Two In The Think Tank - 441 - Dune: The Unfilmable Novel

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, it's Matt Stewart in the year 2024. It's Melbourne Comedy Festival time and our shows are all sold out the 7th, the 14th and the 21st. But luckily we've added an extra show. It's an early one on the 14th at 1.45 at Morris House, the basement and it's with special guest Nick Mason. How exciting is that? Tickets on sale for that now. I'm also doing my show Dryer Dryer. This week's at the Chinese Museum but from next week moving to a brand new venue, the Grace Darling Hotel. We're not doing Mondays but every other night. It'd be great to see you there. Use the discount code DIGGLEON. Now on with the show. This Friday, you must be very careful Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start out.

Starting point is 00:00:47 Evil things. Of evil. It's all over you. No, don't. The First Omen. I believe the girl is to be your mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying.

Starting point is 00:00:55 666 is the mark of the devil. Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. What? Now react. Who said that? The First Omen.

Starting point is 00:01:03 In theaters Friday. Get tickets now. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Warnocky and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Can you believe it? Yes. After all these years Matt and I have buried the hatchet. We're back together. Baby it's a reunion show.

Starting point is 00:01:41 All you needed to say was that magic word and you finally did. So I'm glad. I won't, obviously it's a magic word just between you and I. Yeah, I won't be sharing it in case somebody tries to use it against us. You whispered it in my ear last night

Starting point is 00:01:58 and I said, all is forgiven. Yep, and here we are together. Sitting closer than we ever have. That's right. I'm on Jess's lap. And joining us this week, a returning guest, he's not just our editor, he's our friend. It's AJ. AJ! Hello, hello everyone.

Starting point is 00:02:17 It's so good to be back. It's so good to once again cross the boundary of being a fan and then editing the show and then ending. It was all, I'll reveal it now, it was all a plan to one day guest on Do Go On. I said, first I'll offer them my services and then they'll feel too bad to deny me access to the podcast. First I'll offer my services at a price. Yeah. It's very Hollywood, isn't it? Going from fan to employee to now on the record, as Dave said, friend.

Starting point is 00:02:50 Yeah. Huge. I think Margot Robbie did that. You all heard it. You all heard it. Margot Robbie did that with Martin Scorsese. She started out as his landscaper. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:02 Wow. Yeah. She can do it all. She really can. AJ, have those two work together? Martin Scorsese and Margot Robbie. Yeah. Famously, she discovered her in The War for Wall Street.

Starting point is 00:03:14 OK, great. Oh, well, discovered her. She had been on it. Neighbours discovered her. I think Red Grundy might have something to say about that. These references are getting too Australian for me. I'm sorry. These don't put these don't cross across the ditch. There's a lot of Americans listening going, he's not Australian.

Starting point is 00:03:33 Yeah, they're all aren't they all English? There's it. We all sound the same. He sounds just like them. We're like, listen to how funny he sounds. Exactly the same. AJ, you are gracing us with another report as well, which again, you're doing all of the work this week and we love you for that.

Starting point is 00:03:56 You're one man band. Thank you so much. But before we get started, Dave, do you want to explain how this show works? Absolutely, I'd love to. So basically what we do here, and we we have the last eight and a half, something like that years, we take it in terms of report on a topic often suggested to us by one of the listeners, we go away, do a bit of research, write up a report and bring it back to the group.

Starting point is 00:04:16 And as Jess says, it is AJ's turn, I say turn, he's volunteered to give us a report this week. It's AJ's turn once every 40 episodes. And I hope he knows this by now because just in case people don't realize AJ is the editor of the program. And so you've heard us say this many, many times, and you've also listened to lots of episodes before that. We always start with the question, AJ, do you have a question to get us onto the topic? I do. Here is my question. Which famously unadaptable novel boasts over 20 sequels, several comics, dozens of video games and multiple TV shows and movies?

Starting point is 00:04:56 War and Peace. That was going to be my answer. Okay. Basically unadaptable. Couldn't adapt it. Couldn't adapt it. Too big. It couldn't be done. Yeah. Could not actually unadaptable. Couldn't adapt it. Couldn't adapt it. Too big.

Starting point is 00:05:05 It couldn't be done, yeah. It could not be done. What about James Bond? Has that ever been in a movie? Or? Unadaptable. Maybe some indie films. I can't see how that would work.

Starting point is 00:05:16 AJ, is it Dune? It is Dune. My backup question was gonna be, what month was I born in? And which all of us from Australia and New Zealand would say June. And that is going to be one of the many, many hard to pronounce words in this report. It's just D-U-N-E. How are you meant to say June?

Starting point is 00:05:40 So I guess like, like we from this part of the world we we push D use and t use together to make like a J sound often with with shooter or that's more of like a ch sound I guess but But I guess it's dune like you've got to really get the you after the day There are Americans right now going are you telling me that AJ is not from Australia like the others Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you?

Starting point is 00:06:08 Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you?

Starting point is 00:06:16 Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you?

Starting point is 00:06:24 Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? We say no like Dr. Evil. That's how it's done. We didn't say no. This is me impersonating Americans or impersonating me. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas Kiwis don't say it like that, like we do. We say no. But Kiwis, how do you say no? It's softer. So it's like a... It takes you on a journey. It's a no. Like that's an exaggerated version.

Starting point is 00:06:56 I think generally if people are wanting to pick up on the differences between our accents, you guys like really chew on your vowels. And it's like, we don't want anything to do with our vowels. Like we want to get through the vowel as quick as possible and be unintelligible to the rest of the world. And you also change I sounds for you sounds and some of that. Fish becomes f*** etc. Exactly. Sex becomes socks. There we go. And I'm sure this will come up plenty of times on this report. My question, AJ, is the author of Dune, slash Dune, where were they from? And would that give us any... Like how would they have said it in an interview, for example? They are American, so they would say Dune, which I also don't agree with.

Starting point is 00:07:43 No, I like Dune. I think that's going the opposite direction right is like now you're not even acknowledging the you don't and then sand dunes sand dunes sand dunes water sand dunes water sand dunes from all these sand dunes let's get some water alright so you guys are familiar with the plots of dune do Do they go to Bonnie Dune? Is that a thing? Oh, Bonnie Dune would be a great... It's probably not more than just a Twitter meme. Like maybe a Photoshop poster for Bonnie Dune.

Starting point is 00:08:14 But someone should make it. Ah, there we go. Almost definitely already have, I reckon. That's how good it is. Dave's never had an original thought. As if I could! That's how good it is. Dave's never had an original thought. As if I could. Oh my god. That would melt me down. Now AJ, anyone can suggest a topic at any time that we cover on this podcast if they go to

Starting point is 00:08:34 dogoonpod.com and click suggest a topic. And I've just looked it up here in our hat, and a couple of people have suggested we cover Dune. Yay! I'm glad that I fulfilled the prophecy. That's right. So I'd like to say thank you for suggesting this to Miles Blakey from North Yorkshire. And also to Pedro Rosario Silva from Portugal. Thank you so much. Before I begin my report, I do want to clarify what exactly I'm going to be

Starting point is 00:09:02 talking about today. I do want to do it here on Dune. The name of my Google doc is Dune Go On, which was a joke for only me, but now it's the rest of the world. That's good stuff. That feels meme worthy on Twitter as well. Well done. Thank you so much. Dune is one of these franchises that has an endless amount of finicky lore that people

Starting point is 00:09:27 have been obsessed with since 30 years before I was even born, right? So to come in here and be like, hey guys, I'm going to tell you all about the plots of Dune, would be incredibly foolish of me and I'd lose all my nerd cred and it would also be your longest episode probably longer than the, um, the saints one to be honest. There's a lot of law in this football club. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:55 Yeah. Um, I have included more plot stuff than I initially intended, but hopefully not so much that you guys would get inundated with tweets correcting the minutiae. The point of this report is not the minutiae. So if I get something wrong, I wear that. I own that. And we should also say, don't tweet us, tweet AJNHD. Please do.

Starting point is 00:10:20 I think it's important, I guess, to give a taste of what this unfilmable story is like and why it's considered unfilmable, right? So there is going to be some fun, very tedious world building I'll explain to you guys at some point. But no, this is more about the journey of the novel to the movie because it's an incredibly interesting story if you're a filmmaking nerd like I am. I love that caveat. Yeah, and to give myself even more of an excuse, I haven't actually read the books, so if anyone comes at me, I'll just be like,

Starting point is 00:10:56 I don't know, I just follow the IMDB page updates. Can I say, I got given a copy for Christmas? Not the one that's gone, the one before it's been on the shelf. I am committing to reading. Actually depending on how interesting I find what you're about to say, I might do it on Bookcheat and do you want to come on and I'll tell you about Dune slash Dune? The real story. Okay.

Starting point is 00:11:20 The real story. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favourite reviews that my podcast, my podcast called Popshire ever got, uh, said that we're a podcast that is more obsessed with the IMDB trivia page than the movie itself, which I love that. I think that describes not just my podcast, but me as a person very well. I can't watch a movie without pulling up IMDB and looking at all the trivia.

Starting point is 00:11:42 I've ruined so many movies for myself by reading the plot while I'm watching it or seeing a spoiler in the in the trivia, but I have to. And then I have to be like, you know where that guy's from? He's also in this other obscure movie you haven't seen. And everyone watching movies with me is like, you're fun. The worst, the worst thing to do is you look up, you know, who's that actor? And you look them up and then you find their character in this movie has a slash and you're like, oh, it's gonna be revealed. You're like, ah, yeah, there's a reveal later

Starting point is 00:12:12 and I've ruined it. Cause I wanted to know if- Or they're only in four of 10 episodes and it's like, well, what happens to them? My flatmates and I are very into Survivor at the moment and you cannot Google a thing about past seasons of Survivor without getting that spoiled. So it's just a dangerous world out there.

Starting point is 00:12:32 Be careful, everyone. Careful spoilers, everybody. Can I just double check with Dave and Jess? I don't know anything apart from the fact that it's sand related somehow. I don't know anything about these movies or books. No. Haven't seen, haven't seen either. Haven't seen or read anything?

Starting point is 00:12:49 No. No. Cool. Have honestly very little interest. Actually. So good luck AJ. Sorry. AJ, I'll stop everyone. Cards on the table. I once tried to watch a 1980s, I believe it was adaptation of this movie. I got I got 10 minutes in and I thought, this is the worst film I've ever seen. I turned it off.

Starting point is 00:13:11 And it was it remained the worst film I'd ever seen until we started the Phrasing the Bar podcast. And now that film has slipped to third worst film I've ever seen. The worst ones ever. Fair enough. No, fair enough. So yeah, the story of Dune, the unfilmable novel begins with a man named Frank Herbert. Frank Herbert began his career as a novelist in the 1950s, having read sci-fi for about

Starting point is 00:13:39 10 years before deciding to write it. I found a list of his influences if anyone wants to know what the guy that made Dune was into. Authors that he followed were Robert A. Henlin who wrote Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers, which are pretty big pop cultural tent poles. Jack Vance who wrote a book called The Dying Earth and Paul Anderson who wrote a number of more well-known, he wrote Brainwave There Will Be Time, but he also wrote a novel called what I can only assume is pronounced The Servants of Wank. This was in the 50s, it's spelled W-A-N-K-H.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Well that's all of us, isn't it? Yeah, we're all servants of wank. I mean, you that's nominative determinism. If your first name is Hole, you're born to be a perv, aren't you? It's not. It's Pole with a P. I think, yeah, Pole Wank. Wait, was his surname Wank? No, no, the book was Wank. OK, the book's Wank. I thought, yeah, poll wank. Wait, was his surname wank? No, no. The book was wank.

Starting point is 00:14:46 No, the book's called... Okay. The book's wank. I thought his name was hole. I think pole even more so, Dave. Pole's still pretty horny. Every hole needs a pole. It might be pronounced Paul, but it's spelled P-O-U-L, so I don't know.

Starting point is 00:14:59 Again, very hard to pronounce words. Are you going to mention probably, I I assume his biggest influence, George Lucas. No, George Lucas was not born till a long time after Frank Herbert, I believe. That's what it is. There is also, he also lists HG Wells, previous Do Go On heavyweights. You did a report on War of the Worlds, which HG Wells wrote, so not a report on HG Wells himself. And he was also a Herbert.

Starting point is 00:15:28 There you go. Wow. And a Pervert. It's true. Can't defame the dead. Can't defame the dead. There's Jess Assumi, he's dead, okay. Frank Herbert began writing Dune in 1959, apparently after doing way more research than was needed for a magazine article about sand dunes that he never published.

Starting point is 00:15:53 So he was writing for some reason, he got commissioned to write about sand dunes, did a bunch of research and then thought, I'm going to make a groundbreaking sci-fi epic about this instead of this magazine article. It is also widely believed that he was very into psilocybin, which is the naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms. Very important if you know anything about dune, which you guys don't, so get ready for a trip! Oh, is the whole, did Selen wake up at the end and they were just having a

Starting point is 00:16:26 magic mushroom trip. Not, not literally, but metaphysically, that's not too far away from what, how weird Dune gets to me, but this is unfilmable. So that's very, it's very, it's not very movie friendly. The, the, the initial, the original texts, I guess. So in Dreamer of Dune, which is a biography written about Frank Herbert, written by his son, Brian Herbert, we're told that Frank was passionate about culinary mushrooms, but doesn't elaborate any further than this.

