These are fun. Off the cuff discussions on movies and streaming series, both new and old together will attempt to bridge the gap between Hollywood industry insider and the casual viewer. This is Alec and I’m Ben and you're listening to the Cinema: A to B podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Cinema A to B podcast about, well, where Ben and I talk about movies. I mean, that's pretty much it. and TV shows occasionally. So today we're going to be talking about the 2021 film Dune.
So, Ben, I know you and I have kind of talked around the edges of this movie trying to save this for this show. So what are your thoughts? My thought is that there's probably only a handful of directors that were capable of bringing this effectively remake back to life and that Danny Villeneuve is probably probably the best guy for the job. I mean, it's a very short list.
I'd probably put Christopher Nolan on that if he was interested, but yeah, it's it's kind of been the challenging book to bring to life. It's just so it's so dense and there's the problem is with the source material is that you've just got the inner thoughts of characters that just go on for pages and pages and pages, which is fantastic in a novel. But when you're trying to adapt that for the screen, it just becomes laborious. And so I think that's the big strength of this effectively.
Part one, right? It's Dune part one. I think that's the big strength of the the script and part one is they seem to have been able to ride that line pretty well. On giving you kind of a taste of what that was in the book form. But it's it's definitely firmly its own thing. And as a film. Yeah, no, I, I loved this movie when it came out in 21, it was one of my top two or three. I don't remember if it was my favorite thing that came out 21 or not.
I'd have to go back and look, but it was definitely up there. I mean, I will agree. It was fantastic. You know, Lynch's 84 Dune, you know, I mean, he even even he says he hates it because he didn't have final cut approval. So you can't really judge it as his film because, well, you know, he got kind of taken away from him. So I say that. But this I think I think you nailed it where he did it really? Right.
Because there's a lot of political intrigue that gets bogged down and a lot of exposition and stuff in the book. And here I think Tony kind of still had that political intrigue. Obviously, it's still there, but didn't let that overtake the film, kind of kept it moving, kept the interest and kept it violent and actually, but yet not changing it drastically from the political intrigue book that it is into. This is kind of like, you know, action drama kind of thing.
So I think he really hit that line of kind of keeping the the the visual aspects of it to be interesting as well as kind of keeping some of the more cerebral thoughts and, you know, kind of underpinnings and stuff going throughout the book in the movie. So I know it's not exactly the book. It's got some differences, but I think those are good choices to make. Yeah, I, I would agree with that. And just an aside, there are aspects I absolutely adore about the 84 version of Dune.
I do not hate that movie. I grew up with that version of Dune. There's things about it that I frankly love. There's a there's some some visual esthetic of the 84 dune that I think is is really cool. And largely the casting in that movie was really pretty good. But I won't stay parked on discussing that movie. We maybe we can revisit that down line. But Disney got this movie.
I'm convinced, because of his ability to command the esthetic and effectively something like Blade Runner 2049 and then arrival. Yeah, were basically served as dress rehearsals for him to be able to pitch himself. Yeah. Well, what is it? Warner Brothers. Yeah, Warner Brothers did. For him to be able to pitch himself to Warner Brothers is to be the one to helm this, because he did arrive on like 2016. He did, what, 2049? And 2017, and then he took another four years.
Well, I guess I mean, it depends on if you're still working on when they pushed the release date because as opposed to release in December of 2020. But still, I mean, four years to kind of work out this masterpiece of. Yeah, trying to wrangle Dune and put it on screen and it's got those. It's a throwback with the visual effects because it it does what I love which is it he accomplishes as much as possible in-camera with practical effects in scale models.
Some of the best model work you've probably seen to date because it doesn't look like models, but it is. And then combines that with with high end compositing and then just probably a lot less CGI than people would think is in this movie. And it all feels unified in Iraq is feels as big as it is it ever has and and dangerous. Yeah and yeah, yeah. Very dangerous. And now I love to bang on Oscar Isaac because I think he's like the most overcast guy in Hollywood and I'm just never a huge fan.
He's good in this and I need to give him I need to give him his due because he plays unaware kind of naivete to the character that I think it needed that you don't get in the original. Because Duke Leto in the original is like it's just much more commanding. And you almost would be like, wait, that version of Duke Leto would never walk into a trap, right? But this version of the Duke, it feels right that he basically. He's hoodwinked. A little bit more honor bound, a little bit more kind of.
