Midweek Mention... Dune: Part 2

Sidey - Dune Part 2

Sidey: June part two. Did you, you've seen it, right?

Pete: I have seen it.

Sidey: you seen it in the multiplex?

Pete: I haven't. No,

Sidey: either. I saw part one at the local multiplex, but I didn't see part two

Pete: didn't see. I have seen one, but I didn't see it at the cinema either.

Sidey: have to say, I think it does lend itself to being seen on the biggest screen possible because it's a lot of sand and you really can't take in, you know,

Pete: Quite how much sand

Sidey: majesty of all of that sand on the home screen. Obviously we're taking We're picking this up after the events of June one.

Yeah. Which I can't II saw at the same. I haven't seen it since and but but we've helpfully we are met by a new character with Florence Pugh's character who's the emperor's daughter to give us a bit of backfill as she's doing her diary.

Pete: Yeah,

Sidey: does kind of give you some sort of catch up on what happened.

Yeah.

Pete: it's kind of like a, an exposition of, of where we're up to at this point, which is basically

Sidey: house of treaties

Pete: Atreides have been like, they've been hoodwinked by, by the

Sidey: they've been done in, and the Harken, the Harkening and. That essentially is the plot.

It's, it's a spice a drug. I mean, it's unclear, but it has a drug kind of effect on people.

Pete: have an effect on

Sidey: sort of even

Pete: this is what anything

Sidey: before anything happens, uh uh, the very opening shot is just, it's blackness and a strange vocal noise with a subtitle it says.

Control spice control

Pete: Yeah, I think that the main point being is it's the most sort of sought after like product in the universe because of the

Sidey: so rigidity

Pete: power intergalactic travel and

Sidey: so much like train spotting in a way.

Pete: exactly right. Yeah,

Sidey: all junkies for spice.

Pete: yeah, exactly. You get introduced early on. I mean, you referenced the daughter of the emperor, but the emperor himself is played by none other than Christopher Walken.

Sidey: In the most, I'm going to say it out of the gate, the most disappointing Christopher Walken performance of all time.

Pete: It, it's a hideous bit of casting really, because you've got a guy,

Sidey: You're waiting for some A. Epic bit of dialogue. Absolutely. And you never

Pete: it in, in, in his, in his true sort of Christopher Walken voice.

Sidey: watch this, watch

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: never get it.

Pete: You don't get it. And it, it really is a weird bit of casting because it just,

Sidey: the other thing about it is that I'm gonna liken it to Star Wars. Force Awakens and the second one, The Last Jedi, is it, is that the way they play out? And where they build up a big bad to be the big bad and it doesn't play out that way.

Yeah. And in this one, so House Atreides have been butchered and Paul?

Pete: Timothee

Sidey: Timothee Chalamet is now, he's knocking about with the Fremen. He was the heir to the house.

Pete: now

Sidey: He's now knocking about with Zendaya and all our cool mates in the

Pete: So you

Sidey: And they, they kind of, they're into him he's all in on Fremen, but they need him to prove his

Pete: Yeah, they're not all into him. It's just Javier Bardem, his

Sidey: character. There's a prophet,

Pete: Exactly. There's a prophecy. And I should probably know what Javier Bardem's character is called, but

Sidey: he's

Pete: he's one of the Fremen, but he's like a real true believer in it. And him and a sort of small faction of, of his like Fremen people are like, you know, they're like devout.

And they, they believe in, in

Sidey: like Neo, the one, the one, it's just the one, and this guy could be the one, and we need him to stand on a worm and ride that mofo, and then we'll know, and he fucking does do it, and it's really cool.

Pete: Absolutely. I

Sidey: Well maybe it's not, I don't know, I thought it was cool, because there's a lot going on on the screen. And it's hard to make stuff out. This is supposed to be, you know, a skyscraper sized worm going through the desert. And these guys have a couple of hooks that they get on the back of this fucker and they surf it.