Starting point is 00:16:58 So we know for sure he liked mushrooms. Right. Do with that information what you will. You know someone's very creative when they name their son Brian. Yeah, and then all their son Brian has to say about them is he liked mushrooms. Yeah, that's the whole biography is just he liked mushrooms. My daddy liked mushrooms by Brian. Brian's a beautiful name. For a boy or girl.

Starting point is 00:17:23 Boy or girl. Absolutely beautiful, but you just wouldn't see it in a sci-fi novel. You'd expect like Xenu 129 or something like that. I am so glad you've set this up, Dave, because there are some boring ass names in the Dune universe. Really? Yes. Before it was published as a novel, Dune was split into parts and released across eight issues of a sci-fi magazine called Analog,

Starting point is 00:17:49 which started in 1930 and is still running today, which is pretty interesting that this legacy still exists. When they tried to turn it into like a hardback novel, it was rejected by nearly 20 publishers initially, with one editor beginning their rejection letter with the sentence, I might be making the mistake of the decade, but. Oh, they sort of knew. Wow. Exactly. I reckon they soften every rejection by starting the letter with that.

Starting point is 00:18:20 Hey, yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, every time I've been rejected it's been like, this is probably the mistake of the decade, but no. Every time I've been rejected, the other person's gone, you, bleh! So, you know, we all have different experiences. You give someone the vomit of the decade. The vomit of the decade. At least I'm memorable. The reasons for these rejections were pretty understandable.

Starting point is 00:18:47 This book was dense. It was complex. It was 896 pages of world building, confronting politics and relentlessly overwhelming jargon, some of which we'll get to later. But those who got it, got it. And Dune was eventually published by Chilton Book Company, which is a publisher that mainly produced auto repair manuals. So we're talking about like underground, underground, like it's a success story now

Starting point is 00:19:16 for multiple people involved because even though Herbert was given an initial advance of $7,500, but June would go on to sell 20 million copies worldwide making it the highest grossing science fiction novel of all time Wow Well, yeah, and I'm only just learning it was a book me too like moments ago This is part of it. This is genuine the fact that it's so influential But so underground a massive part of like why the why of Dune The only thing I know about it is that it What's the Dune writer's name?

Starting point is 00:19:54 Frank Herbert. All I know about it is that Frank Herbert The day he saw Empire Strikes Back he said I've got an idea I've got an idea That's all I know about it. The novel's success was slow at first but by the 1970s Herbert was able to go full time as an author and by his death in 1986 he had published several more novels including six sequels to Dune which are called Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapter House Dune. These came out between 1969 and 1985. He did plan on writing a seventh novel to conclude the series but

Starting point is 00:20:41 then he died and after his death the series very much did not conclude with his aforementioned son, Brian, and sci-fi author, Kevin J. Anderson, picking up the franchise about a decade later and would eventually dwarf Frank's output, writing dozens of ancillary novels and short story anthologies, the most recent of which, which is called Dune, the air of Caladan was released in 2022. So they are very much still going. This is a very long series. And was it you said that the amount sold, was that just that initial book or you're

Starting point is 00:21:15 talking about the whole series? I think the initial novel since 1965 has sold 20 million copies. Wow, that's wild. Right, Matt, were you thinking that that had been 20 million copies. Wow. That's wild. Right, Matt, were you thinking that there'd been 20 million sequels and they'd all sold one copy? Yeah. I was just wondering if AJ was playing a sort of force. Ballooning the numbers.

Starting point is 00:21:36 Yeah. Padding the stats. So that means if every edition of the book that's been sold was to sit on a seat at the MCG, Dave, how many MCGs would those sales fill? About 200, 200 MCGs. Look at him doing maths. Look at the cogs turning in that little brain. Sorry.

Starting point is 00:22:04 Wow. I've only ever heard it on the podcast. I've never seen it in real life. Yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it? What an honour to be here seeing Dave do maths. Let's hope Matt has a regret face at some time today and then you've got the trifecta. Yes! Oh my god! I've wondered for years what the regret face actually looks like.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Yeah, me too. I have no idea when I've done it. You can feel it though. Yeah, I mean, I feel regret, but it doesn't always translate to the face. I think Dave's still doing maths. I want everyone to know listening at home that Dave is still doing maths. We're looking at him still doing maths. That's about the first time we go. But AJ, you'll edit it together to make it look like Dave's real quick.

Starting point is 00:22:41 That's what we're used to do. A mastermind, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'm actually so stoked that we can, yeah, just in real time tell you, AJ, cut that. together to make it look like Dave's real quick. That's what we used to do. A mastermind. Exactly. I'm actually so stoked that we can, yeah, just in real time tell you, AJ, cut that out. Yes, there you go. So what is the deal with the novel? What is Dune actually about and how much of the following plot details will I get completely wrong? And be told that on Twitter. Yeah, exactly. I would relish more people coming to my Twitter accounts to be honest. It's very desolate over there for me.

Starting point is 00:23:12 So as well as I sounds being made into U sounds, you also turn E sounds into A sounds. You relish it? Just keep an italic for Americans if they still think we sound the same. Which I think, he sounds ridiculous. He sounds like an idiot. How can you equate me to that? But we don't, if you were to say, do you think you sound silly? I'd say no. He just can't do it.

Starting point is 00:23:40 He thinks all Australia is a Dr. Evil. I don't know how to, I don't know what to do. Yeah. Evil. I don't know how to, I don't know what to do. Yeah. So I know I said I don't want to focus too much on the law, but some of the stuff is so batshit and so just fun to kind of like, I want to see what your guys' reactions are to some of this total bullshit, right? Can I just before, can I just, sorry, I will stop being a pain in the ass. I'm drinking a coffee.

Starting point is 00:24:04 But can I just double check with you? Did you say that it sold? 20 million copies I love grinding a podcast to a halt because you thought of a good yes and to something from 10 minutes ago That's our whole life here I'm coming in on delay. Sorry, AJ. It's okay, it's okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry, everyone shut up. Everyone shut up.

Starting point is 00:24:30 I've got a joke from 10 minutes ago. Hang on, shut up. I was gonna, I was, I was gonna jump in, but I thought- It's fine. I'll wait, I'll wait till AJ's saying something serious again, then I'll stop him. I've stopped a podcast before to be like, Hey, I've thought of a better thing to say to what we were talking about. You'll fix that in the edit one.

Starting point is 00:24:49 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Just for anyone who's worried, I've stayed away from any massive plot spoilers. Just sort of cherry picked a mix between contextually important stuff and the most bizarre and tedious story. and tedious stuff. Chari Paktomok. Oh, fuck it, Al. Uh, AJ, do go on. Dune is so dense that even a basic plot summary ran me about half a page of this report. Wow. So, here we go.

Starting point is 00:25:16 Set over 10,000 years in the future in a universe where mankind has long since colonized hundreds of planets, the Dune franchise largely revolves around the Spice Melange, which is a psychedelic drug produced exclusively on the desert plains of the planet Arrakis. And when you consume the Spice Melange, it can give you a longer lifespan, greater vitality and heightened awareness. Spice, as it is colloquially referred to, can also unlock prescience in some humans, which is a form of precognition which makes interstellar travel possible. So because of this, spice is considered to be the most valuable substance in the universe. And because of that, it is an extremely sought after commodity. So spice is harvested

Starting point is 00:26:07 from Arrakis often at the expense and the subjugation of the Fremen who are the indigenous people of Arrakis for whom the spice has long been part of their cultural practices and way of life. I know it felt a bit too good to be true. Yeah. Exactly. So Dune is a story of a capitalist colonialist government, stealing a valuable resource from a downtrodden indigenous race. Because remember, he who controls the spice controls the universe. Wow. So this is real. Like he had to be very creative.

Starting point is 00:26:38 He's taken a scenario that probably has never occurred in reality and and put that on the page. Absolutely. What a writer. Well, it was 60 in the, in 65. So there's like height of Vietnam War. Like America generally still aren't very much ready to hear some of these hard truths or look at their dark soul.

Starting point is 00:26:59 But even in the sixties, that's right at the height of like looking the other way about the war that's going on. How interesting that the Vietnam War inspired Star Wars and then Star Wars inspired Dune. It's so interesting, right? Yeah. Laugh is cyclical. So one of my favorite things... A melange.

Starting point is 00:27:17 Does that make sense? A melange. Such a great name. You're tipping your cap. Spice melange. Oh, spice melange. The hat tip is so essential for the joke selling. And it's a podcast. Spice Melange. Spice Melange. Spice Melange to you.

Starting point is 00:27:37 What a fun word. One of my favourite things about Dune is that because it is set in the year 10191, humanity is largely unrecognisable culturally but somehow some very basic boring names have survived including Paul, Duncan and Jessica. There was a main, probably the second main character in Dune is named Jessica. So you made it 10,000 years in the future. That's a great name for, yeah, for cool people. Well, it's like, like it names come back, don't they? So it probably felt retro to their parents and they brought it back because they're great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,

Starting point is 00:28:33 great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,

Starting point is 00:28:41 great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great great great grandparents. Yeah. Had names like Jessica. Do went to over. And Duncan. Duncan. Duncan. Paul. Paul's Evergreen. Paul's always in. Yeah. You think Paul's Evergreen even 10,000 years into the future?

Starting point is 00:28:56 Oh yeah. It'll be fine. Paul. I think Paul's forever. Yeah. Well the main character of Dune is named Paul Atreides. So the main dude, the name you hear... Paul Atreides!

Starting point is 00:29:08 Well we know he probably won't arrive on time then. Or on budget. Amazing joke, that's awesome. Paul Atreides, another Twitter meme right there, someone make that. Paul is a young noble from the planet Caladan whose family are assigned by the Galactic Emperor to travel to Arrakis and take over spice harvesting from the brutal House Harkonnen who are the bad guys. So Caladan or House Atreides are the good guys, House Harkonnen are the bad guys and

Starting point is 00:29:43 the Emperor has just said, hey Harkonnen, you're out, Atreides are in, they're gonna be the stewards of the spice from now on. The stewards of the spice. Exactly. To make things even more delightfully complicated, Paul is essentially the chosen one for two to three separate parties. He is both the heir to the powerful House of Trades and the supposed messiah for the Fremen. His mother, Lady Jessica, is a member of a zealous but sinister spice-based religion called the Bene Gesserit. Now if you need to write these names down, I'll give you some time.

Starting point is 00:30:26 Paul was carefully conceived specifically as a crossbreed of spice-sensitive bloodlines and is believed by some to be the all-powerful Kwisatz Haderach, which is a prophesied messiah who can bridge space and time like none before him. Are we following? This is all making sense so far. Have we got any questions? No.

Starting point is 00:30:49 My eyelid is twitching. I think that's the coffee. That's the coffee though. That's the coffee. It's the spice. It's you've consumed some spice. Melange. Melange.

Starting point is 00:31:00 Spice Melange. Face the bean. Melange I heard recently is actually like French for variety. So variety is the spice of life. I don't know if that's true. That's one of those things you hear on the internet and go, that's true. I'm going to tell people that for the next 15 years. Quizzet's Haderach is far from the only mindboggling term that is coined by the Dune books,

Starting point is 00:31:25 and it's not even the only word used to mean what it means. The world-building in Dune can seem so overwhelming until you realise that a lot of this shit is just different cultural interpretations of the same basic idea. So yes, Paul is believed to possibly be the Kwisatz Haderach by some members of the Bene Gesserit, but he is also referred to as the Lesan al-Ghaib, meaning the voice from the outer world. This term is used by Fremen who have specifically been converted by Bene Gesserit missionaries. Not all Fremen, just converted Fremen. Generally, Fremen also use the term

Starting point is 00:32:05 Mardi to refer to a mythical messianic figure. Um, a word which means the one who will lead us to paradise. And on top of these, Paul is also given not one but two new names when he meets the Fremen. Usul, which means the strength

Starting point is 00:32:21 at the base of a pillar, and Muad'Dib, which is the name of a small but wise desert mouse that roams Arrakis and a star constellation used by the Fremen to navigate. So, all of these terms... So did you say 20 million copies? But also 20 rejections, so it makes a lot more sense now right all of these terms basically mean space Jesus and throughout Dune are used often interchangeably to refer to Paul right they'll be like Mari, Lesan al-Ghaib, Usul etc etc

Starting point is 00:32:56 Paul! Paul! Paul! And other fun terms you'll find littered throughout Dune that don't just refer to Paul include Fadaikan, Saadoukar, Seach, Stillsuit, Thumper and of course Shaihalud which is the Fremen name for the enormous sandworms that tunnel through the deserts of Arrakis. You will see, if you Google Dune, you will see sandworms featured in all of the, most of the imagery used for various Dune book covers will see sand worms featured in all of the, most of the imagery used for various Dune book covers and posters and artwork.