This is what we do to serve. Yeah. Kind of like. Yeah. Blind honor, you know, in a lot of ways. And he brings that. And so I need to give props to an actor that I tend to bang on. It's not. It's not because I think Oscar Isaac's a bad actor. I don't. I just think he gets stuffed into everything. Star Wars. He's the shortest version of apocalypse ever put on screen in the X-Men, which I just was like, Wait, what? And I forgot about that. Yeah, he's he's in a lot of stuff.
And then the rest of the cast is is just spot on. We can single them out. I mean, I think. I think Rebecca Ferguson showed more to her repertoire as an actress in this than what she's been given. Because I'll be honest, most of the stuff I've just seen her in was was like the Mission Impossible movies, which she's been in the last several. Yeah. And she was in reminisced with and the greatest showman with Hugh Jackman
always she in showman Yeah. she was the she was the singer that he kind of you know when he wanted to go legit. No I really like watching her. She has obviously she's gorgeous and striking which she has very, very uncanny screen presence. She's able to kind of control her body and control her face to really kind of push across the emotion or the lack of emotion in some case, especially in this film. So, yeah. And she. And that's a very central character.
I mean, Lady Jessica is super central, so you couldn't just willy nilly cast that role. I was going to say, like when I saw that Jason Momoa was going to be Duncan, Idaho, I was not happy right away because kind of how you feel about Oscar Isaac is how I feel about Jason Momoa. I'm just like, my goodness, they're just going to throw him in here as well, whatever. But he brought it like he really brought it. And all those fight scenes are pretty much him fighting like he that's legit.
Like he went to training, they had the fight choreographer Wan or something like that. He just worked with him and he worked like 15 other stunt doubles to kind of get that fight scene in, you know, the fight scenes. And he's n done really well. I mean, it just worked.
They just absolutely worked. Yeah. And then obviously old Timothy, I was I was excited when he got cast to do this because I had I had bought I'd basically drank the Timothy Shalom Kool aid from his 2019 Netflix movie The King O. And that was the film that I saw him in that I went, yeah, yeah. This. There's a speech he gives in the king. Yeah, That's some of the finest acting that I saw from, you know, Gosh, you know, four years ago. Yeah. Of anything I watched. And it was it was him.
And so when he got, he when he got the call to play Paul, I was like, yep, going to knock it out of the park. And what does he do? Look out of the park and he's, frankly, he's more book accurate because Paul was a lot younger in the books than what we have 15 in the 84 dune. So now he looks the part a lot better. Now I'm with you. Like he definitely held his own. And that was what I thought was thinking about, too.
Was the king especially kind of near the end, like the latter third of the movie, when he's starting to kind of deal with some stuff that I was like, This feels like you're the king. Yeah, like you're just kind of playing that same kind of role. But it works. I mean, it still works like it is that character. It's that kind of that thrust of having to be responsible, that thrust of having to lead kind of a situation and he just works and just he plays it off really well.
Like the entire casting is fantastic. And I think it was reading, I remember when this came out was almost everybody is Denise first choice. Like that's who he wanted to play it. I think the only people who weren't were the doctor. The doctor you and I forget why. And then it was also Shani Zendaya. So I think she was picked like they didn't he didn't have anyone exact, but it was this the screen chemistry between the two of them, and that's what got her the role.
So everyone else was pretty much like he was like, this is my person, this is what I want. That doesn't always happen. I in fact, if you devote yourself to looking that very topic up, basically directors choices for major roles and big movies, you'll find that rarely do even big directors get their first choice. It's just scheduling conflicts and then the fact that everybody's going after the same person for four roles, you know, they're up for three or four roles and they've got two.
They're going to pick one. So yeah, you got to be prepared. The problem is a lot of this stuff's written with specific people in mind, which is kind of a tricky thing to do. They always taught us in film school to not do that. Yeah, cause you're in film school, it's a student film, but you still get caught.
Like if you knew an area actor that you wanted to hire or a friend that you know is particularly talented that you want to put in it, you'd find yourself writing, you know, writing those roles specifically for those people. And then what happens? Somebody who's not available, somebody gets sick and then you're like, Whoa, they need to deal with their other friend who's an actor who's just terrible and then is in your short film and you don't even finish it. Well, I love that.