Pete: Absolutely, yeah. Worm

Riders.

Sidey: when, he first tries to do it, he's out of his depth, but he's able to do it. And I guess there might be people watching it and going, this is silly. I was okay with it. I thought it

Pete: Yeah, I was, I was on board with it as well. I guess

Sidey: My friend at work thought it was out to bollocks.

Pete: I can understand why people think it's completely preposterous but in this kind of like universe, it's not the most like unbelievable thing. I mean, You know, you've got what's his name, Stelsgaard's character, the main

Sidey: So we, yeah, so we learn the Harkonnen dudes in, in the first film, it's been Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy. What's his name?

Pete: Oh, the, the, the wrestler. It's, it's escaping me. Somebody jump in.

Yes,

Sidey: Dave Bautista's character.

He'd been like a general in the army or whatever it was. But they've just got the upper hand on there every time. We see some really, really cool. These are the, my favorite bits of the whole film where the Fremen are able to outwit them. By hiding in the sand.

Pete: Well, it's kind of gorilla warfare, isn't it?

Sidey: I thought this was fucking great.

So they'll, they'll, the, the Harkonnen soldiers will be going out and these guys will just spring up out of nowhere and just fucking knife them and kill them. And they do some other stuff where they shoot ships down. And they seem to have an all powerful laser that they can Don't use that often, but when they do use it, it just fucking rips through whatever they point it at and fucking kills them.

Pete: Absolutely.

Sidey: They seem to be in a pretty good state of affairs. And then we learn that they're only doing this with about 200 soldiers. And the Harkonnens have hundreds of

Pete: But so the Harkonnens have got like tons and tons of technology and obviously you see like their planet and and you know everything that They have a ton of artillery But where the Fremen have the advantage is that this is on their home turf. They know exactly how

Sidey: play. Yeah. Like crocodile und too,

Pete: Exactly.

Exactly like

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: And, but you get like cool scenes as one where the, you know, like the harken and, you know, like underlings, the guys that sort of using their jet packs to kind of fly up away from like

Sidey: this, oh, I love

Pete: down they go they're, they're On like the, the dunes and then they fly up to like the top of the, this rock and they, they think that then they've got the vantage point and so on and then they're just getting picked off.

You don't even know where it's coming from and even when they then like descend and

land then they

Sidey: of the flying stuff, all of the flying stuff, even if it was just Baron Harkonnen, where he's just hovering and it's all silent, there's no like jetpack noise or anything like that.

I fucking love it. It's so stylized. And this entire film, because it's a long film It's super, super fucking stylized, and we're gonna get into it where Dave Bautista's character, he's been undermined, he's been unsuccessful in trying to get control of the Spice, and trying to get all these fucking Fremen, he's been told, you can get the fuck, but this is, it's all family, so he's not executed straight away like it was just another soldier, he's told, you can fuck off, but there's another guy, and it's Elvis.

Yeah. And he's, he looks so fucking cool. He's completely bald, no eyebrows, nothing. And when he goes out to fight in the gladiatorial arena, it's utter, utter style, you know, it's, they're told it's a black sun. And so all we see is black and white. He goes out and at first we, we learn that actually these are like rigged

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so ordinarily the scene is that he obviously goes out and fights and some, but in order to kind of like perpetuate this like Harkonnen oppressive like regime, this, this guy who's like the, the, the protege of the family would go out and have fights with people that they've like captured and like, you know, gladiators and warriors from other like races and, you know, planets and so on, but normally with the about a little bit like gladiator, you know, with like they send out your man, the gladiator Maximus, but with like, he's been jabbed in the ribs with a knife or whatever.

So they're normally weakened, but I think

Sidey: Well, not they're drugged, and he's got armor on, he's got his, like, f

Pete: yeah. So there's, and there's the, like, they've got these like protective shields and so on, but he turns his shield off.