Starting point is 00:33:29 I would say the spice and the sand worms tend to be the two big things the general public often know about Dune if they're not that familiar with it. I never knew this was a metal band called Shy Halood and I never knew where that name is from. Ah, there we go, there we go. There you go. I didn't know that I'm nerdy metal band. Well So the the two elements the shy her Ludd and The spice are actually related in universe because the spice is a substance

Starting point is 00:33:59 Produced by sand worms when they are in their lava stage. Now, that sentence isn't technically correct from a law standpoint, but from what I can see, even the biggest Dune fans are like, yeah, that's basically it. The spice comes from the worms, sure. It's a simplified way of saying a needlessly complicated piece of fictional law. Any questions about the dune law so far? So far so good. That I probably can't answer. Space Jesus, special spice from worms. Got it. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:34:31 You would know this. Has there ever been a dune Barbie? No, unfortunately, well not yet, but both properties are very in vogue right now, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of crossover in some form. Does any toy manufacturer own the rights to dune? What a deep cut question. I have no idea. Probably, right? You'd think so.

Starting point is 00:34:52 I would imagine so. Because it's Mattel. Oof. And it'd be easy. So when you consume a lot of spice, your eyes turn like this brilliant shade of blue. So it'd be very easy to just get a Barbie and make her eyes super blue. And then you go, there you go. It's a, it's a big worm. Lesan Al-Ghaib Barbie. Sit her on a worm. The worm sold separately though.

Starting point is 00:35:18 So the, the desire to develop the new novel into a film dates back to the seventies before Frank Herbert had even written half of the books. But as you can probably guess based on all that bullshit I just told you, this is not a very adaptable story. This is not something that makes a lot of sense for a average runtime for your standard movies, especially at the time. And it was also like it's very spectacular, which in the 60. And it was also like, it's very spectacular, which in the sixties there was a lot less, like it's not like today in the digital effects age, right?

Starting point is 00:35:51 Where anything's possible. This was like 2001, A Space Odyssey was the craziest thing anyone had ever seen at this point in time. And it still is today to be fair. George Lucas and Star Wars changed the game in two ways. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. June's expansive story and inaccessible screeds of made-up history can read less like a novel

Starting point is 00:36:13 and more like an encyclopedia at times, which is maybe why despite being relatively niche and underground until recently, June is considered to be maybe the most influential piece of sci-fi ever written, with countless other works incorporating, indirectly referencing or blatantly ripping off the franchise's ideas and bespoke glossary over the last 59 years instead of adapting the source material. So you'll see sci-fi concepts eerily similar to those featured in Dune show up in everything from Studio Ghibli to Mad Max to SpongeBob SquarePants and of course Star Wars which did actually you might not know this came out after the Dune book was written did you guys know? Wow isn't that a that's one of the trippiest things about it I feel like I'm having melange

Starting point is 00:37:01 right now yeah because I am tripping balls. How does that, how's that possible? How can you inspire something that came from before you? Someone called the Lassan Al-Ghaib because I'm tripping out on spice right now. Yeah. Your eyes are a vivid blue. But that's just the way it is. He sounds a bit like the guy who Liam Neeson was in Batman.

Starting point is 00:37:21 Is that a similar name? Ra's al Ghul. Yeah, totally. Okay, quite different actually. Don't worry about name? Ra's al Ghul, yeah, totally. Okay, quite different actually. There's an owl in the middle of it. I'll take it! Anything to not be completely wrong! Star Wars owes its entire existence to Dune and is probably the reason Dune seemed so obscure for so long because Star Wars usurped it as being the definitive piece of sci-fi pop culture in a much more accessible medium and a streamlined

Starting point is 00:37:51 story about a spiritually gifted young man battling an evil galactic emperor. So they made it a lot easier. Like Dune is full of moral greys and stuff whereas Star Wars is quite famously there's good and there's good and there's evil and there's nothing really in between which again is probably not true for those of you that really love Star Wars but that's what it looks like if you only watch the movies. Even if it was intended that way though it's not really is it because the isn't it it's all about balance it's like the whole thing about you need half evil and half good.

Starting point is 00:38:25 That's very true. Makes it quite gray in itself, really, doesn't it? That you need you're like the system needs half evil. Oh, wow. What kind of system is this? George? Can't believe George didn't survive. Yeah, but George is in the world of Paul and Jessica. And Duncan. Duncan's in a tone-leaf. Oh, let's get this. yeah, Duncan deserves to survive.

Starting point is 00:38:46 You want to know the character's surname? Yes. Is Idaho. Duncan Idaho is the name of the character. Get absolutely fucked. Yeah. That rules. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:57 Spud country. He's played by Jason Momoa in the new movies. Oh, that's so good. OK, so currently in our Do Go on group chat, my nickname is Daddy. And I never wanted to change that because I think it's very funny that the boys type in Daddy to talk to me. But I'm tempted to change it to Duncan Idaho. Duncan Idaho is so funny.

Starting point is 00:39:19 That rules. You're not tempted to change it to Lady Jessica, the character who's actually in June. God no, how boring. Duncan Idaho or Daddy. Matt, you can be Lady Jessica just for supreme confusion and the do go on chat. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. My lunch. And Dave, you can be the Kwisatz Haderach.

Starting point is 00:39:38 Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. That feels right. It's an honor. Yeah, so Star Wars also heavily features several desert planets and there's even a spice in Star Wars that is, it's off screen I think in movies but if you read the comics, you'll see that spice

Starting point is 00:39:58 is a narcotic that is harvested for its psychedelic benefits. So it's not even different. It's just exactly the same thing. And I haven't gone too much into this, but there is some like bad faith. People interpret as pretty bad faith on George Lucas's part that like, this is not like loving homage as much as it is just blatantly stealing ideas. Right, but how could it be a ripoff if Star Wars is set a long time ago? Oh, this is at 10,000 years in the future

Starting point is 00:40:28 Oh, explicitly in the future Explain that to me Yeah, yeah Copy that AJ Explain that I don't, you've got me, you've got me Which is probably a bit rich coming from us seeing as you are literally in the past right now in New Zealand, so

Starting point is 00:40:41 I'm in the future actually, I'm two hours ahead of you Yes, whoa Yeah It's 3pm here baby in the past right now in New Zealand. I'm in the future actually. I'm two hours ahead of you. It's 3pm here baby! So you're saying June is... So June is like New Zealand? And Star Wars is like... Let's start the report again. June is like New Zealand.

Starting point is 00:41:00 Now, what do I mean by that? They talk a little different. It's so funny to see AJ yelling, it's 3pm here baby! Hopefully this all gives you guys a sample of why exactly June was considered impossible to adapt. But this didn't stop Chilean, French avant-garde filmmaker and fellow AJ, Alejandro Hodorowski, whose surname I'm going to accidentally pronounce Joe Dorowski probably a hundred times in this report because I'm an uncultured New Zealander as we've discussed. So Hodorowski is wild, best known for some extremely crazy, weird, breaks all the rules films like El Topo was his first film. And you may have heard of this one,

Starting point is 00:41:54 it's called The Holy Mountain, which is a movie described by director Richard Stanley as feeling like a work of art that comes from a parallel world. It is, I've seen clips of the Holy Mountain and it looks very strange. It's very vibrant colors, but everyone's naked in it and running around deserts. And it's from like the early seventies. Very, very strange film. But it was very successful,

Starting point is 00:42:21 especially in the avant-garde Chilean French scene I guess and in 1974 after the immense success of the Holy Mountain French producer Michel Sedoux approached Hodorowski wanting to make a film with him. Sedoux asked Hodorowski what he'd want to make and Hodorowski said Dune. In the 2013 documentary Hodorowski's Dune of which the 2013 documentary Hodorowski's Dune, of which I've taken a lot of information from and it's great everyone should watch it. It goes into far more detail. In a loving homage kind of way right? Yeah exactly. It goes into far more detail than I was able to in this four thousand word report. Go check it out if you want to learn more. But yeah in the documentary

Starting point is 00:43:04 Hodorowski explains that he hadn't actually read the novel, but his friend had and said it was fantastic. So just like me doing a report on a novel I haven't read, I'm in good company with fellow weird AJs. Yeah, so Hodorowski then moved to a castle in France and began to assemble a team of artists and filmmakers to bring an adaptation of the novel to cinemas. Not only had Hodorowski not read Dune, but he doesn't seem to really like how the book was written either. In the documentary, he describes his experience trying to read it as, quote,

Starting point is 00:43:45 you have a hundred pages of literature where you go on to discover with great difficulty what the book is about. The first 100 pages, you understand almost nothing. It is insinuations. So straight from the guy that wanted nothing more than to adapt this book even he is like this is not a good book to adapt it into film. Hodorowski goes on to explain the spiritual experience of translating this apparently unreadable book to screen and describes his ambitious Dune film multiple times in the documentary as sacred. You get the impression that he wanted to make a movie which transcends the medium of film, transcends art, something that would become a thing of worship. Very strange guy, very strange films.

Starting point is 00:44:32 And is this the movie that Dave ranks as the third worst of all time? It is not, we'll get to that one. Oh, okay. So this is the fourth. Yeah. Hodorowski's team soon included artists and designers like Jean Mobius-Gueraud. I probably pronounced that terribly, just as I have half the other stuff in this report. Dan O'Bannon and Chris Foss, which I don't have much trouble pronouncing, I guess. And H.R.

Starting point is 00:45:00 Giger, who many probably recognize as a very famous creepy surreal artist a lot of these guys just straight-up moved to Paris for the opportunity to work with Hodorowski and bring the film to life together they tirelessly went to work creating dozens of costumes hundreds of incredibly detailed and beautiful pieces of concept art and a 3000-panel storyboard of the film essentially doing all the cinematography on paper first and basically the form of like a roughly sketched comic book. So they put in the hard yards because back in those days I guess they really had to prove that this was possible because it

Starting point is 00:45:40 didn't look very possible. The film was to start with an unbroken long shot zooming through the universe, blitzing past galaxies and planets, past space pirates stealing spice from transporter ships until finally arriving on Arrakis, and this is all pre-Star Wars in 1974. Star Wars was 77, this is 1974. The only thing close that people have seen is as I said, 2001 A Space Odyssey and when they went to the guy that was the art director for 2001 A Space Odyssey, the best in the business, they had an interview with him and Hodorowski went, this guy's not for me. He's too controlling and went with Dan O'Bannon instead who'd art directed a very cheap B movie in the sci-fi genre. This guy's not for me. He's too controlling and went with Dan O'Bannon instead,

Starting point is 00:46:25 who'd art directed like a very cheap B movie in the sci-fi genre. Wow. Yeah. So Hodorowski also had a pretty all-star cast in mind for bringing the film to life. He brought in David Carradine to play Duke Leto Atreides. This is Paul's father.

Starting point is 00:46:42 He is played by Oscar Isaac in the new films, if you're wanting a sort of modern day reference. He also approached Mick Jagger to play Fade Rafa or Rafa. Fade Rafa is played by Austin Butler in Dune Part 2 that came out earlier this year. And he also sought Orson Welles, another And he also sought Orson Welles, another War of the Worlds heavyweight, as the hedonistic Emperor Harkonnen who is played by Stellan Skarsgård in the new films. My favourite character is this gross gluttonous blob that bathes in pitch black oil. It's great. But yeah, he wanted Orson Welles and promised to hire the chef of his favourite restaurant to be on set in order to secure Orson Welles and promised to like hire the chef of his favorite restaurant to be on set in order to secure

Starting point is 00:47:27 Orson Welles Darren from Domino's He knows how to put on the meatballs better than anyone in the biz For the role of Paul Atreides played of course course by Timothy Charlemagne in the new films. Oh, he plays Paul. He plays Paul. Hodorowski cast his 12 year old son, Brontus Hodorowski. Brontus.

Starting point is 00:47:58 Brontus, yeah exactly. Brontus was forced by his father to learn karate and acrobatics, hiring stunt coordinator Jean-Pierre Vinot to teach him not only karate but jiu-jitsu, judo, aikido, atime jitsu, and sword fighting. Vinot trained Brontus Hortarowski six hours a day, seven days a week for two years to prepare for the role of Paul Atreides. Brontis, now grown up, describes Vinod as having had no mercy. Alejandro Hortarowski justifies putting his son through such a strict regimen by explaining, quote, in that time if I needed to cut my arms off in order to make that

Starting point is 00:48:39 picture, I will do it. It was sacred. You need to sacrifice yourself. I was even ready to die, which gave me, I wish I was never born vibes. So I jotted it down. But also he's saying like, I, you know, I, you know, you, you got to sack, you make sacrifices for the art. I would have cut off my arms. Instead. I just tortured my son. I put my son through something he really didn't want to do for a really long time with a person who had no mercy. That's the kind of sacrifice I was really making. I sacrifice my relationship with my son. We don't speak now.

Starting point is 00:49:16 I really hope that after a few months the son just beat up his dad because he's like I'm awesome at martial arts. You're thinking of Star Wars again Dave. Do you know what when I started doing because I did taekwondo as a teenager and my mum had a rule that I was not allowed to practice on my brother. My brother who's seven years older than me and was already hitting me with no technique. That's bad ass. So I'm not allowed to hit back now that I know how to do it. than me and was already hitting me with no technique. That's bad ass Jess.

Starting point is 00:49:45 So I know that hit back now that I know how to do it. You could defend yourself just, was that a taekwondo move Jess? Stop doing that one. No, it was my own mixed martial art that I invented. It was Jess Kwon Do and it's very cool. Jess, that was a taekwondo block. Let your brother hit you please, no blocking.

