0:00

What does filmed for IMAX mean? It

0:03

isn't just a movie that'll look great on

0:05

IMAX's screens. It means

0:07

that hiding from a sandstorm feels like

0:10

fear in every flicker and

0:12

every triumph is felt in every

0:14

sound wave. And

0:16

the things we've only imagined, you

0:19

can truly experience those too. That's

0:22

what filmed for IMAX means. Get

0:25

tickets to experience Dune Part 2

0:27

now and IMAX's exclusive expanded aspect

0:29

ratio. This episode

0:31

is brought to you by Paramount+. Get

0:33

in loser! Mean Girls is now streaming

0:36

on Paramount+. Join Katie Herron as she

0:38

meets the plastics and Tina Fey's new

0:40

twist on the modern classic. Get ready

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for more of the rumors, backstopping and

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jokes you loved from the original movie

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with some fetch surprises. Rated PG-13. Wear

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pink and head to paramountplus.com to try

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it free. Hi,

0:59

I'm Michael. Welcome to Beyond the

1:01

Screenplay. The podcast where each episode

1:03

we do a conversational deep dive

1:05

analysis into a film. Today we

1:07

are talking about Dune Part 2

1:09

directed by Denis Villeneuve, written by

1:11

Denis Villeneuve and John Spates based

1:13

on the book Dune by Frank

1:15

Herbert. I'm joined by the Beyond

1:17

the Screenplay team Tricia Rand. Hello

1:20

everyone. Brian Bittner. Hello

1:23

and Alex Calleres. Hi. Okay.

1:25

So before we get

1:27

into it, we're in week six of our

1:30

best picture winter season. Last

1:32

week we talked about past lives, which is very

1:34

exciting. Next week we're gonna be back talking about

1:36

Fargo, which is going to be a lot of

1:38

fun. And we

1:40

also recently concluded our What We're

1:43

Watching Patreon exclusive series where we

1:45

watched all six episodes of True

1:47

Detective Night Country and shared all

1:49

of our thoughts there. And oh

1:51

did we have thoughts? So

1:53

if you want to hear those thoughts, if you have thoughts on those

1:55

that show as well, all

1:57

that is over on the Beyond the Screenplay Patreon.

1:59

link is in the show notes. Okay,

2:03

so we're here. Dune part two,

2:05

it happened. It came out. And

2:07

so I do not feel about any other movies

2:16

the way I feel about these Dune films.

2:18

And I thought maybe the first one was

2:20

a an operation

2:23

and that the second one would solidify it,

2:25

but it didn't where I

2:27

feel like I'm this quantum state of

2:29

a movie watcher when I'm watching Dune.

2:32

And on one side of me,

2:34

I'm sort of like, is this good? Is

2:36

this kind of a not like, okay, get

2:38

over your like, oh my god, like what

2:40

time is it? Is it time to go?

2:42

That's, that's a true feeling that I'm having

2:44

on one lane. And then right

2:46

next to it simultaneously, I'm like, this is

2:48

the coolest thing I've ever seen. I am

2:51

so in it, like give it to me.

2:53

I just want to

2:55

be here for forever. And I'm

2:57

like, at any given moment, it's

2:59

like my my superposition collapses into

3:01

one of those things. And it's

3:03

a very strange experience for me. So I'm

3:06

still wrestling with that. We're like I left the

3:09

theater and was sort of having the spot of

3:11

like, why did I feel like

3:13

things were rushed in a two hour and

3:15

40 minute movie? Like where's some weird structural

3:17

things going on? And then I'm also

3:19

like, I miss it. I want to go back. Why am

3:21

I not there right now? So

3:24

I'm really excited to talk

3:26

about this movie. I'll pull it apart and

3:28

see if there are any answers to be

3:30

found about what, what this movie does to

3:32

me. But it definitely

3:35

does something. So kudos to it

3:37

on that. So that's

3:39

where I'm starting. Alex, the

3:41

people want to know, how

3:44

did you feel about doing the guy who's been

3:46

every time we say do in part two in

3:48

this podcast goes, yes, um,

3:52

yeah, I mean, some context, if you haven't

3:55

heard me already talked about this a million

3:57

times, Doom part one was one of

3:59

my favorite theater experiences in a long time,

4:01

like kind of almost since like Lord of

4:03

the Rings, maybe just seeing

4:05

it in like a true IMAX

4:07

screen after a couple margaritas opening

4:10

night. It was just like transcendent

4:12

and it was this it

4:14

was an experience movie in a way that

4:16

I rarely get like

4:19

I felt so immersed in a

4:21

way that brought me back to

4:23

childhood, that childhood complete immersion

4:25

in a story world. And

4:28

so I just had such a

4:30

fondness for the first part of

4:32

this franchise because of that experience

4:35

and repeat experiences going back and

4:37

being able to re-tap into that

4:39

immersion. And

4:41

so this movie was interesting because it has

4:43

a very different pace. It has a very

4:46

different vibe

4:48

in some ways. It's still very

4:50

much Dune, still very much Denis Villeneuve, but

4:53

you know the kind of nature

4:56

spirituality flow elegance of the first

4:58

film, which is so much of

5:01

what I tapped into is

5:03

kind of put to the side

5:05

here in favor of this really

5:07

almost like metal energy, like really

5:09

driving really intense kind of dark,

5:12

you know, the whole Harkonnen sequence, which is

5:14

awesome. It feels like this movie is much

5:16

more operating in this kind of like metal

5:20

driving Christopher Nolan. It's

5:22

not really ever stopped with everything's kind of the same

5:24

length as we cut through the scenes. And

5:27

it's not it's not as annoying

5:29

to me as like a Christopher Nolan modern

5:32

day film where everything's like a literal montage.

5:34

Like this movie still has scenes and pauses,

5:38

but there weren't the same dynamics and

5:40

the same kind of like letting things

5:42

sit, letting things sink in as

5:45

part one had. And I think a lot of

5:47

people watch part one like on

5:49

HBO Max at the time because it came out

5:51

on streaming day and date with theaters. And

5:54

I like people I think only saw it that way

5:56

and we're like, oh, it's a little slow. It's a

5:58

little boring. It's you know. It's nothing happened.

6:02

And I'm like, no, you don't get it. If you'd saw

6:04

it in IMAX, it's not about what even what happens. It's

6:06

about the experience. And it almost

6:08

like this movie like overcorrected in a

6:10

way and like tried

6:12

to make a lot of things happen. And I didn't feel

6:14

like I got to sit in

6:16

the moments the way I wanted to, to

6:19

really feel them and have them like

6:21

land. So

6:23

yeah, so I feel very conflicted about

6:25

Doom Part 2 because on the one

6:27

hand, it already isn't introduced so much

6:29

to the universe, things

6:31

that from the wider world of the universe

6:33

that it was really exciting to see. I

6:38

kept forgetting that Zendaya in the first

6:40

movie doesn't speak basically except

6:42

for the very end. She's just like in

6:44

a perfume commercial. Oh, like, Chani's

6:47

a character. And now I can't imagine her not being

6:49

a character. So there's so many things in this movie,

6:51

almost like Empire Strikes Back, where it's like you think

6:53

back on Star Wars and it's like, oh, wait, that

6:55

wasn't in the first movie. I was after

6:57

the first movie. So I can already

6:59

sense the story world has gotten bigger in a way

7:01

that I like and I'm happy to

7:04

have all these things. And yet

7:06

I also feel sad because the

7:08

part one energy that I so dug isn't

7:10

here as much. But we can get into

7:13

like also, Empire Strikes Back isn't

7:15

actually my favorite of the Star Wars movies, if

7:17

I'm being honest. Two Towers probably isn't my favorite

7:19

of the Lord of the Rings movies, if I'm

7:21

being honest. So it might also be like a

7:23

middle chapter thing happening here, because I

7:25

think this is very much a middle chapter in a way

7:27

that I also did not expect I was not prepared for.

7:29

Yeah, we'll get into that for sure. Lots to talk about

7:32

in conclusion. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

7:34

Part two is expectation,

7:36

sequels, like, yeah, I think all of

7:39

that, this is right for

7:41

that kind of conversation. OK. Well,

7:44

Trisha, what did you

7:46

think? I feel like I have a

7:48

little bit of a read from the body language

7:50

Trisha and I saw together. So we are sitting

7:52

next to each other. But

7:54

yeah, so yeah, what are your thoughts on Deep

7:56

Art 2? I have

7:59

so much to say. Um, overall,

8:02

I would say I liked this

8:04

experience of watching it a lot better than I

8:06

liked watching Dune Part One. Now, keep

8:08

in mind, I am one of those people

8:10

that only saw it on HBO Max and on

8:12

my tiny television and I swore up and down on

8:14

the podcast that I was going to go out

8:16

and see it in the theater immediately as soon as

8:19

I could so I could have a theater experience

8:21

and did I do that? Oh no, I did not.

8:24

So I was,

8:28

I didn't

8:30

have like sky

8:32

high hopes for this. I

8:34

enjoyed my time watching the first

8:37

part. I thought it was visually spectacular,

8:40

but I thought it had some story problems. We did a whole

8:42

show about it. You can listen to it. But

8:44

I was just kind of like, okay, Dune,

8:47

all right. Dune, yeah, sure. Well, okay,

8:49

sure, fine. That'll be fine. And

8:51

then I went and saw it in the big, big

8:54

room with all the speakers

8:57

and it shook my chair so much. It

9:01

blasted me into my feet

9:03

and it was like, like

9:05

being on a theme park ride. And

9:09

who was I talking to today? But I was, somebody

9:12

was saying like, I don't know. It

9:14

all felt kind of fast and silly. And I was like,

9:16

yeah, that's what a theme park ride is. Fast

9:19

and silly. And also the

9:21

thrill of a lifetime. And

9:24

I kind of felt that way watching this. Overall,

9:27

it checks a few

9:30

of my boxes that the first

9:32

one didn't check. Like, there's a

9:34

lot more thematic content here. Like

9:36

this movie for the problems I

9:38

do think it has, has a

9:40

lot more theme to it. Like

9:42

people are talking about things and

9:45

there's a character arc. Paul starts

9:48

the story in one place. He ends

9:50

up somewhere totally different. And

9:52

there's a little bit more of like an

9:54

actual journey for the character where his

9:56

choices are affecting what's happening. And he

9:58

even has a. goal, like near the beginning

10:01

of the movie, he like says a goal to his mom where

10:03

he's like, I got to get close to the Emperor. So I'm

10:05

going to use this, you

10:07

know, this Messiah myth to do that to

10:10

achieve my goal. And so just

10:12

some of those things that I felt the

10:14

first movie didn't have like an engine and

10:16

a theme. I was like, this is

10:18

pure, okay, I've got it. I

10:21

also have read the book.

10:24

So some of the things that probably bomb for other

10:26

people didn't bomb for me. I knew

10:28

from like 10, 15 minutes into this,

10:30

we weren't going to, you know, wrap

10:32

up the whole story. It felt like

10:35

too much was happening. And even though

10:37

we've roughly ended at the place where

10:39

the first book ends, whole

10:42

storylines had to be sacrificed for

10:45

that to happen. And so I kind

10:47

of sensed that from the outset and

10:49

also sense that the noob was aiming

10:51

to make a certain movie and that

10:53

we would be he would leave us

10:55

some cliffhangers. So that didn't

10:57

bomb for me or bother me at all. And

11:01

then, you know, some other things, like,

11:03

I think there's some really jarring

11:06

sequences in this where, like,

11:08

the movie doesn't tell you where we

11:10

are, what's going on, why, like, here's

11:13

less they do, where this guy's fighting

11:16

that guy in this arena. And meanwhile,

11:19

we're out here there harvesting spice and

11:21

we have why are we here, we're

11:23

gonna sabotage it, I guess, movie

11:26

doesn't tell you anything going into that sequence.

11:28

There's all these things that feel like they're

11:30

just abutted in this in the

11:32

middle act of the movie. But they

11:34

didn't bother me either, because I read the book.

