I Can't Stop Rewatching Dune (now on Hulu)

Dune recently popped up on Hulu, and despite having already seen it 5 times, I immediately threw it on again. Since this first came out, every time I watch it, I like it even more. On this episode, a do a survey of the highest grossing 30 or so films of the last 3 years, and compare them against Dune in terms of substance and staying power. This movie, so incredibly photographed, production designed, directed, written, scored - it is such an intriguing rewatch and I'm just even more knocked out by it as time passes. Where does Dune rank for you in the big movies of the last few years?

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

(00:22):
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on the show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started. Today in the
show, we're talking about why Ican't stop watching Dune. So the trailer

(00:44):
for the new Dune, the SecondDune, came out relatively recently, and
Dune has gone from I think it'son HBO right now, it's on available
on Hulu. And I realized that, like anytime I see the Dune is
available somewhere, if I see thatit's on HBO, if I see it's
on Hulu, if I see thisanywhere, I'm just like, let me
throw a Dune on. And I'mtrying to figure out why I've seen it

(01:08):
at this point, probably like sixtimes, and I'm trying to understand why
I keep rewatching it, and Ifeel like it's gaining in power for me
the more times I watch it,to the point that it might be one
of my favorite, you know,in terms of like blockbusters. I mean
that was the other thing I wastrying to think about, like the highest
grossing films of recent years. What'sbetter than Dune in terms of being like,

(01:34):
you know, I don't like theterm elevated, but it's just like
something that has real weight and realsubstance and real Like if someone watches this
in forty years and they have noyou know, they don't really care about
any marble stuff or anything like that, Like they're still going to get something
out of it. So if yougo back to twenty twenty one, the

(01:55):
highest grossing movies domestic box office,you've got Spider In, Shang Chi,
Venom, Black Widow, Fast Nine, Eternals, So all sort of I
think, just to be fair,right, like these are franchise ip I
don't think people are gonna be watchingFast nine in like twenty five years.
No Disrespect, No Time to Die, which I thought was really good,

(02:21):
A Quiet Place Part two, whichI also thought was good, but I
feel like it's sort of receded fromthe public consciousness. I gotta go back
and revisit it. And then youget into movies like Jungle Cruise and Free
Guy, Godzilla Versus Kong. Youknow again, these are movies that I
don't think will I don't think we'llstand the test of decades, and then
Dune Part one. Now compare thatto twenty twenty two. Here are the

(02:43):
top grossing films domestically, Top Gun, Maverick, Awesome Movie, Black Panther,
Willkona Forever, Doctor Strange and theMultiverse of Madness, Avatar, The
Way of Water, Touristic World,Dominion, Minions, The Rise of Crew,
The Batman, Thor Love and Funderspider Man, No Way Home,
Sound Like The Hedgehog two, BlackAdam, Elvis Uncharted, and you kind
of have to go all the waydown to Nope to find something that I

(03:05):
think, you know, it justfeels like it's not one of these ip
films that you know, I thinkmost of them will probably be forgotten in
like five to seven years. Andthat's obviously not including Avachar The Way of
Water, which I have professed mylove for on this podcast before. And
then just to sort of round outthis comparison, so twenty twenty three,
here of the top grossing movies sofar. The super Mayer Brothers Movie,

(03:29):
Guardens the Galaxy Volume three, Avachar, The Way of Water Again, Spider
Man Across the Spider Verse, TheLittle Mermaid, Ant Man in the Waton,
Quantamania, John Wyck, Chapter four, Creed three, Fast X,
Puss in Boots, The Last Wish, Scream six, Megan Dungeons and Dragons,
Transformers, Rise of the Beast,Evil Dead, Rise, Cocaine Bear,

(03:50):
A man called Auto says a fearof the God's air. So I
think if you look at the lastcouple of years, So I just kind
of rattled off, like, likethirty movies there were the top grossing movies
of the last three years approximately.I think I would take the First Dune
pretty much over all of those interms of its staying power, not necessarily

(04:11):
to say, like again, it'snot not going to any of these movies,
right, but I'm just thinking,like, you know, is anybody
watching again, No disrespect the Fastand Furious people. I get it.
I loved Fast five, Like,there's a lot of Fast and Furious stuff
that I really like, But Idon't think people are going to be watching
Fast X like six times and puzzlingover it. And that's what I find
myself continue to do a Dune.I've not read the source materials. For

(04:35):
me, that's part of it isthat I what interests me about it is
that it feels so rich. Ifeel like there's so much there, and
when I rewatch it, I feellike I keep finding stuff. There's something
in it where Timothy Challamy talks inthe beginning about how he's having these dreams,
and you feel like him as theviewer, because this is what I
think is so interesting about Dune,and it's very much I think a product

(04:57):
of Villanev's involvement, Deny villani ofIt feels like a dream, but it
doesn't feel like a dream in likethat kind of shitty like this is just
confusing, like there's bad versions ofthat where something feels like a dream.
This feels like a dream in away that adds to it because it also
feels grounded. And to explain whatI mean, when you see the spaceships