Starting point is 00:50:04 Have another go, Matt. I will say that Brontas and Alejandro are still, like Brontas is an actor these days and they still have what looks like an all right relationship. So I don't want to dump on them too much, but it is questionable. Yeah, but you did just say Brontas is an actor, mate. So I think out in public he's going, oh, you know, I love my dad.

Starting point is 00:50:28 I'm glad he made my childhood fucking miserable. Sorry. Just Jitsu. Yeah. Great. Great stuff. Thank you, man. We'll insert that. We'll insert that. Most notably of all the casting decisions though, Hodorowski sought out Salvador Dali to play the galactic emperor pulling all of the strings. Dali's involvement ballooned the estimated budget for the film because Dali wanted to be the highest paid actor in Hollywood with a rate of $100,000 per hour. They talked about it and in the documentary you get the sense that it's not about money, it's about, it's still kind of about art. Like Alejandro and Salvador Dali are like, yeah, yeah, it'll be like part of it as you're

Starting point is 00:51:18 the highest paid actor, you know? It's part of the fun for them but Dali eventually settled on a counteroffer of 100k per minute for the total of the three to five minutes that he would appear in the film I'm loving the idea that he would be known as the 100k per minute actor 100k for 35 minutes of work. I'd take that. But you'd be playing Duncan Idaho, of course, who's in the films a lot more than the Emperor. Duncan Idaho!

Starting point is 00:51:54 And also you're getting paid based on how many minutes you're on in the film, right? So the editors could really screw you. Yeah, I had that thought too. You shot for five months, but yeah, we just chopped your character arc out of it. So yeah. Yeah. You actually owe us money. Any extra scenes needed of the Emperor were to be performed by a robot lookalike and Dali

Starting point is 00:52:16 eventually accepted the role on condition that the plastic lookalike was donated to his museum and that his throne room would, well that his throne would be a toilet made up of two intersecting dolphins. Those were his final terms. Which is very Salvador Dali from what I understand of the artist. Rinoceros. That's my, sorry that's my Dali impersonation. Rinoceros.

Starting point is 00:52:44 Part of Hortarasky's vision also involved roping in different bands to compose the scores for the different planets featured in the film. He brought in French prog rock band Magma for, oh, I should have looked up how to pronounce this, Guidy Prime, which is the home planet of House Harkonnen, but famously also brought in Pink Floyd for Caledan, which is the home planet of House Atreides. The story goes that Hodorowski had a meeting with Pink Floyd while they were eating hamburgers in between recording sessions, whereupon seeing their disinterest, Hodorowski completely tore into them, explaining that he was offering them the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to score quote, the most important picture in the history of humanity.

Starting point is 00:53:32 We will change the world and you're eating Big Macs. How? And this apparently convinced them to join the team. So they got all of these people are officially on board by the way. Wow. By this point. In my mind though, like he was pitching to them and they just hadn't said anything because they were eating. And he's interpreted that as not interested. And then he just starts yelling at them and they're like, no, no, we were sounding good. I was going to do it.

Starting point is 00:54:00 Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, you, you're really blown at this time boys. I just didn't want to speak with my mouth full. Yeah. Well, yeah, you really blown at this time boys. I just do want to speak with my mouth full. Yeah, I'm polite. He keeps escalating. If you don't do it Pink Floyd, my son will bash you. My son will die training for this role and you're not even going to put down your big back. I'm going to force my son to learn prog rock. Six hours a day. And become a creature band.

Starting point is 00:54:29 Six hours a day, Robert Fripp's going to set him down and make sure he nuts with it. So Hodorowski's vision of Dune was, despite its its various dark elements, seemingly a lot less cynical than a lot of other interpretations. Without spoiling anything from the novel or the new films, I would say most commentators read it as like, power corrupts even the pure, you know, like, as I said, it's a very morally grey story and Paul's journey of embracing the role of Lisan Al-Ghaib is at least a cautionary tale, right? You're not supposed to... it's not like Luke Skywalker where it's like, yay, he became a Jedi! This is a lot more ominous, I guess.

Starting point is 00:55:14 But Jodorowsky departed from this in the novel, sorry, Hodorowsky departed from this in the novel, seemingly drinking the Kool-Aid himself instead. The film was to end with Paul being killed in battle, but his voice bellowing out of several of the characters in this film saying, I am Paul and you cannot strike me down, before his spirit possessed Arrakis itself, sprouting a lush green paradise out of the desert and blasting the entire planet throughout the universe with a voice of Paul brought Salvation to other galaxies. This is not in the book. This is what Hodorowski thought the ending should be Wow, Paul is very powerful

Starting point is 00:55:59 So all of this pre-production the dream Team assembled and the Bible sized art book wasn't enough to secure the estimated $15 million budget. The Hollywood bigwigs described the extravagant pitch as wonderful and superb, but too weird and not relatable to American audiences. And they didn't understand Hodorowski as a filmmaker who was constantly pushing back against the 90 minute runtime requested from studios Insisting the film should take however long it takes which he estimated would be get ready for it 12 to 20 hours long Did they start the rejection letter with we might be making the mistake

Starting point is 00:56:47 Did they start the rejection letter with, we might be making the mistake of the decade? They do seem regretful and Hodorowski's not the only person with skin in the game trying to get this made, you know, but it's just too long, it's too big. And nowadays you'd look at a sentence like that and you'd be like, okay, so make an HBO limited series, right? But I guess TV was looked quite differently at back then maybe. But it's so funny, he's the visionary, but he's also clearly, cause he won't compromise at all. He's the reason it's not getting made as well. 100%.

Starting point is 00:57:17 Absolutely. Yep. So the project was cancelled and Hodorowski's Dune went down in history as what many consider to be the greatest film never made. So that's it. It's gone. It's got all- The unfilmable books, greatest film never made. Yeah, exactly. It is believed that only two copies of this famous art book still exist today and one of them is owned by Hodorowski himself.

Starting point is 00:57:45 art books still exist today and one of them is owned by Hodorowski himself. It's not all for waste though because imagery from the art book is also thought to have been gutted and reused in films which released in the wake of Dune's cancellation like Star Wars or Flash Gordon or Indiana Jones and of course Alien which poached almost all of Hodorowski's entire creative team, most famously H.R. Giger, who designed the phallic, pseudo-sexual palette of the alien aesthetic, basically. Film critic, and here's a fun name for your collection of fun names in the Do Go On library, Drew Mcweeney. He says that without Hodorowski's Dune there is no alien so then there is no Blade Runner and then there is no The Matrix and can you imagine what the early

Starting point is 00:58:37 2000s would have looked like if The Matrix never came in. So not only is Dune the novel, probably the most influential sci-fi novel in history, but the failed attempt to adapt it is also incredibly influential. Director Nicholas Winding Refn says in the documentary, what if the first film of that nature had been Dune and not Star Wars? Would the whole megabucks blockbuster structure have been altered, which is a fascinating thing to think about because it wasn't that far away from being a reality. And I think the world, or at least my world of movies and pop culture would look very different if like the one that cracked the blockbuster

Starting point is 00:59:19 spectacle was Dune instead of Star Wars. But what if they made it and it was a huge failure and meaning that Star Wars and any of these movies never really got a crack and there was no big budget sci-fi at all? Think about that, AJ. The pretentious film nerd in me would argue maybe that would be a good thing because I would argue

Starting point is 00:59:41 Star Wars' output into the world now is kind of ruining Hollywood a little bit and also I like the original Star Wars fine but like before the 70s you've got Taxi Driver, you've got The Godfather, you know you've got these intellectual very smart movies and then Star Wars basically made everyone go, oh, special effects is cooler than moral gray areas. Let's focus on that instead. Whereas Dune is the middle point between those two, I think.

Starting point is 01:00:13 So maybe we would actually have a more balanced blockbuster landscape. Would you argue that there aren't any good movies anymore? Yeah. Or would you put it like this? AJ, would you put it like this? They don't make them like they used to. They don't. They truly don't. Or in the case of Hodorowski's Dune, they didn't make them then either.

Starting point is 01:00:35 Or in the case of Star Wars, they're still making them. Hodorowski has himself reused a lot of the imagery from his ill-fated Dune in his comic, in a comic I think it might be a series. It's called The Inkle. You look at it and there's a lot of the same ideas in there. So Alejandro Hodorowski, however, is not the only filmmaker to try and tackle a Dune adaptation. And in fact, he's not even the only fucking weird filmmaker to try to do it. Are we at all familiar with the director David Lynch? Do we recognise the name? Do we know his name?

Starting point is 01:01:10 Yes. Mulholland Drive, is that David Lynch? Mulholland Drive, Mulholland Drive is David Lynch, Blue Velvet. Twin Peaks or Twin Punks as you would say. Twin Peaks, yep. Yep. The Elephant Man.

Starting point is 01:01:23 The Elephant Man, great. I'm very impressed to do go on. I did a Primates episode about a short film he made a few years ago about a monkey or a chimp or something. It's like what happened to Jack or something. Yes, that's right. Yep. So-

Starting point is 01:01:37 Are you most impressed by my reference though, AJ? Mulholland Drive is a fantastic film, Jess. Have you seen it? I did it in a, in a film class in uni and I had to watch it twice, well multiple times, and while reading along with an explainer because I did like it. Fun? Awesome! Yes, super fun, I loved it! Is that the one that just had a bit tacked on at the end, it was meant to be something

Starting point is 01:01:59 else or something? No, it was converted from a TV show to a movie, Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. So for those unfamiliar, maybe listening, David Lynch is an American surrealist filmmaker. Yeah, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive. If you've never seen a David Lynch film, think about the stereotype of the surreal or weird or intentionally off-put putting student film that you'll have seen a hundred examples of in your life. Those films are all trying to be Lynchian whether they realize it or not. I see David Lynch as like the inventor is a strong word but the guy that like put this brand of weird out into the mainstream basically. So his films are littered with strong violent

Starting point is 01:02:48 religious and sexual imagery and his personal life is no less bizarre. The man has been married four times. He's very into transcendental meditation and during the pandemic he would release weather reports on his YouTube channel. That's all he was doing. He would, you would go on there and be like, okay, so today, this is a really good David Lynch impression, by the way. Today, it's going to be cloudy and a high of 15. And then he'd be like, see you tomorrow. And that would be the weather report. I've never heard him speak before, I don't think.

Starting point is 01:03:24 I wasn't picturing that. He acts in quite a lot of his stuff He's if you've seen Twin Peaks, he plays the deaf police captain and twin Peaks Who's a great I have seen Twin Peaks, but you can't tell you anything about it apart from there's a cafe He's he goes to the cafe. Yeah There's a diner it's one of the some of the characters working at Dino. He's got gray hair He does now. He's got a shrock of grey hair. It used to be pitch black back in the Twin Peaks days, so he went hot to cold.

Starting point is 01:03:54 So he is a weird guy, but perhaps one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. And in 1981 Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis hired Lynch to direct an adaptation of Dune after none other than Ridley Scott dropped out of the project due to, you know, everything that stops people from making a Dune movie. Dune would become Lynch's third film following up his career making debut A Race Ahead and his sophomore hit The Elephant Man that Dave mentioned before. Lynch had also never read the novel but unlike Hodorowski he did pick up a copy and finish it before agreeing to direct. Legend has it that Lynch chose directing Dune over another space opera blockbuster searching

Starting point is 01:04:42 for a director at the time called Revenge of the Jedi later retitled to Return of the Jedi. Wow. Whoa. Whoa. How different would that have become? Yeah, well that's what everyone says, but I think it's one of these things that's like over-embellished. Like when I've heard Lynch address it, it sounds more like someone asked, hey, what about a Star Wars movie and he he says in an interview He immediately got a headache when he was offered the role the job and Lynch also saw Dune as being too broad for a standard 90 minute runtime

Starting point is 01:05:19 But his attempts to split the project into two movies were quashed by producers With a budget of over 40 to million, Dune began filming in Mexico with 80 sets built on 16 sound stages and a crew of 1700 with over 20,000 extras. The cast is not quite as recognizable today as it would have been in 1984, but names and faces that I recognized when I watched it recently include Kyle McLaughlin plays Paul Atreides, so he's the coffee guy from Twin Peaks. Yes. You've also got Patrick Stewart who plays Gurney Halleck who's played by Josh Brolin

Starting point is 01:05:58 in the new films. I'm Patrick Stewart. There's a very famous scene in David Lynch's June where Patrick Stewart is carrying a pug in like a baby thing, you know, like the strap that baby carry on. He's carrying a pug into battle and he's like to battle or whatever and he's just no context has a pug in a baby carrier on his chest. Pugs survive, they don't evolve. Pugs don't evolve. Pugs don't evolve.

Starting point is 01:06:26 They get even flatter. Yeah, exactly. And infamously also, Sting was cast as Faye Ratha. This is Austin Butler from Dune II. Yeah, so he's very strange character design. He's got spiky orange hair and he's topless for a lot of it. I've seen photos of him. It's very strange. I've seen photos of him. Is that right?

Starting point is 01:06:47 I never knew what the movie was. Yeah. It's David Lynch's June. It looks like he's in the Sex Pistols. Yeah. But like in the future. Yeah. Sex Pistols of the future.