11:36

So I

11:39

think that, you know, overall, I

11:41

would say my enjoyment was very,

11:43

very high. And I think

11:46

it's simply gotta be

11:49

one of the most impressive movies that I've seen

11:51

in like several years. The

11:53

feel of like, that you describe Michael,

11:55

I want to go back there. I miss it. Like,

11:59

I finally feel that for the first time I

12:01

didn't feel it in the first movie and I feel the

12:03

atmosphere of it now and the texture of it now and

12:06

so yeah if there was ever

12:08

a film

12:11

to make me a believer in IMAX

12:13

I guess, here it is. Dune part 2. Yeah,

12:15

yeah I definitely

12:20

want to talk about as

12:22

you said Alex, experience movies,

12:25

spectacle movies, like what

12:27

aspect of film, how

12:29

do you rate it and

12:31

where do you kind of slide the scale of

12:34

story versus spectacle and when is it

12:36

okay and when would we be theoretically

12:38

upset and all those things. I definitely

12:40

want to talk about. Brian,

12:42

what about you? Yeah, I

12:44

mean as we talked about a lot in

12:46

this podcast expectation is a hell of a

12:48

drug and I mentioned on part

12:50

one episode that I went

12:53

in here having heard it's the first half of a

12:55

movie right and it was just like great because it

12:57

wasn't really announced as that it was just called Dune and

12:59

then you sat down the theater it's like Dune part

13:02

one. Oh okay so

13:04

when I went to see this I was expecting

13:07

the second half of a movie and not episode

13:10

two of an ongoing

13:12

series that will continue you know it's like I knew

13:14

Vin Love said he wanted to make like a third

13:16

movie based on Dune Messiah but I'm like right but

13:19

this is the second half of your

13:21

original like idea so like and granted it's

13:23

that that's how the book is that's how

13:25

the book is but this movie feels more

13:27

like it is setting up

13:29

the future than closing this

13:32

two-part chapter right. Sandeia has that

13:34

sort of famous line in the

13:37

first movie she'd like looks at

13:39

camera basically and says this is

13:41

only the beginning and what does

13:43

she say right before that finale

13:45

scene this isn't over yet. And

13:48

it's funny because I saw an article where Villeneuve said he

13:50

wanted to make he wanted to to be a standalone movie

13:52

he wanted to be like you could just see it without

13:54

seeing one and and it just stands

13:56

out I'm like I would argue you you have to

13:58

see one and three Yeah in order to

14:01

for this to be to this movie to work because

14:03

I feel like hold on what's this leading up to?

14:06

and And

14:08

yeah, so we'll kind of get into that

14:10

stuff like the sort of Closing

14:13

some stuff, but then but then setting up more stuff

14:17

But then the other thing is just these

14:19

like hot take episodes on super dense movies

14:21

like Dune or the Batman like they're they're

14:23

hard You know, I mean, it's just like

14:26

someone coming out of two towers for the first time

14:28

you stick a camera In their face and like what

14:30

was your favorite a omer moment and they're like what?

14:36

So I was thinking about this movie as I was

14:38

prepping for the podcast I was just like I remember

14:40

Flashes and impressions I can

14:43

barely remember anything that happened So

14:47

I went again and I got back about

14:49

half an hour ago I Was

14:52

like I can't I feel like I can't even talk about

14:54

this movie And enjoyed

14:56

it much more the second time kind of

14:59

knowing the wonky structure knowing that it wasn't

15:01

gonna kind of Like

15:04

it was gonna like start introducing characters halfway through

15:06

to like just what all the stuff that the

15:08

movie does and and

15:11

I was able to just kind of sit back and enjoy it and

15:13

just like let it all sink in and Pay

15:15

more a little bit more attention wrap my head around some of

15:17

the plot stuff more I

15:20

still think I'm still still overwhelmed in the

15:22

the second half So maybe

15:24

viewing number three will will help that But

15:28

yeah, I think as you guys touched on there's some

15:31

Structure stuff and some dramatic question stuff

15:33

that is going on here that makes

15:35

it feel like it's not quite Doing

15:38

movie things in a way that that we

15:40

are used to them happening But

15:43

but yeah, I'm much more on board with the praise

15:45

that it's getting I was kind of like what you

15:47

were saying Michael where I was like looking at comments

15:50

on posts and There some would be

15:52

like the best movie I've ever seen

15:54

this movie is incredible like amazing and then other

15:56

comments were just like so Boring and overwrought and

15:58

I'm reading all of them going I'm like, yeah. But

16:04

yes, second viewing, way

16:06

more of an enjoyable experience. And I'm very curious

16:08

to look back on this movie in the future

16:10

once the show comes out and the third movie

16:12

comes out and that kind of stuff and sort

16:14

of see what this movie. It's a show? Oh

16:16

no. The Benny Jesterit show, which I think could be

16:18

really fun. It's called Benny and

16:20

the Jesterit. No, but you're not, Brian.

16:22

Stop it. But

16:25

yeah, to see what this movie is doing

16:27

in the bigger picture thing, but I just,

16:29

I really felt like this was just gonna

16:31

be the second half of a story and

16:33

that was going to like close the door

16:35

and then there's room for more stuff, but

16:37

that's not how it is. So here

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yeah, so tons of things to talk about. Experience

18:29

movies, part two, three. If the actors are great,

18:31

I want to talk about the actors, the

18:34

cast, the structure stuff, like all

18:36

these things. And I want to start with,

18:39

so for me, so I think

18:41

I'm like Eutrisia, part two was like

18:45

much better for me. Like I enjoyed

18:47

part one, part two for me had

18:49

the spectacle and I'm like, oh my

18:51

God, so much sand mixed

18:54

with, oh, but things are happening.

18:56

Like plot is occurring and there's twists and

18:58

turns. And we

19:01

went and saw part one again recently and like

19:03

going through it again, I was like, oh yeah,

19:05

like this is amazing, but so little

19:08

happens, it feels like, like the Oscar

19:10

Isaac, what happens to his

19:12

character feels like the main thing,

19:14

but it's kind of like one event,

19:17

one twist, and the rest feels like

19:19

a lot of setup. So I was also

19:21

expecting a more part two, part

19:24

two. But to

19:26

me, this did actually feel sort of standalone.

19:28

Like you do need a lot of the

19:30

things that are set up in part one,

19:33

but in terms of a complete arc,

19:36

this felt more complete

19:38

and coherent than part one did

19:40

certainly. And I think part of

19:42

my structural issue is that I

19:44

think the first

19:48

act, I want to say like the first hour

19:50

of this movie, I feel like is paced And

19:54

properly for a standalone movie. And

19:56

it's kind of like towing this

19:58

line of like. We're

20:00

continuing what you just saw, but we're

20:02

also sort of setting up the plot

20:05

arc of this movie. and so they're

20:07

these sequences that feel really long and

20:09

kind of like you. Know exposition

20:11

all establishing the world's again and a part

20:14

of me as like my already know that

20:16

like move along with the plot a little

20:18

bit. Such. That

20:20

like by the time or the

20:22

plot stuff is happening I feel

20:24

like it's kind of rests in

20:26

Jersey. You were talking about these

20:28

sequences that you. The. Audience kind

20:30

of feals, lost or it feel like things that

20:33

are just part of it. Yes, Bust

20:35

next to each other and an order

20:37

and I started feel that a lot

20:39

once paul but embracing the messiah thing

20:41

and I gotta go south and so

20:43

then it's like in three shots we

20:45

send more travel but now he's walking

20:48

into the room and he's gonna drink

20:50

the blue South and he phrased it

20:52

isn't and then the other thing to

20:54

lay down board groundwork have suffered. Talk

20:56

about as I feel like after. Up

20:59

to the point, the palm. Springs. The

21:01

blue water of life and sees

21:04

everything. I feel if we're really

21:06

with Paul and understand his head

21:08

space. After that I feel like

21:10

Paul has privileged information of like

21:12

whenever he sees and that vision

21:15

changes him and makes him suddenly

21:17

decide own. I have to embrace

21:19

this Messiah thing. I'm going to

21:21

use these people. And

21:24

there's a strange disconnect that that happens

21:26

for me and map was really one

21:28

of the things that stops of strong

21:30

and the movie is being subjectively with

21:33

Paul stealing the tension of not wanting

21:35

to make a decision that more cost

21:37

billions of wilds. I was

21:39

on that journey after that some I

21:42

thought detached. From. Him sort of

21:44

flailing and ultimately grabbed on to

21:46

move said India. But.

21:48

Then her character doesn't get to fitness

21:50

and this movie and that to me

21:52

thought like the most. You. Know

21:55

this. this will not continue

21:57

this later story. Such prudes

21:59

is weird. I heard in a

22:01

lotta ways this does feel self contained

22:03

to me, but there are these see

22:05

other elements that. Are. Missing

22:08

the keep it from being completely that and

22:10

that sort of this this weird feeling that

22:12

I get my thinking about the plot of

22:14

this movie rights. I mean the character of

22:16

Jammers already is like we're opening the movie

22:18

Be and What You Killed The Sky and

22:21

All the Dead or Dying. It's like that

22:23

means nothing as a standalone movie if you

22:25

haven't Just like watched the finale of Part

22:27

One. Yeah, I mean it's it's ago. Corruption

22:29

are kind of. You know it's almost a

22:31

Michael Corleone. And Compare Walker saying by I

22:34

agree with you that we are not tracking

22:36

that over the course of. The movie were

22:38

tracking sort of this other arc which

22:40

then suddenly like he drinks the Doctor Strange

22:42

use music. I seen all the teachers except

22:45

there's one ah, ends and then he's

22:47

like and now I am like evil and

22:49

would even an evil but like I'm

22:51

essentially gonna become like this the sort of

22:53

tyrants kind of person the you know and

22:55

it's like it's It's hard to be

22:57

with him when you haven't. Fact

23:00

that over the course of the entire movie

23:02

and to disarm happens really quickly. Like you're

23:04

saying the hell. Am

23:06

I thinking about a lot? Of

23:09

the Rings Comparisons and. Can

23:11

I do think there is something they're like.

23:15

This movie is really nerdy. This,

23:18

the book is really nerdy.

23:20

Ah, there's a tent city.

23:22

To It's and I mentioned this

23:25

before. Where it's all very dancing. Sided

23:27

try and kind of intellectual

23:29

and ah in a very

23:31

talk in a kind of

23:33

away. right? Were

23:35

like. You'd There's a

23:38

bunch of linguistics stuff in here.

23:40

There's there's truly like eight languages

23:42

in here that you find a

23:44

supposed to be tracking with about

23:46

different sects. And Paul truly has

23:48

like eight name's embassy. So exhausting!

23:51

And everybody calling him all of this means all

23:54

the time. At yeah anyway,

23:56

but there's there's there are

23:58

those ah like. Mental

24:00

things. But the. Thing that Lord

24:02

the Rings, how's. That. Dune

24:04

has never had is like.

24:07

A Centrally A. Clear trajectory

24:09

are like goal. And

24:12

one big dramatic question over are made

24:14

from Missouri and. I when I really

24:16

watch due in part one I was missing it

24:19

like deeply like think that Fellowship of the Rings

24:21

take the ring. From here to Mordor. Drop

24:23

it in the fire. thought the whole thing.

24:26

I'm and that buys you like the

24:28

simplicity of that as he talked about

24:30

many times buys you eight languages and

24:32

nine central characters, and like all of

24:34

the different rules and magic and things

24:37

that you want to do. And

24:39

dune doesn't have that until Paul says he

24:41

wants to get close to the Emperor so

24:43

he can avenge his father. are basically take

24:46

out the Emperor has he thinks the Emperor

24:48

killed his father? Whatever. Great fine, but that's.

24:50

Our goal. Ah, I

24:52

was tracking with it,

24:54

but. There. Is

24:56

so much that happens in the movie

24:58

that has nothing to do with that

25:01

goal like even more of the rings

25:03

because that goal is so clear and

25:05

so compelling. The you

25:07

can kinda see house other things fold

25:09

into it like k the Hobbits over

25:11

here now than these habits over there

25:13

they're trying to get from here to

25:15

there. there's all of these like plans

25:18

vote kind of understand the war. We

25:20

understand what the war is, who's on

25:22

which side and this movie kind of

25:24

this story kind of lox that clarity.

25:28

And so. I really was feeling like

25:30

I wanted it in this movie but it

25:32

was more sears and it wasn't doing per

25:34

one. An. Eye.

25:36

For that reason, it worked for me. But

25:38

the as and then like. Just.

25:41

Bro and character comes back.

25:43

He's working for. Like.

