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The Nextlander Watchcast 049: Dune (1984)
🕑 Added 2023-06-12 21:49:18 +0000 UTCWe're midway through David Lynch month on the Watchcast, and this episode is positively drenched in desert power as we tackle the director's incredibly ambitious and profoundly messy adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune!
CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) - NOTE: Some timecodes may be inaccurate in versions other than the ad-free Patreon version due to dynamic ad insertions. Please use caution if skipping around to avoid spoilers. Thanks for listening.
(00:00:20) - Intro.
(00:01:38) - Our film this week: Dune! And our individual experiences with the novel and its terminology.
(00:08:17) - The long confusing history of how Dune made it to the screen.
(00:15:47) - Enter: David Lynch.
(00:29:44) - OK, this movie has a lot of problems, but let's talk about what it does well.
(00:33:42) - Getting into the abundance of set-up for the story.
(00:39:43) - Trying to untangle the whole Bene Geserit thing.
(00:45:22) - A brief bit on Patrick Stewart, and some other performances.
(00:48:20) - On the subject of Paul.
(00:51:41) - Break!
(00:52:00) - We're back, and we're talkin' Harkonnens and traitors.
(01:00:02) - The Atreides' arrival.
(01:05:25) - Dr. Wellington has a plan.
(01:09:11) - We are officially off the rails.
(01:14:00) - And here! Come! The Fremen!
(01:19:16) - Steamed Fayd.
(01:23:25) - What if a training montage was like half a movie.
(01:27:25) - Bah gawd King, that's the Emperor's music!
(01:31:06) - This galactic empire kind of sucks at fighting. Also Paul is now Space Jesus.
(01:36:49) - Final thoughts.
(01:43:41) - Outro.
Comments
Daniel
In terms of the "was David Lynch a hot commodity" question, Eraserhead was groundbreaking at the time, akin to Halloween and Clerks in their respective genre definition. It might not have been commercially successful, but in terms of artistic clout it was way up there.
Paul Fierce
Dune books 1-4 liker here. I have nostalgia for this movie and it's 3 hr version, I mostly just love the look of it now. I enjoy both sci-fi channel miniseries of books 1-3. Also really liked the new movie (part 1). All adaptations lose context for many minute details such as the year being 10,000 of the spacing guild - which is really about 20,000 our calendar. This movie has the most deviation of Paul being a literal chosen one with rain bringing powers where as it's the opposite in the books and the chosen one is a false prophecy seeded by the bene geserit (among other false prophecies) to be taken advantage of. His name being a killing word is because when he's emperor there is a great culling and war in his name across the planets - which is exactly what he sought to prevent his premonitions - but leads right to it. Also for Brad, the mentats are human computers because AI is outlawed because of something called the Butlarian Jihad which the eventual post-frank herbert novels described as a terminator like scenario.