I just like falsely portrayed myself as a writer, which I'm most definitely not a not a screenwriter. Anyway, I can write copy, but it's got to be 30 seconds or less. Now. Obviously we are huge fans on the show of Mr. Stellan Skarsgard my goodness. And of course he brings it just as always. It's just amazing. Then had to have been Danny's first choice. yeah, He was. And then. But the makeup and prosthetics are just something else. Yeah. Yeah. And not just for him, but for the whole thing.
The the costumed design, the set design, the. It's so brutal. So what I was reading with for Skarsgard, they actually built suits for him, like actual, like, created just suits that he could get in and spend 4 to 6 hours of and doing makeup to blend in and everything. But those are yeah, those are just huge suits that they use. Like again, going back to some of those lot, none of those practical effects and not just like, hey, let's just, you know, what's underneath a shirt.
And it's like, no, that's kind of this huge fat suit that he's in and he has to kind of walk around it and do. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a loaded cast because and it's not just major roles. I mean, you you know, you've got soul and obviously you've got Javier Bardem as is still LA, which is always makes me happy when I when I see Yeah was really a pleasant surprise because I didn't I purposely didn't study up and read up a bunch on this movie. I didn't want to spoil which stuff for my self.
So but the guy I want to talk about, who I feel like steals the movie for me is this Babs? All those cinemacon who plays James. okay. It and it's it's his performance is really good. He's got a really nice timber in his delivery, but the, the way that they decided to execute those dream dream sequences with that character and Paul, those are my favorite moments in the entire film.
This whole, you know, this whole idea that he almost lived like half a lifetime with him out in the desert in in dream form and learned from him is is that's like my favorite stuff. The whole speech he gives about life being a, you know, a process, not basically it's it's about the journey. It's not it's not about the end that was it's like that was my favorite time in the whole the whole movie.
Well and then juxtapose Poe's that with how he is in the end in the real well exactly And just kind of it's almost like two different characters. Two different. Well, obviously, yeah. I mean, but like, it's this how he plays it and the raw emotion and energy he gives in that last couple, that last performance just struck me of just how powerful and just how he just was. There and was just giving it is all I know. He had to walk out of that.
That's set just absolutely exhausted from a day of shooting. Just he was seemed like given his offer every every shot. It was just it was an interesting creative choice the way they did those those kind of waking dreams that that Paul has. And that's is something this movie just does leaps and bounds better than the earlier 84 version. And you do you have this sense of loss of like what could have been between Paul and Jamie's.
That stuff is kind of what separates this movie from just your run of the mill sci fi action. VS Now, do you want to talk a little bit about just expectations for for part two of again, I'm trying not to do the spoiler thing and ruin things for myself, but Villeneuve, as has stated that it is basically a war zone and that's all. That's all I need to read. I'm just sitting there. Yeah, fly through people, through some people off that it was only part one, like the way it ends.
If you didn't go in and now they give it to you in the opening credit that it's a part one. But I think people forgotten and the way it ends, it's like, Wait, you're going to leave me hanging? Yeah, It's like, well, yeah, this is what this is on cinema to be today. We're really talking about one half of a movie. Of a movie, effectively. Yeah. Dune part one is not a complete movie.
It's really good, but it's it is literally half of a basically six hour movie or something approaching a I don't know what the runtime is going to be. I guess this one was definitely long. It felt it felt paced really well. It's like there isn't a whole lot of fat on it you can really cut. There is a couple of times that I was just like, you know, I didn't feel like it was going long, but I was like, okay, this not super necessary. We can probably cut this.
But his shot selection and some of the views and the vistas he was getting from where they were shooting was just worth it as well. Just to kind of like you were talking about, give that grandness to Iraqis, give that kind of just how really large and how vast this desert planet actually is. And the runtime unlock in the runtime for Dune, part one was about it was 2 hours and 35 minutes. It was not. This is thing. No, now I know now part two probably.
I don't think we've got to finalize the runtime on part two. We know we don't. I mean, the thing is still in post-production. So I would, I would be venturing a guess that it's nearer to 3 hours. yeah. And that it will be a one of the top three movies of 2023, because the only other movies that I'm really anticipating are obviously Oppenheimer and then Killers of the Flower Moon with Scorsese and DiCaprio, which I think that's your I'm going to call it now. That's your best picture.
Killers of the Flower Moon is going to win Best Picture in the 2024 Oscars for stuff released this year. That mean DiCaprio is going to get a second Oscar as necessarily not necessarily I think I think that the dark horse for me was is Cillian Murphy I think still has a a good chance at winning best actor for Oppenheimer but I don't he deserves it. I don't think Oppenheimer is going to win best picture.
