, but like actually nice. So I am a hundred percent willing to
JVL00:23:21believe that. And I wish him nothing but the best. I'm simply saying that as a, as a presence on screen, he is, he might as well be carrot top for me. That that's, oh, come on. It has nothing to do with, but this is not just it. And this, this ties into the Dune discussion. It's, it's just a matter of taste. I do not, I do not care for that taste. It doesn't mean that he's bad. Lots of people like that taste, right? Sure. I don't like pistachio ice cream. It doesn't mean pistachio ice cream is bad. Pistachio
Sonny00:23:52ice cream is bad. I mean, that's, that's no good. Nobody wants a pistachio. Pistachio gelato though. Okay. Um, uh, gelato. What are the, get that commie gobbledygook
Mike00:24:03out of here. Uh, all right. Uh, any other box office thoughts or should we just move right in to discussing Dune part two? Sonny, big boy review. Dune part two. Uh, some Dune
Sonny00:24:16part two picks up right where Dune part one left off. Do you guys remember, uh, brief aside, do you remember, uh, seeing Dune? Did you guys see Dune part one in a theater? Did you, did you? I watched it on my laptop. You, you did Mike. I did. Yes. All right. So did you, were you aware before you went to go see it that it was a part one and that it was called Dune
Mike00:24:39part one? I was aware, but I re I distinctly recall people in the theater gasping when
Sonny00:24:49it said Dune part one. The same exact reaction in my theater. Like I think a guy literally behind me in like a, in like a Tim Robinson voice was like, what the hell? When he, when they saw the part one, uh, which was very, which was very funny to me. Cause again, I knew because I read, you know, deadline every day. And like I, I had been following the production of this thing. I knew that they had split the book into two parts, but that they were not shooting them back to back that like the first one had to succeed for them to make part two. Anyway. Um, so anyway, Dune part two, uh, sorry, sorry about that brief left off and I mean like they're carrying the body of Jamis out of the out of the desert back to the siege where they're gonna where Paul is going to learn how to be a desert fighter he will be well he is Stilgar believes him to be Paul Maudie Paul Maudie Atreus
Mike00:25:51the Maudie the Maudie
Sonny00:25:55the Kwisatz Haderach the Kwisatz Haderach he's got so many titles no wonder he's such an asshole no wonder he becomes space Hitler he's got like five billion titles alright so he is going alright so again he's going back to the siege he's gonna learn the ways of the desert so that he and the Fremen can fight the Harkonnens and what happens next is like two hours of him in the sand doing sand things and occasionally we cut to the Harkonnens who were again the white bald grotesquely fat in the case of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen who's played by Stellan Skarsgård and muscled overly muscled and bald and sounding exactly like Stellan Skarsgård if you're in the case of Austin Butler's Fade Rautha and and that's kind of that's kind of it for the the drama of this thing I find this movie to be fascinating for a couple of reasons one is that the there is no actual there is no actual dramatic tension between the Harkonnens and the Fremen and the Atreides there's none whatsoever because the whole thing is structured like prophecy and you basically already know what's going to happen because they all know what's going to happen or at least Paul knows what's going to happen and you know that's fine the struggle is all internal the struggle is Paul himself trying to decide whether or not he can turn history from or turn the future from from its path and become not space Hitler but turns out he decides to become space Hitler but this does lead to a kind of dramatic problem within the film itself which is that it is very hard to get too worked up about anything that happens in the movie and I like there are things I really love about this movie I like the look of it I like the feel of it I like the sound of it I like the I like the big sweeping desert epicness of it I love the my favorite like I fucking hate Timothy Chalamet as you guys know he is not my cup of tea I find him to be an annoying screen presence in virtually everything he's in but I will say that there's a moment about two-thirds of the way through this after Paul has drunk the water of life and he has had his vision and he has decided to become Space Hitler that he he gives this big Braveheart style speech where he says screw your traditions Fremen you will follow me and I will lead you to glory in Jihad across the universe and they're like yes we go with you Paul Madib Atreides Kwisatz Haderich and and I was like okay I get it now I get it I get I get the Timothee Chalamet thing I think he's he can he is he has sold himself to me I will follow you Space Hitler into the cold reaches to do your space Jihad and
