Dune (1984) - David Lynch Tackles The Weirding Way - That Bad Media

Episode Transcript
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(00:32):
Dune. Uh the sparks airs flow, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be uh
whispering. I'm gonna be whispering innermonologues throughout the entire episode. But uh
oh boy, all right, yeah, so we're here. Not that bad

(00:55):
as back, Not that bad asback. I'm sorry, it's all that
spring annoying? Is it? Kindof getting intrusive and kind of interrupting the
flow? I'm sorry. At leastyours has written a little better. Anyways,
let's let's discuss Dune. This is, of course not that bad.
I am one of your co hosts. My name is Connor aka insert made

(01:15):
up nonsense II FI name here.Don't want to come up with one.
Clearly, my efforts may have beenbetter than that of the Dune story.
I know that it was a bookbeforehand, so I'm not going to criticize
too much. But Gabe, ofcourse you are my illustrious co host.
Mister Gabe Tye, how are youdoing today? My friend? You couldn't

(01:38):
come up with something better than DuncanIdaho? Or how about how about the
hero? Are we really? Arewe settling right out the gate? Seriously?
Dune? I can't think of amore prestigious science fiction property that has
worse names like across the board,yeah, than Dune. Okay, I'm

(01:59):
doing good. I'm doing fine.Didn't You're not convincing me. I just
finished watching the movie that we're hereto discuss. The movie I picked,
by the way, the movie Ipicked this one. MM, Well,
obviously it's very topicle, so youcan't. You can't blame me, of

(02:21):
course, can't. Dune Part twohas just come out. It's you know,
it's gotten the rave reviews of theof Dune Part one and is surpassing
its previous box office success. Imean, it's really looking to become everything
the fans of the novel wanted.They wanted an adaptation worthy of the epic

(02:46):
reputation of the original Dune novel.I'm trying to set up some context for
Dune nineteen eighty four, and it'sa really inexplicable movie to me. Okay,
let's actually attack it from a differentangle altogether. Okay, Okay.
I did not pick this movie becauseof my affinity for Dune the franchise.

(03:10):
I have read the book. I'venow read the sequel book due in the
science, and I plan to continuereading the novels because I'm a casual fan.
The reason I want to talk aboutDue nineteen eighty four is because it
is directed by David Lynch, oneof my favorite directors, one of I

(03:32):
think the most compelling directors alive today, one of the most you know,
he's the premier surrealist. He's aninteresting dude, to say the least vision
and this comes at such a pivotalmoment in his career. Dune comes at

(03:52):
a pivotal moment in his career.So he has this is his first,
no, I'm sorry, it's histhird feature film, it's his first in
color. He had done a Racerheadand The Elephant Man prior to this,
and then Deno de Laurentis hires himto direct Dune. Now famously, there

(04:15):
were several failed attempts to adapt Dune, most notoriously Jordiowski's Dune. You know
Joe d Rowski, another surrealist whowanted to adapt Dune, and there's a
whole documentary about it. It's maybethe most famous science fiction movie never made.
I think the jury still out overwhether or not he would have whether

(04:39):
or not it would have been agood adaptation of dune not really a conversation
I'm interested in having, frankly,but let me toss it to you.
What's your relationship to David Lynch ifyou have one. Ah, Okay,
I guess I'm a bit of ahot take art when it comes to David

(05:00):
Lynch. I'm a bit Look.I like the Twin people. Oh no,
I like Twin peaks and I andI enjoy erase your head mostly,
but that's about it. Oh no, I know I'm not a David Lynch
guy, and and you know thatthat's I've I've always felt sort of like

(05:25):
I bully myself for it. Youknow, like everything about David Lynch seems
like something that I would just eatup. You know a similar filmmakers or
filmmakers who do kind of similar things. I kind of feel like I enjoy
I don't know what it is.Maybe it's the hype I do. Tend
to be somebody who's greatly affected by. Like if if somebody comes to me

(05:45):
and they tell me something is thegreatest or it's the best, That's what
I'm gonna expect when I watch it, and I'm gonna do my best to
manage it. But you know,done to you for David Lynch. Have
people hyped them up to that degree. Yes. When I was getting into
movie, they were like, thisguy is the best. He is his
movies are some of the greatest piecesof film you will ever see in your

(06:06):
life. And I was like,yeah, I mean he's like, he's
a good director, he's got agreat vision. I think his his you
know, his visuals are fantastic,and once he did start making movies that
were in color, they look great. I mean, the color palettes are
great and everything. Okay, Iever said that comment. I mean,
you don't think that Eraserhead and theFan are gorgeously I think I think they

(06:30):
look great in black and white.What I'm saying is, once he introduced
color, his color palette really complimentedthe way well I see. Yeah.
So it wasn't one of those thingsof where like his transition was awkward or
anything like it felt like even thismovie was awkward. In this movie,
which we'll get to, I don'tknow if I agree. I thought this
movie looked really good as far asthe visual and you know, the visual

(06:50):
aspect of this movie I thought wasits strongest point. I think if you're
seeing this movie, in nineteen eightyfour, and you know David Lynch from
his first two movies. I dothink it looked like a smooth transition at
that moment. But when I thinkof his color palettes, I think of
blue velvet, I think of twinpeaks, you know, the red room.
He has a vibrant, really highcontrast sense of color. It's like

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this bizarro world technical color that reallydefines his aesthetic for me in the realm
of color film and Dune is lackingin that. And not to already start
giving way my thoughts on the finalfilm, but I'll come at it from
the opposite angle. I've always beenreally enamored with David Lynch, and I
am aware that there is this kindof a film bro hype behind his name

(07:41):
that I think is off putting topeople. And I mean just the film
bro film bros. Are killing alot of these classic and these established directors.
I think that you're seeing that effectssomewhat on even Martin Scorsese. You
know, I think the sense ofof gatekeeping and authority on good taste surrounding

(08:05):
these these mount Rushmore directors. It'sreally unfortunate. So I'm not going to
tell you that David Lynch is thegreatest director. You know, he's not
the greatest surrealist, he's not thegreatest anything. That's not the conversation I
want to have around David Lynch.But what I've always admired about this man
is obviously his films tend to benonlinear in abstract, but it's always in

(08:31):
service of expression, and he's notweird for the sake of weird eraser Head.
You know, there's such a boringkind of angle on David Lynch that
both you know, his admirers anddetractors talk about that he is just crazy,

(08:52):
like whoa, whoa man, thiskind of like acid trip on film.
That's not him. He is themost straight laced, by scout of
a human being working in Hollywood.You know, he doesn't do drugs.
He does transcendental meditation, right.He says things like shucks and golly and

(09:18):
likes apple pie. He is honestlythe character he's created that is closest to
his personality is probably Dale Cooper fromTwin Peaks. But no, He's always
about expression and putting emotions, themost abstract emotions or the most high level

(09:41):
emotions onto celluloid onto film. Isay celluloid. He actually prefers shooting digital
to film, so he's not afilm bro. Like he never even grew
up wanting to be a filmmaker.He wanted to be a painter. And
then through a series of happy accidents, he you know, he gets a
grant from AFI to make a seriesof shorts and then Eraserhead, and from

(10:05):
that he gets hired to do Eraserhead. And his whole career is one of
happy accidents. There's only a fewtimes where he sort of takes the reins
and kind of boldly goes forward withhis own idea. I mean a lot
of his movies are reactions to circumstance, like Blue Velvet. I think a

(10:26):
movie that's like a lot of people'sfavorite David Lynch movie or one of his
most most famous, Like have youseen Blue Velvet? I have, yes,
Do you like that one? It'sfine? Really okay, Yeah,
I've never heard of middling response toBlue Velvet. It's famously a love hate
kind of thing, but okay,it's fine. Yeah. I mean I

(10:46):
think it's just because like I probablywould have really enjoyed it if again,
like I had I had several,not just like one dude who was just
film growing me with David Lynch.It was like several people as I was
getting more into like you know,as I was getting more into film,
told me all of this. Sothen I just kept it in my mind
every single time I put on afilm of his. I think this was
actually the first movie that I sawof him, where like I knew my

(11:09):
opinion of David Lynch going into it. I knew, you know, he
was not necessarily like hit or missfor me, but like that, he
wasn't to me what he is toall these other people apparently, so like
I didn't, I had reasonable expectationswhen going into this. This is probably
the first movie I've given a fairchance to for him, you know,
talking about expectations, this is thishas the reputation of Beanka's worst movie,

(11:35):
you know, the movie he wasmost miscast to make, a movie that
he should not have made. Imean, now, let's shift gears.
I guess talking about about Doone,the movie from nineteen eighty four. It's
you know, before I saw it, you know, I knew of its
reputation as being this kind of tragicaccident of science fiction, like it's like

(12:05):
this abomination that was the product oflike malfeasance, They get the wrong director
and the studio interferes with his withhis you know, ability to make the
movie. They famously made him trimthis epic novel. And when I say

(12:26):
epic, I mean like it isdense and rich subplots, characters, war
It took me a really long timeto get through that first book. It
is just there is a real textualdensity to it, and they made him
trim that down to a little overtwo hours, you know, whereas Denis