Starting point is 01:06:55 Yeah. Probably the one with the sex laser beams. Well, this film also had a popular band at the time come on board to score it. And who do we want to guess? Who do we reckon scored David Lynch's June? Queen? No. Right ballpark though. Yeah, that's a good guess though. It's the right ballpark. Because they were Flash Gordon, which I think...

Starting point is 01:07:14 Oh yeah, true actually. I thought I was being quite funny, but that wasn't a bad guess. I know, that's a good guess. I definitely had the right ballpark. Think, think, they've got a very famous song that's about a continent. Oh, Toto. Toto! Scores June 1984.

Starting point is 01:07:34 So that makes sense. The first cut of the film and like the initial edit ran over four hours, which was eventually whittled down to just over two hours with the use of voiceover and new scenes shot to compress the story. There are several versions of the film out there with varying durations, but the theatrical cut, which released in cinemas in 1984, was but a conservative 137 minutes. So it's, yeah, a little over two hours. I think the version that I saw was the worst one. Whatever that was.

Starting point is 01:08:11 Well, that's maybe all of them actually, Dave. It was honestly 10 or 15 minutes and there was a lot of voice of like karma glocklin was like, I don't know, being having being telepathic with someone and I was like, what is going on and sting was there and I was like, what is going on? And then Sting was there and I was like, what? I think I'm high myself. The melange got ya. Your eyes are turning blue. So I think it's important to understand

Starting point is 01:08:35 that David Lynch is one of those artists whose work is often so beyond reproach that any criticism of his work can be rebuked with a classic, you just don't get it. Which I actually, that's probably true. A lot of his stuff which hasn't worked for me has been confusing, not like poorly constructed or anything, right? But with that being said, even the biggest Lynch fans in the world

Starting point is 01:08:57 tend to be very divided on June 1984. It is generally considered his worst movie, and David Lynch himself has disowned the film, denying the offer to edit a director's cut and prefers not to talk about it in interviews. Wow. Is June 1984 related to Wonder Woman 1984? They're both bad movies, is that? But actually, I'll do you one better. They're both bad movies by promising directors that I actually really like. They're quite related. There you go. There are some defenders of June 1984. It's sort of a cult film now. And I will say, I think it's aged quite well. The 1980s digital effects would have looked really cheap and limited at the time and and

Starting point is 01:09:48 Even upwards of like 10 20 years later, but now I feel like they present like a rich and nostalgic aesthetic Visually, there's a lot of harsh green screens and dopey stop-motion and it's very silly but but what I like about it is it feels far more like otherworldly in my opinion than the new films. It feels genuinely alien. You haven't just gone to a new planet, you've gone to a new ecological yeah. I didn't hate how it looked, but that is to say nothing of the plot and the pacing, which is nuts. In my opinion, the film chugs along at a fairly comfortable rate for the first few acts. Characters are underdeveloped and some of the big heavyweights

Starting point is 01:10:42 are reduced to two-dimensional pastiches for time, but the main stuff is all there, and the events that would be later contained to the entirety of 2021's Dune Part 1 take up almost the full length of 1984's Dune, with the events of 2024's Dune Part 2 reduced to the final 40 minutes, at which point it just snaps into a breakneck pace with liberal use of voiceover and montage just to get it over and done with. The entire second half of the story is squeezed into this last chunk and is edited like a previously on section at the start of a TV show. So it's like, and then he did this, and then he did this instead of like the slower pace of the first three quarters.

Starting point is 01:11:28 The film also underperformed at the box office grossing 30.9 million from a budget of around 40 million, and famous film critic Roger Ebert gave it one star out of four and wrote, The movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time. The movie's plot will no doubt mean more to people who have read Herbert than those who are walking in cold. He later named it the worst movie of the year. So Dave, very good company, Roger Ebert, probably the most respected film critic in the world, agrees with you. I'm actually so relieved to hear that because I thought that I might get a lot of flack

Starting point is 01:12:13 from not liking it. But thank God. I mean, if Ebert is always right, right? Yeah, well, not always. He didn't like, I think, The Matrix was a famous one. He pooed. But anyway, I, well, actually this will relevant for Phrasing the Bar, he rated The Mummy 3 the highest of the Mummy trilogy, isn't that? Oh my god. Doesn't that offend you? Doesn't that offended me when I found that out? Yeah, they can't rank, they're all equally perfect.

Starting point is 01:12:38 Oh, the third one is where Rachel Weisz isn't in it. Yeah. Or they recaster? They recaster it. Recast. That's right, yeah. And their isn't in it. Yeah. Or they recast her? They recast her. Recast. That's right. Yeah. And their son is an adult.

Starting point is 01:12:49 Yeah. Yeah. Terrible film. It's bad. Terrible. But not as bad as June 1984. And while many of the people involved were able to salvage their careers from it, it is also maybe the reason we haven't seen Sting in a lot of things since, or a lot of main roles since I think a lot of people consider it like the career ruining, or the movie career

Starting point is 01:13:10 ruining thing for Sting. And really the only person who was at all happy about the film's failure was one Alejandro Hodorowski who begrudgingly saw the film and was delighted to see how bad it turned out, but he was careful to blame the meddling producers and not Lynch's directing. He actually says and the documentary He says I love David Lynch and I went along and as as I was watching the movie I started to feel elated that it was terrible There's some there's some always a silver lining for at least one person involved in these terrible movies, either getting made or not getting made.

Starting point is 01:13:50 Hey, Jay, he also gave one out of four stars to David Lynch's Blue Velvet, which is seen as one of his better ones, right? There you go, yeah. He mustn't have liked David Lynch. I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the like. He's got a few biases you can track

Starting point is 01:14:04 through his reviews like that, where he won't like one thing or something like that. It's all you know, don't. The First Omen. I believe the girl is to be your mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. 666 is the mark of the devil. Movie of the year. It's not real, it's not real.

Starting point is 01:14:35 It's not real. Who said that? The First Omen in theatres Friday. Gets it, gets it now. So after the absolute chaos of both Hodorowski and Lynch's attempts at adapting Dune, the franchise entered a dark age into the late 80s and 90s, with any expansions on the source material being far more underground. There were several retro video games based on Dune released around this time, including one that borrowed imagery from the Lynch film.

Starting point is 01:15:06 These tended to fare better than the movies. Westwood Studios Dune II released in 1992 being considered, you guessed it, one of the most influential video games of all time. So, a lot of that has come up a lot and June's legacy Of note as well were a couple of mid-budget TV shows produced in the early 2000s a three episode miniseries called Frank Herbert's June was released in 2000 and a sequel miniseries Frank Herbert's children of June based on the second and third novels came out in 2003

Starting point is 01:15:42 Here we see the likes of William Hurt and James McAvoy join the franchise's growing list of associated stars. And the series was actually received fairly positively, but criticized for lacking spectacle, which is to be expected from a TV, an early 2000s TV budget for something like Dune. Right. Yeah. Luckily though, with the massive innovations in the digital effects boom of the 2000s with films like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the new Star Wars movies, the famously unfilmable novel was starting to seem a little more filmable and eventually the reigns of the long fabled perfect Dune adaptation were picked up by French-Canadian director Denis

Starting point is 01:16:23 Villeneuve which is funnily enough the hardest to pronounce name in this whole report. I Denis Villeneuve I Even I I looked it up I repeated it back at the YouTube lady saying it back at me and I'm still not sure that I'm There was a wasn't a race car driver called Villeneuve, Villeneuve? Yeah, too. Jacques Villeneuve and also his father. I think they're the father-son only world champions, something like that. Wow. Any relation, AJ?

Starting point is 01:16:56 Well, I don't know how many Villeneuves are in the world, I guess, is the question. At least three. Yeah. His father, Gilles Villeneuve. Oh, there we go. Yeah, so, I kind of think of Denis Villeneuve as like a French version of Christopher Nolan. He is hailed by some of his contemporaries as being one of the best currently working filmmakers. And if you haven't seen them, his films are Prisoners, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 are all fucking great. Probably some of the finest pieces of mainstream cinema

Starting point is 01:17:33 of the 2010s. In my humble opinion. And are they all sci-fi? Prisoners is more of like a crime thriller. He also did Sikaria. I haven't seen Sikario, but that's a pretty famous one of his as well but yeah rival is about like first contact with aliens and bladerunner 2049 obviously a am sequel to blader I'm so sorry. Gilles Villeneuve, the father, only came second in the World Championship. Wow. The father son. The father son to come second. Is that right? Yeah, probably. I was thinking of Graham and Damon Hill. Wow. Much easier to pronounce surname.

Starting point is 01:18:17 Dave, don't ever embarrass this podcast again. That was for the one person in you. I'm sorry. That was a bad one. I'm really embarrassed. That was for the one person I knew that was a bad one. That was embarrassing, mate. That was a really bad one. We may never recover from this. Yeah, I don't think so either. For sure. This is you now look worse than Sting after the release of 1986.

Starting point is 01:18:37 We've lost the Ecclestein dollars. Is that his name? Sure. Wait, he's a race card guy. Matt, you don't ever embarrass this podcast again. Oh no. I am sick of carrying you two by just shutting up because I don't know anything. Except Mulholland Drive because I wanted AJ's approval.

Starting point is 01:18:59 Yeah, and you got it. You got it. Oh no. It's another one. I forgot there's also Kecky and Nico Rosberg that also won the World Championship. Oh my god. Alright, we're going to have to kick Dave off the Zoom call. I think you've done enough damage, you mate. It's actually more common for father-sons to win than non-related drivers. Yes.

Starting point is 01:19:19 So, Denis Villeneuve was and is a perfect fit for Dune, beating both Lynch and Hortarowski by having actually read the books and already been a fan before seeking out the job. Before it was greenlit, he was quoted as saying, a long-standing dream of mine is to adapt Dune but it's a long process to get the rights and I don't think I will succeed. So that's pretty cool that he got to achieve his lifelong goal when he secured a deal with Warner Bros. to adapt the first novel into two films, presumably because studios were now very aware of how long and arduous this novel was. I don't think I've ever heard anyone call it Warner Bros.

Starting point is 01:20:02 Hey, we're Warner Bros, dude. Is that what the people say? I know it call it Warner Bros. Hey, we're Warner Bros, dude. Is that what the people say? I'm sorry. I know it's written Warner Bros. I'm sorry, you've never heard someone call it Warner Bros. No, it's the Warner Brothers. Really? Both are acceptable, but I've heard

Starting point is 01:20:16 Warner Bros plenty of times. Hey, hey Warner Bros. And that's funny coming from Australians because we do shorten everything. So you'd think if we were gonna call it one or the other, we would go for bros. Does bros sound, does that sound familiar to you? Wannabos? Yeah. Yeah, I've heard both. And you have the bloody theme park over there as well. Yeah. Oh yeah, Hollywood on the Gold Coast. Okay, so you don't call it- Warner Brothers New World.

Starting point is 01:20:40 Wow, so you do call it, that'll be it. That'll be because you have a cultural touchstone that refers to them as brothers Yeah, whereas I I watched animaniacs where they call themselves the Warner Brothers. Oh, no, they do the what are they saying that? We are the Warner Brothers. They say a lot of stuff in animaniacs man. Uh oh. They say heaps of shit on animaniacs. AJ are you just realising you've made a huge mistake? I'm disconnecting from the dude from the zoom call right now

Starting point is 01:21:04 Jess what about him? Me and Dave are off the pod for making a mistake and now him For this thing that we don't think is a mistake, but still I couldn't even get a fucking word in my He said I'm leaving I'm disconnecting and I know in my head I was going yeah I'm leaving, I'm disconnecting and in my head I was going, yeah, good instinct. Makes sense, he'd say, bros. I wish David would do the same. Yeah, that's true. The biggest film bro I've come across. Did you see before when he's told Jess she's got to watch The Godfather?

Starting point is 01:21:36 I did think that's it. You haven't seen The Godfather? I love the idea that I subconsciously, without realising, told someone they have to see The Godfather. What a pastiche I've become. So Villeneuve began writing the screenplay and assembling his cast, which is pretty much every big exciting name in Hollywood, including, You've got Timothy Charlemagne as Paul Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Stalin Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dave Bautista as Raban, Zendaya as Charney, Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Mohaim, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho,

Starting point is 01:22:24 Javier Bardem as Stilgar and David Dasmaltzian as Peter De Vries and joining the cast for the sequel which released earlier this year, which we didn't really say but that's part of the reason why I offered to do a Dune Report is because it seemed like the iron was hot to strike the Dune in the cultural moment that is right now. Yeah, we want to ride that wave. Yeah, exactly. We have Austin Butler as Fade, Ratha Harkonnen, Florence Pugh, second episode in a row that Florence Pugh has been brought up.

Starting point is 01:22:58 She plays Princess- Oh, Florence Pugh. Yeah, exactly. She pongs. Florence Pugh plays Princess Arulin, Leah Su as Lady Margo Fenring and Christopher Walken as the Galactic Emperor Shadam IV, which is pretty interesting casting because this is not Walken's first Dune related role. As he famously danced his way through a shopping mall in the music video for the song Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim, which contains the lyrics, Walk without rhythm, it won't attract the worm, which is a reference to how the Freemen

Starting point is 01:23:34 walk in disjointed steps across the Arrakis desert in order to not attract Shai Halood, who can sense rhythmic vibrations in the ground. Wow. Wow. And he was also in the presidents of the United States as film clip for Little Blue Doon Buggy. That's not true. So yeah. Great tune though. Great tune.