Guest00:29:11I it's
Sonny00:29:14it's a movie that is at war with itself also in a very specific way and and that way is this and it's hard to talk about it's hard to talk about what the what the movie does here without referencing the book so I'm gonna I'm gonna have to reference the book here in in the book Shawnee who is played by Zendaya and this is his concubine not wife but mother of his child there's a two year gap basically where that the movie ends and where where the first movie ends and this one begins there's a two year gap where he has essentially taken leadership of the siege not quite but he is he has essentially taken leadership and she is his she is she has given birth to his child he has a son and later too and and yeah Lito Lito Jr. or whatever and she is very much she's just with she is his she is his woman she believes in him she is she is a follower in the movie that is not the case at all in the movie Shawnee is this is arguing essentially the Fremen have to be led by a Fremen the Fremen have to lead themselves out of this thing and Paul agrees with her at the beginning she said you need a Fremen leader because I don't want to be Space Hitler you have to I cannot be your white savior I cannot rescue you from the Harkonnens I mean he doesn't say white savior but that is what is that's what this whole tension is the whole thing is a a reaction against a desire not to be seen as a white savior narrative like I'm it this is one of the reasons I disagree well we'll get to you JVL
JVL00:30:51okay this is
Sonny00:30:53okay you can disagree that's fine but you're wrong the whole there's this is why all of the this is why there is no tension in the in the actual combat it's the tension is all internal within Paul what decision he makes if he's able to convince his people to to do to do the thing I don't know I again I like this movie a lot I like all of the individual set pieces it's probably 45 minutes to an hour too long just because you could trim so much of the desert training and fighting down to like a montage or maybe maybe maybe a couple of discrete scenes and instead it just goes on and on and on I would have liked to spend more time with the Harkonnens and the Emperor and to get more of the actual political intrigue of it all that would have been nice but taken as it is taking the thing on the screen I enjoyed it and I want to give a special shout out because I know he's a listener to Stilgar who's played by Javier Bardem Javier Bardem is so good in this movie he's by far the best part of the movie so he plays Stilgar as kind of this like wide-eyed true believer and there's this wonderful moment early on where you know Paul says I am not the Lisa Nalgaib I am not the voice from beyond you have to be led by a Fremen and you have to one of your own people has to deliver you and Stilgar nudges his buddy and he's like see he's so humble the Messiah is so humble he says he's not the Messiah that means he must be the Messiah just like in the prophecy it's so Python-esque I mean it is literally like from Life of Brian
JVL00:32:37and he plays it like that though too
Sonny00:32:39it's played as a broad comedy and like he just the character is written perfectly because in the early parts of the film Stilgar is still in charge basically and so he does things like tells Paul like look out for the voices in the desert they're gonna steal your soul woo and everyone's like he's like no but seriously watch out for the voices in the desert and it's just this perfect mix of like joking and serious and like a believer who has the true faith and again watching the movie through Stilgar's eyes you see why that speech by Chalamet towards the end lands he does it he convinces the people because he has the true believers so I it's a movie that's filled with great performances on a micro level I think it has a weird dramatic nullity in the middle of it I still liked it a lot I still just enjoyed being in the theater and watching it and letting it wash over me and I will probably go see it again in IMAX this time I saw it at like Cinemarks XD thing which is not it's like fake IMAX but I am I would like to see it again and really come out of that theater deaf I want to be deaf from the from the noise.