(12:48):
Eleneuve, he took two near threehour movies for that one book, and
he still had to cut things out. He still had to cut out major
things that fans complained about, likehow could you leave that out? And
ironically, David Lunch actually includes someof those things. So we'll get into
the differences there. But again,it is like when I first saw it,

(13:11):
there was not really a cult followingor defenders. Now there actually does
seem to be, you know,at least a school of a thought that
either goes easy on this movie oreven defends it. I mean some people
actually, you know, have calledit underrated, some have called it a
masterpiece. Some have tried to recontextualizeit as being this really like this triumph

(13:37):
for datas I see its categorized alot now, especially like the last few
years, as a bit of acult classic. Is what I've seen.
Definitely, definitely, and that's partlybecause of time and distance, you know,
people, the outrage I think hasjust died down. And it's also
the life cycle for a movie likethis, right, And we see this
in horror all the time, thisblack Sheep, it's persona non grata,

(14:03):
it is exiled or it's hated thetesting and then another adaptation comes out,
and through that contrast, I guess, however this happens, people get nostalgic
for that previous adaptation, or theyrealize things about it that they took for
granted. With Dune nineteen eighty four, a lot of people really appreciate actually

(14:28):
the flagrant weirdness of it. Becausewith Denive ell Leneuve, if you're familiar
with him as a director, youknow he takes a more grounded approach.
He takes not a sterile approach,although I think his his color palette and
his visual style is a little bitmore monochromatic. For my taste. Like

(14:54):
you know, iraqis really just lookslike just a desert. It really doesn't
have any kind of alien flare toit, not something you can accuse do
nineteen eighty four of it feels likeit was made by an alien because sometimes,
yeah, there there there were afew shots. Will I will say
it was a little disappointed with howit didn't go as crazy as I thought.

(15:16):
Like when you look up Dune nineteeneighty four, you see this poster
with like these pinks and purples andlike these big blue planets in the sky,
and you're like, oh, thisis gonna be like the most like
surreal, cosmic, fucking crazy scifi movie. And then it's not really
that, but the visuals are Isaid it a little earlier, kind of
telegraphed it. It's my favorite partof the movie. That was the part

(15:39):
that I enjoyed the most. That'swhat the movie has going into the style,
It's what the movie has going forit. I think even detractors will
probably concede to that. And it'swhat David Lynch was hired to do.
I mean, the logic must havebeen David Lynch, this this visionary he
can take these absurd, bizarre,eccentric ideas, ideas that seem filmable to

(16:06):
other people, and conceptualize it andmold it, you know, and put
and photograph it, yea. Andthey're not wrong. And maybe if it
weren't for the accursed interference from thestudio from producers, we would have seen
a really untamed, a really audaciousvision from David Lynch. But you know,

(16:33):
the man himself hates this movie.He regrets making it, or at
least he regrets making in the sensethat he is he disowns the final product.
Now. I actually wrote a pieceabout doing nineteen eighty four for my
substack if we're not busy plugging ourselvestoo much, and I didn't talk about

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the actual film, And at whatI talk about is it place in David
Lynch's career, And I argue itsaved his career because if it had succeeded,
it would have derailed his true passionfor the surreal and the strange,
and it would have made him,you know, like some kind of you
know, George Lucas type, andyou know, to make this all even

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more bizarre in context. Before takingthe job to do Dune, he turned
down the job to do Return ofthe Jedi, and I mean it was
such a it was something he wasso not interested in doing Return of the
Jedi that he got a migrain famouslyjust talking to George Lucas about the job.

(17:44):
So I don't know why he tookDune. He ignored his instincts and
decided to try his hand at beingyou know, the next the next Steven
Spielberg or what have you. Andyou know, it failed, and he
has stuck to his guns and hastrusted himself and only himself ever since.

(18:07):
I got to give him credit forthat. I mean, you know,
i'd like to think that, youknow, despite my personal feelings, like
the guy is a legend and heknows what he's doing behind the camera,
and you know, seeing a movielike this and watching it it does feel
a little out of place. Ithink, you know, I'd like to
think that it's sort of one ofthose things where it's like, all right,

(18:27):
well, if I if I dothis, and you know, it
works out really well, I'm notreally gonna have to ask, you know,
I'm not really gonna have to askfor anything, you know, in
the future. You know, it'sit's some some people reach a point where
they just don't have to Can Iget some more money to make this or
or you know, you know,I'm really struggling on time here to make

(18:49):
this movie, Like you know,we're we're running low on days here.
You know, some directors just reacha point where that doesn't matter anymore and
they just get to make whatever thehell they want and studios put it out,
and that's that's what happens. Andso maybe, you know, I
could see it being an angle oflike, well, if this pays off,
like I can just make whatever Iwant for you know, I get

(19:10):
a good budget for it to getthe time I need to make it.
The only thing I think may havebeen a bit of a miscalculation at least
from that, if that was hislogic was if it fails, you could
have a hard time getting the moneyyou need for your next movie. You
could have a hard time getting agood shooting schedule for your next movie.
That's that's not you know, supercondensed. I mean we talked about seeing

(19:33):
stuff like that in the horror genre. I mean Rob Zombie is a good
example of that. I mean,this guy came out with two movies that
were special and unique. You know, no matter how you felt about him.
Devil's Rejects got a lot of praisewhen it came out, and then
the dude made the Halloween movies.And since then he's been getting less money
per project. He's been getting lesstime to shoot his projects. He's had
to crowdfund some of his films andsome aspects of his movies, despite being,

(20:00):
you know, in my opinion,one of the more talented directors of
you know, the genre today.So you know, it's one of those.
It's an interesting comparison, right RobZombie to David Lynch. I would
describe Halloween two as having Lynchian flares, and Lynchian isn't It's a word in
the dictionary. Now, that's howsingular of a style he has, you

(20:21):
know, Lynchian is something. Iwould not describe this movie as luncheon,
and that's probably not. That's thetragedy of Dune nineteen eighty four is I
thought I might be able to say, well, it's not a good Dune
movie. It's not, but it'sit's a good David Lynch movie. It's
it's an interesting David Lynch movie.It's it was at least nice to see

(20:41):
him try this. That's not reallythe feeling I was loved with with Doom.
But I think we've kind of circledaround the actual movie itself for long
enough. We should probably really divein and dissect this as well as we
can. I mean, it's alittle it's a little really, it's hard
to parts of this movie out.I mean, you can't call it all

(21:03):
bad. I think we should probablystart with with the good. Right,
We've already talked about the visuals specifically, I want I want to highlight the
production design, like the world ofHarconin and this is where you know,
the David Lynch fans will be happiestbecause from a Raserhead is carried over that
sense of the industrialization of a humanityand you know, the dehumanization, the

(21:27):
degradation, and that is something thatactually I think fits really well into the
world of the Harconins. Right.They're these authoritarians, uh, without compassion
with you. I mean they're they'recomically evil. I mean they're they're comedically
evil. I mean the Barons isflying around in his little fartsuit, cackling

(21:48):
evilly and God. But something that'sthat's in this movie, not even in
so much of Lynch's other movies.I mean, there are cinnabyites in this
movie, like The Body Horror.It's off the charts, especially on the
iraqis No I'm sorry the Harkonen scenes. I mean, as a horror fan,

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did you get did you get someof that? Definitely got some.
I think the thing that was thething I kept thinking was like, there's
there's something as far as the productiondesign that was like reminding me of of
two thousand and one A Space Odyssey. And I don't know if that's because
they got the same production designer asthat was on two thousand and one A

(22:34):
Space Odyssey, but there was there. Look, there's a lot of feelings
that I got around watching this,and a lot of impressions that I got
from not only like maybe inspirations thatDavid Lynch used to kind of put this
world together outside of just like what'sin the novel. Obviously haven't read the

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novel, so I don't know howdescriptive those things are, but I would
assume, you know, with thingsthat I've seen in the trailer for both
doing Part one and two recently,some of these things must have been described
in great detail because they do carryover, at least based on what I've
seen, especially with like you know, the design of the worms and things
like that. But I think it'shard to pinpoint any sort of vibe from

(23:18):
this. I'm gonna be honest.No, it feels a little all over.
It's one of those movies that feelslike, you know, a battle
field of influences, right, yes, whether it be director versus producers or
you know, the source material versusthe vision. I mean, it is
not coherent, no, no,which is going to make it pretty impossible

(23:45):
to defend as a good movie.I don't, like I said, it's
not all bad, it ain't allgreat. I don't know how many things
about it I consider great. Youknow, let me let me start though
with something commendable. I think thecast. You know, David Lynch got
himself a great cast. This isthis is his first collaboration with the Kyle

(24:10):
McLachlan. He would go on tobe in Blue Velvet and most famously Twin
Peaks. Right, that's I thinka crown jewel for him and David Lynch.
I've heard people say that his performanceis Paul is flat, and I
just don't agree. And considering thisis his first movie, not just his

(24:33):
first leading role in a movie,but literally his first movie coming out of
acting school. I was really impressed, Like, there is real star power
here. You know, it's alittle you know, there's a little rough
around the edges. Maybe it's notlike he nails it the way a more
experienced actor could have. But itis no surprise to me that this guy