25:46

Mercenary like. Sidra in

25:48

as end in Space Han

25:50

Solo prototype for assistance Independent

25:52

Spice doesn't get enough recognition

25:54

certain and maybe even been

25:56

mentioned. Right Leg oh they're

25:58

the his leg. You

26:00

know underground under black market spice traders

26:02

over here that are like actually harvesting

26:04

spice and stealing it and doing whatever They

26:07

never even were mentioned at

26:10

all that those people existed on on Arrakis

26:13

up until then and so there were things like

26:15

that where then it eventually is like Oh, Gurney

26:17

how like his back I kind of see how

26:19

that can kind of fold into Paul's plan but

26:22

again That's contributes. I think to

26:25

that lost feeling in the second act and I agree

26:27

with you Michael that the first act is is

26:31

Lot like long is thing number

26:33

one, but also then Doesn't

26:35

necessarily the transition or the connective tissue

26:38

doesn't feel all the way like it

26:40

goes leads us directly into what happens

26:42

in the second act At

26:44

the worm riding sequence, which is amazing and we

26:47

need to talk about in detail But

26:50

after that I leaned over to Michael and I was like is

26:52

that the midpoint and he looked at his watch And he

26:54

goes nope, that's the end of the first act. No,

26:56

no, oh crap. I Think

26:59

it's the midpoint Except this movie

27:01

has a 20-minute spin-off in the middle

27:03

of it. There we go Yeah,

27:07

because I think this is like a two hour

27:09

and 20-minute movie I think that's the midpoint of

27:11

that movie But then right after that we we

27:13

peace out for 20 minutes and go hang out

27:15

with other people Then we check in with Josh

27:18

Brolin and then we get back into the story

27:20

I think the end of act one is that montage? Where

27:24

where he gets his name and then and then they kind

27:27

of go into Into like,

27:29

you know now we're hanging out together and we're

27:31

like fighting people and we're doing all this stuff

27:33

And then I think that's the midpoint But

27:35

it's an hour and ten minutes into a two hour and

27:37

40 minute movie because this movie is structurally weird That's

27:40

my that's my thinking Yeah,

27:44

it's interesting because You

27:46

mentioned Tricia like why we never heard

27:48

about smugglers before now, you know And

27:51

I think this universe is so rich

27:53

in that Lord of the Rings Star

27:55

Wars Star Trek way but

27:57

it's being interpreted and Put

28:00

to film by this director Denis Villeneuve

28:02

who kind of he literally said it

28:04

You know, we've got this online fervor

28:07

going that he like doesn't like dialogue

28:09

you know because he's and and I

28:12

Think there's a little bit of lost

28:14

in translation there I mean what he's

28:16

saying is he loves film as just

28:18

this visual pure medium and it comes through

28:21

in his movies You know watch a rival, you

28:23

know, like just watch any movie He kind of

28:25

pares back on the talkiness of the scripts He's

28:27

given to really just lean

28:29

into the audio visual vibe experience and

28:31

that is what I love about him

28:34

as a director But

28:36

that can be a challenge when you're also trying

28:38

to adapt an IP that is this dense and

28:40

has so much richness in it You know, I'm

28:42

reading the book now finally because I want to

28:44

get all that detail to

28:47

fill in the blanks and And

28:49

so it's it's hard. It's like I want both because

28:51

like as I said, I Was

28:54

one of the people who loved the first movie for the vibes

28:57

But also this universe is interesting enough, but I

28:59

want to know all the details as well I

29:01

do want to know about the things

29:04

I've heard about like the navigators that

29:06

need the spice to make the ships

29:08

go and you know the Guilds

29:10

there's all these things that they're barely mentioned

29:12

that are huge parts of the book I've

29:14

heard So

29:16

it's hard. It's like how do you do that? How do you

29:19

both? Create

29:21

this Denis Villeneuve experience movie and

29:24

yet also Give us

29:26

enough details that the world makes sense and

29:28

adds up and connects There

29:30

probably is no way to do that in two

29:33

and a half hours But a part

29:35

of me just wanted it like, you know What if

29:37

this is the new Lord of the Rings all

29:39

of those movies were like three hours or

29:41

more, you know And maybe it's okay for

29:44

these movies to be three hours and just

29:46

give me 15 more minutes to

29:48

like let things land or Explain

29:51

a bit more. I mean there are whole actors

29:54

that are not in this movie that that shot

29:56

scenes Tim Blake Nelson was kind of this movie

30:02

two fear, Hawat in the

30:05

first movie. Steven McInn

30:07

Anderson. Like everybody, like we all love him whenever we

30:09

see him. Like he was supposed to be in this

30:11

movie, you know. And so there is a lot on

30:13

the cutting room for here. And I don't

30:15

know. I don't know if that was all the evil

30:18

news choice to kind of trim it down and give

30:20

it this pace. But yeah, I

30:22

would have preferred the

30:24

big extended cut version. Honestly, if we're going to

30:26

do this for two hours and 45 minutes anyway,

30:30

I'll stick around for another 15, 20 minutes to

30:32

get more out of this world

30:34

and maybe fix some pacing problems. Yeah,

30:37

it's it's I've heard a

30:40

couple of people say it's too short and too long. And

30:43

I feel like it's that thing of like

30:46

there. I agree with you. I like want to know the

30:48

rules of this world. I want to know all this stuff.

30:50

I want to feel immersed in this world. So

30:53

I want more of that stuff. But then maybe

30:55

we're spending too much time on other things, though, like the 20

30:57

minutes spin off or whatever, you know, like that kind of stuff

30:59

where I would like to be like, but just like tell me

31:02

like who those people are, what are they up to? What do

31:04

they do? How does how does like commerce work in this world

31:06

or whatever, you know? And or roll it

31:08

all into a dramatic question that gives

31:10

the movie momentum so that when you're

31:12

going to other things and building out

31:14

the world, it doesn't feel like a

31:16

detour or like we're looking at our watches.

31:19

We don't understand the relationship of things. And

31:21

yeah, that's another. Yeah, it's

31:24

just a challenge. Yeah,

31:27

the structural thing that's coming to my

31:30

head is I really like your

31:32

comparison, Brian, of the Godfather, right? So

31:34

if this is a corruptory Godfather

31:37

story, then the Godfather's

31:39

midpoint is perhaps one of the

31:41

best, most of the midpoints of

31:43

all time. And that's

31:45

exactly the turning point of,

31:47

you know, is Michael

31:49

going to do this or not? He's

31:51

committed. He's made this new irreversible act.

31:54

It sends us on a new trajectory. And

31:57

then the second half of the movie is about

31:59

dealing with that. And it goes to different places

32:01

and it sort of it does what the midpoint is kind

32:03

of supposed to do Resets the

32:05

dramatic question a little bit the staging around

32:07

it, etc The

32:10

if paul writing the sandworm is

32:12

the midpoint that's not him making

32:14

that choice either Like I think

32:16

that's what's so weird structurally is

32:18

like that's him kind of being

32:21

accepted now into Yeah,

32:24

like foley freman, right? Right

32:27

where like if the midpoint

32:30

of a You know

32:32

conventional corruption arc is supposed to

32:34

be that you know step Of

32:37

like oh you can't take it back now. Now you're

32:39

going down the dark path. I killed the women and

32:42

the children They're animals

32:44

Can I slaughter them? That

32:50

doesn't happen in this movie until until It

32:54

feels like three act three basically

32:56

and so That's weird

32:59

on its own And I

33:01

think what's also weird is this being a

33:03

part two that it's not happening closer to

33:05

the beginning of a part two so if

33:07

you think about both of these movies back

33:09

to back to back the amount

33:11

of Setup for

33:14

paul's arc is like 70

33:16

percent of the runtime of these two movies and

33:19

then the fallout is is the back and maybe

33:21

that's the way the Book

33:23

is you know, I don't know what the constraints

33:25

are on that but thinking about something like spiderverse

33:28

which we talked about into the spiderverse That's

33:31

also being split up into two

33:33

parts. The end of part one

33:35

is a great midpoint moment for

33:38

miles You know to

33:40

face the sort of the darker side of the

33:42

truth of this thing that he's gained and it

33:44

sets up a whole new question And

33:47

so it's just interesting Tracking paul's arc and even

33:49

tracking like what's going on with the harken ins

33:51

and all this stuff that

33:53

despite having Two hour

33:55

plus setup for all of this stuff. It feels

33:57

like then we spent a lot more time setting

34:00

things up before Domino's start to

34:02

actually fall. You

34:05

know, it's almost like, you know, there was a choice

34:07

to cut off this part one,

34:10

where I think in the

34:12

book after that fight with

34:14

Jamis and he goes

34:16

to be with the Fremen, there's this big time jump.

34:18

So that would make sense if you were going

34:20

to do a time jump. But then

34:22

you've decided not to do a time jump. There's a

34:25

literally like, take a breath where you left off. And

34:28

I've heard of me wonders, yeah, what if you

34:30

did crime a bit more into, you

34:32

know, take out some of the vibes of part one, I

34:34

guess, that I love so much, but got

34:36

all the way to him writing the sandworm

34:38

at the end of part one or something,

34:41

you know, like that's his final test of

34:43

becoming a Fremen and then

34:45

two picks up there. And

34:48

then we spent that we have the whole corruption. We have

34:50

more time of like, I'm a Fremen now. What am I

34:52

going to do with this? And so

34:54

this is also just a choice of where Denise

34:56

split the book that maybe could

34:59

be rejiggered. And it's something interesting,

35:01

too. I think about my favorite way to

35:03

watch Lord of the Rings now is as

35:05

a six episode limited series where basically I

35:07

get the extended edition, you know, Blu-rays out

35:09

and, you know, one disc per night, six

35:11

episodes. And I actually I

35:13

like it better than watching them as three

35:15

movies. And it just feels more

35:17

right that way. So I'm just curious to see, it

35:20

might be a while, Denis, he wants to take a

35:22

break before he does part three, you know,

35:25

but but I really want the

35:28

entire experience and to be able to just

35:30

to watch it that way and then to judge the

35:32

story in that other form, because who knows maybe this

35:35

the pacing issue, the kind of

35:37

unevenness we're feeling might play

35:39

differently as one gigantic experience

35:41

in the future. Funny,

35:44

because my favorite way to watch the Lord of the Rings

35:46

trilogy is on a Saturday. No,

35:48

that's my other favorite way to watch it. And it's

35:50

done it like four times in L.A. is going to

35:53

the all day marathon. And it's great

35:55

because it's you truly do feel of

35:57

continuity through the process of like I

35:59

began. in the shire and I ended

36:01

in the shire but so much happened

36:03

and everybody changed and it's like really

36:05

special. I want that experience from Dune

36:08

now now that he has teased us

36:10

with part three. I

36:12

want that Dune marathon experience. Right well

36:14

yeah because I mean the thing that

36:16

I'm thinking about it's like I feel

36:19

like we have kind of this like lead up to a midpoint

36:21

and then the movie is like now 20 minute

36:23

short film and then now we're gonna kind

36:25

of do some other weird like pacing things

36:27

and then like suddenly take this like character

36:29

arc and the end and I was just like yeah we

36:32

are introducing lots of new characters about an

36:34

hour and 20 minutes into this movie right

36:36

with Austin Butler doing his incredible southern scars

36:39

guard impression which makes me so happy and

36:41

I want I want to see every movie

36:43

sell scars guards ever been in remade with

36:45

him um but then

36:47

uh you know we've had princess Irelan

36:50

and the emperor like for a little

36:52

blip at the beginning but now we're actually getting to meet

36:55

them now we have surprise lay as they do and it's

36:57

just like in a standalone

36:59

movie that's really late to be introducing

37:02

these characters but also in a two-part

37:04

movie that's incredibly late to be introducing

37:06

these characters that's like four hours into

37:08

a five and a half hour thing

37:10

right but as you're saying Alex

37:12

this is the thing is like what is

37:14

this what does Dune look like when

37:17

it's over essentially and then is that like

37:19

oh yeah sure you introduce these characters an

37:22

hour four of 15 or whatever right it

37:24

makes perfect sense to but it feels like

37:26

it feels just really strange that standalone movie

37:28

to be introducing people like like

37:30

not even at the beginning of the second act but kind

37:32

of like part way into the second act yeah

37:36

I will say that

37:39

for all the structural issues here I think

37:44

that thematically

37:46

some of the choices are really

37:48

effective for me um

37:50

not that I necessarily want to say like oh

37:52

the shape of the movie is doing the theme

37:54

because I don't necessarily think that that's true I kind

37:57

of think Denis Villeneuve is just doing the best he can

38:02

Which is, to be clear,

38:04

very impressive with

38:06

the source material, etc. But

38:09

I do think that the themes, the way that

38:11

this movie manages to draw out

38:13

the themes more into

38:16

the text and into the plot, is

38:19

really effective. So one

38:21

of the biggest choices here in the

38:23

adaptation was to change the character of

38:25

Chani, essentially, where Chani

38:27

is not the sort of skeptic that

38:29

she is in the movie. In

38:32

the book, she's like a believer in as

38:34

much as she is like a

38:37

team member of Paul's, where when he's

38:39

like on his journey to become the

38:41

Muad'Dib, she's like with him supporting

38:43

him every step of the way in

38:46

the book. And in

38:48

the book, when he decides to marry

38:51

the princess, she's kind

38:53

of like, sure, cool. That

38:55

gets you to your goal. It makes no matter

38:57

to me. And

39:00

injecting conflict into that

39:02

relationship is a

39:04

brilliant adaptation choice, I think, because

39:06

it draws out the theme of

39:08

the story, which

39:11

is, is he the real

39:13

prophet? Is he the false

39:15

prophet? Does it

39:17

matter if his goal is

39:19

political and military might? Is

39:23

it that kind of evil in and of

39:25

itself? Right? It's

39:27

really interesting that she's kind of

39:30

this a religious skeptic. The

39:32

difference between the northern and the southern tribes, I think, is

39:34

really well laid out

39:36

here, where I crystal clear,

39:38

understand. Everyone in the southern tribes, they're deeply,

39:40

deeply religious. The northern tribes, they're

39:42

more metropolitan. You

39:46

know, they're so worldly, they

39:48

understand their, yeah. And

39:51

they live in their cities, right? And they like

39:53

have these broader views of everything. And so they

39:55

don't necessarily believe in a Messiah at all. And

39:58

I love all of that. stuff that's in

40:00

the text. When they're talking about their names, and

40:02

she's like, he's like, what's your secret name? She's

40:04

like, well, I'll tell you, but I, he's

40:07

like, I love that. She's like, I hate it. It's

40:10

from a dumb old prophecy that I don't believe in.