Mike00:33:50Okay JVL you had a different reaction to Dune Part 2
JVL00:33:56Yeah I really I mean there are things I like about it right so as you say the sound design on it I did see it in IMAX the sound design especially in IMAX is phenomenal the I mean the everything about the look of the movie is wonderful Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve knows how to to shoot beautifully I mean it looks like a real movie it puts all of the money on the screen unlike so many of the terrible $300 million movies we've seen recently some of the writing is good I mean it I just think it's less than the sum of its parts for me and you know because the individual parts of it as I said many of them are quite good just as a as a philosophical matter here's I think you're reading the internal conflict wrong because I believe that the internal conflict is all about ethno nationalism versus religio nationalism and of the which was the central conflict in the Middle East in the 1970s which was what you know was like is you know is it a nationalist Iran or is it an Islamic Republic and I think that's the heart of what that is you know must be led by a Fremen versus being led by a religious savior so I think that's more what's going on I have an observation about Timothy Chalamet because I also now finally get him and I've never disliked him I've always liked him fine I think he is almost literally the next DiCaprio and what I mean by it is this so why is Leonardo DiCaprio a movie star I think he's a movie star because he is the kind of actor who can anchor an entire picture and let it revolve around him but without dominating it which is very very hard to do right I mean he you can have Leonardo DiCaprio and then you can have a bunch of other great actors working around him still able to take up big parts of the screen and then he fills the screen and fills the story when they're not there right I mean he it's very very hard for a single actor to hold an entire picture on their shoulders but then to do it without making you look at them for every second I think Timothee Chalamet has the same quality and that that's that's kind of rare and that's why DiCaprio has been so durable and so versatile because you just drop him into big movies and let him carry them but also the story doesn't have I mean story doesn't have to be just all about him this is you know the Killers of the Flower Moon is a perfect example of that Wolf Wall
Mike00:36:50Street perfect example of that
JVL00:36:52and the Hollywood right the Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood right I mean it's not yeah he's you know he's in almost every frame of the movie and he does carry it but the movie doesn't have to be just about him so I here is my of all the things I hated about this movie and I really did feel resentful sitting in the theater throughout almost for almost every
Mike00:37:20minute of it I just resented the fucking thing
JVL00:37:23and I you know I tweeted out at the end was like you know Madam Web greater sign Dune and I'm kind of kidding but also I'm really not kidding in terms of which was a more enjoyable way to spend a couple hours for me it wasn't even close I laughed at Madam Web I had a good time I thought it was fun this felt like a slog and I I am sorry I'm sorry I am willing to believe a lot of things when I sit down in front of a piece of fiction right and I you know I'll believe that a man can fly I'll believe that you can be a mutant whose powers heal your body instantly and you have adamantium claws and you know that's fine the idea that a space faring civilization which has mastered interstellar travel and faster than light to technology settles things with a one-on-one edged weapon fight in a boardroom are you fucking kidding me? Everything I you just want to like oh swords we're doing swords it's
Sonny00:38:36I
JVL00:38:38my preference I'm going to try not to yell is for hard science fiction I'll give me the expanse right give me give me even like some of the John Scalzi stuff which isn't really hard science fiction but it's good science fiction I like the Martian I like Artemis this is not even it's not that it's not hard it's not that it's softcore sci-fi it's it's a story that's actually an antithetical to science fiction it's a story which which basically sits there and dumps a steaming pile of shit on the idea of science
Mike00:39:13fiction because hey man
JVL00:39:15we're just going to talk about ideas yeah you like that take some more shrooms dude and I'm sorry I'm sorry I don't I don't need a fucking yeah oh yeah really it's about opening up your mind and taking acid Frank Herbert thanks dude boy you really yeah you cued into all that shit in the 60s and 70s nobody ever would have thought of that before and I hate it I hate it
Sonny00:39:40this this is in line with your hatred of the stoner comedies as well this is a there's there's a there's a similar similarly tinged resentment there you just you just dislike drug culture I don't like people who are having
JVL00:39:54a good time I feel like they there we go yeah there we go we got it
Sonny00:39:58we got it that's just I'm gonna hit end I'm sure it's fine we got it we got it no uh
JVL00:40:04I mean did you guys like is there any part of you that's like I'm sorry come on guys