(24:56):
went on to have a real careerand and develop his own following. You
could definitely see flashes of it.And and I think, but I you
know, I think when we talkabout the cast, I think who they
put together, Like, you know, it's a surprising amount of talent,
Like it's pretty random. It's it'svery random. I mean, you know,

(25:22):
it's not necessarily even then, evenin the eighties, it doesn't feel
like a cast that sort of likemakes sense on the surface. But I
think most of it pretty much works. I think where my complaint kind of
comes in is that everything good Ican say about both the casting and the
acting, I have to also saysomething bad about because like much of the

(25:45):
rest of the movie, it isvery uneven. There is a lot of
very strange choices with what's done inthe performances. I think our star here
is the least egregious, to behonest with you, I mean, other
than characters who don't get as muchscreen time, like obviously Sir Patrick Stewart's
not like eating every scene up becausehe's not in the movie as long as

(26:08):
some of these other characters are.But I can't see flat. I can
certainly see some scenes where I don'tknow if he was as comfortable or something
just felt off. Towards the endof the movie, I didn't notice it
as much. I don't know ifthey filmed that actually later, I would

(26:29):
assume that the stuff that was shottowards the end of the movie, you
know, this is definitely felt likeit was shot out a sequence. I
don't know. He just felt morecomfortable in some scenes towards the end of
the film, but definitely like thebeginning in middle of this movie, I
don't know. Again, it almostfelt like to me it was shot in
sequence from how his experience level was, because I enjoyed him more at the
end of the film he was aboutnever mind, I'm not gonna say that

(26:52):
yet. Oh you think that's thehero's journey in effect? I mean,
Paul is going from being a youngnaive, you know, air to the
throne. Really, you know,it's thrust into a situation that's so much

(27:14):
more grand and complex than he is. Like, I think I see the
uncomfortability and maybe it was Count mclachlin'sown, you know, uncomfortability taking such
a huge role in a huge moviejust right out the gate. But it
does, you know, fit thecharacter in some ways. I think that
kind of that was that was likea wise casting choice. You know,
Timothy Shallome, who I have anotorious beef with. I do not like

(27:40):
the guy. I don't need tosee him in everything. There was a
there was a couple of months whereevery trailer had his face in it,
you know, you go to themovie theaters sees just everywhere. My animosity
towards him has died down, andI think he he impressed me more in
doing part to for sure. Butsomething about you know, the movie star

(28:04):
Timothy Shallomy, I think clouds thejourney that the Paula Trates takes. Now
what actually what they do with paulin this is probably the most egregious change
and frankly betrayal of the source material. We can get to that later because
that's a that's really a discussion inand of itself. But just if you're

(28:27):
doing another science fiction a space opera, you want to have your own Luke
Skywalker. I think that there isa totally coherent, totally fine character arc
here that tracks. I mean,there's weird stuff that gets rushed, like
his romance with with Sean Young.But but just the start and end,

(28:52):
Okay, fine, I accept it, and the performance it worked. You
know for me, it worked.I think overall, I don't I don't
have a whole lot of complaints overall, if I had to, if I
had to boil it down, Idon't have a whole lot of complaints are
there for him? Are there castmembers that you do have complaints about?

(29:12):
Dude? Okay, whoever the fuck? Whoever the fuck was playing that?
Like, I don't know if they'reconsidered to be like witches in this world
or what the Bennys The last onethat at the end of the movie,
you know where where there's that bigconfrontation between Paul and his crew and then

(29:33):
the what is it the Emperor andhis dude that was just unbearably terrible.
I mean, I was you're talkingabout the Benny Jesuit Witch. Yes,
dude, it was like so like, first of all, she has this
terrible interaction with like the child,you know, the Paul's sister who's born

(29:56):
into like these powers that she has. They have this terrible interaction when she
shows up to kind of like tauntthem before Paul shows up, right,
and then and then Paul's there andhaving this face off with the Emperor before
he before he kills Sting, andshe's like, dude, if if you

(30:18):
don't, if you can't pinpoint whatI'm referencing. And it's as somebody who's
freshly watched the movie, I hopekids just kind of think back to it.
It was so horrifically terrible for methat I almost just stopped. I
don't see that at all. Ireally can't even I'm not sure I understand
what what you're complaining with her performances. I thought it was dud No,
I I don't know. And she'splaying an intergalactic witch. I mean,

(30:40):
yeah, but it's relatable, butI don't know. Maybe it's because there
is no frame of reference first forspace Witch, but I just I don't
know, man, there's something aboutthat interaction like I wanted to. I
wanted to turn the movie off.I was I was like, no,
I I'm good. I don't Idon't think. I don't think. I
want to keep watching this. Allthe performances I thought you were going to

(31:00):
trash on, that was not theone. Can I assume? Can I
assume one of the performances that youthought I might trash on? Yeah,
go for it. Maybe the Baron. So the Baron is the best part
of this movie. I fucking lovethis guy's time of his life. He's

(31:22):
going for it. He I loveit when people allow themselves to be a
little extra, you know, Andthis is it's a real studying contrast between
this performance and Stale Scarsgart's performance asthe Baron in Dune. You know there
he has taken inspiration from Marlon Brandoin Apocalypse. Now. It's a it's

(31:45):
a threatening performance. It's a prettymenacing one, especially the way he's photographed
and the prosthetics given to him.He's really like an ogre of a of
a man there. But this guy, Oh, you tell me, man,
what are the words that come toyour mind when when you think about
Baron Harkonen. I will make adirect I will make a direct comparison,

(32:08):
okay, to another film that we'vecovered on this show and that also features
actor Leonardo Chimono or sorry Chimino,water World. And I'm gonna make that
comparison because he was in this moviewhat Dennis Hopper was in water World.
To me, I will agree withthat. I will. I don't know

(32:32):
if I will agree with that.I think what he is is he's a
bit more entertaining. Uh, He'sjust it felt like the dude did a
bump of cocaine before every single shot. Uh, and it was. It
worked tremendous wonders towards this film.I'm going to say something a little bit
later. I broke a rule whenwatching this movie, one of my own

(32:54):
personal rules. I hate myself fordoing it, but I did. I
broke one of my own personal ruleswhile watch this I didn't mean to,
but I did. This guy wasOh my god. I don't know how
to say this without saying something meanabout the movie. I'm just gonna fucking
telegraph how I feel about this rightnow. This guy was was the only

(33:17):
thing keeping me watching this. Thisguy there was There's other things I enjoyed,
don't get me wrong. But everysingle time this guy was on screen,
his seemingly his his face boils orwhatever the hell that was all over
him, that that illness was justit looked bigger or worse. He was

(33:40):
just screaming and laughing the entire movieby far the best character in my mind,
I'm not even close. Yeah,the most entertaining, the most watchable,
just gives the movie the most life. I mean it, It actually
looks like somebody was having fun makingthis one. If I could say,

(34:02):
a distant second for me would bebrad Dorff. That would be my distant
second, Brad Dorris. Brad Dorffis an MVP, as we've established on
this show. Yes, now,how did you like those eyebrows? How
much of them? The eyebrows elevateseverything? Uh, it carried about his

(34:22):
performance. But you know, actorslike to Apparently there's such a thing as
like a top heavy actor, likean actor who uses the appliances on their
heads, whether they be hats orprosthetics, really define their performance. And
that is something that I feel camethrough with him and that other guy,

(34:43):
you know, the guy that takesthat gets taken hostage and then he's like,
you know he's he's given some kindof poison and they put that thing
on him to keep him alive,and every hat. Yeah, and they
give a cat. What the theygive him a cat? Oh man?
Oh yeah. The animals in thismovie, you can I mean, they're
the real stars. Okay. Thepug that takes into battle cow cat is

(35:08):
like angry, meowing, like letme fucking go. And they kept in
it. Not only did they keepit in, but they recorded over it
so that you could hear it better. It was incredible. Somebody that we
have not mentioned yet is perhaps oneof the most famous cast members in the
movie, although he's not famous foracting. No he's not, of course.
This is one of the Hey,okay, I see we're gonna have

(35:30):
a fight. This is This isone of the first performances from Sting,
otherwise known as the Frontman to thePolice. I believe they were still together
at this time. Sing the Britishsinger songwriter Sting. He plays Fade and

(35:51):
by god, he is barely inthis movie. I was really surprised.
So the first thing I thought,again, I have never seen I've never
read the source material. I haveno idea who who his character is.
I went, is that fucking Sting? And I went, oh, no,
this movie's gonna be all Sting,isn't it? And he wasn't fucking
he was barely there. And whenhe was there, I was not.

(36:13):
I personally was not impressed, butI was so shocked at how little he
was in this He's the name,right he was, uh hm, I
guess. I mean, I don'tknow if he was literally the most famous
person in this cast. I mean, I don't think David Lynch would have
allowed for some for some singer toovershadow, but I mean the rest of

(36:35):
of it, I don't. Idon't know if it was David Lynch's idea
or not. You know, thething about David Lynch two is, even
though he's weird, strange, eccentric, he is he totally embraces pop culture,
like his ideas, Like he's almostthis kind of sponge for popular culture,
iconography and influences that he twists andsome would say perverts into his own

(37:00):
image. Like almost all of hissongs feature some kind of odes or nods
to popular music, pop music,or some other you know, He's been
compared to Norman Rockwell and Sting couldbe one of those things. Now,
I would find it weird if DavidLynch was it was like that big of

(37:22):
a fan of of the police.It's not really his thing. Maybe he's
more into two white reggaean than Irealize. But okay, Sting is in
this movie. Barely people remember thathe's in this movie because of that epic

(37:43):
bulge that he displays so proudly andthis little space speedo. My god,
dudes walking with his leg you know, he's like he like he does he
does that walk when they're trying toaccentuate that area where it's like back is
like shaped like a cane or something. It's terrible, man, it's terrible.