40:12

And I want you to call me by the name

40:14

that I prefer, right? All

40:17

of that is speaking directly to

40:19

this theme of using

40:22

people's faith and

40:24

their hope, right? Like an

40:27

oppressed people have

40:29

been given hope in the

40:31

form of like a mythical Messiah, myth

40:33

of the one, you know, the monomyth, as we mentioned,

40:36

when we were talking about June, part one, and

40:39

the harm of harnessing

40:41

that myth for political

40:43

and military gain and

40:45

power is deeply

40:48

disturbing. And having

40:50

Chani represent like someone that close

40:53

to Paul, in a relationship that

40:55

the movie is trying, has been trying to sell

40:57

us on since the previous movie. It's

41:00

brilliant to make her the, I

41:02

want to say like the voice of reason or yeah, the

41:04

voice of the

41:07

real voice of the Fremen, honestly, like

41:10

sort of the most pure version

41:12

of like wanting them to be

41:15

truly free. They give that

41:17

role to Chani and I love it. It's

41:20

weird that Zendaya is more of an

41:22

appropriate dune name than Chani. Right.

41:26

No, it's interesting because we have to give

41:28

the movie credit for being so

41:30

bold in a lot of ways. You know,

41:33

it's taking the monomyth, the first movie you

41:35

can still buy Paul as a Luke Skywalker

41:37

kind of character as a Luke

41:39

who's going to do the honorable thing. He's

41:42

going to go be a hero for the

41:44

Fremen and it really, like

41:48

subverts expectations and is

41:50

very dark and has a dark

41:52

idea about the monomyth and actually

41:54

points out that it's a very

41:56

dangerous myth mixed with politics, mixed

41:59

with religion. And

42:01

also talking about Trisha thematically, it

42:03

is very consistent even in the

42:05

detour scenes when we go to

42:08

Getty Prime. It's all about the

42:10

Benny Gesserit, essentially

42:12

using stories

42:14

and manipulation power. It's

42:18

all about how

42:21

people in power manipulate others and use

42:23

them as pieces on the chessboard. And

42:26

for a movie, for a franchise that

42:28

begins that very Star Wars vibe, very

42:30

like, you know, the one, the myth,

42:33

we want to believe in the one and maybe he

42:35

is the, how to ratchet, that

42:38

sounds kind of cool, but it's actually

42:40

kind of horrifying. And it's bad actually, you

42:42

don't want somebody with that much power and

42:46

you don't want people who are religious to

42:49

put that religious fervor onto that person.

42:52

It's very dangerous. So yeah,

42:54

I think it's, it's part of what

42:56

the movie is kind of unnerving to me because I

42:58

think the first movie gave me some of that, like,

43:00

soul nourishing, you

43:03

know, motto myth goodness. And

43:05

this movie is like, oh no, we're the godfather. And

43:08

we're literally ending on like the godfather

43:10

shot of like the

43:13

partner of the main character being completely

43:15

disillusioned and horrified by what he's become.

43:18

Well, and I'm hardly the first person

43:20

to say this, but as you probably

43:23

have read, you can

43:25

think about spice as being like

43:27

faith essentially. Right? Like

43:30

spice is like an illusory

43:32

drug and like

43:35

it has sustained the Fremen for

43:37

however many, you know, thousands of years

43:41

and power over spices, power

43:43

overall, right? Whoever controls the

43:46

religion controls everything. And

43:48

so, but I feel like I agree

43:50

with you that the first movie does

43:52

not fully like crystallize

43:55

around the sinister nature of

43:57

the motto myth. Whereas this

43:59

movie, really does in a lot

44:01

of ways and I agree even like

44:03

all the side plots and everybody else's

44:06

like plots and machinations directly

44:09

speak to that of here's

44:12

who's really in charge or who hears

44:15

who's really winning at the expense of

44:17

all of these people of faith. Even

44:20

the Harkonnens aren't really winning. They're not

44:22

also pawns in the Benny Jester game.

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a happy price. So

44:57

after we saw the first movie my partner was like

44:59

which came first, Dune or Star Wars? And I said

45:01

oh the book predated Star Wars by about 10 years.

45:03

She's like okay because a lot

45:05

of similarities there and I was like yeah you

45:07

know you're just like in spice, faith, the forest,

45:09

faith, right? And then and then of course second

45:12

movie, bad guys your

45:14

grandfather. Yeah! Surprise! 100%! Yeah

45:17

Darth Vader's your dad or grandpa. Speaking

45:22

of family lineages, fetus

45:26

for Michael but you're gonna say something. I

45:29

know we can talk about the fetus too. I

45:32

did think about you a lot knowing how disturbing

45:35

the 2001 fetus was and how

45:37

that has haunted you. A lot

45:40

of space fetus in this movie. An extremely

45:42

tasteful fetus. I

45:44

feel like it was done... I'm

45:52

just saying it's not there to look

45:54

very horrifying even if it is kind

45:56

of horrifying in concept. Yeah, like a

45:58

sentient fetus that's literally special. speaking to you and

46:00

you just have to mutter to it while you walk around. Right.

46:03

Yeah. It's not creepy as

46:05

you could possibly make that, which I think is

46:07

impressive. Yeah. This movie handled

46:09

this sort of like weird

46:12

hippy dippy dune stuff in

46:14

like a really restrained way where it was sometimes it's just like here's

46:17

a shot that has nothing to do with the scene you just watch

46:19

and nothing to do with the next scene. But like you're just going

46:21

to look at it for a second and we're going to keep going.

46:24

But it's like, as you said, Alex, the first movie just puts

46:26

you in kind of a state, you know, and it just like

46:28

makes you feel something and then we move on or

46:30

it's going to be like, yeah, we're not having, you

46:32

know, in the previous adaptations of

46:35

Dune, like the

46:37

baby comes out and is like a

46:39

kid and kills the Baron. Braggart's toddler

46:41

kills the Baron Harkonnen.

46:43

Right. Yeah. Just

46:46

feel like to have Lady Rebecca

46:48

just like speaking to Lady Jessica.

46:52

Thank you. And Lady, Lady Rebecca Ferguson,

46:54

just like speaking to her stomach. And

46:56

then every once in a while we

46:58

like cut to a like a shot

47:00

of like a CG fetus. Like that's

47:02

that's pretty restrained for this franchise. Well,

47:05

and that's kind of what I was saying in the

47:07

last podcast, which is like somehow Denis Villeneuve makes this

47:09

not goofy. Right. Most of the time. Right.

47:12

Like there is still some goofiness, but he manages

47:14

to like keep the goofiness to a low roar.

47:18

There's a reason these books have

47:20

been called unadaptable. Right. It's a

47:22

miracle that he took the source

47:24

material and makes him that

47:26

feels quite serious the entire time. Correct.

47:30

Yeah. Well, and so I want to talk about the

47:32

cast really quick because the cast

47:35

is immaculate. Even like Wes

47:37

Anderson levels of like we got on it

47:39

Taylor Joy to come in for a shot.

47:41

That's what we can do. I

47:43

agree with you up until we get to Christopher Walken, but

47:45

we can circle back to him. I

47:48

really like Christopher Walken. I don't know. He

47:51

was like, no, there was like

47:53

one line where it kind of, he kind of did that. But

47:58

yeah, I think, I think he's a great

48:00

choice. for this wacky dune stuff. Also, Fat

48:02

Boy Slim Video, Weapon of Choice, where he's

48:05

flying around the mall and then the lyrics

48:07

are, if you walk without rhythm, you won't

48:09

attract the worm. It's all like doing stuff.

48:12

Oh, that's interesting. I feel like

48:15

if you didn't know Christopher Walken

48:17

was like, Christopher Walken. No, but

48:19

I do though. I

48:21

feel like it totally worked for me. I

48:24

thought it worked fine. It wasn't amazing to

48:26

me, but I didn't... There

48:28

was only one moment where his voice did a little walk

48:30

in the thing that took me out of it a bit.

48:32

He did little enough of the movie that

48:34

in the few scenes he was in, I could just

48:37

pretend it wasn't him. And I could just look at

48:39

another part of the screen or just be like,

48:41

oh, he's an old man emperor. It's not

48:43

Chris Walken. It's not Chris

48:45

Walken because why would it be? But

48:49

I understand now why they delayed the movie

48:51

till March because of the actress strike. People

48:55

have been commenting on this is like a

48:57

Mount Rushmore of who

48:59

everybody loves right now in Hollywood. All

49:01

the young stars, all the best of

49:03

the best, this is the

49:05

cast. It's such

49:07

an impressive casting feat to

49:10

both get all these like the hottest

49:12

young stars we have all the way

49:14

up to the older stars that are

49:17

amazing. All through their

49:19

one movie and they all fit their parts

49:21

more or less. It doesn't also feel like

49:23

they were cast for four star power. They

49:25

also naturally slide into these

49:27

roles. It's

49:30

really exciting. Yeah, I

49:33

think that's true of Timmy Chalamet

49:35

and Zendaya too for being people

49:37

who are the cover

49:41

magazine type, shiny people. You know what I mean?

49:43

And I'm not just being an old fuddy

49:46

daddy where I'm like, I don't like youth as

49:48

much as there's a certain type of

49:51

young celebrity who's like, look at me,

49:53

kind of shiny, whatever. But

49:55

they're good actors and they fit these

49:57

roles and these roles should be a

49:59

little. you know, as you were

50:01

saying, Trisha with Sandeia, like a little bit of

50:03

the audience surrogate kind of thing. You know, at

50:06

part one, we talked about Timothee Chalamet

50:08

kind of being the Mark Hamill or

50:10

Daniel Radcliffe or Keanu Reeves, where you

50:13

cast the person who seems a little

50:15

unequipped for this task. And

50:17

then you kind of watch them grow as

50:19

an actor over the course of the franchise.

50:21

And it's like, he is so like wiry

50:23

that I buy him as like part one

50:26

Paul, but then he's a good enough, strong

50:28

enough actor that I buy him as this

50:30

like thing that he becomes in this movie

50:32

too. Yeah. Yeah,

50:34

I'd never really seen Sandeia in very much.

50:36

And so it was fun to get

50:38

to see her in a full movie. And

50:41

I feel like the role, as you

50:43

were pointing out, Trisha, you know, Chani

50:45

being this person that sees like the

50:47

truth, like she sees through all of

50:49

it. Like, I think that's a really

50:51

important character as you were saying, I think

50:53

it's a really good character for like

50:55

a love interest to play also, right?

50:57

Like she sees Paul and

50:59

this kind of clarity that like some

51:01

people are persuaded by the

51:03

Messiah myth, or some people are just

51:05

like super cynical, not gonna buy into it.

51:08

She kind of can see the whole picture and

51:11

can reflect back to him like, this

51:13

is you, this is the true

51:15

you, and you are going toward it or

51:17

away from it and different points. And

51:19

so I think she's great as a someone

51:22

who like, she's gonna turn and scowl

51:24

and judge and like not buy it. And

51:26

I believe her so that when she does

51:31

let some of that in, I'm like, okay, if she's

51:33

okay with it, I feel like I'm okay with it.

51:36

And Javier Bardem was also very much

51:39

that for me. Like

51:41

almost like it felt weird remembering his

51:43

character when we meet him in the

51:45

first movie, cause he's so like, I'm

51:47

giving you nothing, I'm not welcoming. And

51:50

he ends up being such a believer, but

51:52

because of that setup and

51:54

because of that performance, it

51:57

takes me on that journey,

51:59

I believe. believe that him and

52:01

these people could be that

52:04

swept up in this story. And

52:07

it and all the other performances are also

52:09

helping this movie not feel goofy

52:12

because they believe that.

52:14

Right. And

52:16

I love that Javier Bardem has some fun

52:19

too. Like there are some funny moments and

52:21

I was like, oh, that's humor. Wow, you

52:23

got humor in this Doom movie. Well done.

52:26

He's truly the Morpheus of this. He's

52:28

just like watching like he's it's written.

52:30

He's the one he's doing and he's

52:32

beginning to believe. Yeah. Well,

52:34

then Rebecca Ferguson, I mean, her she's

52:36

scared me in this movie. Like one

52:38

shot there was where she's like the

52:41

little smile to love. Like I'm going to

52:43

kill all of you. Like that was I

52:45

was almost favorite Olivia Colman level. So it's

52:47

pretty cool. I'm not sure which one you're

52:49

talking about exactly. But there is there's a

52:51

moment where she's kind of sitting in a

52:53

cave almost surrounded by other women and somebody

52:56

runs in to tell her of the success

52:58

of Paul riding the sandworm and

53:00

just heard her eyes, the way she's kind

53:02

of looking around and speaking in their language

53:04

saying you must spread the word, whatever. It's

53:06

like, like, oh, man, she is bad news.