Sonny00:40:09but you were you were well yes just said it midi but there's part of the part of the issue here is I'm sorry Mike I'm gonna talk over you um uh the the issue here is that it's not science fiction it's space fantasy this is a Star Wars not a 2001 it's just a different thing and it's in in the problem with this adaptation is look if it's gonna be three hours long but you're not really gonna explain why they can't use laser guns against the shields like what what what are you doing because I like there's a whole I could tell you why oh yeah there's a whole
Mike00:40:42in universe explanation I could tell you why
Sonny00:40:44they have but it doesn't it doesn't really matter it doesn't it doesn't really matter you know I could tell you why the spices is the most important thing in the world and how it gives the guildsmen navigators prescience so they can navigate through space rocks as they're going through the speed of light like I can I could I could explain all that to you but it doesn't but it it doesn't it doesn't I'm just I'm just saying but not for you I'm just saying for any so like you but but the but what it comes down to is that it is still just space magic I mean it the whole thing is space magic I mean look the last the last gun thing is a perfect example right because like if I was if I if I was planning an attack on a city that was using shields to defend itself I wouldn't do this whole complicated thing where I try to bribe somebody to bring the shields down so I can then land I would just put a laser on a drone and I would shoot the laser into the I would shoot the laser into the into the shield and I would create the thermonuclear explosion there and I'd be like we win hmm we've won the thing we've seen because it's not because it's not hard sci-fi it's just it's just science fantasy it's space fantasy yeah
JVL00:41:56my group okay I'm sorry Michael one more you know JVL please one more thing I did the other overwhelming thought I had watching this in a wrapped audience it was a Wednesday night it was a late show there's a big audience everybody loved people applauded at the end I mean this is me problem I did think to myself we really are past 9-11 aren't we because this is a movie which takes the side of a bunch of Islamic terrorists it is unequivocally on their side yes it's like this thing in 2002 would not have flown yeah well I
Sonny00:42:37mean I I joked about this last week but like it is still very funny that they will not say the word jihad in this
JVL00:42:43movie even without that the Mahdi and the holy war I mean it's
Sonny00:42:48literally it's literally a group of Islam fundamentalists it's the Taliban
Mike00:42:52yeah we're rooting for the Taliban that's right that's right which is why I cannot root for this movie no I so okay I will agree or Isis I feel that's
JVL00:43:04question Michael are they Taliban or Isis that's a good right because Isis is establishing a caliphate with with the Mahdi the actual Mahdi right it's it's
Mike00:43:12like they start off as as the Taliban and then they morph into Isis they they first they just want to be left alone and do their own thing and then with Muad'Dib coming in they become Isis
Sonny00:43:27there's you know there's another example of a religious group in the medieval times when they used edge weapons to settle their disputes being led by a prophet a voice from beyond as he spread across the universe murdering people all over the way with his concubines and toe etc etc I don't I won't I won't name any won't name any religious names here Oh Buddhism right the Buddha that sounds yeah yeah Shinto
JVL00:43:54I think that was Sikhs Quaker that was George Fox that's how George Fox spread
Mike00:43:59his his garbage so okay so this movie okay I will I feel like we're gonna sound like broken record a broken record here when I say that I agree with both of you about the visuals of this movie I everything about the way like this and and part one the way that the largeness the epicness of the ships or the machines or the buildings in in Dune like it is it is a marvel to look at and I love looking at that especially Michael
JVL00:44:40when you consider the fact that those enormous ships were all built by hand because they don't have robots or computers or microchips or circuits or processors there's just somebody there with a physical blueprint on paper going yep need a rivet here okay okay are you
Mike00:45:01done are you done JVL no I'm just gonna
JVL00:45:03keep doing this sorry keep going talk but I reserve the right to interrupt
Mike00:45:07from a move okay well I grant you that right I from a movie viewing perspective I love that I love seeing that bigness and it in it and the the bigness of the score and the sound you guys didn't mention this but I love the costumes in this particularly yeah particularly the Bene Gesserit costumes like they're so weird and haunting and creepy and like when they all kind of come together at kind of near the end and there's like the the Bene Gesserit kind of show up and they've got their little like shadow or whatever you call them things on I just it's so creepy I love it they look like
JVL00:45:48the in the Phantom Menace who were the
Mike00:45:51the the the Trade Federation the Trade Federation right yeah without that without the racist portrayal it's just a
Sonny00:46:01different different form of race exactly exactly meet the new race somebody on Twitter was the old somebody somebody on Twitter was like Dune has space Arabs has anybody else done any racially
JVL00:46:13coded alien groups I just I just I just