(38:05):
I hated it. I'm gonna disagreewith you. I think that Sting
quite impressively, given his limited screentime, actually show some some acting chops,
some charisma, charisma, sugar charisma. I mean, hello, he's
got the confidence to walk out therewith his package full on display. That
is it takes a certain level ofconfidence. I supposed to I suppose so,

(38:30):
yeah, I would. I wishshe was in the movie more.
I actually think I think he couldhave given the movie another boost. He's
an actual faue a foil for Paul. They don't really play that in this
movie at all, compared to thebook where you fill a new version,
it felt like much of his stuff. I don't know if it was cut

(38:52):
or if it just wasn't included inthe script, But like when it got
to the point where they had likethe one on one fight, I got
the impression that that was supposed tobe much more impactful than it was.
Just felt kind of out of nowhere. Yeah, I mean, obviously it
lets the movie end on a fightbetween two equals, you know, two
fighting equals. But one of myfavorite scenes in the new villa Eneuve version

(39:15):
is fades big entrance, his bigintroduction where he does this whole gladiator combat
with Austin Butler. Okay, cool, yeah, cool, Yeah, it's
a big role. It was acoveted role, like this is one of

(39:35):
the like famous characters from the novel, and they they thought it would be
a good opportunity for some famous person, some famous actor or singer or what
have you, in Do eighty four. But for some reason, he is
one of the characters and elements thatsuffers the most from the trimm of the

(40:00):
source material. Now, I don'tknow if you know a lot of background,
I'm just curious if you know thiswas that mostly on the editing floor,
or was that something that like DavidLynch just didn't put into the script.
So there are deleted scenes, andthere has been a rumor of an

(40:20):
extended cut. I believe there wasan extended television version that I've never seen.
David Lynch had no involvement with that. He hates this movie so much
that he would never go back todo any sort of new cut or new
version. He just wants to leaveit behind. But there are deleted scenes.
How much it's certainly not enough tomake up for all of the things

(40:44):
that were cut out of the book. Again, he was pressured to make
a movie under two and a halfhours, so there's certainly deleted material.
I don't know if, for example, the scene I just talked about could
be one of them. I doubtit. You know, if I was

(41:04):
a bigger fan of this movie,I would have tracked that down. But
yeah, I was curious, moreso as like a because I know,
I know you like David Lynch,and I know that you know, like
you said, kind of a casualDoom fan. I'm a I'm I'm honestly
shocked. I haven't seen these,these two recent Doom movies because Dni Villanueve
is he made one of my favoritemovies of all time, and in the

(41:28):
movie I consider perfect, it's thatBlade Runner twenty forty nine not perfect,
not perfect for me, perfect forme. Loved it, loved it every
single minute of it. It isone of my favorite films ever. Loved
it. Do you like it morethan the original? Absolutely? Yeah,
I think the original is fantastic,but I just don't get that. I

(41:49):
saw Blade Runner twenty forty nine andthere's a good two hour movie in that
thing. Yeah. Him getting castto adapt Dune kind of made me worry
at that news because I didn't thinkyou would be able to rein in the

(42:10):
wildness of Doune. I mean,you cannot put that whole thing in theaters
and expected to make money it is. I mean, it's going to alienate
people like on Mass but I thinkhe did written it. But my big
gripe with Blade Runner twenty forty nineis actually that it pretty blatantly rips off

(42:30):
a movie I consider perfect, whichis her Despite Jones movie starring Joking Phoenix,
there is a scene straight out ofher, straight out of Okay,
you know I haven't. I haven'tseen her, and I'm not a huge
uh No, I'm not gonna I'mnot gonna see it either. So Okay,
I'm just gonna keep my Blade Runnertwenty forty nine perfect in my head,

(42:52):
your pure bliss will experience with BladeRunner twenty forty nine. I will
not try to take that away.I'll do that. Uh No. I
do want to ask you about aboutone about one choice in this movie,
because I was a little confused,and I don't know. I don't know

(43:17):
if it's a movie thing or ifthis is how the Dune story is.
So Sean Young's character, yeah,uh is she's supposed to be more important
in because I know she was likerelatively important once, like they got to
that point, but so much ofher story, especially with with Paul,

(43:38):
just like it's just glazed over.Like there's there's this one portion of the
movie that they just they just kindof give up and they're just like they
just do this like not even amontage, but they just do this like
voiceover where they're like for the nexttwo years and they tell you about what
transpired between this period of time,and all they say in that whole thing

(44:00):
is that Paula and and it's Shannieis her name. Paul and Shawnie's love
grew deeper, and then they did, they did move on past. And
it's like she is she feels likeshe's supposed to be this, like like
joining him at the at the helmof the society that they're building, and
she doesn't. She doesn't feel thatway. Well, I mean, I

(44:22):
think you answered it yourself. Imean it's glaringly uh pretty uh pretty blatantly
glossed over in the movie. Imean they they were really struggling by the
point that Paul joins up with theFremen two to fit this book into a

(44:42):
single movie. I wonder if theidea even even came to them of doing
a two parter. Uh. Iguess that was not a there there were
exceptions, but that really wasn't asellable idea the way it is now,
So I probably did not come tothem. But Johnny perfect example of another
element that really gets lost in theshovel here. I mean, she still

(45:06):
serves her purpose. She's Paul's lover. I struggle to remember this in the
book, so much. But Zendia'sperformance of that character and their relationship is
actually one of the highlights of thenew Villeneuve adaptations. Yeah, and it's
it's actually hard to talk about herwithout talking about again, I think the

(45:30):
most problematic change of Don eighty fouras an adaptation. So do you want
to get into that, Let's doit. Yeah, I'd love to hear
this because I'm not super familiar,so I'll be learning here. So what
makes an adaptation good to me isnot the number of things that you managed

(45:52):
to include from the source material,you know. It's not the number of
subplots, not the number of characters, not the easter eggs. I mean,
it's nice if you are able toinclude those things. Then as a
fan, it can certainly be disappointingif you see it removed. But frankly,
that's not the mission or the jobof an adaptation. It is to
translate the source material to a newmedium and preserving those core elements that creates

(46:19):
the experience of having gone through thistext. You know what I mean.
It's translation, it's not a lateralmove. So the real flaw here for
June eighty four, and I'm noteven going to blame entirely on the movie

(46:42):
itself and explain that as I goon. But Paul La Deeb is not
supposed to be a messiah figure inthe book, in the series. Canonically,
he is more of an antichrist.He is a a false prophet,
the product of you know, geneticengineering obviously, you know, the controlling

(47:08):
of bloodlines, and you know,taking advantage of of native mythology and these
colonized people, you know, Andhe's an opportunist, and maybe he has
benevolent intentions, but ultimately he isa false prophet. Whereas in the eighty

(47:28):
four version, Oh Boy, theJesus shit, the Messiah complex of this
whole movie and the reverence it hasfor Paul, I mean, it's not
just it's like, let me nowbacktrack, because I was about to blast

(47:50):
the movie. But actually the truthis that the original novel was not as
clear about this as I think peopleremember. And actually it's the sequel,
June Messiah, that I think reallyclarifies this and really hammers this home.
And now it's something that Dune fanstalk about a lot all the time.
Like to them, it's one ofthe core philosophies of the Dune saga is

(48:15):
do not trust false prophets, donot trust leaders. It's anti authority.
But I would argue that Frank Herbertfelt the need to write Dune Messiah to
clarify that, because I think,honestly a lot of people missed that from
the original text. So it's noteven entirely the movie's fault. It still
feels pretty egregious to me, becauseif you did take a very careful look

(48:42):
at the source material, you couldsee the disparity between between that text and
this adaptation. But you know,it's like it's like getting to the end
of Return of the King and learningthat you know, in the movie they
actually make Saurun, you know,the good guy at the end, you

(49:04):
know what I mean. Like,it's like it's almost like that level of
misunderstanding of the actual essentials of thestory. So as somebody who you know,
has not read the book, hasn'tseen the Villeneuve movies hearing what I
just said, how does that influenceI guess this movie for you? And
do you wish that you could haveseen that version play out? Well before

(49:28):
I say that, let me justask this to kind of nail it down
for me. So is they bringup this thought of the prophecy and like
sort of like a chosen One typething. Is that a story in the
book It just turns out that Paul'sreally not that or is that introduced as
a storyline of the movie in itsentirety. So in the book there is

(49:50):
a prophecy, but that prophecy wasactually written I think by the Benny Jesuits.
I might be getting the details wrong, but that's another piece of engineer
ring to create the the ability ofthe higher powers, the upper class to
control the freemen. You know,it's using mythology to create you know,

(50:15):
it's an allegory for religion, right. You know. Marx called it the
opium of the masses, a wayto control, subdue, and manipulate this
class of people. And Paul usesit to you know, gain control over
them. He uses them as anarmy to get revenge on Baron Harcone and

(50:37):
then take the throne the throne.So it is technically in the novel,
but they've actually used it un ironically, they've taken it at face value in
the Okay, I felt like theygave you know, the Paul's army.
You know that he cultivates his hiscult, if you will, the cult

(50:57):
of well, they treat it likeit's his right. It's almost his birthright,
you know, they do. Ithink the thing that I appreciated about
it a little bit was that Paul, like these people had a reason to
join the fight. It wasn't completelyout of the realm of normalcy for them
to be doing what they're doing.It wasn't like, you know, their
lives were completely altered by the factthat this guy showed up and now they're

(51:21):
all going to follow him into battlebecause he's just there. I appreciated that
much, but I felt like,like so much of it was it almost
felt like out of place for amovie like this. When you watch a
movie that's very sci fi driven,you'll see sometimes elements of like ancient storytelling
or ancient sort of philosophies and stufflike, especially in the alien movies.