53:09

She is scary. And I think just

53:11

Rebecca Ferguson has some presence

53:13

that works so well for

53:16

this turn, this like creepy. How

53:22

do you describe this kind of character? It's like

53:24

somebody who has

53:26

lost any morality and is kind of

53:28

now this like a

53:30

moral super being

53:33

that that is just like beyond

53:36

like caring about the little things

53:38

in life. She's just now this

53:40

kind of like manipulator above

53:43

it all alien. And

53:45

and that's and then Paul. That's

53:48

where the movie you mentioned, Michael, there's that kind

53:50

of detachment that happens because Paul somewhat

53:52

joins her in that state. I mean, I guess

53:54

you drink the worm piss

53:56

and he become Dr. Manhattan

53:59

a little bit, which. makes sense. If the worm

54:01

piss unlocks, you know, all the past

54:03

and all like the future for you,

54:06

then you would be detached from your

54:08

fellow man because you now

54:11

understand, you know, all the different possible paths

54:13

you can go. This one

54:15

gets you X, Y, and Z.

54:17

Well now I'm gonna do this in a

54:19

kind of a fatalistic deterministic way and,

54:22

you know, it's hard to care

54:24

about things when you're just kind of like

54:26

deterministically bringing about a future you've

54:28

already seen. Not to depart

54:32

too much from the performances but just thinking

54:35

again about that scene with the water of

54:37

life where Paul drinks it, what if that

54:39

had been the midpoint? Like what

54:41

if you did that? It should have

54:43

been. That's the godfather moment. Do

54:46

the time jump and then get there

54:48

and then okay. Because that's

54:50

where I needed more time with the movie honestly.

54:53

That's where the movie felt,

54:55

I felt unmoored because he

54:57

drank it and then Chani

54:59

runs up and she's like what the hell did you do to him?

55:02

And then Jessica's like cry on him right

55:04

now. She does it and you

55:06

know that seems, I had to think about it later

55:08

too and I was reading online about like what the

55:10

hell even happened in that scene? Because she did the

55:12

tear and a little drop and then

55:15

he wakes up and somebody

55:17

was actually pointing out the

55:19

reason she slaps him there is that you know

55:21

he as a Benny Jester trained

55:24

person was maybe just kind of faking the

55:26

death. And like the prophecy is that

55:28

desert tears will like

55:31

wake him up and so he's just

55:33

now as bad as Jessica just kind

55:35

of play acting the prophecy. Jessica

55:38

you know voices Chani into doing the

55:40

action so that all the people can

55:42

see and then he just wakes up

55:44

for no really good scientific reason because

55:46

like why would more of the worm

55:48

stuff make you wake up? The

55:50

movie doesn't get into that clearly though and

55:52

doesn't explore that or like what actually happened

55:55

there and then moments later

55:57

he's into his like speech about one

55:59

way forward And we're like race

56:01

to the finish. And I just, yeah,

56:03

I feel like that's where I want. This is

56:05

a huge moment for Paul. He's

56:07

taken this irreversible step. What

56:09

does it mean? What does it mean for him and Chani? And like,

56:12

it just, yeah, I want more time there. And

56:14

I'm sad that the movie was structured how it was so

56:16

that it was such a race to the finish after that

56:18

point. But I do love Zendaya's performance

56:21

there. Like,

56:23

that's kind of the moment that sticks with me from

56:25

the movie in terms of like performance where it's

56:28

because it's a character choice. And I

56:30

understand what it means for her, right?

56:32

She's being unwillingly dragged into

56:34

this, yeah,

56:38

into this big performance. And

56:41

she knows what it means for

56:43

the people that are watching. She knows what it

56:46

means that she's being forced

56:48

to do that. And it's a beautiful

56:50

like acting moment from her where she

56:52

also wants the person she loves to

56:54

wake up, right? So there are

56:56

so many layers for her to like

56:58

work through there when she's like crying,

57:01

but then upset and it's great. Yeah,

57:05

absolutely. I was thinking this time that I

57:07

was like, the dramatic question

57:09

thing we're talking about, the overarching, you know,

57:11

my friend who Alex and I saw it

57:13

with, we were talking about goals, stakes, urgency

57:15

on the way, like on the way home.

57:17

And just like this movie, it's kind of

57:19

like not really sure at any given point

57:21

what is going on, like what people want,

57:23

why people are doing things. But

57:26

I do feel like any given scene or

57:28

sequence, I have a really strong idea of

57:30

what's going on and what the characters want,

57:32

what the obstacles are and what the urgency

57:34

is and everything. So I feel like that

57:36

is, and that's maybe true of a lot

57:38

of Villainous movies is like the overarching thing

57:40

feels a little meandering, but any five minutes

57:42

of it is like incredible, right? So

57:45

yeah, that's just an interesting thing to

57:47

track, but it helps when you

57:50

just focus on whatever thing you're watching and be like,

57:52

okay, I know what is going on here. I know

57:54

what's going on here and now, even if I don't

57:56

know what this actually has to do yet with the

57:58

bigger picture. Yeah. Yeah, and it

58:00

makes me wonder kind of exactly what you were

58:02

saying, Brian, is the thought I've been having is

58:05

like, it feels like Danny is very good at

58:08

the scene, the sequence, like constructing

58:10

it, drawing me and making me

58:13

like want to like be part

58:15

of it. But the overall,

58:20

like the mastery that I feel and

58:22

the control like the hands on the

58:24

wheel that I get watching those scenes,

58:26

I don't feel as much when I

58:28

think about the whole experience. Like it

58:30

kind of feels like the

58:32

movie is maybe driving itself a little

58:34

bit, because you know, moment to moment,

58:36

it's great. But the bigger picture feels

58:40

maybe less, you know, architected

58:42

in the same kind of

58:44

way. And thinking even about, you

58:47

know, we were talking about all the stuff

58:49

that got cut from this movie. Like, I

58:51

think it's super cool that he's

58:54

willing to kill his darlings and

58:57

make cuts like for the

58:59

better, you know, for the good of the

59:01

movie, I think arrival, basically was like saved

59:03

in the edit. It's kind of how it

59:05

feels when you absorb all of it. And

59:08

I think that willingness and that discipline is

59:10

like amazing and should be wanted. Part of

59:13

me wonders like the things

59:15

that he wants to prioritize keeping in. Are

59:17

those the things that we need for architecture

59:21

of the bigger thing? And

59:23

that's right. Like probably

59:25

an impossible thing to like, know

59:27

for sure. And navigate. But it makes

59:29

me wonder. Aliens

59:32

and the Exorcist two movies where the theatrical cut got

59:34

rid of the scene that where that's where the characters

59:36

say this is what the movies about. What

59:40

you said in interviews that a lot of

59:43

the things he cut had to do with

59:46

interesting even more characters into the world. You know,

59:48

I think, you know, probably the

59:51

characters that were cut were

59:54

not of the Benny Jester

59:56

it's prophecy thematic story.

59:58

You know, they were part of the world. But I

1:00:01

think he really trimmed it all the way down

1:00:03

to who's involved with this Messiah

1:00:05

story You know from top to bottom and

1:00:08

that goes all the way up to the Reverend Mother Pulling

1:00:11

all the strings all the way down to you know

1:00:13

the Fremen and and so yeah

1:00:15

I think I think there's a lot of

1:00:17

discipline in the thematic focus

1:00:19

of this movie, but I agree Michael I

1:00:22

think that is that is I Loved

1:00:24

an evil nive. I wanted to keep making all the

1:00:26

movies. I will see anything he makes But

1:00:29

if any complaint about most of his

1:00:31

films it is that overall

1:00:35

Structural flow and I think you're doing part

1:00:37

one I love and then it

1:00:39

gets to the like third act and they're wandering

1:00:41

in the desert and It's

1:00:43

kind of an underwhelming Finale with the

1:00:46

knife fight that doesn't have the proper

1:00:48

thematic setup because we've learned just right

1:00:50

there You know Trisha you pointed this

1:00:52

out in our podcast about doing part one just

1:00:54

right there Just cuz like he never killed a man and

1:00:57

it's like okay So that's what this seems about and

1:00:59

that's a really big deal I guess for him to not

1:01:01

kill a man and like so what does it mean

1:01:03

when he does kill a man? And you know think

1:01:05

the setup wasn't there for that seemed to mean something

1:01:07

to be like the finale of a movie So

1:01:10

yeah, so I agree It's like Denny is

1:01:12

so good at so many things and I

1:01:14

just I want him to get some help

1:01:16

from somebody to like Master this last element

1:01:19

because then it would be like you

1:01:21

know then he's then he is the Muad deep You know

1:01:23

he has all the power well,

1:01:26

and even even as Impressed

1:01:29

as I was or the just like I guess

1:01:32

Thankful as I was that this does

1:01:34

have a thematic core to it I do

1:01:36

think there could have been more like I do think it could have

1:01:38

been clearer and You

1:01:40

know I missed the piece that you

1:01:43

just said Alice where like we don't know what it

1:01:45

means for Paul to kill a man in June Part one in

1:01:47

Dune part one near the end when

1:01:50

he's like You

1:01:52

know railing it lady Jessica, he's like what did you do to

1:01:54

me you made me a freak Yes, our

1:01:57

vision of a holy war of

1:01:59

people chanting my name and millions of people

1:02:01

dead, he seems horrified,

1:02:05

but that is not

1:02:07

connected to the decisions that

1:02:09

Paul makes later in this movie, right? Like,

1:02:12

I kind of get there's like a revenge

1:02:14

theme in here where he's like, I want

1:02:16

to avenge my father, so that's

1:02:19

going to make me embrace this thing, where I

1:02:21

do suddenly not care that millions of

1:02:23

people are going to die, which

1:02:25

I did seem to really care about before. Think

1:02:28

about in Dune Part 1, that

1:02:30

scene that he has with Oscar Isaac, about

1:02:32

like, I don't know if I want to

1:02:35

be the future of the House of Atreides,

1:02:37

right? If Paul

1:02:40

isn't sure that he wants that kind

1:02:42

of responsibility because he doesn't want to

1:02:44

be responsible for people's lives, or

1:02:47

he doesn't want to have to wage war against the

1:02:49

other houses, if he wants to

1:02:51

like live a life of peace and not

1:02:53

have to control people, what is,

1:02:56

who is Paul? Like, I just

1:02:58

want to know where he started, like, more

1:03:02

clearly, and then the journey

1:03:04

becomes more trackable, and then there could be

1:03:06

more pieces, like, I don't

1:03:08

want to have to control everybody all the time.

1:03:11

If he would say that to Leto at the beginning, like,

1:03:14

I don't want to have to deal with

1:03:16

all this power, this military might warring with

1:03:18

the Harkonnens, which we've been forever, I don't

1:03:20

know if I want to like have to

1:03:22

always watch my back and fight and like,

1:03:24

you know, people are trying to assassinate me

1:03:26

all the time, I don't want that, like,

1:03:29

all of this violence and conflict, if he

1:03:31

wants to opt out of that life, that

1:03:33

needs to be more clear at the beginning.

1:03:36

And then when he has the vision of like, I, all

1:03:40

these people are dead because of me, that

1:03:42

needs to be even more of this inner conflict

1:03:45

where it has to be named. What

1:03:47

are the paths? This

1:03:49

way, when I ascend to

1:03:51

my father's like legacy is

1:03:53

death, war, destruction, but

1:03:56

a lot of power, right? This way is

1:03:58

I like, fail. into obscurity and

1:04:01

like essentially die to that self. I

1:04:04

just need that more in the text

1:04:06

still. There's so much of it more

1:04:08

in Dune Part 2 and I love

1:04:10

it. I think it's artfully done. And

1:04:12

I know Danievel Knoop doesn't want to do

1:04:15

it in dialogue, but too bad people have

1:04:17

to talk in movies too. And

1:04:19

like if you could fine

1:04:22

do it as a symbol. He was here

1:04:24

flirting with the idea of doing it as

1:04:26

a symbol. Here's Leto's ring. I'm going to

1:04:28

put it in my jacket for a while.

1:04:31

That is that same symbol that I'm craving,

1:04:33

but the dots aren't all the way

1:04:35

connected the way that they could be. He

1:04:38

puts it in his pocket while he's

1:04:40

learning to be a Fremen and you feel almost

1:04:42

the purity of the quest of learning to be

1:04:44

a Fremen. But then at some point he takes

1:04:46

it back out, he puts it on. I'm like,

1:04:48

okay, now he's corrupted. But

1:04:50

the movie isn't quite doing that work. I'm

1:04:52

doing that work. And I

1:04:55

love that it's in there anyway, but

1:04:58

it's still like for the average movie

1:05:00

goer, it's not all the way there in

1:05:02

the way that it could be. Yeah,

1:05:05

even though he

1:05:08

does leave a lot open to interpretation in these movies.