Starting point is 01:24:03 You familiar with the song everyone? It's such a good song. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Little blue dune buggy in the sand. The, the. Little blue dune buggy in my hand. I think. Little blue dune buggy.

Starting point is 01:24:20 Nice. That's going in. I'm not, you're about, you're seconds away from asking me to remove that. Can you edit that out? And he won't. Yeah. So the legendary composer Hans Zimmer scores both films, which I think is nothing against Pink Floyd or Toto, but I think it's certainly a more grandiose person to assign the job. And both films, Dune and Dune Part 2, received critical acclaim upon release, but the Dune

Starting point is 01:24:53 Curse was still alive and well, with the first film releasing towards what Hollywood would call the tail end of the pandemic. They released it in a baffling cinema slash streaming same day release on HBO Max. So would you rather go see this literally made for the big screen movie at home? Or do you want to go out to the COVID ravaged streets to go and watch it how it was intended to be seen? So everything was underperforming financially

Starting point is 01:25:26 around this time but the early streaming release put the sequel's fate in question initially. And also despite his skill Villeneuve had also had a pretty bad track record with flops, especially Blade Runner 2049 which is thought by some to have been omitted from the best picture conversation at the 2018 Academy Awards because of its underwhelming box office. Like everyone got rave reviews, but it underperformed financially and it did win best cinematography for Roger Deakins, who's the Steven Spielberg of cinematography and that's his first Oscar win and rightly deserved deserved I think it's a 2049 beautiful film No, but it's funny to be the Steven Spielberg and still also work in the same industry

Starting point is 01:26:15 I'm talking about Roger Deacon's the cinematographer the director of photography No, no, I still find that. Surely he's more like the Jacques Villeneuve of cinematography. Yeah, surely not the Gilles Villeneuve coming second. Terrible. I watched, I've watched about half of it, the first half, and I was going to come back to it. But so you're the reason it underperformed then is what you're telling me. Yeah, well, it just, you know, it was, I'd say pretty good. That's Ryan Gosling.

Starting point is 01:26:43 Yeah. And am I right? Is David Batista in it as well? He is. He's got tiny little glasses and these glasses that I- And they clip off in the middle, right? I remember that about it. I should go back to that. That was pretty good. I bought bought these glasses partially inspired by Dave Batista's little glasses and played runner 20.

Starting point is 01:27:03 And they're working. Thank you so much. The cast for June's really interesting with the, because quite a few of them are maybe most famous for being in big sci-fi blockbusters as well, like Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly. Aquaman. Yeah. Is that a sci-fi blockbuster?

Starting point is 01:27:21 Sure. Absolutely. Of course it's sci-fi. I don't know, the difference between sci-fi and fantasy is tricky. I know, because Star Trek is sci-fi blockbuster? Sure, absolutely. I don't know, the difference between sci-fi and fantasy is tricky. I know, because Star Trek is sci-fi and fantasy is Star Wars, is that right? Well, I would call Star... this is so nerdy. And it's even worse that I sincerely went in to say this. I would classify Star Wars as a space opera more than a fantasy. But people often say like, Star Wars is what happens when you take a sci-fi

Starting point is 01:27:45 Well when you make when you take a fantasy and put it in sci-fi's clothing basically because fantasy tends to be about magic whereas sci-fi tends to be about like Scientific concepts that are you know presented as possible and what we know of science currently, I guess. That makes sense. Yeah. That's actually the first thing that's made sense to me this episode. So luckily the sequel was greenlit soon after the first film premiered, got rave reviews and Warner Brothers were like, well, we're going to greenlight this.

Starting point is 01:28:23 I think they waited too long. I think that they should have green lit them at the same time so that June Part 2 could have come out like 10 months later. I think that they lost a lot because probably the most common and probably most valid criticism of June Part 1 is that structurally it feels like half a story. It's very long. It's two and a half hours long or so, but it does, structurally, the movie watching self

Starting point is 01:28:52 that has been, you know, you've been watching movies your whole life, you get to the end and there is a feeling of like, oh, it feels like we're just getting started. I really like it, but that is a valid complaint of the film. And also I have a dumb brain, I really like it, but that is a valid complaint of the film. And also, I have a dumb brain so I had to watch it a few times to fully understand all the wonderful terminology.

Starting point is 01:29:12 It was my first introduction to the franchise was watching that movie. Part 2 though seems to have a much more unanimous acclaim with many film commentators, myself included, seeing it as a landmark achievement in filmmaking whose influence, like the source material, will be seen in future films for years to come. This is the dark night of the 2020s. Remember when Mad Max Ferry Road came out and it feels like it was the biggest thing ever? June Part 2, I think, is going to be the movie that gets imitated the most in probably the next five to ten years, I think, anyway. Is it a box office hit as well? Yeah, it's doing really well, both critically and at the box office.

Starting point is 01:30:02 The only person who doesn't seem to like the new Dune movies is maybe Alejandro Udorowski. To be fair, I couldn't find a quote from him after the movies released, but before they came out, he was very sort of sour puss about it and being like, oh. He was waiting for Paul to sprog a whole field in the desert? Yeah, sprog. He did say he would see it though, but no word on what he thought of it. Wow, which that actually means a lot from him. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Starting point is 01:30:35 I think- He said, I'll hate watch it. Yeah, yeah. I'll wait till it's on a streamer and I'll hate watch it then. An open world MMO video game titled June Awakening is currently in production, which looks to be set in the, specifically in the universe of the new films. And another TV show titled Dune Prophecy is in development at HBO Max, sorry, Max it's just called now because dropping your brand name from your product is a smart business

Starting point is 01:31:04 decision. Dune Prophecy is set to focus on the origins of the Benedjessarite thousands of years before the events of the films. And finally, Villeneuve also recently announced that he is in fact working on a screenplay for the third film, Dune Messiah. I did look up like what's the deal with the other sequels. So Herbert, Frank Herbert wrote six films and I found a Reddit thread that says, how filmable is the rest of the Dune series? Most people are saying that Dune Messiah and Children of Dune will work. God Emperor of

Starting point is 01:31:38 Dune could maybe be a TV series, but the other two books which are called Chapter House Dune and what was the other one? Chapter House Dune. That's the sixth one. Yeah, that doesn't sound good. It's not good. Good. No, it's my least favorite title of the bunch.

Starting point is 01:31:56 Yeah, something about it. Heretics of Dune and Chapter House Dune are apparently very unfriendly to adapting. I saw a comment that said that the books five and six will be harder to adapt because they're very philosophical, a lot of talking and has quote weird sex stuff in them. So. Okay, now I'm listening. For five more minutes, pictures in case.

Starting point is 01:32:21 Finally. Yeah, so that- And they're saying you can't make it because of the weird sex stuff. Exactly. Get the holy mountain guy back on. He sounds like this would be right up his alley. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that's my report on the unfilmable novel that was eventually filmed and split into

Starting point is 01:32:41 two films and finally, given the illustrious cinematic treatment that it's so, so deserved for over over 50, nearly 60 years. Yeah, wow. The author of the films went, did you say he, he wrote, did he write screenplays for the books as well or he? I believe, he never intended them to. Oh, sorry, Frank Herbert, do you mean? Yeah. Oh, sorry, Frank Herbert, do you mean? Yeah. So he wrote a script that are based on the first film and that was going to be the Ridley

Starting point is 01:33:09 Scott one that Ridley Scott then ditched. And when David Lynch came on, he wrote his own version. I didn't include too much about that because this was already very long and it seemed like the less interesting unmade films. How long did he survive Herbert? He died in 1986. So a couple of years after he was able to see his work sullied by David Lynch. Sting killed him.

Starting point is 01:33:36 Go on Sting. See Sting in those little underpants, just too much for him. Exactly. Little underpants. It's really interesting. He had a heart attack in his balls. So there it is, his regret face. Yes!

Starting point is 01:33:57 The, um, the like, the aesthetic for the Harkinens in the new films is like pale, like painted on white, like body paint, very black and white, dark, very creepy. I think in the original books, it's kind of a vaguely homophobic, very camp depiction is what the Harkonnens are in the book. And in the David Lynch movie, it's just they're all ginger. They're all ginger and don't wear a lot of clothes. So a bit like you man

Starting point is 01:34:32 Well, what do you want to read it now Dave that I guess that's the question at the end of the episode I Think I want to see the films. They sound like Much more palatable like the new ones it is. I'll never go back to My god, there's not enough more palatable, like the new ones that is. I'll never go back to this, to the Lynch one. My God. There's not enough lifetimes, but the novel itself, now you've said the fact that the main character has 58 different names, he's the Messiah for 30 different cultures, it does. And the fact that the names, apart from Paul and Duncan seem a bit full on.

Starting point is 01:35:07 I wonder how I'll go. Jessica, ugh. Yeah, Jessica, ugh. But. It's a mouthful. Yeah. I'm going to give it a crack and see how I go. Nice.

Starting point is 01:35:15 Well. Because I think the only way I'll get anywhere near reading it is by listening to Bookcheap talk about it. Yeah, I'll do it so you don't have to. OK, I'll sacrifice myself. you don't have to. Okay. I'll sacrifice myself. There you go. Because you'll cut off your arms if it means putting out a good episode of Not Put To Eat. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:35:31 And my child is currently training in seven different types of martial arts. It has nothing to do with the podcast, but you know, sacrifices must be made. Far out. Oh, AJ, thank you so much for that. What an absolute treat. Of course. Thank you so much for putting in the terms that we could understand. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:35:51 Yeah. Simpleton is like us. Now I fully get it. Zertog took over the Empire of Sand. Yep. He was snorting up mushrooms and yeah in the end they splooged a new meadow in the desert. And flew off into space and saved the universe.

Starting point is 01:36:14 Easy. Yeah, said my work here is done. See, Hodorowski understands that for some of life's hard questions there are very easy answers I think, is what he can see that none of these other artists could see. There's no easier answer to any question for me than saying NURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Sometimes the edit job on some of these episodes is already harrowing and then I check the duration and we've only just got to everyone's favourite section and it's got another hour left to go. Sorry, that's true. Just in case some people are going to ditch us now, I don't think they ever will because this is the favourite section of the show.

Starting point is 01:37:18 Or if people are tuning in now because they've skipped ahead to this section, your enthusiasm for movies and popular culture is infectious. Thank you so much. We love hearing you talk about AJ and people can hear you talk about it Regularly on your own podcast called pop sure correct So I have a podcast been good get this we're much less well known than you guys are But we've been going for about the same amount of time which I always thought was was kind of fun that like we've we're Entering like our eighth year now. I think. So there is a massive backlog of episodes. I wouldn't necessarily recommend going back too far.

Starting point is 01:37:50 Um, but yeah, we do a show called Cold Popure where, um, every two weeks we do something called Film Franchise Fortnights, where we look at a different, we watch an entire film franchise and discuss it with me and my co-host Richard. Um, and, uh, Matt has actually just been on an episode, a crossover episode between Prime Mates and Cole Poppinshire where we looked at two films called Space Chimps and Space Chimps 2. Has that come out? Zartog's Revenge. No, Zartog Strikes Back. No, it's not out yet. I think Richard's still editing. At the time of this episode coming out though, I mean.

Starting point is 01:38:23 Yeah. It comes out on Monday. So yeah. So I'll put it out in the Primates feed so you can find it Primates and Cold Pop Char. Yes please. I also, if anyone's interested, I don't usually plug this as much, but I'm also an amateur filmmaker with a filmmaking crew called One Dollar Gen genre that where I've been asked by my producers to use every connection I have to try and get a $1 genre more, uh, more seen.

Starting point is 01:38:52 So we make a short film every month that is based on a genre that gets chosen by the Patreon we set up for it. So that's also something I do if anyone wants to see, wants to see me put my money where my mouth is and actually make a film instead of just talk about it I love that. I didn't know about that. I'm gonna check it out. It's awesome. You must be the busiest man in New Zealand, Hollywood I I truly I'd certainly in Christchurch You and Peter Jackson, right? Peter Jackson's too busy rigging mayoral elections, which is a story for another time when I come and do my

Starting point is 01:39:27 Slanderous Peter Jackson report for you. Wow What is a New Zealand Hollywood called? Go to Wellington they do have what I consider to be a pretty like gross ugly Wellywood sign on the hill when you fly in. I think it's pretty stupid. Wellywood. I disagree. I think that rules. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great.

Starting point is 01:39:53 That's weird that the Windy City's got something that's so derivative like that. So the way this- I don't get it. But they laughed. Chicago's Windy City. Yeah, right. Wellington also calls itself the windy city. So I was saying it's funny that they do some derivative. But I called them. That is good stuff. Can you beat Chicago on a good day though? That's the question because you famously can't beat Wellington on a good day.

Starting point is 01:40:17 Oh wow. Wellington is so good. I love visiting Wellington. Nice. Beautiful city. Thank you so much. On behalf of a city I don't live in. Thank you. Cross-church. Another beautiful city. Beautiful place. Everyone. New Zealand is just a beautiful country. Yeah. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:40:33 Everyone should go. No, don't, don't come here. We're already dealing with the fallout of the American politics is taken over here now as well. Everyone should go to New Zealand. Everybody book your tickets. That had a little ring of fuck off we're full about it AJ. No, I'm saying- And it's our thing.