(51:45):
You know, as you get intosome of those, like Alien Versus Predator
had a lot of it, Prometheushad a lot of it. But you
see this sort of element of like, oh, the ancient side of what
you know, like a future technologyera will be this takes place in like
the year ten thousand or something.You know. My thought process is it

(52:06):
felt a little out of place,you know, like I was almost waiting
for something to go wrong or tonot pan out, because it felt like
your classic tale of here's this magicalprophecy, here's the fulfiller of said prophecy,

(52:27):
and then everything happens it comes true. The way that it says in
the prophecy is it just felt alittle weird. It is just a straight
line from Paul joining the freemen tohim using them to overthrow the emperor.
There is intention, there is ayeah, obstacles. It's I mean,
it is so deprived of the tensionsin the book that VILLAINU really captured while

(52:52):
in his adaptation, you know,I mean really the meat of the storyline
there is Paul integrating into the Fremenwho do not want him there. It's
not like in the movie where theylike welcome him immediately, like it takes
time. It takes uh that thatwas jarring as hell? Would they?

(53:12):
So they show up and it andand first so Paul straight up DEXI dude
in the face. And at thispoint I forgive me because I'm gonna mention
something of why I don't exactly rememberthis a little later, but was that
that was his father at that pointor who was he with at that point
when he joins his fremen. Yeah, he's with his mother. Oh,

(53:37):
his mother, that's right, Okay, Yeah, so his mother gets the
dude and has him with a knifeat his throat. Yeah, right,
yeah, and Paul DEXI dude,and then like hides behind a rock and
almost immediately they're like, we willfollow you to the depths of hell.
And You're like, what the fuck? What do you mean? Because they

(53:59):
because they beat you, like becausethey think that he's the chosen one.
It happened so fast, it's it'slike you know the movies, cruising along
and then they just pulled the ebreak as fast, like in the middle
of driving down the highway. Theyjust pulled the e brake on us.
I was like, wait a minute, what the I flew out the windshield

(54:20):
when that happened, Dude, Icouldn't. I was like, already,
there's no imagine he's got to gothrough. Just imagine how jarring it is
as somebody who's read the book.Oh, I can only imagine. Yeah,
I mean it breaks the brain andit's I mean you've taken out the
core attension you really like, Imean, you really cut the legs out

(54:40):
from this part of the story.At some point I really wondered, like,
why even bother you know, withthis storyline. I almost feel like
this, you know, the waythey approached it, it could have been
done in ten minutes, him joiningthe Fremen, him leading the army,
and him conquering and killing Sting andone of the most awkward hand to hand

(55:04):
fights. Oh ever, I'm gonnayeah, I'm gonna go out there on
the lemon say ever. Yeah,this was worse than the fight between King
Kong and the snake, way worse. That was a That was a cool
fight for you. I did notlike it was awesome. Okay, I

(55:27):
was not a fan, but I'mless of a fan of this. It
has a satisfying end, though,right when King Kong snaps that thing's jaw
and just like throws it on theground like the beast he is so believe
I believe it or not. Iactually was a little bit more satisfied with
the ending of this, not becauseof what happened, Like it it was
just like much of this movie.It happened way too fast of how does

(55:50):
this end? Uh? And itit makes it seem like something's going to
come into play. It's like theyhave a setup in that fight and it
doesn't really go anywhere. He justis like, Oh, I'm gonna get
stabbed from this thing on his sideand I've recognized it. Okay, I'm
just going to take him down andstab him in his stab him in the
jaw. You know. It wasvery quick and jarring, like much of

(56:12):
this movie. But what I appreciatedabout it was that it kind of like
took me by surprise on how likesort of like creepy. It was.
Right immediately after that, like Paulsays something and like not only does the
ground crack underneath Sting's dead body,but then he like he like morphs a
little bit, like his eyes turnedwhite, and it's like his skin turns
like a slightly different color, andit's like he just like decays right there.

(56:36):
It was it was pretty cool.I thought that was like the coolest
thing that had happened. That isthe coolest, And I almost feel that
that is the Uh. Again,the actual essence of Paul's character art from
the book kind of shining through,although I again I think it's misinterpreted here.
I think you are led to believethat he is like transcending to his

(56:58):
status as a deity. Oh dude, I felt he was a god at
that point. Like I I.My understanding of the story was this movie
was about essentially Space Jesus becoming SpaceJesus. That's that was my interpretation of
what Dune is based on this movie, and and his arc throughout and how

(57:19):
his power comes to be and everythinglike that. That is why, above
all else, above every other problemand misinterpretation here that we've talked about,
that is why Dune fans reject thismovie to this day. I don't know
of Doune fans who come out andare a part of the reappraisal of this

(57:40):
movie or of the cult following.There might be some ironic enjoyment. You're
definitely more likely to enjoy this moviein some in some serious way if you're
a David Lunch fan, or ifyou're just a fan of you know,
kind of like art house cinema,the cinema of the weird, the cinema
of the bazar are. I mean, it's got that. Uh, It's

(58:04):
not the most brazen display of that. I mean, that's the other thing.
I mean it is David Lynch ona leash. He's given more toys
to play with. I guess it'snice to see what, you know,
doing what David Lynch can do witha budget of this scale. He would
never work at this scale again,and he didn't want to. And I

(58:25):
think he's probably a guy, likeso many other odd tours that actually benefits
from the limits of resources rather thanyou know this blank check. Yeah,
I real quick. I want toraise something before I forget about it,
because it came up in my heada little earlier and I didn't have it
in my notes. I wasn't goingto prepare anything like this. But there's

(58:45):
another movie that came out in theeighties. Sir Patrick Stewart is also in
that movie, and I just wantto I'm curious if you've seen it,
because I feel like I want tomake some comparisons about why one of them
does sort of work for me andwhy this movie doesn't. Have you seen
EXCaliber? Yeah? I have?Okay, so not not a you know,

(59:07):
shining example of the of a fantasticfilm. But here's what I thought
when I watch EXCaliber. I likethat movie. I think there's some things
that that are wrong with it,don't get Don't get me wrong, there's
some things, there's problems, Butboth of the movies have this sort of

(59:28):
character fulfilling the destiny that the moviesets up for. And both of them
have this awkward passage of time thatthey just kind of glance over. Both
of them have a similar sort ofprogression of how the story works for itself.
But where I think Excalibur works andthis movie doesn't is Excalibur has enough

(59:49):
throughout, there's enough substance throughout thatkeeps me engaged in the story and keeps
me engaged in the action, andthere's not as much of that in it.
And I'm not questioning every decision madein EXCaliber. I'm questioning some of
them. A couple of decisions.Oh no, certainly, certainly some of
them. But like I felt,every couple of minutes, I was questioning

(01:00:10):
something about Dune. Why is thisinner monologue thing so fucking awkward and terribly
executed? Why are these characters sayingthese things, are doing these things?
What? Why did that happen sofast? I was doing that, like
every few minutes, I would Iwould argue that Excalibur deconstructs the myth of
King Arthur more than Dune deconstructs itsown. I'd agree with that leader,

(01:00:37):
which is, that's not how that'ssupposed to happen. I shouldn't be saying
that to you. I should notbe confessing that to you, because I'm
not even drowned intentional that is withExcalibur. I honestly think that it's part.
Some of the awkwardness like you mentioned, contributes to that. But that
is the final effect, is thatKing Arthur is humbled and right, is

(01:01:00):
he a false leader? Not exactly. He did pull that sword from that
stone. You can never take thataway from him, right, But he's
not a he's certainly not perfect andhe's not a messiah character. He's he's
complex, he's flawed. Colin MacLachlanwith his with his fucking good looks,
like, my god, this isa photogenic man who you know, he

(01:01:23):
has a side chick, he marriesa princess, he he fucks up sting
like he's got everything going for him, and then he transcends into godhood.
I mean, it could not bemore reverend of this character. So,
and that's like a weird thing forDavid Lynch, like he he should not

(01:01:43):
be going that route like that,that should be antithetical to all of his
instincts. So the idea that hewould look at Dune, this book about
a false prophet. You know,this is the guy who does he just
did the Elephant Man. He shouldbe about how profits or a high class

