14: Dune: Part Two

The Monte Hall Effect

In this episode the guys take on 2024's Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part Two" and ponder bitless podcast starts, sequels, the Denis Villeneuve oeuvre, telegraphing the beginning of Dune Messiah, giving a giant middle finger to Joseph Campbell (thanks to Haris Durrani's discussion of this topic on Our Opinions Are Correct), Part 2 being Chani's movie, Ellen Ripley vs Chani haters, film faithfulness to source novels, Tim points out yet again that he was able to hang out with Roger Ebert a whole bunch back in the day, Tola briefly arguing that Fight Club (book and film) glorify fascism but then letting the issue drop, the Dune novel being really long, the rise of the House of Saud, Jordanian film boosterism, critiquing desert gear, the back history of the Fremen, obscuring mythology versus prophecy, the genius of Charlotte Rampling, misuse of stillsuits, Tola and Tim waste time calculating orders of magnitude of volumes of water, Stilgar as Morpheus, true belief vs Machiavellianism, a brief glimpse of Anya Taylor-Joy, side quests, targeting the poor, sand snorkels, lasers vs shields, the ever present ghost of the David Lynch Dune film, conveying disgustingness without resorting to homophobia, rivers of blood and mountains of skulls, Paul's evolving attitude towards theocracy and genocide, riding the worm (in 1983 vs 2024), a xenobiological assessment of Arrakis ecology, Christopher Walken's thespian choices, missing the Guild navigators, the challenge of Giedi Prime tourism, optimizing your bureaucracy, Frank Herbert and his persistent obsession with magical coochies, sacrificial idiots, artistry vs goodness vs happiness, the transformative power of pragmatism, Chekhov's Nuclear Warhead, understanding partner comment context, stupid tech bros and their stupid drugs, Timothée Chalamet hitting it out of the park, cold reading, Polish Sejm as historical precursor for the Landsraad, photogenic nuclear bombs, facing giant death worms, Tola's nerd questions for Tim about women and swords, the utter no-contestedness of Sardaukar facing Fremen, becoming Harkonnen, movie Chani vs book Chani, shaking off a kidney knife puncture, confusion in the last five minutes (a la Primer), nothingburger secret reveals, Galactic population estimates, ending it all with Chani as audience proxy, Chekhov's Florence Pugh, and another shout out to the great SciFi channel Dune miniseries. Final score: Science (60%), Fiction (85%), Film (97%). Next up: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where Tola revisits his childhood!