Sidey: them's not been drugged and Baron Harkonnen is like no let's see what let's see what he's got let's see if he can do it and he does do it he he and to the extent that he turns his own armor off and he is still like there's nothing going to go on because there's three guards around them and when one of them tries to intervene he loses his with And so he wins that fight and he carries enough favor to be like the new number one and he's even more fucking ruthless than Dave

Pete: Well, yeah, he's, he's seen as being like completely unhinged. So they've, they've tried the, you know, the Batista route, which hasn't worked out. So they're sending in like the, the real like nut job of the family.

Sidey: But really it's business as usual they're still not clued up enough for that sort of guerrilla warfare so they're still losing

Pete: All the while what you've got is is, is Paul's mum. What's the actress's name? She's got like a, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like super hot. She's great in The Greatest Showman. So she has become Effectively like the like the, the mother superior of, of the,

Sidey: the Bene

Pete: yeah, exactly, of the, of like the, the, the Fremen kind of like, I guess, what would you call it, motherhood and, and how she's proven herself is she's sort of imbibed the, this kind of like green liquid, which is effectively meant to kill you.

And it's, it's like a, it's one of those like shit tests. It's like,

Sidey: It's the, it's the jizz from

Pete: From the worm but from from like the juvenile worms, they've got some

Sidey: we've been given

Pete: sand pit and they've milked these worms

Sidey: we've been given a whole load of shots of her unborn fetus.

Yeah. Showing that she's pregnant and so There's a there's a plot going alongside all of this. Actually it's these ladies who are sort of pulling all the strings alongside and there's the like you say it's not the mother's spear. I forget what the terminology they use but there's another one another older lady who and she says the Ben and Jesuit don't fight.

We plan and all of this stuff all everything that's going on is a long Plan. They're playing the long game. They've got plants in everywhere. Yeah. Of which Paul is one and Elvis is another

Pete: Yeah, they're almost like playing each other off like pawns in, in there like, you know, it's a political game. It's like a religious, religious motivated political game that they're playing. But I guess because Paul's mother has like now elevated herself to this kind of like position within the Fremen culture.

Paul is given a little bit more leeway and he's proven himself by becoming a worm rider. And now most of the doubters,

Sidey: He's also in love onboard. He's also in love with Zendaya.

Pete: Yeah, as we all are.

Sidey: Yeah. And there, there's been quite a few moments on top of sand dunes where they're in love. And I will never leave your side all that fucking lovey w bullshit. But I had already seen the fight so it culminates basically things happen and a lot of things progress because it's a long old movie, right?

But when, but this is, I think where it lets itself down a little bit in that we've got this Emperor character and he's, he arrives basically, he just turns up. And we see some pretty cool shots of his ship arriving through the atmosphere and it's like this gigantic chrome orb

Pete: orb.

Mm hmm.

Sidey: And baron harkonnen is summoned to see the emperor and I had because I had not read the books I had always assumed that baron harkonnen was the supreme

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like there was no one above him, yeah,

Sidey: thought he was like the emperor character from the start. I thought that was him. But no, he has to answer to, so he's almost like the Darth to the emperor and he has to go and see Christopher

Walken.

Pete: got, they've got designs of overthrowing the

Sidey: the emperor. Yeah,

Pete: because I think the Emperor is too passive. Yeah.

Sidey: which like he is, and he's Performance wise, it's really

Pete: Yeah, he's, he doesn't, he doesn't carry any kind of clout or status within the film at all. Albeit he's meant to be the, like the, the figurehead of the

Sidey: yeah and and and that is what you're showing on the screen because they have this summit meeting where he's on the throne and Florence Pugh, his daughter is standing there and there's the other Bene Jesuit lady and, Then the Emperor and he's calling Baron Harkness to tell us like why had why the fuck haven't you been able to get this place under wraps like this is your domain your, you know, you haven't been able to get these fucking little they call the rats don't they haven't get control of the rats and and all this.