(01:02:07):
or the golden people are actually gilded. And it's it's the fallen people,
the weirdos, the freaks, likethey're actually you know, they're the people
we should put on a pedestal.And I guess you could argue that some
of what's going on with the Fremen, but it's still it's Paul. You
know, he's comes from this prestigiousbloodline. He was literally bred to be

(01:02:31):
perfect, and he's he's perfecter thananyone could barely imagine. He goes from
being perfect too perfector that's that's likehis character arec and that's weird. That's
I mean, that can't be DavidLynch is doing. That can't be his
idea. I would imagine that's oneof the things he might regret most about

(01:02:53):
this whole thing. And it makesme wonder how much of you know how
much of his vision was meddled with, you know, and it was an
example. So you know, ifthis, if this was an example of
that, I don't want to holdit against David Lynch, you know,
but yeah, but I don't wantto coddle him too much. Like look,

(01:03:15):
I mean this was his third movie. I mean, he was,
he was already an Academy Award nominateddirector. I I feel like sometimes we
talk about directors in these situations likethey're pretty like their helpless victims. Like,
no, I agree with that.Yeah, and I'm sure he did
not have the full power he was. He was beneath a power dynamic for

(01:03:37):
sure. But I mean, youknow, he I mean I see his
influence in a lot of ways inthis movie. I mean, I can
tell it's a David Lynch movie.So I'm just skeptical of the idea that
that that all of the bad ideaswere forced on him, that all of

(01:03:58):
the mistakes weren't. I mean,he and to be fair, he would
never tell you that he owns upto the failure of this movie completely.
It's very much like Sam Raimi andSpider Man three, although I think Sam
Raimi in that case is way toohard on himself for Spider Man three.
Yeah. I mean, well,like there are examples throughout history, you
know, of directors like even ifthey do have studio interference, you know,

(01:04:21):
like one of one of the criticismswe talked about Rob earlier, and
he's another guy who ran into alot of studio interference. But one of
the criticisms that I've heard that Ican't really defend is that, you know,
when he came back to do Halloweentwo, they told him do whatever
he wanted, and and sure theyhad control over the edit, but he
still went and complained about, youknow, about his experience making Halloween two,

(01:04:44):
which was more interference in the productionrather than creative interference. And it
was and it was scheduling and probablythen you know, even though they might
say we'll let you do whatever theywant, that doesn't mean they're gonna poured
it or or not, you know, pressure him in any ways. Yeah,

(01:05:06):
but I'm thinking I'm trying to thinkof other classic examples, you know,
like Wes Craven after Nightmare on ElmStreet, he does this movie Deadly
Friend. Have you seen that?I have never seen Deabi friend now,
But you know about it. Doyou know the fable, the incredible story
of that movie. He makes itas a little science fiction tragedy. And

(01:05:30):
whoever produced that movie it was not. I don't think it was Newline.
No, it definitely wasn't because hewas on the outs with them. But
whoever did produce it made him goback and turn it into a horror movie.
Like he already made the thing,and they made him go back and
reshoot so much of it to actuallymake it into something that resembled a slasher
movie. I was unaware of that. I did not I did not know

(01:05:57):
the lore of this. It lookslike it was, well, Warner Brothers
was one of the studios. Itis Pan Arts, Lighton and Warner Brothers.
So yeah, that sounds right.Who knows who did it, but
probably Warner Brothers. But I wantto ask you about something. This is
really the last thing I'll have tosay, so I'm interested to see if

(01:06:19):
if there's anywhere else you'd like totake this. But we talked a little
bit about how this story would havea hard time translating to a one film
and how you know there was adecent amount that was cut down from this.
How did the length fare for youin this you know, we've had
a few movies that we've said werepretty excruciating to get through. We talked

(01:06:40):
about water World earlier in this youknow, and that was one of those
movies. At least for me,it just felt incredibly long. How did
this one sit for you? Wasthis? Was this a tough one to
get through? What is it choreto get through? It was a chore.
I it wasn't painful, So itwasn't Expendables three visits bad it was.

(01:07:03):
It was more so Expendables three visits. Oh god, I know it.
Hey, it took took you.Took you three times to get through
that movie. Took me three timesto get through The Expendables. I mean
that in that case, it wasn'tpainful. It was just tedious. I
just felt like I can be doingmore productive things with my time when watching
The Expendables. But there's a there'sa real curiosity I have about Dune.

(01:07:27):
There's a fascination there. And uhI, I don't want to call it
a boring movie. I mean,it's a little too baffling to be boring,
although it does verge on tedious attimes. I don't know I felt
the length. I was glad thatit wasn't three hours, although I guess
that would have led to a morecoherent movie. So I maybe I'm wrong
about that, but if if thisis anything to go off of, then

(01:07:54):
yes, I did feel the length. I'm glad that this is an abridged
version of Dune, even though itdid ultimately sec provice so much of actually
what made Dune the great novel thatit is glad to hear you say that,
because this is one of the longestfucking movies I've ever watched in my
life. I was, dude,you're pretty hard. No, I I
am going hard because I fully believethis. I so, we've had a

(01:08:15):
few movies. Battle Los Angeles isan example where I said, like there
was I was like, okay,yeah, this movie's been like okay,
so far, let's see where AndI had an hour left this I was
like, I was like, we'vegot to be getting close to the end
at this point. Uh. AndI still had over an hour left of
this movie. Let me tell yousomething, I said. I broke a

(01:08:38):
rule. I have a rule whenI watch a movie. I gave that
movie my undivided attention. I focusedas much as I can. I fell
asleep watching Dune. This is thefirst. And also because because it was
the morning. I watched it thismorning, and and I I it was

(01:08:59):
already I had already eaten my breakfast. I was awake watching it put me
to sleep. It put me tosleep. I was watching it, I
was awake, and I fell Mybrain was like, dude, you got
two choices right now, abort missionor keep watching this, and it chose
to abort mission. The reason Isaid I kind of finished this just before

(01:09:20):
we went on is because I hadto rewatch an entire section of this movie
because I fell asleep during the lastforty minutes of it. And by the
way, I am upset that Iwent back and witnessed the last forty minutes
of this movie. Hey wow,I was. I was not expecting this.
Okay, I'm going to make abold statement when we get to our
final verdict about watching this. Butthis is by far the longest feeling movie

(01:09:45):
that I've ever watched. For notthat bach no way. I felt longer
than Water World. It felt longerthan Water World. I do not believe
that I had and I watch everyfive minutes, and I even fucking I
even admitted that a movie that Iloved on this show was way too long.
In Godzilla ninety eight, I admittedthat, and I said it felt

(01:10:09):
long. Knowing that that movie waslonger than this, this still felt If
you would not have told me thelength of this movie, I would have
estimated, and I couldn't look ata wall watch or anything. I would
have assumed I had watched this forat least four hours. It felt so
long. I could not believe that, like I felt like when I tied

(01:10:29):
to I'm trying to figure out ifyou really believe this, because this is
due, I promise you. Letme. Let me give you a full
example of that. When I wokeup from this, from from falling asleep
watching this, the movie had hadjust ended, and I know it had
just ended because my phone had notgone dark yet, but it was.
It was on the max screen forthe end of this. You know,

(01:10:49):
when when you finished, Yes,I was, oh, wait, wait,
that's no time out, that's Icheating, that's I had to no,
no, no, listen. SoI had to. And let me
tell you why I had to.So my wife was still asleep, and
we use a soundbar for our TVbecause the sound is terrible. The only

(01:11:11):
problem with the soundbar is it projectsreally well, So I either have to
watch it with subtitles and barely anysound, or I have to watch it
on my phone. Now full fulldisclosure, full disclosure. Okay, before
you, before you lynch me herebefore I David lynched you. Yes,
I I do frequently if if Iif I am watching a movie that I'm

(01:11:39):
experiencing for the first time, Ilike to watch it in a different environment
than I normally watch movies. Andthe reason for that is because it keeps
me aware. I I can paymore attention to a movie if I have
to pay more attention to it.And when you're watching something on a mobile
device, you know it's it's nota huge screen. You know you're holding
it up. It's not a it'snot a big screen. And even through

(01:11:59):
that small I could see how impressivethe visuals were. There were a few
times where I paused the movie ona frame because I was like, Wow,
this like aged pretty well, Likethis looks this looks good. It
wouldn't even talk about the special effects, which feels weird. I mean,
because the special effects are the mostuneven thing about the movie, like say,
shots pulled up incredibly well. Ithink of the first appearance of the
worm, which swallows up that thatthat I guess factory, the spice factory

(01:12:25):
really immaculate, like whoa, whoa. And then there's like blue screen garbage
that either of us could you know, replicate better just using photoshop. Now.
Do you know what's frustrating about that, though, is like some of
the blue screen work, It's likeit like some of it does work well,
you know, like when I waswatching it, the way I felt
about the special effects in this,I felt very similarly when we talked about

(01:12:47):
Supergirl. You know, there wassome Supergirl shots that I was like,
I would defend this against the Supermanmovies, let alone other movies at the
time. The special effects there justhold up. I mean I can barely
some of them wishes oh man.I mean like in Supergirl. I mean,
I'm sure they were there. I'mjust saying I don't remember them.
I vividly remember a lot of thereally awkward blue screen effects, like when

(01:13:10):
Paul is writing the Worm for thefirst time. That again studying contrast the
sequence in which Paul first rides theworm in Dune part two. That could
be one of the most kind ofawe inspiring sequences shot for cinema in the
last couple of years. Like,it was a jaw dropping sequence for me.