Starting point is 01:40:52 The fuck off we're full is the American sentiment that seems to have come over this way. But you're right, maybe I need to carefully examine how I'm expressing that concern. So anyway, AJ, this next part of the show is everyone's favorite section where we thank some of our fantastic supporters. If you want to get involved, go to patreon.com slash do go on pod. Have you ever been a patron, AJ? I actually am currently a patron. You are a fricking legend. So I give you some of the money back that you give me too.

Starting point is 01:41:28 It's stupid. Well, the thing is though, cause we have people like on our team as well that pay for our Patreon for the various benefits, but it's like Patreon doesn't give you an option to give people like a comp. Exactly. Same. Yep. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:41:44 Yeah. Why would they? Because they get a cut from people just passing their support around their friends. Exactly. Dogs. Nah, good on them. They're good people. Good on them. We love them and we rely on them. But you know, it's a perfect system. Patreon.com slash diggeronpod is where you can support us and if you want to do that, there's a bunch of different rewards. I think Jess is probably in the best place to explain some of these. The seat to the left.

Starting point is 01:42:08 Yes. Yes, it is the best place for it. So the benefits. Yes. Voting on topics. Yes. Two out of three you're voting on. There's also early access to live shows, to tickets, to live streams. We do sometimes. Discounts as well. You get access to the Facebook group, which is the nicest corner of the internet. Yes where I've started semi-regularly when I'm in different places I've been doing some

Starting point is 01:42:34 Patreon catch-ups which have been really fun. Very nice. We got one coming up in Melbourne tonight at the time of recording, it's already happening, it was a great time. Beautiful time. No one else showed up but it was, I just think it was nice for me to hang out. Yeah. You know, you know. It's nice for you to hang out. It's nice for me to hang out. It's nice for you to get a place. Yes. And we also do three bonus episodes a month just moving on from Matt being sad and alone. Very good. So yeah, let's thank some of the wonderful people. I'm interstate,

Starting point is 01:43:00 Matt, otherwise I would have been there, I swear to you, I would have been there. And Jess? I am busy. Yeah, you're supporting your friends. I'm supporting my friends at my home. Yeah, yeah, good on ya. I'm my own friend. But somehow we came all the way around for you to sound as sad as me. So anyway, the first thing we do

Starting point is 01:43:19 is called the Fact Quote or Question section. This is for people who signed up on the Sydney Scharnberg Deluxe Memorial level. And this section actually has a little jingle go something like this. Fact, quote or question. It was too high pitched. It always remembers the ding. Too high pitched for the Zoom audio gate.

Starting point is 01:43:38 Oh really, you couldn't hear that? I was, honestly, because you paused for so long, I thought, oh my God, have I done it wrong? Yeah, it was uncomfortable because we could see you ding, but we couldn't hear you ding. So I meant silently ding and then pause and look sad. So the way this works is people can give us a fact, quote, or question, or a braggart or a suggestion if they're on the Sydney Schomburg level. I'll read them out then for the first time. That's just excusing myself for mucking up pronunciations or them saying something crook.

Starting point is 01:44:12 But the first one this week is from Amelia Todd, and they also get to give themselves a title. Amelia's title is still the official website quality assurance tester. Bloody hell, Amelia, you're doing God's work there. And Amelia has a question writing, hi guys, on a recent episode, one of your patrons, Tessa, wrote in saying she's having a baby due in August. I'm also having a baby due in August. If Tessa is listening, I wanted to wish her loads of, lots of good vibes for the remainder of her pregnancy and beyond.

Starting point is 01:44:44 That's pretty appropriate. That's like a sci-fi sort of thing to say, isn't it? It's exactly like a sci-fi thing. Yeah, you're right. We're about halfway there already. Also, since it came up in the last conversation, I'm a Virgo. Another Virgo. Virgin. Virgin. You know, like Jesus anyway, I sort of like space pool

Starting point is 01:45:10 Now onto my question I'd love to hear any tips and advice you guys have for a soon-to-be new parent like myself It's possible Dave's might be the most relevant since he welcomed in a little one of his own recently congratulations Dave But I'd love to hear from Jess and Matt as well or whoever else is there. It's a guest episode. That's nice, that's good. PSI, listen to all the ads.

Starting point is 01:45:32 Thank you for listening to all the ads. Dave, I'm gonna ask you to sit this one out. I think between AJ, Matt and I, we have got some good parenting tips. I think maybe better than anyone, AJ currently lives next to a kindergarten. Yeah, that's true. Not for long though, I'm moving out in about a week into an apartment.

Starting point is 01:45:50 And that's definitely not because of the sound of children. Parenting tips, what do we got? What do we got? What are your earliest memories of your parents? What are the things that you remember, you still remember the things that you're so grateful they did for you when you were young? One time when I was a kid, it was raining outside and I had sort of just connected that people called rain showers. So I asked if I could shower outside and they said, yeah, go for it.

Starting point is 01:46:16 So I ran out into the backyard nude while my parents just kind of watched and then my brother threw a bar of soap at me. So I think that would be, that would be a trick. You cracked him around the head with your jujitsu. Just jujitsu. Just jujitsu. Just jujitsu. So that's my advice, I guess. Wait, what is that exactly?

Starting point is 01:46:38 If you're going to put that into advice. Let him run around nude. Let him learn. Let him learn. Live and learn. That's right. Let your little freak run around. All right. My mum, I just remember just doing all these lovely little things and she has told me since because she went back to work when I was, I don't know,

Starting point is 01:46:56 nine or seven or something and she's like, oh, I can't, she sort of feels bad. I'm like, don't feel bad. Because I remember, I don't remember any of those times anyway. The main things I remember are the things she did do like making Play-Doh for us, you know, homemade Play-Doh, making this book that I can't even remember what it was rewarding, but it was like different pictures and we get to color it. Like there was one that was heaps of scoops of ice cream on a cone. Yep. And every certain thing that I did, I don't know, read a book or something,

Starting point is 01:47:23 we'd get to shade it in a different colour and put a little star sticker on it and stuff. That's pretty fun. I remember, I just remember sweet stuff like that. So I think you could probably get more hung up on what the things you do wrong, but just enjoy the good times probably and don't be too hard on your kid because, well whatever, I don't fucking know. Yeah. Yeah, my advice-

Starting point is 01:47:44 He doesn't fucking know. I don't fucking know. Yeah, my advice would be that you should always put your kid first unless you feel you have a divine calling to direct a movie based on this unadaptable novel, in which case sacrifice anything including your child to give them aid. Your arms or your child's arms. Yep. Or torso. Yep. And with everyone having given advice, I think we can move on.

Starting point is 01:48:12 Fantastic. Thank you, Amelia. I know we should say Dave. Anything coming to mind there, Dave? As an expert? As an expert, as someone who's been a father for about 50 days at the time of recording. As a father. As a father, I would just say. Have you ever had that father?

Starting point is 01:48:28 That referencing a funny thing. I would say at the moment, I'm just taking it one day at a time. And that is good for the fun moments, for the harder moments, maybe in the middle of the night, but it's all good. And when we first found out we were pregnant, you know, you go to the hospital and I say we, my wife was pregnant, we went to the hospital and they give you like a pamphlet and stuff. And one of the things was like,

Starting point is 01:48:53 you should come up with a mantra, a mantra for when you're, for while you're pregnant and when you have the baby, make you keep coming back, something positive. And the mantra we came up with was, bigger fuckheads than us have had babies. Absolutely true. Exactly. So how hard can it be? You'll be okay. Just trust yourself. Take it one day at a time

Starting point is 01:49:15 and try and enjoy it. That's what I'm doing. One of my friends went cavemen did this. I can't be fucking it up that badly. Exactly. That's great. Exactly. So yeah. And you've got a blog, you got blogs you can read. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:49:32 They didn't have blogs. You've got all these things you can read to feel like you're doing a bad job. Yeah, that's right. You know, it's good to have things to compare to on blogs, mummy bloggers and whatnot. They're the best people. Yeah. And also, Dave's been telling us that he hardly goes a conversation without someone going, hope you don't need a good night's sleep for the next 25 years.

Starting point is 01:49:54 So yeah, look forward to that as well. That's why also I don't want to give advice because, you know, one, I've got no idea what I'm doing. And then also you have so many people that will give you unsolicited advice. got no idea what I'm doing. And then also you have so many people that will give you unsolicited advice. I do like the idea. It's like with most things where people universalize their experience, so it was hard for me in this way, so it will be for everyone else. Yes. Yeah, that's what I worry about too. I don't want to come across as being like, this is exactly what happened to me, and it will happen to you.

Starting point is 01:50:22 But this is quite literally solicited advice, Dave, so I think you're okay here. But what I will say is, huge congratulations. How exciting. How exciting. August babies. Um, yeah, it's going to be the best. Good luck. And Godspeed. The next one comes from Nick Fideon.

Starting point is 01:50:41 And Nick Fideon is also known as the luckiest man alive version two. Wow. The long awaited update edition. Oh, my God. Nick Fideon. And Nick Fideon's got a fact writing best wedding ever. Oh. As requested about five months ago, we have an update about my wife, Lucy, and and I who got married on the 28th of October last year. Unfortunately Matt neither of us have an Auntie Faye to have a few too many shandies or a rat bag of an uncle Bill. I remember saying these things.

Starting point is 01:51:17 This is the best kind of fact quota question where it like earnestly and sincerely and lovingly references a conversation from two months ago that you've forgotten Yep Mate I've forgotten what we talked about three seconds ago so Well that was mainly because AJ's spouting nonsense That's true Cause that's Haderach Our net goes on, however Lucy does have a brother who didn't realize driving licenses go out of date or that he would need one to drive Lucy's car on the day of the wedding.

Starting point is 01:51:53 That's very good. Luckily we have other family members who can legally drive and are willing to pick up wedding buffets. Man, Lucy's brother is so clever. Oh, I'd love to go collect the buffet. But my license has expired. Can I have a look at that? No, no, no, no.

Starting point is 01:52:11 It's definitely expired. I could do it if you want to risk, you know, me going to jail. Yeah, but you would have to wear the phone. Yeah. So I've already had to rent a new suit. Yeah. Rent a new suit. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:52:24 Nick goes on. Okay, I've already had to rent a new suit. Yeah. Rent a new suit. Yeah. Nick goes on, luckily for us, but unfortunately for you, nothing went drastically wrong on the day. Though we do know Plato was dropped on the vicar from a balcony. What are the odds of Plato coming up to us in five minutes? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:52:39 We had a 26 year old bubble boy in place of a flail girl. Love it. It's dumb. Oops It's a little Seinfeld bubble boy reference And the efficient forgot how to say Lucy's surname after knowing her for roughly 15 That happens to me sometimes I'm saying a show and you're like, oh my God, I'm blanking. All in all, it was a wonderful day. It was especially nice at the end of the day, noticing we'd got a message from Dave via

Starting point is 01:53:11 Patreon wishing us many, many congratulations. Listening to your podcast together. Yes, that's right. So I somehow remembered on the day of their wedding. That's right. It's their wedding today. So I messaged them on the day of their wedding, they said they read it as they were falling asleep that night.

Starting point is 01:53:28 So very, very happy. So you know what they'd just been up to. Smoking a cigarette. Losing their burger status. Yeah, getting married. Listening to your podcast together and getting RSVPs via fact quota question has been a joy for both of us. Apologies for the delay on sending this in and sorry it's so long,

Starting point is 01:53:47 but Jess did say last time that I could have gushed more. Also, because I haven't gushed yet, let me do that now. Lucy looks so beautiful on the day and I think I did post a photo in the Facebook group a while back and my love for her has only continued to grow since then. The first five months of marriage have been truly wonderful. Well, honeymoon period. And I'm looking for so, so many more.

Starting point is 01:54:12 It's all downhill for me, man. Lucy makes me so happy every day. And it's always a highlight of my day when I get home from work to spend time with her. I truly am so lucky to be with her. Sorry again for the long slash late message and thank you for indulging me slash us. Nick, your big old sweetie. Gosh.

Starting point is 01:54:31 Thank you for the update. Thank you for gushing. Congratulations again to you and to Lucy. We've got a gusher. Is what you might say. I wouldn't, but is that from anything? Is that it? It is now.

Starting point is 01:54:43 Yeah, right. But is that from anything? Is that it? Uh, it is now. Yeah, right. Uh, all right. Next one comes from Adam Krapinski and or Tripp Chinsky. Oh my God. So, so it was definitely the first one.

Starting point is 01:54:54 I think. Okay. Adam's title is official mover and shaker. Wow. And he's got a fact writing since we've been having problems with the stove being way too hot I was able to obtain a new stove. Oh, unfortunately, it makes everything way too cold I got there. So basically I got the triptych club a new freezer And I mean like thank you Adam, but like like

Starting point is 01:55:23 The problem is everything is too hot. You've just taken one problem and turned it into a different kind of problem, Adam. Jesus. Thank you. Like, nice thought, but fuck, Adam. But thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Even if my tone says otherwise. And finally, from Nathan L. Okay, senior executive of delegating Jess's do-go-on work to Dave.