And this really reminded me of the second new Star Wars film where it was Snope, Snoke,

Pete: Snoke, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sidey: Was the big bad, and they just fucking execute Baron Harkin and they, he's got some sort of breathing apparatus because he's a fucking enormous, like, slug character who's hovered around the place in these anti gravity things and they just fucking murder him on the steps.

But then you're like, okay, so it's It's Walken, who I love, but this is really subdued performance by him. I'm not getting like super evil. You know, I get that he's in charge and he's he's made some noises to his daughter about being worried about. Control of his empire and all that, but you just don't, I felt I didn't really pick up any kind of menace or presence about him in

Pete: No, and I think, I think the problem with the film was how the films portray because, you know, I've seen the original film, which is, which is far more kind of like just out there, like it's, you know, David Lynch.

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

it's a lot more.

Sidey: Lynch is in one movie. Yeah,

Pete: it is quite confusing and crackers but entertaining at the same time. But what they've done kind of over two movies and you're right to draw those kind of comparisons to the new like Star Wars, the latest Star Wars franchise because what it does is it builds up these like enemies.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: So like the Harkonnens if you look at it you've got Baptista who is is quite prominent and scary in the first one who immediately becomes undermined and like a pussycat you've then got baron harkin who as you say is is it's a great performance and he's a chilling sort of character right the way through up until the point in which he just gets offed walken doesn't bring a lot to the table in his role as the emperor and then we'll come on to

Sidey: well, he's even more, he's even more, because it culminates in a fight. It culminates in just a showdown in, in a, in an area. Little, small, little area where you've got the emperor and all his crew. Yeah. With, elvis and his sort of marauding like maniac kind of gladiatorial character.

And then you've got Paul Atreides and all the Fremen who all now wholeheartedly believe in his prophecy but he's also now

Pete: declared his

Sidey: He's declared his love for Zendaya. Yeah. And they've all got multiple names and it's really confusing.

Yeah, He's he's confessed his love for her and literally said, I will never leave her side and all this sort of shit.

And then he says to the emperor, I'm going to fucking kill everyone. And the deal is they will let the emperor's daughter marry him. If they He kills their champion?

Pete: Right. So, so like, so I mean, you, you've kind of mi missed a bit in the sense that when, when a trip, Paul, a treaties, he sees it in order to become like officially accepted as Modi, like this chosen one or whatever.

He has to imbibe like the, the water of life, like the worm juice, which he does.

Zendaya sees it as, because she basically loved him from the moment that they met, or she was into him, she doesn't want him to prove himself, she's accepted him for who he is and how he

Sidey: is.

Pete: he feels compelled, and he has all, he's had all these visions and so on, and, At first he's denying he's this like chosen one, but then eventually he realizes that is his

Sidey: The god complex is strong,

Pete: Right, but you know, but by following that path and proving himself he's lost her because she Didn't want him to go through with it She just wanted him to stay like regular old paul and just be a fella but that isn't how it played out So she feels totally betrayed by him.

And so by the end of it and you're hoping that like the, you know, you will sort of like expecting that the scene in which ultimately they, there is a culminates in a fight with Elvis. He get, he wears a couple and he effectively has to get stabbed in order to then get the upper hand. So he wears one, but he, he, he manages to, to overcome Elvis.

I mean, we should know his character's name, but

Sidey: Well, Austin Butler is the actor. I can't remember the character's name, but he looks fucking

Pete: He does look really cool in it. Yeah. But by the end of it, he, he then just before the you know, the emperor has effectively said, like, you know, if you win, then you can have the hand of my daughter and, and you can sort of like take over ruling the universe from me.

Sidey: I don't know if they're going to give him you know,

Pete: Yeah.