And I think Oscar voters, you know, have a decision to make between best director of picking Nolan and giving him his first best director Oscar or or going ahead and give it to Scorsese. So, yeah, but I'm calling it now, I think I think Flowers Moon Killers of the Flower Moon is your best picture winner because I I'm familiar with some of that history, dark side of American history. But anyway, back to a to do in part two.
I think this will be and this is one of my most anticipated movies of of 23 which is really the only reason we're talking about part one right now is because we're both geeked out about fight part two. About part two. Yeah, it's finally coming. So going back to part one, I do have to bring up the I really loved how they opened the film. So because before any of like, like Warner Brothers logo, any of like the different studios logo you just have that.
But when the Bene Gesserit kind of speech going on or whatever, it's like the unintelligible speech that's kind of happening and it just opens with that line was like dreams or messages from the deep and just really enjoyed that. I really loved that just because it kind of almost felt like what we were about to see is also like kind of a dream or like, this is the message, like this kind of this happened or this, you know, is going to happen kind of a thing. So it was it was really, really nice.
But I was going to say this entire movie was just really thought out, really planned. I mean, the costume design, the set decoration you're talking about is absolutely amazing. I mean, I can just even some of like dialog or how they handle the dialog. Like I can just think of how visceral.
Second, this is where the Sarkar Assassins are training somebody that like just that whole scene of just the guy kind of, you know, putting them out to war and yelling at them as they're kind of, you know, walking around the different press or whatever. And just that scene is crazy. Yes. Like that scene is nuts. Yeah. But how visceral all of these different planets are.
Like when they did Gandhi prime for the hour, Conan's like and count on for their trainees and just how different and how like it wasn't kind of the same looking kind of planet or wasn't very similar that you kind of get in a lot of sci fi things where kind of everything blends into it just a very different of, you know, exactly where you're at.
Yeah, And that's there's speaking of this sort of car, that was something that the 84 movie just kind of glossed over was the brutality of that planet in that people group, basically. And yeah, that scene I remember leaving the theater, the first thing I did was went to YouTube and pulled of somebody had snuck out the the whole sequence. When they go to the starter car land and you see them lined up and yeah, they're, they're freaking crucifying.
So if you Google it, those guys, they're crucifying on those those walls and then they're there, their blood is mixing with water and then it's being poured on sort of cart troops. Those are failed recruits. That's what they do when you don't make the cut. Yeah, brutal. And then they did that whole weird thing with the guy that's doing the chant where he's like, he's got that suit on. And you could tell his neck is elongated. So it looks really it's really offputting there.
There are visual cues in this movie that do that, that are like, wait, that doesn't that looks human, but that's not human.
Yeah. And they try to he tries to pepper that in Well and going back to the fight choreography like the coordinator was it was talking he was how he trying to give each group their own fighting style like the tree had like a Filipino fighting style with a lot of short swords whereas the harkens had like, like something based off of ancient Mongolia with like a lot of hack and slash and just like big power movements where Sarkar had kind of this balance between like Samurai
and then also this kind of some like good ancient kind of cult base, like, like with his blood sacrifice and like kind of that same what we're kind of getting from this planet and kind of melding that together because they do have that kind of fluid movement of, you know, where we kind of imagine the samurai doing and such. But he had that. He also got the viciousness of this cult, apparently. So that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say. Yeah, I love those details.
Yeah. The only thing that kind of threw me and I don't. And it's been a while since I read the book so I could completely wrong. But. And this is not a spoiler but the because I always remember the trades house kind of been based off of like Greece. So why do we have a Scottish bagpipe being locked across when the Herald shows up like bagpipes or the. Well, actually that a worse than the bagpipe. What the original. The origin of the bagpipe though is not Scotland.
Right. The bagpipes I mean isn't it isn't it like Arabia or Persia or something like that isn't it. Well actually some, some form of it I don't think like in the way that it was portrayed was definitely much more of the Scottish. But like yeah, the original, the original bagpipe was not not from there. So but I think it's definitely changed. I think subconsciously it works because the Atrios home planet, it looks like Scotland like he does the the Rock Islands rising up out of the water.
It looks like Ireland or Scotland. And so it was that kind of way. But it was yeah, but it same kind of thing. You know why that would kind of throw you. Well, I mean, just for a moment. But then they did do the pay off because obviously you have this little bagpipe just for this one scene of like the Emperor's Herald coming. But then the battle scene, they bring it back. They bring that like obviously not the bagpiper, but like in the score is bagpipes. And it just works.