(05:18):
in Dune and how they are designedand animated and shown you visually, they're
design in a way that's very smooth, very naturalistic. It's not calling attention
to itself, and it makes italmost feel like like a magical realism,
like you feel it feels more realbecause they don't make a big deal out
of it, and they don't kindof overdo it. If anything, the

(05:39):
design of the spaceships feels very groundedin like form and function, and I
just I just find it very interestingthe way they did that. The movie
is a mixture of like mysticism andreality, has this weird mystical quality to
it. And I thought another goodexample that so the Skellon Scars guard character,

(06:00):
who you know, I assume mighthave inspired Job of the Hut.
It's pretty well documented that George Lucasis very inspired by the Dune series,
and tattooing is a bit like Aracus. The sand worms are a bit like
the sand worms, I mean,And so do you have this Scone Scars
character who is basically this extremely fatvillain character. That's the character, and

(06:25):
in Star Wars that's Job of theHut, who's very cartoonish. But in
Dune, the way that the characteris portrayed is very It's treated very seriously,
right, and because it's treated seriouslyand in a way that's sort of
grounded in reality, you start thinkingabout it differently and it almost becomes this
visual metaphor for greed and brutal capitalismto like a gluttonist degree. And again

(06:47):
that dreamy quality. Right, Sothere's a part when he's talking and he
just levitates as he's talking, butlike for no real reason. That's one
of the funny things when you watchthe movie five six times, Why is
he levitating? It's very cinematic.But again it's that thing where it's like
in the moment, you sort ofgo with it. That's that dream equality.

(07:09):
Another point that like that, andthis is with the Hearkenin's which is
part of Skull and Scars Guards likefaction. He has this insane spider gimp
creature that's never explained. I gottalook up. I've no idea if that's
part of the source material or what. But the fact that that's just like
a tossed off aside, that theyhave this creature that's like a pet,
it's like insane. But that's whatI'm talking about. That's why it's so

(07:30):
fun to revisit this movie. Allthe little weird visual things, all the
subtlety of it, all the thingsthat are suggested, implied, alluded to.
There's so much going on under thesurface and it feels so rich,
you know it does. I mean, obviously it is rich. It's based
on such rich source material, andit is so visually spectacular. That's the
other thing I would say is thatevery frame of this movie is like a

(07:53):
painting. There's a part where theyhave this spaceship that looks like a giant
thimble basically, and these little dotsare emerging from it and they're tiny like
specs, right, and we tiltup towards a planet that is sort of
behind them, And that one shotis doing so much because we know that
we eventually know that those ships arehuge. Those ships are little specs,

(08:18):
which means that the carrier thing thatthey're coming out of is like almost it's
almost impossible to comprehend how big itis. So there's that, and then
you have the light in dark contrastof the darkness of space versus the planet,
and that's all happening in the sameshot. And there's just so much
like that in the movie that Ithink it is a really just enjoyable for

(08:39):
me to revisit. I find myselfjust throwing it on as like almost like
wallpaper, Like I just like lookingat it, I like hearing it.
I like the sort of like ifyou put the subtitles, they call it
lamentation, where you hear the voices. Ah All, that's the whole mood
of it. I mean, obviously, look, I am technically North African.

(09:01):
My parents were Wren, Morocco,so you know, the Fremen very
clearly our bedwins. You know,I have some cultural history that that might
explain some of it. But Ithink that as time has passed, I've
continued to be more and more impressedwith the First Dune, and I think
it's it's reached a place for mewhere I think it's one of the best

(09:22):
blockbuster movies, meaning like big,big movie, theatrical lots of money,
a huge budget, etc. Bestmovies like that, not just the year
came out, but in the lastcouple of years. And that's why I
mentioned all those other movies because withsome exceptions, to be clear, definitely
there's some exceptions in there, buta lot of those movies are movies that

(09:43):
will be lost, I think,to the sands of time, and I
don't think that this one will beso yeah, that's why I've just been
it's a it's a watch this tonightof like you never have movies where you're
like, I liked it the firsttime, and then I just found myself
continue to watch it again and andagain, and each time I kind of
like it a little bit more.It's that kind of recommendation. So if

(10:05):
for some reason you didn't see Dune, or maybe you saw it but like
not under ideal circumstances, like you'rein a bad mood that day, or
you watch it on your TV inthe middle of the day or something,
I really would encourage you to turnthe lights off, watch it again.
And I think there's so much there. So yeah, it's sort of a
weird and it's not a new thing, and it's not a classic, but

(10:26):
I think within the next couple ofyears, you know, this will be
considered a modern classic. I justthink it's extraordinary. I would love to
know what you think if you sawDune the New Dune, I mean,
what you think, And I wouldlove to know your thoughts on the upcoming
second film, which I'm very excitedabout. That is a show for a
day. As always, if youenjoy the show, please leave me a

(10:46):
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Thank you for listening, Until nexttime, by m