1:05:10

I mean, I think in Dune Part 1, there's a

1:05:13

lot of scenes where Rebecca Ferguson looks

1:05:15

really torn up. She's kind of crying

1:05:17

to herself. She's walking somewhere to talk

1:05:19

to somebody. And we don't really ever

1:05:22

get much clarity on her inner journey

1:05:24

in that movie. Like what does she

1:05:26

know any given point? Has she foreseen

1:05:28

things? Is she hiding something? It's

1:05:31

really all up to us, just like read

1:05:33

into it, which can be

1:05:35

interesting and can

1:05:38

be captivating sometimes and other times kind of

1:05:40

frustrating. Well, give me a little more

1:05:42

of a clue of what I should read into this. And

1:05:45

I think about in this movie too, you know, there's always

1:05:48

seeing Paul's vision is that beautiful

1:05:51

image of the sand dunes leading to

1:05:53

the ocean. And that's where we

1:05:55

see Anya Taylor, Joymaker, little cameo. And

1:05:58

I think how I interpret that. is

1:06:00

there is a future in which

1:06:03

this planet has water. And

1:06:05

maybe that's the way through. And

1:06:10

that future where this planet has water and the Fremen

1:06:13

are free is

1:06:15

one way. Every other way Fremen are

1:06:17

oppressed forever and spice is the way

1:06:19

of the world. But

1:06:21

the movie, I had to do a lot of

1:06:24

that work later. And I wish the movie had

1:06:26

given me, because then you feel a bit

1:06:29

more with Paul maybe in that post

1:06:31

water of life moment. You'd

1:06:33

be saying, there's a good thing I'm aiming for,

1:06:36

but it's gonna be awful for

1:06:38

a lot of people. But the people I care

1:06:40

about, the Fremen, Chani, like

1:06:43

me and my family, they will

1:06:45

survive in this path. And

1:06:48

it just like, he doesn't quite say enough for

1:06:50

me to know that there's like any

1:06:52

goodness in this path except for just

1:06:54

like enemies all around one way through.

1:06:57

And so it's like, okay, so you're just kind

1:07:00

of evil now. But

1:07:02

I think there's pieces there that

1:07:05

I'm putting together myself. And I agreed Trisha, just

1:07:07

like a couple more dots would

1:07:09

make me a little bit less alienated. And maybe we'll

1:07:11

get a director's cut later. We'll get some

1:07:13

deleted scenes or something that will like sort of

1:07:16

help us connect it in sort of Lord of

1:07:18

the ringsy way, who knows? He has claimed he

1:07:20

does not do director's cuts. I

1:07:22

know, but also like a bug. And

1:07:26

Warner Brothers might have other ideas. That too. Yeah,

1:07:31

I think what would be, what I would

1:07:33

really find interesting is if you made

1:07:38

Dune Part One knowing what Dune Part

1:07:40

Two was going to be,

1:07:43

how would you do it differently? Because my understanding

1:07:45

was also that like there was no guarantee that

1:07:47

there was gonna be a Dune Part Two. And

1:07:49

it was sort of like as they were finishing

1:07:51

up, they were like, oh, good, we're gonna do

1:07:54

more of this. And so if

1:07:56

you knew you were going to have five

1:07:59

and a half hours to do that, tell this chunk

1:08:01

of story, how might you rearrange

1:08:03

it is I think a really cool

1:08:07

experiment to do and perhaps a profitable

1:08:09

one. I don't know I'm just saying,

1:08:12

Denny, call me. Why don't

1:08:16

we move to lessons? So what lessons

1:08:20

are we gonna take away from

1:08:22

Dune part two? Brian, what's your

1:08:24

lesson? Yeah, just totally based

1:08:26

on what you're just saying there. I was

1:08:29

thinking of about like why

1:08:32

do things sometimes feel like

1:08:35

they don't have an ending? Or

1:08:37

as we talked about in True Detective,

1:08:39

why do some things sometimes feel like things

1:08:41

aren't happening or whatever, right? And I feel

1:08:44

like there is this weird thing

1:08:47

happening here where just like you said, each

1:08:50

of these movies feels like it's being made in a sort

1:08:53

of like bigger picture. We're kind of doing

1:08:56

a little piece of a bigger puzzle. We

1:08:58

don't really know what that puzzle is yet

1:09:00

kind of thing. And

1:09:02

I was thinking recently about fractal theory which

1:09:05

we talked about in our Girl with a

1:09:07

Dragon Tattoo video and her Silence of the

1:09:09

Lambs video, which is if a movie has

1:09:11

a three act structure, so does an act,

1:09:13

so does a scene. You know, so any

1:09:16

sort of thing that you break down. I'm

1:09:19

fascinated by like, you know,

1:09:21

that scene where the good

1:09:24

guys win but like one guy died and they realize

1:09:26

after the battle that guy, like that's the crisis of

1:09:28

the third act. It's not the crisis of the movie

1:09:30

but it's the crisis of the third act. You know,

1:09:32

a lot of

1:09:34

first acts have an inciting incident where

1:09:36

it feels like like a mini inciting

1:09:38

incident before the main inciting incident of

1:09:40

the whole thing. So I'm really fascinated

1:09:42

by by fractal theory and thinking about

1:09:44

like Lord of the Rings, each

1:09:46

of those is an act of this

1:09:49

big three act story but then

1:09:51

each of those breaks down. Even

1:09:53

Alex, like the six discs, I bet

1:09:55

you could break up like each

1:09:57

half of that movie. Well, because the books are...

1:10:00

are told in six parts as well, right? So it's

1:10:02

like each of those is kind of its own story.

1:10:05

And I feel like a lot

1:10:08

of these pre-planned trilogies like

1:10:11

Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, you can

1:10:13

kind of look at any two movies and be like,

1:10:15

oh yeah, there is a complete story here that where

1:10:17

like the end of the first movie is the midpoint,

1:10:19

but then if you look at it, if you zoom

1:10:22

out or zoom in, it kind of structurally all works.

1:10:24

And we talked about

1:10:27

The Crown, where it feels

1:10:29

like each episode is a

1:10:31

standalone complete story. But then if you zoom

1:10:33

out, there is a character, these are these

1:10:35

character arcs that are being told over the

1:10:37

course of an entire season. If you zoom

1:10:40

way out, there are these character arcs that

1:10:42

are happening over the course of the entire

1:10:44

six, it's like even just the number six

1:10:46

and there's like two seasons per queen. I

1:10:48

mean, it's like everything just feels like structurally

1:10:51

planned out and perfect. And sometimes that can

1:10:53

be boring, right? If you just things are

1:10:55

like two by the numbers, right? But

1:10:58

then we've talked about the Marvel problem of every movie

1:11:01

feels like it's, we're

1:11:03

not quite done yet. We've got another

1:11:05

movie after this one. So like, hang

1:11:07

on because this story is not wrapped

1:11:09

up. And there's something here where

1:11:12

these Dune movies, they feel complete,

1:11:15

they do feel like they have their own

1:11:17

little arcs and everything, but then there's something

1:11:19

that feels like I'm not getting the sort

1:11:21

of beginning, middle, and thing that I want.

1:11:23

Like Dune Part Two feels like it starts

1:11:25

as a middle and then it becomes a

1:11:27

beginning for a while where like all the

1:11:29

new characters show up and then it's kind

1:11:32

of the middle of that beginning and then

1:11:34

it's like, yeah, and then it's an end. But

1:11:36

stay tuned, there's more coming. Zendaya is gonna tell

1:11:38

you that there's more coming. So

1:11:41

yeah, I don't know what it is. And I

1:11:43

don't feel like these movies are like a don't

1:11:45

in terms of that, but I feel like there's

1:11:47

something here that I wanna keep thinking about maybe

1:11:49

with like Oppenheimer, we can talk about this, like

1:11:51

when things feel like they are happening or

1:11:54

not happening. I think about Oppenheimer a lot actually

1:11:56

and rewatching Oppenheimer is thinking about Dune a lot.

1:11:58

I think there's some interesting. things to

1:12:01

compare them. Right. So not a lesson as much

1:12:03

as just something that I've been thinking about a

1:12:05

lot and I want to kind of keep digging

1:12:07

into, but something to think about. If there

1:12:09

is a lesson here in your own writing, think

1:12:11

about like, especially if

1:12:14

you're doing something episodic, like does each

1:12:16

of your things feel like a complete

1:12:20

piece essentially, you know, that

1:12:22

can really have its own beginning, middle and end, but

1:12:24

then also when you zoom out, it feels like you

1:12:27

are doing a bigger picture. I

1:12:29

love that stuff. I love thinking about that stuff and

1:12:33

I want to see it more when

1:12:35

people make these kind of like huge

1:12:37

projects like this. I agree completely. 100%.

1:12:40

Apparently not everything can be the crown.

1:12:43

Yeah. For flexing, but truth

1:12:45

deeply disappointing facet of existence

1:12:49

or the American office tells a really

1:12:51

amazing, complete story and then six

1:12:54

more seasons happen. Trisha,

1:12:57

what's your lesson? Yeah.

1:13:00

So I'm going to talk about the Harkenens for

1:13:03

a second because they

1:13:05

are worth. We've

1:13:08

talked a little bit about how if

1:13:11

you want your audience to get on

1:13:13

board with essentially like a bad protagonist, make

1:13:16

your antagonist worse

1:13:18

somehow because Paula is

1:13:20

bad, right? Like House of Trades

1:13:23

turns out really bad. By

1:13:26

the end of this movie, more Paula's just

1:13:28

like, okay, I'm going to, you know, basically

1:13:30

do fascism my own way with

1:13:34

the help of the Fremen because I'm going to

1:13:36

exploit their culture and use that

1:13:38

to gain military power. But then the

1:13:41

Harkenens are worse somehow.

1:13:45

And you know, Frank Herbert was great at

1:13:47

this. Like, you know, his entire goal in

1:13:50

the Dune novels was to interrogate

1:13:52

the Monomyth and why

1:13:54

it has such

1:13:57

a powerful

1:13:59

hold. on our

1:14:01

imaginations, particularly in

1:14:03

terms of faith in world religion. And

1:14:06

part of it is

1:14:08

because oppressed people, you know,

1:14:13

there's often a big bad, right?

1:14:15

And so like there's someone to cling to,

1:14:17

we're looking for something to cling to in

1:14:21

the face of that. And I like

1:14:24

the portrayal of the Harkonnens. Like, I

1:14:26

think it is very effective

1:14:29

at keeping me essentially on board

1:14:31

the narrative for most of the

1:14:33

time, I would not stay with Paul,

1:14:36

or any of the rest of the characters

1:14:38

the way that I do, were it not

1:14:41

for the Harkonnens being so very evil. And

1:14:44

the design, like there's production

1:14:46

design, there's costume design, there's

1:14:49

casting, Austin Butler's whole bit,

1:14:52

like, I truly believe, a psychopath, he's

1:14:54

doing a great job in that role.

1:14:57

Stellan Skarsgard, again, very, very

1:15:00

well cast, like bad guys.

1:15:03

And it works, it all works

1:15:05

really well. And so yeah, I

1:15:08

just think that like as a, I

1:15:10

think the

1:15:12

complex, like complicated

1:15:16

Messiah narrative is

1:15:19

actually enriched by having this

1:15:21

other side to it of

1:15:26

here are truly bad guys in our

1:15:28

narrative, right,

1:15:30

where it's like we are willing

1:15:32

to accept degrees of evil, if

1:15:35

there are other degrees of evil that

1:15:37

we have decided we can't accept. And

1:15:40

so it kind of is doing this

1:15:42

like deeply psychological thing where it's like,

1:15:44

here's a very here's

1:15:48

our guy, and he

1:15:50

is not a good guy.

1:15:52

But there's all these people that are worse. And

1:15:55

we're gonna show them to you in like

1:15:57

here's a large bathtub of black oil. and

1:16:00

the whole sequence shot on infrared cameras

1:16:02

and often Butler flashing

1:16:04

people's throats for no reason and

1:16:07

like it's true it's

1:16:09

honestly truly comical how much the Harkonnens

1:16:11

are just like I'm gonna kill all the people in

1:16:13

the room with me for fun because I'm evil but

1:16:16

you're just like okay Paul go get

1:16:18

him right by the end of his

1:16:21

last sequence like I'm happy that Paul

1:16:23

kills Fade Raza but

1:16:26

also like I know what the future

1:16:28

with Paul as the mawdib

1:16:31

means right which is also

1:16:33

not great so I just think that that's I love

1:16:36

the shades of gray here

1:16:39

like I think it's working really well I

1:16:42

know I did it I just

1:16:45

I respect I think that the

1:16:49

design and the overall everything about the

1:16:51

Harkonnens is a key

1:16:53

part of the narrative and it's been

1:16:56

very well executed here yeah

1:16:58

yeah two thoughts yeah production design in

1:17:00

these movies incredible like out

1:17:03

of this world the crazy like

1:17:05

crescent moon head guys in the

1:17:07

arena around them just like all

1:17:10

these like surreal images I just

1:17:12

love it it's I think it

1:17:14

kind of a Geiger-esque you know

1:17:17

surroundings on Getty Prime all

1:17:20

the headdresses all the Benny

1:17:22

Jester it everything yeah I love it

1:17:24

it's like how do they find the

1:17:26

exact like thickness of like I can

1:17:28

see a performance but also I cannot

1:17:30

see anything but also yeah yeah so

1:17:32

cool but also you were talking about

1:17:35

just it

1:17:40

having the super super

1:17:42

evil Harkonnens positioning Fade

1:17:45

Raza as the alternative

1:17:48

like literally the Benny Jester

1:17:50

have chosen an alternative

1:17:52

so it's like if we see the

1:17:54

possible futures and it's Paul or this

1:17:56

guy definitely Paul and it

1:17:58

gets into almost a cynical of kind of

1:18:00

depressing reality about power,

1:18:02

about politics, of just how

1:18:05

many times we hear about in politics, voting for the

1:18:07

lesser of two evils, just like

1:18:09

there's no good choices actually. There's

1:18:12

not actually a Luke Skywalker. There's not actually the

1:18:15

monomyth here where we want. There's just kind of

1:18:17

like politics and power and usually

1:18:19

have to do bad things to get

1:18:21

to be in the one or two

1:18:23

spots in that game. Yeah.