I mean, like the pay off has just been, like now we got to talk about arms and ah, because he kills it. First off, he turned down Tennant for this movie. Yeah, that's right. Yes, he mentioned that. Yeah. Yeah. He loved Doune so much and he was like, No, I got to do this, Mike. I can't work with, you know, when I have to do this movie. And he just killed it because he really went off. None off.
The deep end is not the right right phrasing, but he definitely just kind of really dug into it and didn't go to his strengths that what he's done before really tried something new and different with this score. And a lot of it is it's hard sometimes to tell what's ambient noise or what's guttural tones and what's the score. You know what you know what is the sounds that we're hearing Our soundtrack and what's just the sounds of the desert or of the fighting or space
or those kind of things. Yeah. So, yeah, this is we're, we're spoiled. These are these are going to be, I just think, parts. Who's going to blow everything out of the water. I mean, I don't think when we're done with this I think it'll obviously need to be watched as one continuous piece. But all the good stuff is going to happen in part two. I don't know. There's a lot of good stuff that happens in this. They did such a great job.
So I mean, if you would have told me that the guy who did Sicario was going to go on and do some of my favorite films of the past decade, I would not have. I mean, Sicario was great. I loved it. But I remember going into Rival thinking this thing is going to be an absolute disaster and mess and it's not. It is awesome.
And then obviously Blade Runner 2049, he nailed it too, for something that has such a cult following to have something that I walked out of and still enjoyed and still thought was, yeah, I just absolutely great. I hope that part two makes a lot of money because unfortunately as great a director as he is, he doesn't really have the box office to back it up. I mean, Sicario did well. I think Arrival did well because the budget wasn't massive, but Blade Runner 2049 hit, obviously bombed.
It's a tremendous movie. It's one of the best sequels I've ever seen to a movie that none of us asked for a sequel to something as great as Blade Runner. But I guess it was sort of fitting that it suffered the same fate as Blade Runner, which was almost nobody watched it. But those of us that did adore it. Yeah. So, yeah, I hope I hope due in part to, you know, I hope everybody's gone in for it and I hope it has a good marketing campaign. I think that's going to be the big one.
And if they're smart, then in September or October, they'll go ahead and rerelease part one back into theaters. and then they have to have to they have to like they got to pull the same thing is the lead up to Avatar the Way of Water when they rereleased Avatar back in theaters. And, you know, I didn't go to see it back in the theater the second time, but but I knew some folks that did so they're going to have to do that with this with part one.
The part one needs to go back into theaters for a couple of weeks, give people an opportunity to experience it on the big screen like it's supposed to be. Get us all primed and ready for for the November drop on the part two. I'm excited. It's going to be great. It is. It's going to be great. Well, any closing thoughts before we wrap this sucker up? I would say take the time to watch it. If if you like the book Dune and haven't seen this, it's Who's that?
I know that's who are who are these people? I know it's a it's a great sci fi film. It's definitely science fiction. It's not space fantasy like Star Wars. It's definitely in that sci fi kind of realm. So going with that, but it's shot really well. Amazing attention to detail, great acting. Just I, I really enjoyed it. And I just rewatched it again and was just as happy with it as I was previously. Yeah, it's it's held up.
I've seen it several times since the since watching it and I'm actually, I think I saw an IMAX. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's great. Yeah. Well yeah, the only last thing we're going to do will change because there's rumor is the sound design or whatever, at least on like the streaming services that it's on. Not great or at least how I was watching it like it is not leveled very well at all. Yeah, I like some of that.
Some of the dialog is way too soft and then it gets way too loud for some of the low action sequences. So Christopher Nolan is that, you know, that was kind of one of my favorite. Christopher Nolan mix makes, you know, unintelligible dialog, Loud, loud background. Yeah, Yeah. So but that's my last I still go see it or still see it. It's great. Yeah, it is. It is. Well, thank you for tuning into another one of our chats on a very good movie, Dune Part one. We love talking about movies.
And you know, the big takeaway for for us with this is we hope you watch more movies and then we hope you have these same kind of conversations with your your friends and your family and and maybe we can give you a nugget or two, something interesting that maybe you didn't know before or something. We're completely wrong on. And then you can call us out on the Internet later. So either way, it's all good. It's all good. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Enjoy. Thanks, everybody.