Sonny00:46:18quote tweeted it with a gif of George Lucas because like did you watch the
Mike00:46:23prequels come on anyway so I'm gonna go
Sonny00:46:27crazy oh I will bet you this slave for your ship Oh Arab trader Watto 5050 okay
Mike00:46:40so well played Michael so I so I loved all of that I loved the black and white sequence on what is that giddy prime or
JVL00:46:52wherever they were the black Sun and it's only when they're outdoors yeah correct
Mike00:46:57indoors you go color yeah no I so I love all that yeah that was amazing I agree on the most of the notes that have been said about the performances she had more to do in part one but Rebecca Ferguson is fantastic I love her in this but but but definitely Javier Bardem so all of that being said the the plot problem Sonny that you brought up are my exact problems and I can't decide if my problem is with the movies treatment of it because they the departures from the book made no sense to me except in except if you need Zendaya to be in the movie more because she's like puts like teen butts and seats
Sonny00:47:42well you can't she she is not going to be in a movie where she is a passive concubine exactly that is just but it makes no but her character needs to be
Mike00:47:51exactly that's what I'm saying the character does not like the the tension that she brings into it made no makes no sense to me and so and there and and as a result of her having to be the voice of that tension she's in the movie way more than she needs to be and I have to say her acting it took me out of it she's she feels like she's in from a different movie yeah I feel like she's from 2024 yeah and not the 30th century whenever you know it's funny
JVL00:48:22because I really like Zendaya as an actress yeah I like her work and I felt the same way here and I couldn't tell if it was the script serving her poorly or yeah choices were just bad it could have
Mike00:48:34been both they could you know she might
JVL00:48:36not have had much said that I had the
Mike00:48:37same reaction yeah I I did I just I didn't it took me out of it and I kept having to see her do it over and over again and so that annoyed me
Sonny00:48:47well it's it's funny because in the in the in the movie there's a line where she's like what don't you hear his accent when they're discussing the split between the southern fundamentalist correct Fremen and her she's like I'm not a believer I don't believe in any of this nonsense you know you're not the you're not the Nissan I believe you're not I and and and then you listen to and you're like oh yeah he does have an accent oh yeah she does talk like she's Mary Jane from spider-man right exactly
Mike00:49:17so that was it was it was weird to me also her character just keeps dropping
JVL00:49:21in and out and doesn't have her own story or her own art so it's just like you know we drop her in here to do a bit of either exposition or you know conflict creation it's conflict disappears again that's right that's I
Mike00:49:35found that I found that very frustrating and annoying and it really took me out of the movie that that whole see that her whole presence I did not like how they treated fade Rautha in the in the movie as well or the enough Rabban and yeah exactly just like Norm Macdonald on interview with a vampire not gay enough that was the problem with the movie no
JVL00:50:01I'm serious though what what didn't you
Mike00:50:03like about Rautha okay so so the whole relationship between Rabban and fade Rautha and and then the Baron again from the book and and it doesn't have to be like the book but I don't understand the departure from the book on this which is the whole idea is that heart the Baron Harkonnen is manipulating everything and he's got it so that Rabban who's like who is supposed to be the violent psychopath of the two brothers like terrorizes the Fremen and you know gets rid of the Atreides terrorizes the Fremen and like sets things up so that the more like the smarter more cunning fade Rautha comes in in order to to kind of take over and it's all being set up I mean there's a parallel to what the Bene Gesserit are doing and trying to set it like because so much of Dune is about like planning and destiny and and those two things intention and so but they just make fade Rautha into a psychopath for and they literally have Florence Pugh say he's a psychopath and I don't understand why they had to do it that way because the whole spoiler and I guess like the whole final confrontation between the two between fade Rautha and and Paul Muad'Dib Kwisatz Haderach you know Esquire is that like his is that fade Rautha tricks him and like and like it fights unfairly because he's cunning and like underhanded and that none of that comes through in the final battle and so it just again maybe there are cinematic reasons to change things from the from the book and I don't even really like the novel that much but why did they make these changes