But what he, what he does is he, is he wins, but he doesn't want to Get married to her although she's quite hot like he doesn't want to get married to her but he looks around in the room and Zendaya Chani I think her name is she just basically like makes a sound get everyone else like the Fremen are now like fully in love with him or worshiping him she just gets up and walks out so he's basically left like with you know plan b sloppy seconds which you know I'd I'd have been happy with personally

Sidey: Sort of the crux of june 3 is going to be him with his messiah complex and yeah that all getting out of hand. I don't know the story exactly

Pete: No, and it's sort of like almost like intimates that it's the story is going to be like, you know, him ruling the universe, like with this wife. And I imagine that him and Channy are going to reconcile or something's going to happen in that regard. I mean, and that's pretty much it. It teases the third one, like really clumsily, I guess.

I mean, it's one of those films that it is, there's quite a lot. That is flawed about it. There's some really sort of poor what we've already touched upon the casting of or just the character of the emperor himself, let alone the casting of Christopher Walken in

Sidey: such a weird one to

Pete: There's yeah, some of the, some of the storyline doesn't exactly have you like as captivated as it could.

By having a third film, it feels to me like they're, they're trying to like milk the franchise and everything, but what's brilliant about these films, which just, I mean, if, if you enjoyed the first one, the second one's going to knock you bandy just as much because like the visuals, some of the characters are brilliant.

I mean, we've not talked about like Josh

Sidey: Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, great

Pete: great. He makes a comeback in it and so on. There's some really good characters in it. There's some great performances in it. The visuals are absolutely stunning. The soundtrack is, you know, like, is

Sidey: Especially the visuals, I have to say, when things blew up so there's a couple of scenes where the Fremen take down with like a kind of sort of futuristic kind of rocket launcher, they take down a few of the ships.

And they crash almost in the background, almost secondary as they're running away, and it looks absolutely incredible. I wish I knew who the cinematographer was. It looks absolutely remarkable. But there's weird, there's weird things about it that just don't land, I think. Yeah,

Pete: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I will watch the third one. I'll watch the second one

Sidey: really enjoy

Pete: Yeah, I re watched the first one just before I watched the second so that I remembered everything.

Sidey: One of the things I found really weird watching it is you've got all the Harkonnens and they've got all this technology but their spaceships have little fluttery butterfly wings and I'm like it doesn't, it doesn't fit right for like super ruthless killers and they've got these pretty little things

Pete: The other thing is, is like, going into the third one, like, where's the jeopardy going to be?

It kind of feels like, because like, the Harkonnens are all done, the Emperor has effectively been, I mean, he didn't die, but

Sidey: Paul's back pocket,

Pete: just been, You know, kind of like

Sidey: He's been undermined, he's in Paul's back

Pete: exactly right. So now you've got I don't know where they're going to take it. And if now another kind of like force just comes out of somewhere, another corner of the galaxy or whatever, it's like, well, hang on, you really pitched it as the Harkonnens were the, were the, were the baddest of the bad.

And really they just all got like culled in one fell swoop in, in, in this film.

Sidey: So normally if you're playing a trilogy like Empire Strikes Back, the baddies, you know, the goodies win, the baddies come back strong, and then you have, you know, chapter three. Didn't really have

Pete: No, it's got, so, so it's almost like

Sidey: that. It's like win.

Pete: was like the second

Sidey: the first one is actually quite neutral.

Pete: no, but

Sidey: a lot of world

Pete: the Harkonnens in, in like the,

Sidey: ascendancy.

Yeah, but it's a, it's, but it's still, I would say a lot of world building to the goodies kind of win. Like they kind of win. So you're like, well,

Pete: the only with the only way in which he doesn't win is that in order to Elevate to this kind of like, you know to fulfill his destiny. He loses the the bird that he loves So the third one might just be a love story

Sidey: No, I think it's

Pete: a bit of worm riding or

Sidey: I think it's Messiah is the Messiah, but I know some friends of mine who are super super into the books, but I don't know, I would like to find out how they feel about the movies. But I would say even though it's flawed, I still would give this a strong recommend.