(01:13:30):
And it is on that, onthe strength of that sequence that I
recommend I recommend everybody see it ina theater. Oh cool, not exactly
the effect, not exactly the same, you know, magnitude in Dune eighty
four they tried. This is oneof those things that were I think David
Lynch felt like he was not upto the task. It's the whole visual

(01:13:58):
aspect as far as like the likehow the special effects looked in this.
It gave me the impression that thatthe director was either it was either inexperienced
with it or maybe didn't maybe itwasn't up to task, like maybe he
wasn't maybe maybe he wasn't fully onboard with with everything that he was doing.
And just kind of because again,like even I really liked that you

(01:14:21):
said that, that's probably the mostuneven thing about this movie because even thing,
even things that they do multiple times, like a blue screen effect,
have moment you have moments where you'relike, wow, that looks really good.
There's towards the end of the movie, when they're all kind of writing
in on the worm. Uh,there's this shot like this green sky behind

(01:14:41):
him, and it blends really wellwith like the fog on the screen and
the fog you know, in frontof them that they're going through. It
looked really cool. And then literallytwo frames later they're writing on the worm
again and it looked horrible. Andit was a shot in front of them
instead of behind them. I don'tknow if that had any effect, you
know, this screen not really movingbehind them, it's just kind of like
a static sky, and then allof a sudden they're moving towards something.

(01:15:04):
Maybe that's what it was, butit was so uneven that it would be
like literally frames away from the lastshot that we saw, you know,
like barely any time has past secondssince we saw this great shot. It
looks terrible. Now. Yeah,it's hard to give any this movie any
compliments, honestly, because every complimentthat I can give, I can immediately

(01:15:27):
go to an example of it notworking well. I mean, some movies
are just I mean, we're talkingabout special effects. This was attempting to
do some implement new technology or right, and it was impressive. I want
to say that it was impressive.On that note, I do. I
did feel like I didn't feel likeI was watching move from nineteen eighty four,

(01:15:50):
you know, maybe early nineties,not eighty four. I thought that.
I mean, don't get me wrong, Everything else about this movie is
you know, eighties. But asfar as the visual effects go, like,
I felt like there are movies thatcome out after this that had a
maybe a bigger budget or or hadmore time to put into their effects that

(01:16:11):
were worse than what I saw inthis movie. I'm not going to give
you any examples. I can't thinkof them off the top of my head,
but I know I've seen movies thathave come out after this that look
worse. Well, let me justend on something that I will compliment on
equivocally, and that's the score toToto, A band for a great band
known for you know, the mostoverplayed song of my personal opinion, which

(01:16:36):
is Africa. They turned in apretty damn good theme. And there's another
outfit here that's contributing music. Ican't remember the name. It's another Yeah,
there are a couple of interesting peopleon the soundtrack. Ironically, not
think I think the main theme.Like, so when I was watching the
credits and I saw Toto, Iwas immediately like what. But I think

(01:16:59):
that they said like Toto did likeput together the score as a whole,
and then it said like main themeby and then Brian, you know,
I think that could be it.Yeah, I think it's I'm gonna look
that up. Make sure. Therewere moments in this movie that I was
really impressed with the score. That'sthe thing that didn't feel super uneven to

(01:17:24):
me, Like it was uneven ina sense that it was as uneven as
any film score is. I think, you know, there's always going to
be some parts that you remember morethan others. There's always going to be
some parts that are meant to bemore background than the focus, to help,
you know, compliment the scene.Besides the things that I said I
like the best about the movie before, this is easily number two. If

(01:17:45):
I if the visuals are number onefor me, this is the easiest number
two I could possibly say. Yeah, and it's something that I prefer about
this Dune over Villeneuve's Dune. Iprefer this to Hans Zimmer's score, Believe
it or not. Okay, I'mnot gonna show on you for that.
I'm not one of those, like, you know, people who think son
Zimmer can do no wrong. Youknow, I don't. I think he's

(01:18:08):
tremendous. But you know, there'sa uniqueness to this score. Uniqueness and
it's not trite in the way thatfrankly, the kind of world music approach
of Hans Zimmer's score. You know, there's a lot of like vocalizing and
a lot of like kind of likeI guess attempts to evoke Middle Eastern Okay

(01:18:33):
kind of soundscapes, because of thesand, because of the same well,
because I mean honestly, and wedidn't even touch on any of the political
implications here. But you know,in Hillaneub's book, and this is probably
truer to the to the allegory ofDune, you know, the freemen are
are you know brown, they areyou know zendaia and they are they are

(01:18:57):
not white, you know, theyare an allegory Batista in that movie too,
although he's not playing uh, he'snot playing Fremen, he's playing the
actual what are they? They arewhat do you call people who are all
white? Albino? He's playing analbino man. Oh, cool. That's
that's funny. But and he's ahe's not a huge part in those movies,

(01:19:23):
but he's cool to see. Butyeah, right in this June before,
they are all white. The freemenare all white. They are snowy
white, They're pale as hell.They're just living out there in the is
this entire movie? Yeah, they'reliving out there in the dunes, under
the the beating sun, on acloud in the sky, and they are

(01:19:46):
just as they would blend into asnowstorm. They are all well, it's
like, I'm not going to holdthat against the movie from this time period.
I understand how that goes, butit's kind of jarring. It's difference.
It's awkward. Now. What Iwill say is the only saving grace

(01:20:06):
here is that it prevents this frombeing a white savior story. I think
actually, if this were a storyabout a white boy like you know,
common blacklan like becoming the god overa brown tribe and you know in the
desert, would today So thankfully thisisn't a white savior story. It's just

(01:20:30):
this savior story. Yeah, youknow, you know, white people helping
each other out. What's the oppositeof white on white crime. I don't
know, it's whatever. This it'syou know, oh ship anyways, it's
doing eighty four. That's what thatThat's what that is. But oh boy,

(01:20:55):
is there I mean, we wetouched on a whole lot about doing
so far. Yeah, really,is there anything here? I mean yeah,
even if this is a difficult movieto watch, it's an amazing movie
to talk about. Yeah, Imean, it's a good conversation. Like,
I'm glad I've seen it. Youknow, I'm glad I have seen
it now and that I can bringit up, especially when I do actually

(01:21:16):
finally get around to seeing the twoDune movies. Uh. You know,
I know, I make a jokeabout the fact that I don't see anything
now. It hurts me quite tremendouslythat I've that I don't see anything.
I can't talk about any new movieswith anybody it and it sucks, But
you know, that's the way thecookie crumbles sometimes. I'm glad that I

(01:21:36):
can, you know, add thisto conversations that I have about especially sci
fi. I think sci fi isa very interesting genre. It's had very
periods of very high ups and verylow downs. So I'm excited to add
this to my rolodex of sci fifilms to to have conversations like this about

(01:21:58):
and I'm excited for you. Youtell people about how you fell asleep.
I fell asleep watching how Dune putme to sleep. I'm gonna have to
start watching this at night when I'mhaving trouble sleeping. I'll just I'll just
throw Doune on, but I'll likeskip ahead to like, you know,
after the first like hour and ahalf. See, Okay, you're actually
making me change my verdict. Ohshit, So is it because I'm being

(01:22:19):
too harsh. Let's just get intothe final verdict and then I'll go ahead
and dive in because you have mademe realize that I don't hate this movie,
that I don't dislike this movie asmuch as I thought, because I
can't. I can't go there withyou. I can't you know this movie
didn't put me to sleep. It'sit's not it's a movie that I can

(01:22:43):
compliment unequivocally. It's not like notevery praise I have, piece of praise
I have comes with an Asteris thatbeing said? I can't endorse this fully
as a Dune adaptation or a DavidLynch movie. I can say that there
is a there's cant value. There'sthe makings of a cult, not a

(01:23:06):
classic, but a cult, apiece of interest for that crowd, for
the crowd of midnight movie enjoyers.People who can, who can, who
can laugh at this movie or beenamored by the weird circumstances surrounding this movie.

(01:23:28):
You know, it's a movie thatis too weird to kill. You
can't put it out of your mind. I know I can't, and history
can't forget it either. You know, it's a movie that flopped, and
it flopped hard, and it shouldhave killed careers, and it didn't.
It actually, you know, gaveDavid Lynch a second wind, and now
people are going back to it andremembering it fondly. It's very interesting the

(01:23:50):
life span that this movie has had, although obviously, you know, to
most people, it's that weird,really bad first attempt at making a Dune
movie. So I thought I mightcome down on our harshest verdict, but

(01:24:11):
through you, because I know whereyou're gonna land. I actually I can
say I'm more lenient and I'm moreforgiving, and I want to say,
for all of its it's bizarre flaws, that is still a movie worth watching,
worth experiencing because there's not another movielike it and there is too much

(01:24:31):
talent involved to ignore. So it'snot that bad. Okay, the namesake
of the show. I'm glad tohear you fall on that verdict. Despite
my thoughts, which I'll get intomy final verdict here. This is not
the worst movie that I've watched fornot that bad, but it was the

(01:24:58):
worst experience of watching a movie thatI had for not that bad. I
did not think it would be easyto top water World, and I don't
think this movie's worse than water World. To be truthful with you, I
think it has more going for it. But, and I want to say
full disclosure, I can see myopinion turning around somewhat on this movie.