Sonny00:51:48now that I don't know can I can I can I explain what I think has happened here I think I think I think I think I made one very I think they made one very key choice that has essentially created all of these problems and that was getting rid of the two-year gap between part 1 and part 2 so in the book right there's two years that we don't see where Paul has his kid his daughter or I mean his sister Alia is born you know the the daughter of Jessica the she is born with the powers of the Reverend mother and it like freaks everybody out because there's this little two-year-old who like who can talk and has has full you know but then also that gives we we miss off-screen rebounds repression of the Fremen's and all that and so like when and and also you know look again this is I I who knows how much of this who knows why they did it this way how much of it had to do with they didn't want to just have Zendaya as the passive concubine mother who you know does Paul's bidding but I think that played a large part in this and I and I think that that is it's it's a real it creates a real structural problem all the things that you're talking about here you can't you can't have fade Ralph that come in as the Savior if you never have rub on on the planet oppressing everybody right you just you just have fade Ralph a come in and he's like all right I'm gonna bomb all these people with the artillery I'm gonna I'm gonna bomb them all and Robbins like why didn't I think of that oh I'm stupid Dave Bautista exactly why didn't I why
JVL00:53:21didn't I do this it's stupid stupid be
Sonny00:53:24talking oh wait can we actually I want to I want to I want to say one thing I like Dave Bautista a lot so much very I like I like I like him in lots of movies I do not like him in either of these two movies I think he's very doesn't have
Mike00:53:38anything to do
Sonny00:53:38he's what he's just like yells he's just like I'm angry and dumb I'm angry dumb beast Rabban and I like it's not an interesting character now maybe again that might just be a problem with the book and and the character itself I
JVL00:53:50remind you that the character of beast Rabban never appears on screen in the book really he is spoken about by other people yeah but we never have a moment where we the reader are in the room with beast Rabban or watching beast Rabban do a thing he just exists as a people say beast Rabban did X I'm gonna send beast Rabban to place Y yeah yeah so there literally wasn't anything for him
Mike00:54:20to work with I think you're right and I think it cheapens it to have it like what he has to do in this movie is is basically he's like a he's like a capo in the in the Harkonnen mafia and like he's not bringing in enough you know and like it's it's it's just dumb but here's here's where I think this my complaint about this movie actually expands to Dune itself the novel and I will admit I have not read any of the other Dune books I know about them Dune Messiah and etc etc but I've only read the first original novel so like everything that's just that I've described that I liked about this movie the the visuals of it I actually like I know you hate this JVL but I like it I love the idea of a 30th century interplanetary society that is essentially futile and they they they have this very old-fashioned social system but it's in space with planets like it's everything about it with me okay okay I don't mind that everything about what Dune promises to be is like oh I want to like that and it's like a very pretty bag paper bag that I love looking at and then as soon as I like open it up and look in I'm like oh there's nothing in here I think it's filled with nothing but tell
JVL00:55:56me something so what I mean roughly speaking how much would you say the average sand worm weighs 5,000 tons 10 thousand tons the average sand worm seems to travel at roughly 70 miles an hour so moving just the number of joules of energy that would require to move something that large that far that fast and yet how what is its caloric intake how does it acquire the necessary energy to be able to propel itself on spice it runs on spice but it creates the spice
Sonny00:56:34it creates the spice and it creates the spice
JVL00:56:37again just stupid right sand going so it's sand goes in its mouth it eats it how does this even work how can your this
Sonny00:56:47even work oh I'm sorry you want you what you want is for George Lucas to do a pass on the script where he comes in and he's like all right so the midichlorians are where the spice comes from and the poetry the bigger the worm the more midichlorians it has and if you have little like a little tiny baby worm it has little tiny baby midichlorians and that's how you make the water of life it all makes sense you know I mean
JVL00:57:08when you put it like that but okay but
Mike00:57:11JVL I like the truth is is that that's that may be how you want your science fiction I or I agree with you something this is much more like space fantasy but that's okay with me it's okay that it doesn't really make sense the problem I think ultimately is that there is an amorality to dune like it's it is all just power politics with like a with like with the background of like Messiah messianic religion there's do you think
Sonny00:57:43that's do you think that's true though because I like here's here's the my my slightly my my sarcastic space Hitler stuff aside I think the movie is pretty clearly on the side of Paul and and the Fremen against the Harkonnens and the Emperor I mean like here's here is an oppressed people yeah who who take it upon themselves to destroy their oppressors and like I understand that you know in later books again I'm reading dude Messiah right now in later books you it becomes very clear that this is a bad thing and like you know but one of the weaknesses of the film and frankly one of the weaknesses of the first book is that there's all this talk about galactic jihad and dead bodies and we don't actually see any of them we don't actually like you say like okay I'm gonna we're gonna wage war and there's gonna be 60 billion dead and if you know if you don't the audience the 60 billion dead it's just like I don't know did they deserve it I don't good they got rid of the