1:18:26

Yeah. I love how complex all of

1:18:29

that is. Again, I think what I like about doing

1:18:31

part two is it was about something and I knew

1:18:33

what it was about in a way that I'm still

1:18:35

quite not sure what part one was

1:18:38

about because it was a

1:18:40

part one in a way that I feel like

1:18:42

part two is clearly saying things

1:18:46

thematically. Is it weird that I like the

1:18:48

Harketed? Like I don't like them, but like

1:18:51

if you had to choose like, it's like

1:18:53

kind of a cool, I

1:18:55

don't know, like their vibe is like black

1:18:57

and white. I was going to say, you

1:18:59

just like their aesthetic. I didn't like them

1:19:02

the Harketed. Yeah. But I

1:19:04

also feel like maybe they like have no,

1:19:06

like they know what they have signed up

1:19:08

for a little bit. Like I wonder, I

1:19:10

guess that's part of the complexity of the

1:19:12

morality one could project is like, if

1:19:15

you know that you're

1:19:17

being like supremely evil,

1:19:19

supremely evil. Is that better than

1:19:22

manipulating people's hope

1:19:24

for your like, your own? I like that.

1:19:27

Well, and this was actually like about the

1:19:29

Benny Jester at, you know, kind of perspective

1:19:32

is like this guy's a psychopath, but he's

1:19:34

controllable. And like we know he's understandable. We

1:19:37

know him at tradies was getting

1:19:39

unpredictable because they lead by the heart and they're

1:19:41

kind of, you know, more dangerous in some way.

1:19:43

Might be slightly good at times. Right.

1:19:46

Exactly. And yeah, on big time

1:19:48

scale, the life of an individual

1:19:50

matters, not for etc. Blah,

1:19:53

blah, blah. Alex,

1:19:56

what's your lesson? Yeah. I

1:19:59

think all these were talking. about tying into my lesson, which

1:20:01

is, you know, you mentioned,

1:20:03

Michael, what is part one about? You

1:20:05

know, and I think what is

1:20:08

remarkable about part one in hindsight now

1:20:10

is how many seeds are planted there.

1:20:13

They didn't pay off in that movie, but

1:20:15

right from the beginning, these visions

1:20:17

Paul is having are horrifying

1:20:19

him. And

1:20:22

you send you those early scenes in part

1:20:24

one where the Reverend Mother comes and visits

1:20:26

and her exchange with Lady Jessica. You know,

1:20:28

she says we have other prospects, you know,

1:20:30

and she's she's upset about this candidate

1:20:34

even being created because it's in this House of

1:20:36

Trades, which they're planning to eliminate because they're kind

1:20:38

of out of control. So I think

1:20:40

it's just it's really fun. Once again, I want to

1:20:42

watch it all in one sitting in that Lord of

1:20:44

the Rings marathon way because it does feel like even

1:20:47

though these movies were made one at a time, I can

1:20:50

tell the Geneva did the work to

1:20:52

think about what's coming next all

1:20:55

the way to part three because, you know, I've

1:20:58

heard a lot about this, that Doom Messiah

1:21:00

is really what gets into this horror

1:21:03

of the monomyth and the kind of dark

1:21:05

side of the monomyth in a clearer way

1:21:07

than the original book. And

1:21:10

and part of Frank Herbert's reason for writing Doom

1:21:12

Messiah was because people were interpreting

1:21:14

the first book as kind of

1:21:16

just this wholly positive monomyth story

1:21:18

of the young boy

1:21:20

growing up, everyone. Yeah. And

1:21:22

so I think it's like taking it as literal as like,

1:21:24

oh, it's a good thing. And

1:21:26

so I think it's a really clever idea to instead of

1:21:29

just taking the first book in

1:21:31

isolation and adapting it as

1:21:33

if nothing else came after it, actually looking

1:21:35

at the entire dune canon and

1:21:38

figuring out the author's intent that

1:21:40

even came after the original text

1:21:42

and then retroactively making

1:21:44

it all fit together. So that that's why

1:21:46

I do feel like, yes, every

1:21:49

movie they've been saying, but I know if we're

1:21:51

thinking of another one, but it's like he

1:21:54

didn't even know it really feels like

1:21:56

he's intended to make a trilogy this

1:21:58

entire time because so much. much of

1:22:00

what is in these first two movies is like

1:22:02

taken from Dude Messiah. And it feels

1:22:04

like that's where we've been heading this entire time from

1:22:06

the beginning. So I

1:22:08

guess that that's my lesson is like if you're

1:22:11

going to adapt material like

1:22:13

a series of books, a series of material, like it

1:22:15

is good to know where you want to end. You

1:22:19

know, think about other adaptations like Game of Thrones. They

1:22:21

didn't know where they were ending and then they just

1:22:23

kind of winged it is what

1:22:25

it feels like. And it does really

1:22:27

feel like he knows where he wants to end

1:22:29

with this trilogy. And

1:22:31

I am sad we're going to

1:22:33

wait a while for it, but I'm excited to

1:22:36

see if that ending can maybe finally give me

1:22:38

the satisfaction I'm missing from these first

1:22:40

two movies, because I really do like

1:22:43

endings like endings that stick to landing.

1:22:45

I really love the needle. And that was not

1:22:47

always great with endings in any of his movies.

1:22:49

I think a rival probably is the one that

1:22:51

hits the hardest because of the emotional power of

1:22:54

a rival sending. And

1:22:56

I just I have

1:22:58

many hopes. I have a lot of hopes for this movie.

1:23:00

I still have more hopes for the Doom part three that

1:23:03

he can kind of like tie

1:23:05

one and two together and bring

1:23:08

it home in a way that, yeah, this movie did not

1:23:10

do. I was expecting that from this

1:23:12

movie, to be honest, like you, Brian, going in. This

1:23:14

is going to be the end of a story. Do

1:23:16

Messiah is like an epilogue or just a kind of

1:23:18

a side story. No, I

1:23:20

feel like we're waiting until that movie for this

1:23:22

closure. And I need the catharsis, God damn it.

1:23:24

So right. I really hope we get it. This

1:23:27

is how they control you. Oh,

1:23:30

right. It's true. Dude, this

1:23:33

is a quick side note. I I

1:23:36

need to join this Michael Tucker school of not

1:23:38

watching trailers because I watched it just earlier. I

1:23:41

was like, yeah. Yeah.

1:23:43

Well, the third, the final trailer for

1:23:45

this movie is everything. Everything. It's the

1:23:47

it's every meaningful moment of this

1:23:49

movie. I did not watch that one. However,

1:23:52

I did watch the first two trailers and I

1:23:54

regret it because I saw enough images

1:23:56

that if I had seen them in the context of the

1:23:58

movie, they would have had more power. And

1:24:02

but it's just so hard man when you're looking for to

1:24:04

for to movie this much But

1:24:07

Michael is so is so rigorous about

1:24:09

his trailer avoidance Like he's the one

1:24:11

literally covering his ears and eyes and

1:24:14

like it in the theater for yeah

1:24:16

Making making sounds to himself as a

1:24:18

trailer plays so he can't talk and

1:24:20

it's going out. It's just extreme discipline

1:24:23

Yeah I

1:24:26

need to get some of that for doom par 3

1:24:28

cuz I did I did rob myself of some of

1:24:30

the experiences We're gonna clip this and send it to

1:24:32

you in there. Please please But

1:24:35

I love trailers. It's so hard But

1:24:37

dude part 2 has made so much

1:24:39

money already like it is doing very

1:24:41

very well Yeah, it seems assured

1:24:44

that we will get doing part 3 so we

1:24:46

will yeah talk to you Talk

1:24:48

again. Yeah, no, it's like guaranteed to

1:24:51

happen The only person that may

1:24:53

delay it is Geneva. No, because he's exhausted of

1:24:55

doing doing stuff I mean, yes,

1:24:57

it does seem very hot and

1:25:00

you're moving a cliffhanger. They'd be like I

1:25:03

know it's like come on man. Be ready to go

1:25:05

if you're gonna end it that way Yeah, see it's

1:25:07

like I don't know that it's that much of a

1:25:10

cliffhanger to me like it feels like Like

1:25:12

it feels like it properly walks both

1:25:15

lines to me It's like this is the end

1:25:17

of a story you can project forward enough

1:25:20

to understand the meaning And

1:25:22

it could also be setting up a continued

1:25:24

thing, but I don't know that I need more

1:25:26

honestly There's like a begin

1:25:28

the Clone Wars has lied, you know from

1:25:34

She's got that line Paul is evil

1:25:37

like Zendaya is miserable like you want

1:25:39

that to be the ending of Father

1:25:42

ending right? I feel like thematically if which is

1:25:44

now what I wear a Star Wars movie And

1:25:46

it's disturbing and upsetting but it's really it is

1:25:48

interesting that we got a guy father But again

1:25:51

if we had spent these two movies getting like

1:25:53

earning that ending I agree, but it's but it

1:25:55

was like we spent 30

1:25:58

minutes tops kind of being like this is

1:26:00

where this story is going after the last

1:26:02

five hours. Yeah, they're an

1:26:04

interesting movie pair. I feel like

1:26:07

I like going back

1:26:10

or picturing myself rewatching these, I'm sort of

1:26:12

like, why would I watch part one? Like

1:26:14

everything happens in part two, which is kind

1:26:16

of weird. But that kind of

1:26:18

takes me into my lesson,

1:26:20

which is so we didn't really talk about the

1:26:22

spectacle aspect of film and

1:26:24

somehow no. Yeah, there's a

1:26:26

lot going on of these.

1:26:29

But I think these are excellent

1:26:32

examples of how powerful

1:26:35

the spectacle aspect of a movie experience

1:26:37

is. And I

1:26:40

often try to do this thing where when

1:26:42

evaluating how much of an effect

1:26:44

something has, you turn

1:26:47

the dial down to 0%, see if it

1:26:49

makes a difference, turn the dial to 100%, see if it makes

1:26:51

a difference. Watching Dune

1:26:53

on a screen the size

1:26:55

of your fingernail, it

1:26:57

would not be a good experience, right? So

1:27:00

you have to have it kind of big enough. Watching it on

1:27:02

the screen the size of the earth where your feet were

1:27:04

just a single color, you couldn't tell what's going on. Too

1:27:07

big, too small. So size obviously matters,

1:27:09

right? There's some zone in which we

1:27:12

need to comprehend what's

1:27:14

happening, obviously. But

1:27:16

it's weird to think that like, is that

1:27:18

your lesson? Where's it going? I'm

1:27:21

so curious. Are you saying iMac screen

1:27:23

is a good size for this movie?

1:27:25

I will say we walked out of

1:27:27

Dune Part 2 and we were talking

1:27:29

about this very thing and I

1:27:32

said, you know, I was not impressed watching Dune

1:27:34

Part 1 on my TV. But

1:27:37

think about the first time you saw The Matrix. It

1:27:39

was probably like on your friend's like

1:27:41

basement TV, pretty small, right? Like for

1:27:43

a lot of us. And

1:27:46

the power of the story was so strong that

1:27:48

it didn't matter what screen you were watching it

1:27:50

on. Right. But

1:27:53

we can all agree. There are movies you should not

1:27:55

watch on a plane. Like there are movies you should

1:27:57

not watch like in certain settings.

1:28:00

So I think that's where

1:28:02

Michael is going with the...

1:28:04

Yeah. Like I said,

1:28:06

when we were walking, I was like, if

1:28:08

you've only seen Jurassic Park on your phone,

1:28:10

have you seen Jurassic Park? Right? Yeah. Right.

1:28:14

Right. Like, inextricable aspect

1:28:16

of the movie experience is

1:28:19

like spectacle. And I

1:28:21

think it's just really interesting, like, watching the

1:28:23

sliders go back and forth on how big

1:28:25

do you need it for it to be

1:28:27

spectacle? And what's the trade

1:28:29

off if on the other side of that is

1:28:31

TV shows? So like limited

1:28:34

series, like True Detective. I've never seen True

1:28:36

Detective in a theater on

1:28:38

an IMAX screen. But it

1:28:40

was still a cinematic, cool experience for

1:28:42

me, getting to see a

1:28:44

story told in this episodic format

1:28:46

where you can do the fractal thing that you

1:28:49

were talking about, Brian, where you can macro...

1:28:52

He's talking about season one. Sorry.