(01:25:20):
It will never be something that Irevisit often. At this moment, I
have no desire to watch it again. But I think the reason that I
think this movie has potential to turnaround for me at some point is because
there's enough interesting there that I feelmore compelled to seek out other people's thoughts
on this. I feel compelled togo to YouTube and look up other people

(01:25:43):
talking about doing what are their problemswith it? What do they like from
it. I don't know how manypeople are talking about it or have talked
about it, but I want toseek that out now, and maybe one
day this will be a movie thatI'll revisit and you know, I'll be
able to turn around at least someof my issues that I have with it.
For now, gun to my head, i'd rather watch water World.

(01:26:04):
I'm not gonna watch this again morethan more more than likely. I do
not think it is the absolute worstexample of a sci fi movie or a
David Lynch movie or anything like that. I think this is this will have
some value to people out there,and it has all the makings of a
cult movie. But a two pointeight is very fair for me. I

(01:26:25):
think this is actually it's much higherthan I would give it. I'm gonna
say this movie is that bad firstsee them? Well, that sounds like
you would give it a worse Iwould give it a worse rating. I'm
not gonna say what i'd give it. I don't want to contribute to any
sort of hate train on this movie, because again, I do think there's
a lot here that you can graband that you can highlight. Like,

(01:26:46):
dude, when I looked at theposter for this, I was like,
I hope I love this because I'dlove to put that poster up on my
wall. It's beautiful. But unfortunatelyit just didn't. It just didn't do
for me what I hoped it would. Part of this is probably my expectations.
I did my best to manage them. But you know, here we

(01:27:09):
are, and I hate that I'velanded here, but that's that's where I'm
gonna be for now. Well,what an interesting episode. We've come away
with a more contrasted set of opinions, and hopefully through this discourse, people
can, I guess, parse outtheir own feelings about this movie, because
I don't think anybody has a simpleopinion on this, not if they look

(01:27:30):
at this movie really objectively. Imean, you can hate it as a
dun adaptation, I get that,But if you take this movie on its
own terms, I think you're gonnawrestle with a lot of conflicting emotions.
I mean, even you, inyour you know, disparaging remarks, you
did acknowledge things that it has goingfor it. And while it does hurt.
So you put any David Lynch moviebelow water World, I can I'm

(01:27:51):
sure, I'm going to get crucifiedfor that. By the way, you're
not going to get crucified. ButI think it's a testament to the fact
that the movie just did not workfor you, and maybe you went in
with higher expectations. I expect ifyou rewatch it and remember help put you
to sleep, you might be pleasantlysurprised that it, at least, you

(01:28:11):
know, kept you awake on rewatch. We might revisit this one day,
we'll see, but for right now, that is it for David Lynch's Dune.
It is available on Errow Video forpeople who want to go check it
out and really dive into the specialfeatures and try to figure out the history

(01:28:32):
of this bizarre production. I wishthat there was a really candid documentary about
the making of this, but thatwould have required David Lynch's involvement, and
he wants nothing to do with themovie. So it is going to remain
a myth, just like the mythof the you know, of the Freemen
and the mudb and coming on.It's going to be a movie whose reputation

(01:28:57):
lives on more than the film itself, for better and for worse. Yeah,
we will be returning with a moviethat is nothing like this one.
We're gonna go to a completely differentHoly shit, We're doing a whole new
ballgame for our new episode. Soit was fun to talk about sci fi
and David Lynch and all of thatbecause we're actually I would describe the next

(01:29:24):
movie we're talking about as being apiece of American surrealism, would you not
dude to the highest extent, Ithink, I think be surprised by this
next pick. I would describe ournext pick as being more Lynchian than this
actual David Lynch movie we talked about. This next movie may break us our

(01:29:50):
minds everything. I'm very excited forthis, and I'm glad if I sing
it here hadn't grown up with thatmovie, you might be right, But
I think I I think the moviedid change my brain chemistry as a young
child. So yeah, and Ionly saw the movie once as a kid.
I've seen it more in late teensand adulthood than I have as a

(01:30:12):
kid. So I am very veryexcited about this. We're kind of laying
it out. I don't want toget too deep into it, but folks,
thank you so much for listening tothis episode. Hopefully we'll see you
in the next one, which Iam very, very very excited about.
In the meantime, though, ifyou want to keep track of us,
you want to look up on yourboys here at Not That Bad, you've

(01:30:32):
got a couple of ways you cando it, of course, liking,
subscribing, sharing, commenting, evenleaving a review on podcasting platforms. However
you like to take in the show, We would love to hear from you.
We'd love to have you join incorporate speak, the Not That Bad
Family, And you can find allthose links and more on our website,

(01:30:54):
Not That badpod dot com scott biosabout us. Like I said, links
for all of our platforms that wepost on, and it even has a
backlog of all of our former episodes, most of which contain YouTube links.
But it is broken up by season, so you can kind of follow us
from our humble beginnings at the beginningof season one, what was originally not

(01:31:15):
even going to be season It wasjust gonna be the show. But now
here we are in season two.But what else can they do if they
want to support us? La Gabenot for long? I gotta get it
on, I can, Yeah,I guess I'll be Gabe Eest Gabe,

(01:31:35):
the Gabis. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. I mean, they can
of course support us on Patreon,where we offer exclusive content, where people
can get Patreon specials on some ofour most fascinating topics, some of our

(01:31:56):
most fascinating movies months before they everget released, to know the rest of
our audience. And they can alsoget exclusive merch. They can get that
warm feeling and sign of supporting independentcreators, which really, can you even
put a price tag on that?Yes, you can give us your money,
all right, thanks y'all to usso much real quick. Before we

(01:32:20):
take out the show, I justwant to bring up one thing. I
did not tell Gabe about this,but I'm sure he will be supportive before
we take it out. And thoseof you who who no longer want to
listen can definitely tune out at thispoint. But I'm sure at this point
that we're recording. One of thehot button topics right now is the recent
release of a documentary on Max calledQuiet on Set. Quiet on Set details

(01:32:45):
some of the experiences of child actorson Nickelodeon programs through the nineties and early
two thousands, very very difficult butimportant watch in my mind, and the
reason I wanted to bring this upis because I think it's important when things
like this come out to not onlyeducate ourselves, not only make sure that

(01:33:08):
we know at least the base amountof information, but also make sure that
we are showing support to those whoshare their experiences and stories that give us
a better understanding of how maybe wecan be better ourselves as people, but
also to help foster better environments inworlds like film, which over the last

(01:33:29):
five to six years has taken abeating from abuse, scandals and things of
that nature. So just wanted tomake sure we are not affiliated anyway with
Max or any of the people whomade that program. I did reach out
to a few of the people whowere in the documentary, but they did

(01:33:50):
not have anything to plug or support, so it besides themselves as people or
their own personal projects and such.If you give the documentary a watch,
be sure to go around to thosewho shared their experiences and show your support
if you could, whether it's justyou know, doing what you do for

(01:34:11):
us, liking and taking in theircontent, or even just giving them a
follow on social media. Things likethat can go a long way. So
thank you Gabe for letting me go. I'm a little diatribe there. I
don't know. If you have anythingyou wanted to add, you sure can,
but if not, you can definitelytake us out. Well. I
was going to end on a joke, but that doesn't seem like the most
appropriate follow up, So yeah,I kind of kind of killed the mood

(01:34:32):
there, So we're going to takeus out on a somber and respectful note.
Yeah, but absolutely, especially ifyou are in our generation, if
you grew up on those shows,I think it is going to be a
very sobering watch. And you know, as somebody who you know is trying
to be in this industry of entertainmentand really trying to wrestle with a lot

(01:34:57):
of unfortunately the corruption and the andthe scandals that plague this industry, I
think being aware of it no matterwho you are, and taking any stand
against it in any way, whetherit be with the programs you support,
people you support, and just makingyour voices heard through social media, you

(01:35:17):
really can't underestimate the power and influencethat has. So thanks to Connor for
bringing that up. I haven't seenthe documentary yet, but I know how
important it is, and it's alreadystarted some really essential conversations. So again,
respectfully taking us out talking about Dunenineteen eighty four. I know,

(01:35:42):
I know, bad timing, badtiming. We'll bring it up at the
end of the next episode too,because the next thing we are covering is
children's content from the two thousands,so we'll be sure. If I learn
anything else about resources to share,i'll do so. But yeah, for
now, weird note to take usout on my bad. Actually it's a
great plug for our next episode.Didn't even make that connection. Yeah,

(01:36:08):
yeah, please join us as wetalk about another piece of children's entertainment,
you know. On that note,here's the documentary about how terrible child actors
had it in the early two thousands. Yeah, all right, So until
next time, guys, I'm thingone, this is not that bad.
Signing out.

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Dune (1984) - David Lynch Tackles The Weirding Way

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dune (1984) - David Lynch Tackles The Weirding Way