JVL00:58:41colonial the colonial conquistadors they
Sonny00:58:43got rid of the the oppressors they this
Mike00:58:45is my this is my point that that's what
Sonny00:58:47did you think anti-colonialism but
Mike00:58:49that's that there's a there's an there's there's something amoral about that where like the the the oppressed rise up and have their own space Hitler and like that's that's great like that's what I mean by that there's there's but again
Sonny00:59:02we we keep saying space Hitler but we don't actually see fair enough but
JVL00:59:05I think Denny Villeneuve is firmly against space Hitler actually I think that a lot of the choices with the Zendaya character are precisely for him to show us what the filmmakers now I think the audience take something different away the audience is cheering for Isis yes I don't think Denny Villeneuve himself is on that side though and I think that's why he made those choices with the Zendaya character
Sonny00:59:33100% right this is 100% a case of where artistic intent is running headfirst into the wall of audience reaction including my own like I understand I understand exactly what they're trying to do and trying to say the problem is you don't you haven't you have not sold it to me the audience member because when he says oh no I see bodies everywhere and then you see Rebecca Ferguson walking all hot through like piles of corpses and it's like well okay that's bad I guess I don't know again like I'm maybe maybe I'm just maybe I'm just an amoral person Mike but I look at that and I'm like well I don't know I like people sometimes people die
Mike01:00:11in war but I just meant there's nothing at the core of it the core of it to me is superficial the core morality of it maybe amoral is not the right but like the morality of Dune and the Dune universe is to me leaves much to be desired there's nothing in it that is that says about kind of internal decisions that that individuals should make it's all it's all external and like I said power politics focused or or like in that leaves me cold so maybe I shouldn't it's wrong to say it's amoral but the morality of Dune leaves me cold I think
Sonny01:00:56it's the most moral film ever made because it's about taking revenge against your enemies that's the only thing that matters fair enough so can I
JVL01:01:03just I would like to express some sympathy for Denis Villeneuve because he I had thought that he had been grandfathered out of this but unfortunately I don't know if you guys notice this but Hollywood passed a law over the last three years that 97% of all films put into production must cast either Anya Taylor-Joy or Awkwafina in them it's true one one or the other and we get Anya Taylor-Joy who is being shoved down our throats in the Mad Max Furiosa prequel thanks and she shows up in this fucking movie too in a part where she doesn't even have any lines and it's one of these
Sonny01:01:46choices which your your antipathy toward one of the hottest women in Hollywood is one of your most fascinating qualities she's a bad actress you're you're so in this movie this movie is like a cascading series of hot sex witches it's it's wild you have Rebecca Ferguson and then you have Florence Pugh wait I'm sorry you start with Florence Pugh she's actually on screen first so it's Florence Pugh then Rebecca Ferguson then Leah Sadu then Anya Taylor-Joy that is a
JVL01:02:14flex I'm I'm on there for all of them except for Anya Taylor-Joy for whom I get you know what cast Leah Sadu half as many times Hollywood as you have cast Anya Taylor-Joy because she's a better actress do that for us could you make that happen easy you're ridiculous how does she she's like the Michael Caine of 2020 the 2020s she's in fucking everything and I don't know why she's in
Sonny01:02:39everything do you know why she's in everything she's a great actress and audiences lover she's wonderful no I will break no discussion of Anya Taylor-Joy that is not worshipful on the show wasn't it was gonna hit the mute button over here where's where's your mute I
Mike01:02:53have this idea so so it's either Aquafina or Anya Taylor-Joy wasn't there wasn't it every movie had either Harry Dean Stanton or what was the other actor there's like
Sonny01:03:06two character Gene Hackman or Michael
Mike01:03:07Kane yeah that's true it was it was it was Emmett Walsh Emmett Walsh or Harry Dean Stanton we're in like every single movie I believe this is like a Roger Ebert thing so this is just a modern version of that why do you why do you hate women is my question why do you
JVL01:03:21know I don't like women in Hollywood I don't like Anya Taylor-Joy as a screen presence I'm sorry about that she was
Mike01:03:28she was terrible as the voice of peach in in the Super Mario Brothers that was her right
Sonny01:03:33who care I'm sorry you're mad about the voice of peach in Super Mario Brothers she was in the menu she's great in the menu as the high-class prostitute okay she's uh who eats the cheeseburger at the end she was in the witch she's the she's the girl in the witch I'm looking at her