1:28:54

Yes. Right. Sorry.

1:28:57

I assumed that would go without saying, but it... True Detective. True

1:29:00

Detective. True Detective. Or The

1:29:02

Crown or any of these things where like

1:29:04

on TV you can tell these stories that

1:29:07

I think Dune honestly would be great to

1:29:09

act like thinking about these things that happen

1:29:11

in Dune, seeing

1:29:13

it across four or five

1:29:15

hour long episodes, I

1:29:18

think would be amazing. But then

1:29:20

you don't have the spectacle. And so I

1:29:22

think Dune is just a really interesting example

1:29:25

to play with those sliders in your brain.

1:29:28

And part of me is wondering if we're getting

1:29:30

toward a future where the line

1:29:32

between TV and cinema

1:29:34

is blurring a little bit.

1:29:36

Like is there a world

1:29:38

in which you could see a limited series

1:29:40

in a theater? Like is there... Will

1:29:43

the economics change such that you could

1:29:45

have a Dune TV series, you could

1:29:47

watch it in a theater? Are people's

1:29:49

home theaters getting big enough that that

1:29:52

spectacle is there and it's not... It

1:29:54

doesn't make these epic directors

1:29:56

vomit to think about them watching on

1:29:58

their... You can't watch this movie on... You

1:30:00

must see it in IMAX, projective, presenting, blah,

1:30:02

blah, blah. Well, you need to watch

1:30:04

if you haven't seen the video of the

1:30:07

original Dune director, David Lynch, talking about

1:30:10

watching a movie on your iPhone. Just

1:30:13

Google that. It's great. Thank

1:30:15

you later. And then even things

1:30:17

with VR and Apple Fizzer

1:30:19

Pro, all these new ways of

1:30:22

watching things on big screens at

1:30:25

home. And I'm

1:30:27

excited about the future that maybe we're

1:30:29

getting into as people are realizing like

1:30:31

TV and what it can do for

1:30:33

a story is amazing. But spectacle is

1:30:35

also amazing. Can we

1:30:38

keep pushing toward each

1:30:40

other in some way? Because I think there's

1:30:42

maybe this amazing new middle

1:30:44

medium that we're moving toward. Maybe

1:30:47

we have to sacrifice billions of people before we

1:30:49

get there. But it'll be worth it when we

1:30:52

do. I

1:30:54

mean, honestly, if I could

1:30:56

I would pay IMAX all

1:30:58

the money to watch

1:31:00

like six Dune movies in

1:31:02

IMAX that told like the complete story

1:31:04

with all the world building and all

1:31:07

the characters that had like a better

1:31:09

structure. I would pay that money for like

1:31:11

six years in a row. No problem. You

1:31:13

know, like if anybody had the stamina or the

1:31:15

money or the inclination to do that, like like

1:31:18

people, I think people would watch an

1:31:21

episodic version of this trilogy.

1:31:24

No problem. So it's just

1:31:26

our models don't fit that yet. But

1:31:30

I want them to. So that's my

1:31:32

lesson. Push toward these new

1:31:34

models. Indeed,

1:31:37

Michael. There is another.

1:31:41

What else have you guys been watching? So next we're going

1:31:44

to talk about Fargo. Look forward

1:31:46

to that. It's really fun. In the meantime, what have

1:31:48

you guys been watching? Tricia, what have you been watching

1:31:50

recently? I wanted

1:31:52

to pick something epic in scale to

1:31:54

share with you guys. So I've been

1:31:57

watching our planet too. Netflix,

1:32:00

which is a nature documentary. It's

1:32:02

the second season of that doc

1:32:05

on Netflix. Of course,

1:32:07

with David Attenborough. It's

1:32:09

just beautiful, sweeping, like

1:32:11

here's all the animals, here's

1:32:14

the earth, and all

1:32:16

the things that you don't know are

1:32:18

going on on our planet. And

1:32:20

it's great. It's really great. It

1:32:23

has some of the environmental themes

1:32:26

of Dune, but

1:32:29

with all

1:32:31

of the poignancy of being here on our

1:32:34

planet. And it will never cease

1:32:36

to amaze me how much we can

1:32:38

relate to just like a seagull sitting

1:32:40

on an island, like waiting for or

1:32:42

an albatross, I guess is what I'm

1:32:44

thinking of, like, if you've seen it, but

1:32:47

there's there's a whole sequence

1:32:50

about albatross. And it's

1:32:54

just, we as

1:32:57

humans have the capacity

1:32:59

to, and the inclination

1:33:02

to assign like human drama to

1:33:05

everything that goes on on this planet. There's

1:33:07

this evolutionary ecological mindset that

1:33:09

we get into. And so watching

1:33:11

this stuff just like is

1:33:13

incredible. And

1:33:15

it's, you know, filmed in the best possible

1:33:18

way it could ever be. It's like so

1:33:20

artfully put together, well narrated, feels

1:33:23

like this big sweeping story. And

1:33:25

yeah, strongly recommend our planet

1:33:28

to I have

1:33:30

not seen those, but I will add planet

1:33:32

Earth three exists and has aired and is

1:33:34

absolutely incredible. 97 year old David

1:33:37

Attenborough just walking around doing his

1:33:39

thing. Badass. Yeah, never

1:33:41

die. What a hunk. But uh,

1:33:44

but yeah, I would love to

1:33:47

talk about these from a storytelling

1:33:49

standpoint. Because there's always a protagonist.

1:33:51

Yep. And the protagonist is

1:33:53

either the predator or the prey, but

1:33:55

you are trained to root for them.

1:33:57

So so it's like a little, you know, bird

1:34:00

who's trying to run away from a snake, you're like,

1:34:02

go bird, go. But then in the next segment, it's

1:34:04

like, oh, it's this gator who's trying to kill all

1:34:07

these like, deer. You're like, great. All right. The gator's

1:34:09

going to like hide and he's going to hide out

1:34:11

and then snap. Like, great, that's awesome. So this sort

1:34:13

of, as we've talked about with the killer and Killers

1:34:15

the Flower Moon and Breaking Bad, it's like we're kind

1:34:18

of trained to be like rooting for the protagonist and

1:34:20

we have to like fight for that part of, we

1:34:22

have to fight against that part of our brain when

1:34:24

the protagonist is like, not actually a good person. You're

1:34:26

like, oh, wait, what do I do? Or in the

1:34:29

case of a nature documentary, not a mammal. Not

1:34:31

a great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good point,

1:34:33

mammal. Yeah. Really

1:34:36

human. I mean, and that's honestly like part

1:34:38

of the spectacle conversation if we ever have

1:34:40

it. But I was for sure I was

1:34:42

thinking about like fireworks shows, things that are

1:34:44

pure spectacle. Even those have like a shape

1:34:47

to them. You want it kind of to

1:34:49

go slow and then it gets a little

1:34:51

bit more fun and then it goes away

1:34:53

and then it's like big story.

1:34:55

Like there's something even when the pure spectacle,

1:34:58

we want some narrative shape. And so again,

1:35:00

those slides are really interesting. Brian,

1:35:04

what else have you been watching besides Planet Earth 3? Well,

1:35:08

since it's Oscar weekend, when many of you

1:35:10

will be listening to this episode, I wanted

1:35:13

to talk about American fiction because

1:35:15

I love it. And I, you

1:35:18

know, it's nominated for Best Picture. So obviously it's been

1:35:20

getting some hype, but I feel like not a lot

1:35:22

of people are talking about it. And it's

1:35:25

just it's great. It's really smart. It's really

1:35:27

funny. It's Jeffrey Wright as a stick

1:35:30

in the mud condescending writer who has

1:35:32

contempt for what the masses consider popular,

1:35:35

but then no one wants to

1:35:37

publish his work because he's not doing like

1:35:39

mainstream stuff, right? So it's very much like

1:35:41

an adaptation Charlie versus Donald kind of thing

1:35:43

going on in this movie. And

1:35:47

Jeffrey Wright, I feel like he's one of those

1:35:49

actors who he, as we talked about

1:35:51

interacting episode, he used to do all these really

1:35:54

different roles like Basquiat

1:35:56

or even the Shaft movie. He's incredible.

1:36:00

that movie has like a weirdly good cast. But

1:36:02

then it's like lately he's just become the

1:36:05

sort of scowling like whether it's Bond or

1:36:07

Westworld he's just like I'm here to tell

1:36:09

you that you shouldn't be here. And

1:36:12

he is so so so three-dimensional in

1:36:15

this movie. He plays a character that's

1:36:17

sort of like one-dimensional in description but

1:36:19

then he adds so much dimensionality to

1:36:21

it in his performance and it's great.

1:36:25

And it's a movie that's like racially smart

1:36:27

like it's like with Barbie and Poor Things

1:36:30

where we talked about it's like these movies

1:36:32

that are like about the thing but without

1:36:34

being like ham-fisted or saying the thing that

1:36:36

we were saying 10 years ago about that

1:36:38

thing. It's like what's the next part of

1:36:40

that conversation like get out for instance like

1:36:42

what what haven't we really kind of gotten

1:36:44

into yet. And

1:36:46

then Tracy Ellis Ross is in it, Sterling

1:36:48

K. Brown is incredible as always and Issa

1:36:50

Rae and just like a bunch of other

1:36:52

people in the cast. So it's just I

1:36:54

really loved it and if you haven't checked it

1:36:56

out yet. People

1:36:58

are always all talking about like the three movies that might

1:37:00

win and then like how much

1:37:02

my store won't win and they're not

1:37:05

talking about the movies in the middle.

1:37:07

So I wanted to shout out American

1:37:09

Pictures. Cool. All

1:37:11

right. Alex, what about you? I

1:37:14

watched a documentary called Grounded 2, The

1:37:16

Making of Last of Us Part 2.

1:37:19

Oh. And

1:37:23

PlayStation Sony is known for kind

1:37:26

of randomly making really

1:37:28

good documentaries about their games and

1:37:31

so this is a documentary about the

1:37:33

developer Naughty Dog creating Last of Us

1:37:35

Part 2 the

1:37:38

game and it's a really all

1:37:40

these documentaries are so interesting to me even before

1:37:42

I was working in games just

1:37:44

as a filmmaker as a creator just

1:37:47

watching people put

1:37:50

everything into a massive

1:37:52

project and all these

1:37:54

documentaries kind of go through the process

1:37:56

of like revealing the trailers

1:37:59

games to the public and seeing the

1:38:01

reaction of the public and the pressure and the

1:38:03

excitement. And as a

1:38:05

creator, I have an emotional journey on

1:38:07

these documentaries with like a empathy

1:38:10

with the people making them. And then

1:38:13

this gets into like the horror, too,

1:38:15

of like toxic fandom and like people

1:38:17

like threatening your life because of a

1:38:19

story choice or, you know, an act.

1:38:22

I think your character did, but you as an actor

1:38:24

are now like your families being

1:38:26

threatened. It's a really

1:38:29

interesting look at just like the moment

1:38:31

we're in with like media and fandom

1:38:33

and the Internet and how people

1:38:35

consume things and take things way too far. And

1:38:39

also just the creative journey and and

1:38:41

also the video game industry. And, you know, how

1:38:44

do we like do this

1:38:46

sustainably because these projects are so

1:38:48

massive and so overwhelming? It's

1:38:50

just like, can we keep doing this even? So,

1:38:53

yeah, grounded to very interesting free

1:38:55

documentary on YouTube. Yeah,

1:38:57

it's great. And they're just one of the smartest things

1:38:59

they do is they have a little graphic at the

1:39:01

bottom of the screen that's like, here's what month and

1:39:03

year it is. And here's the month and year the

1:39:05

game is going to come out. But

1:39:08

it's when the game is going to come out

1:39:10

as of that time in the documentary. So

1:39:13

you watch the graphics start to go. No,

1:39:16

no, maybe another. So you get to

1:39:18

like the the pain of the

1:39:20

delays and the choices they have to make. And,

1:39:22

you know, for the greater good and everything. Yeah,

1:39:24

it's great. That's cool. Hearts

1:39:27

of darkness, but for video games. Yeah,

1:39:30

totally. Michael, what have

1:39:32

you been watching? Yeah, so I was trying to decide

1:39:34

if I wanted to like say something

1:39:36

smart or say what I've actually been watching. And

1:39:39

I'm going to say what I've actually been watching.

1:39:41

I've been watching Community again, the TV show, which

1:39:43

I watched once and adored after hearing people tell

1:39:45

me like you would love it. Like you would

1:39:48

love it. I watched it and I loved it.

1:39:50

And then it got kind of bad towards the

1:39:52

end. It felt different. And so I ended up

1:39:54

not finishing it. So this time I watched it

1:39:57

all again and went all the way through the

1:39:59

finish and enjoyed it. I appreciate

1:40:01

it even more watching it again. It's

1:40:03

a fascinating

1:40:06

meta, like

1:40:09

taking that perspective, watching it,

1:40:11

knowing kind of where things end up and

1:40:13

kind of the drama behind the scenes. The

1:40:16

show starts in a very,

1:40:19

it seems like it thinks it's going to

1:40:21