We’re still working on getting a regular schedule going, and even though this was meant to be a shorter episode specifically for the Dune II synopsis, we end up chatting about Denis Villeneuve’s next entry in the apparently ongoing saga of Timothee Chalamet’s conquest of the universe and our hearts.
Tom hasn’t watched Little Women???
And Florence Pugh was in Little Women too.
Tom, they say “Fight the Empire” in Andor, not “fuck the Empire.” They were going to say “fuck” but changed it in production, because of their time machine they used to jump ahead and listen to this podcast.
Also, Paul shrieks “shit!” when he and his fellow droogs are attacking the non-Gurney harvester and he gets shot at. That’s some strong language, but only a long slow “fuuuuuck” penetrates the PG-13 shield.
Thanks for the podcast, guys, it’s always a pleasure to hear a new one.
This will be addressed. I did see Barbie, though! Twice!
Pop quiz, hotshots! Is this from Penthouse or a Nolan movie?
Ah, thanks for the correction! I disliked most of Andor, so that’s my bad for confusing conversations about Andor with Andor itself. I knew it was the “fuck” inflection point for Star Wars, but didn’t remember that they’d backed down at the last minute.
And if I recall correctly, wasn’t the Star Trek f-bomb just some innocent little comment? I seem to recall it was fan-favorite Tilly saying something like “science is fuckin’ awesome”. Oh, Star Trek, you’re just so coy!
That’s what earned the “brief strong language” tag? A single S-bomb? Holy cats.
It reminds me a bit of La La Land, which got an PG-13 rating from Emma Stone having this throwaway line to Gosling: “Fuck 'em if they can’t take a joke! Isn’t that what you always say?”
He literally never says that in La La Land. It’s as if they put the line in there so they wouldn’t get a dreaded PG rating and be mistaken for family fare!
Feyd Rautha was awesome, you take that back!
The actor changed his voice to try and sound more like the Baron, and he had presence. Did he look like someone that the populace would follow? No. But he’s in a family that kills underlings at will, it is what it is, guess people care less about that sort of thing in this Dune.
There’s a whole episode of why you dislike Andor that I need to hear about.
Like. 
I read that, too! I’m not sure I believe it. It sounded to me like his voice was digitally altered to sound more like Stellan Skarsgard. That’s certainly a choice, but why not just cast a Skargard in the first place??!?!???
#NotMyFeyd
Butler was fine, but he’s no Sting, and I’ll forever cast Bill in my mind! :) Besides, I already felt like the Harkonnens were kind of defanged by Bautista being such a big teddy bear. Me being unimpressed with yet another Austin Butler appearance didn’t help matters.
It is the year of our Lord 2024, so, digital trickery is always to be expected, but since he has a history of doing that sort of thing, famously not sounding like himself after doing the Elvis movie, I’m willing to believe.
When I become God Emperor, I shall decree that all prophecies are written by Kelly Wand.
I really didn’t feel like this ended on a cliffhanger–not the same way as Part I. Of course, I knew that Part III was planned (and also how the book ends), so I wasn’t expecting a tidy bow on everything. If the two movies are about if and how Paul gets drawn into becoming a catastrophic figure in galactic-historical events, then I think we saw that story. And we know how he moved from conflicted about that to embracing it, and where Jessica and Chani stand on the outcome. It’s ambivalent for us as viewers, as far as discerning whether it’s a good or bad thing, but that’s the point.
I don’t think the alignment of the other Houses against Paul is an important new plot development that is hanging unresolved–it tells us that the political order of the universe has changed, that Arrakis won’t be liberated peacefully, and that the jihad will continue. Paul has not brought peace, but probably the slaughter that he has foreseen… but what else was he supposed to do? He is the Duke Atreides; he is the Lisan al-Gaib; he is the Kwisatz Haderach.
Ah, that’s an excellent point! I might have to chalk this one up as a win for Butler. : )
Maybe if I swap out “cliffhanger” for “unresolved”?
But my issue is with the ending feeling like escalation instead of resolution. But however we felt about the ending, and even about the degree of resolution, I think we can all agree that Villeneuve was setting the stage for MOAR DUNE. That’s my complaint: the finale revealed that Part II wasn’t the conclusion of a story, but was instead the launching a franchise. To me, that was an abrupt, unwelcome, and slightly cruel surprise.
Well, it is based on a book series. I read four when I was a kid, and they surge thousands of years into the future and go all over the place with new factions and the descendants of various worm-human hybrids, so I was just looking for something that felt like how the first book ended, with Leto avenged, kind of, and Paul in clear control based on his actions and framing.
I saw it as a Godfather ending, with Paul seemingly renouncing love for power or duty or destiny, depending on how you choose to define those terms.
I get where you’re coming from, Tom. It didn’t feel resolved, like Godfather (he even says she’ll be onboard eventually). But in the books, nothing ever resolves, things just continue in new forms. Which in a weird way I kind of like. I admire their strangeness and cosmic detachment.
Should I pick up “Heretics” 30 years later?
That makes sense, if that’s the way it felt to you. To me, it did basically feel like a resolution and not an escalation. It’s possible that’s because of extrinsic information, like my basic familiarity with how the book and the other adaptations of the story end, I suppose.
At the same time, if the story of the two films is about if and how Paul will get drawn into becoming a catastrophic galactic-historical figure, then at the end of Dune Pt II, have seen that story. He is the Duke Atreides; he is the Lisan al-Gaib; he is the Kwisatz Haderach. Likewise, the Harkonnen and the Emperor are the betrayers of the Atreides from the beginning, and they are crushed. The other houses aren’t antagonists of the same order; they just signify that war will continue, Arrakis will not be so easily liberated, and Paul’s visions of the future are likely to come true in some regard. Dramatically, I think this reads more as a denouement than rising tension.
What a treat! I’m so delighted you guys covered this movie.
Tom, you are disappointed that this movie feels like it’s launching a franchise. But I interpreted it as the middle story of an epic trilogy. And it just left me super excited for the finale. I can’t imagine Villeneuve would want to take it any further than three movies. I trust him to wrap it up properly. (If WB wants to keep squeezing blood from the stone after the trilogy, that’s on them.)
Woo! Surprise Dunecast!
“franchise” is, I think, a bit strong, since Villeneuve wanted to do three movies if he could - and since that long-announced Netflix prequel show still has not hit, I don’t think Legendary will bleed Dune dry. Well. Not without fucking it up.
I do wish the movie had been a bit more explicit about just how important spice is, and what Paul’s thread to destroy it really means - I read the book(s), I get it, but I don’t think it plays for general audiences.
e: woops, Paxton made my franchise/trilogy point already, just above
e2: whoa, dark-haired Florence Pugh? Looks like I’ll have to watch Oppenheimer after all
So to those of you pushing back against my disappointment, maybe you can remind me what the last line of Dune: Part II is? Perhaps that might shed some light on why I felt there was a lack of resolution, much like I felt when the previous movie ended with the words “this is just the beginning”.
I’ll give you a hint: it involves the word “begin”. : )
Glad the ending worked for some of you. I wish I could say the same! I freely concede it’s a “me” issue, though, as I’m not really interested in franchises or IPs or stealth trilogies these days. I mean, jeeze, if you want to dig into the Eternals thread, it’s one of the reasons I enjoyed that silly thing so much: it was self-contained! It wasn’t asking me to wait a year to find out what happens, or to watch a TV show to fill in the gaps, or to go read the books from fifty years ago. I guess I’m just at the age where I prefer my entertainment not be open-ended.
Didn’t a bunch of the Eternals get kidnapped at the end of Eternals? And the kid from One Direction arbitrarily show up drunk?