JVL01:03:52IMDB and it says that she only appeared in three movies in 2022 and I just don't believe that I don't understand it it does not make any sense to me
Sonny01:04:06she was she was also in the Queen's Gambit which was everywhere and remember that was on that was a Netflix but again
JVL01:04:14I'm looking again I'm just I'm looking at her IMDB page and I just it makes no sense to me because I feel as though I've seen her in everything everywhere for three years and IMDB says that's not
Mike01:04:27true so whatever all right any other final thoughts on Dune part two we didn't even talk about Christopher Walken Christopher Walkening through this Christopher Christopher
Sonny01:04:38Walken just showing up and reading his lines like he's doing a Nissan ad this is
JVL01:04:42the most on the upper shit walk in performance I've ever literally ever seen why hire him for this part if you're not gonna let her walk in I mean
Mike01:04:52I don't understand I he was in that he was in that fat boy slim music video that quotes for the song that quotes Dune so that must be there's like a again like George Lucas says it's it's it's it rhymes it's like poetry it's funny I
Sonny01:05:09you you mentioned your audience was clapping at the end I people love this movie yes it's got a from cinema score it's got huge recommendation numbers audio like it's the highest rated movie on letterboxd it's like out of 9.8 or something on IMDb people love this movie and I I like again I liked it probably more than either of you did I like it I like it quite a bit I enjoyed it watching it in the theater but the people who are treating this like some sort of modern classic are I don't quite understand what they're seeing here I
JVL01:05:40don't get it either I unless they're a little too deep in their dune bucket them so either it's like dune fanboys of which there's a thing like there are there are people who genuflect before dune or this is another case of pent-up demand where there has not been a big beautiful cinematic Hollywood action movie in how long I don't even know what the last one was that is not a Marvel movie tenant might be tenant right I mean it again we could look back over through the charts but it's mission
Sonny01:06:18impossible the mission impossible yes
JVL01:06:19but that's still full you know almost a full year not quite a full year what's the last one dead reckoning but this is even bigger than that in scope and so maybe you know what it's but it's
Sonny01:06:34bigger but it's also so locked into one it's so monochromatic I this is one reason why I so I prefer the first I this is apparently a heresy I'm no I agree with you though but I much prefer the first because the first is kind of you're hopping around all over the place you're going you're going to Getty Prime with the like throat singing
JVL01:06:52Sardaukar and now I'm totally going to
Sonny01:06:54Caledon you're going to you're going to the Harkonnen homeworld but you're not seeing it in the infrared and like and then and then you're on a and then Arrakis you're half day half night and like it there are there's a profusion of colors at least and and there there's this great moment in the first one where Gertie Halleck finally smiles right and he leads the charge into battle and the bagpipes are blaring and I'm like this is big epic stuff and there's nothing in this movie like there's nothing in this movie that hits as hard as that moment does and it's it's just weird to me that everyone's kind of freaking out about
JVL01:07:29it so one two two questions before you get out of here the first is that did you guys notice that after the big final battle the Fremen just go and burn the bodies all this other car why we we've just spent two hours and 44 minutes being told that you can't even cry a tear or throw up because you got to preserve the water and now just torch
Sonny01:07:50them it's dirty well this is this is their religious fervor they have become like the Harkonnens before they don't
JVL01:07:55even care they're led by a Harkonnen and that's right too what do you think the what do you think the people who love Dune are gonna say when they find out that Timothy Chalamet turns himself into a sandworm I think that's gonna play I
Sonny01:08:11don't I mean I could you I hope they just put his I hope they do like one of the um what were those Quiznos ads you know with like a weird sock just put put his face put his face right on like a worm I'm the Quiznos because they are so good I am I am the space where but I have to
Mike01:08:33correct you JVL it's not it's not Paul who becomes the space where it's his son oh it is yeah I didn't even read the books and I know that so Wow we got this by okay well that is all the time you're going to give to this episode check us out at sub beacon calm and we will talk to you next time Florence Pugh doesn't really do anything
Sonny01:09:04in this movie yeah Florence Pugh is to me what Anya Taylor-Joy is apparently to
Mike01:09:08JVL you know she I I can take or leave
JVL01:09:14Florence Pugh there there there are roles in which I really like her and their roles in which I don't love her I actually thought she was good in this she has very little to do yes but I think she does the very little that she
Mike01:09:25has quite competently yeah I liked her better I liked her better in
JVL01:09:32Oppenheimer of course she did because she had her tits out I'm sure it's fine
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