Starting point is 01:55:49 That's correct. I did the least here, and as it should be. And Nathan has a fact as well. He taped up all of it. Writing, hey guys. Hey guys. Hey guys. Hey guys.

Starting point is 01:56:03 I have listened to your entire catalogue of episodes and I'm currently on my second run through and for some episodes my third or fourth time. Before you think I'm too crazy, I work in parcel delivery so 40 hours of my week are on the road with an earbud in which allows me to binge several episodes in a row. Your show has become something of a comfort. Listen to me. Anyways, I noticed that a previous Fat Quarter question prompt made a small mistake to you, but quite a large error to me. When talking about American president Andrew Jackson and the relocation of native

Starting point is 01:56:36 Americans, a typo was made that then made all of you ask the wrong questions to the prompt. Andrew Jackson was behind the Trail of Tears, not the Trial of Tears. The Trail of Tears was the fourth displacement of five civilised tribes of indigenous peoples by the US government and is quite the dark time in American and Native history, which is why you may hear many Americans with Native ancestors talk extremely unfavourably of President Jackson. There are many Native Americans who now live west of the Mississippi River, while their ancestors were originally from what is now the south eastern US, myself included. This was part of the Indian Removal Act and hopefully the of tears part of the name for the trail route they forced natives on

Starting point is 01:57:27 gives you a picture of how that went down without getting too far into it here. Anyways, this was just an update for you all and listeners who may not know too much about the US and Native American relationship during the early years of the country and were confused about a trial instead of a trail. I'm pretty sure this update also fits the criteria of a grim fact. And as the expert on Grim Fact, I can say yes, you are correct. That is a very grim fact. So, Dave, as my title suggests, could you please ask Jess, if you may ask Matt, if this is a grim fact and then return to Jess with Matt's answer?

Starting point is 01:58:04 OK, I'll withhold judgment actually. I'm gonna have to think about it. Don't worry, Jess. I'll make sure Dave stops slacking and gets back to your work from here on out. Thanks guys. Thank you so much. I'm on it. Oh, they've just done it.

Starting point is 01:58:20 And yeah, Jess, can you tell Dave? Is that right? No, Dave has to tell me. Dave, I sit here and do nothing. Dave, can you tell Jess that, yeah, that is a grim fact. Can I do anything to help here? Oh yeah. Actually, AJ, can you pass this on to Jess? Because actually she said something to me that was mean off air before.

Starting point is 01:58:34 And I'm not talking to her. Can you please tell Jess that this is a grim fact and also fuck you. Jess, Dave says it is a grim fact. And also, what are you doing for lunch later? Do you want to hang out? No. I think the Zoom call is the internet's cutting out. Dave says it is a grim fact and also, what are you doing for lunch later? Do you want to hang out? No. I think the zoom call is the internet's cutting out. This is one of those games of telephone where the messages got wildly mixed up.

Starting point is 01:58:54 First, first you couldn't hear me ding and then he couldn't hear me. Interesting. You couldn't hear me. The next thing we like to do is shout out to a few of other great, uh, great supporters, uh you for moving on. Just when we come into the game. And I think Jess, really, we've got a great opportunity to make AJ do... My work.

Starting point is 01:59:14 The work here. Yes. So what's the thing? He could give him a... he could give him like a Dune name or something. He's got an idea. Let him fucking talk. No, no, no. Bop, bop, bop.

Starting point is 01:59:24 I've got the Wikipedia page open for glossary of dune. I thought we could take the first letter of their first name and I'll find a corresponding piece of dune jargon for them. Love it. Dune jargon. Dune jargon. Yes. Love that.

Starting point is 01:59:40 All right. Well, if I can kick us off, I'd love to thank from the Windy City, but not the Northern Hemisphere's Windy City, Chicago in Illinois, United States. Mike Joyce. Thank you so much. Mike Joyce. So on M we've got the Maker Hooks, which are the hooks used for capturing,

Starting point is 01:59:57 mounting and steering the sand worms of Arrakis. So the Freemen actually ride Shaihalud. They worship and ride Shaihalud across the desert. It's how they migrate. Ah, Mike Joyce, what a beautiful tribute that is. Next up from, oh, address unknown. Can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles, please. And thank you to Dave

Starting point is 02:00:26 Hancock Dave Hancock we've got D wolves like the letter D and then wolves which are the guardians of the Sareer on Arrakis in the time of Leto to Atreides Ferocious wolves descending from gaze hounds and originally wolves noted for their keen eyesight. That's awesome but AJ you can say dick on the show. Thank you. They're dick wolves. And finally for me from Carrollton in Texas. It's Monday, Carrie. Monday. Monday. So M we're going to. Yeah. M or C, whatever you prefer.

Starting point is 02:01:10 Let's go. Missionaria protectiva, which is an arm of the Bene Gesserit charged with spreading contrived myths, prophecies and superstition on primitive worlds so that the Bene Gesserat may later exploit those regions. Oh, that's a grim- That makes you think. That is grim stuff. May I thank some people? Yes, please.

Starting point is 02:01:33 I would love to thank from Sacramento. Oh my God. California. Capital City go Kings if this exists as a basketball team. Thumbs up. I would love to thank Trent Caspers. Trent Caspers. Kings if this exists as a possible name thumbs up Trent Casper s Trent Casper s I'm gonna give you thinking machines Which are intelligent and sentient machines created in the likeness of a human mind and thus abolished in the Bolterian jihad

Starting point is 02:02:02 which I think this June heads will get mad at me if I get this wrong, but I think that refers to when all computers, all computer technology was wiped out in the timeline of June. Ah, AJ, is that, could you pinpoint the moment when Herbert stopped trying? Was it around the time he came up with thinking machines? Probably, yeah, yeah. Thinking machines. Next I would like to thank from Appleby in Great Britain, Henry Smith. I've been to Appleby, beautiful village, beautiful town, yeah. When have you been to Appleby? A few years ago, I had a car, I had a friend who was, his family was from there.

Starting point is 02:02:44 Nice. Went out and checked out the Village Green, there was a friend who was, his family was from there. Nice. Went out and checked out the Village Green, there was a little market on, it was beautiful. Check out the Irish pub, gorgeous. Yeah, might've. So, Henry. For Henry, I've got the Holtzmann effect, which is the scientific phenomenon that makes, among other things, instantaneous space travel and defensive force shields possible. Whoa. Pretty cool stuff, Henry. That's actually pretty huge. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:03:13 And finally for me, I would love to thank from Helston, also in Great Britain, Sophie Law. Sophie, we've got a lot of options for S. Let's go, let's go still suit, which is the body enclosing garment of Fremen, which the design performs the functions of heat dissipation and filtering bodily wastes as well as retaining and reclaiming moisture. So in June, when they're in the desert, they'll wear these tight black suits that are designed to when you sweat, when you piss, when any water leaves your body, it recycles it back into your system so that you stay hydrated in the desert. So you're drinking your own piss essentially. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 02:04:00 Big piss drinkers. I wonder they're focusing on the bloody sparse. Yeah, yeah. It's not the big settling point. What are you going to wash that sparse down with? Oh, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

Starting point is 02:04:14 Dave, do you want to thank some people as well? I would love to thank from Frankston South in Victoria, it's Beck Dunn, which is so close to Beck Dune. Wow. Just a double M. so close to Beck Dune. Wow. Just a double M. And also close to Beck Duncan. And also kind of close to Benidji Ezra, but we've already just talked about that one, so I'll look for another one.

Starting point is 02:04:32 Let's go. Buddhism, which is the term for the religions derived from the syncretic fusion of denominations of Buddhism and Islam. So in Dune, they just combined all the religions basically to save time, I think. Sure. Oh, okay. Why haven't we thought of that? Well, that happens over the next 10,000 years, right? Yeah, 10,000 years. It takes time. It takes time. That's how long I think that Janie was in the lamp in Aladdin, isn't it?

Starting point is 02:04:57 10,000 years! Gives you a mighty crick in the neck. Yeah, absolutely. I would also like to thank from Chicago, Illinois, again from the Windy City, a big shout out to Felipe Cabrera. Is that Felipe with a P or an F? F. Oh, it's with an F?

Starting point is 02:05:15 F. Oh, that's lucky. Nearly went straight to P. I would have looked like an idiot. That's what June people do when they're looking for a drink. Straight to P. Let's go. Let's go Fish Speakers, which is an all female military force created by Leto Atreides to enforce his rule over the known universe.

Starting point is 02:05:36 Hell yeah. Fish Speakers. Shit. Yeah, right on. Fish Speakers, right on. Again. Yeah, this is past. this is past phoning it in. Fish speakers. How did he do it? He came up with his own law.

Starting point is 02:05:53 It's the most sexy. It sounds like he's not trying, but what you've got to understand is June was so influential that people just didn't talk about fish before June came along. Yeah. Yeah. And finally from me, I'd like to thank from Bakery Hill also in Victoria. Thank you to Kath Martin. Kath with a C.

Starting point is 02:06:12 Man, how good is Bakery Hill? Kath with a C. Sorry. Yes, Kath with a C. Kath with a C. Let's go for Chome or Combine Honet Oberadvance, or Mercantiles, the universal development corporation controlled by the Emperor and great houses with the Guild and Bene Gesserit as silent partners. This corporation essentially controls the economy of the known universe with shares

Starting point is 02:06:40 and directerships determining each house's income and financial leverage. Very fun. Good stuff. That sounds like that might have been more influential on the prequels of Star Wars. Yeah, absolutely. Alright, well thank you so much to Kath Philippe, Beck, Sophie, Henry, Trent, Monday, Dave and Mark. And the last thing we needed was welcome a few people into the triptych club.

Starting point is 02:07:05 We've got five inductees this week. Uh, Jess, do you want to explain what the triptych club is? Triptych club is like a cool club for cool people. And once, once you've supported the show for three consecutive years on the shout out level or above, um, you are welcomed graciously into the club. Uh, we've got everything you could ever possibly need. You want to have a nap? Go for it. You want to ride a unicorn? You got it. You want soup that's far too hot? Have I got you covered. Yes. Matt's behind. Matt is

Starting point is 02:07:36 lifting up the velvet rope. That's right, I got the door list here. You got five names on it this week. Dave's behind the booking desk booking a band. And Dave, who have you booked this week? You are never ever gonna believe it because before this episode I actually had no idea what this even meant of course but this is amazing that I've booked this band, a metal band that I haven't thought of in a long time until I booked them for this show. Shai Halood is here today. Can you believe? And they will be performing on giant worms. Awesome. But when I say giant worms, I mean giant worms, but like in our reality, you know, earthworms. Big earthworms. Yeah, but quite some of the biggest ones you've ever seen in your garden. So now I've got to also come up with some catering for worms.

Starting point is 02:08:30 Thanks for the heads up Dave. Sorry about that. Sorry. Sorry. Fucking hell. Worms love soup. They love soup. They love it hot too.

Starting point is 02:08:39 Some like it hot. And when the phrase some like it hot was referring to worms. I've actually so lost. I've lost the thread of the joke of why worms eat soup. I'm trying to understand you guys, but I'm like, yeah, and the worms, they eat soup. That's right. They eat soup. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:08:57 AJ, you add it, but do you listen to the show? All right, Jess. You've got to, you've worked on something behind the bar. You got a drink this week? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I filled my tegu glasses with sand. Oh, yeah, great. Drink up. Yummy. Yeah. You know, everyone provides their own June style drinks this week.

Starting point is 02:09:18 Yeah, exactly. Just piss into your mouth. Bring out the bubbler. You can have one complimentary glass of water and then that should do you. Yeah, that just keeps cycling around. All right. So five names here. What do we give? What's AJ's role here? Because Dave is on the stage.

Starting point is 02:09:31 He's going to be seeing the show. I'm going to welcome in the new guest, the new inductees into the triptych club. AJ can do my job and just hype Dave up. Just go like, yay. Dave hipes them up with some sort of weak wordplay or whatever, based on their name or where they're from. And then, yeah, AJ, you can just try and make Dave feel okay about it because he'll run out of steam otherwise. My brain is going for dune-themed ways to encourage someone.

Starting point is 02:09:57 Just cheer him on. All right. So first up, please welcome from Bishampton in maybe Worcestershire in Great Britain, it's Alex Patter. Alex, let me give you a patter on the back as you run through. Yes! Yes! There it is. That was genuine. From London in Great Britain, I'd love to welcome in Jamie Alcantara. Jamie, you are my... in Great Britain, I'd love to welcome in Jamie Alcantara.

Starting point is 02:10:28 Jamie, you are my- no, you are- you ain't lamey. Oh! You ain't lamey, man. Oh! The man cannot be stopped. From Hull, which AJ is- I'm not saying Hill in a carey accent. From Hull in Great Britain, it's Nathan Bower. I bower down to you, sir. I bower down to you. From the clarification. From the clarification. From the clarification. From the clarification. From the clarification. It's Nathan Bower. I bower down to you, sir. I bower down to you. Oh my God.

Starting point is 02:10:49 I am stunned. I am lost for words at how good that word play was. From reservoir. I got stuck in my head. I'm like, we don't say it how it's meant to be said. I know. It's reservoir when it's the suburb. And then I said it.

Starting point is 02:11:03 I do it all the time. I didn't say it the right wayurb. And then I said it. I do it all the time. I didn't say it the right way in either senses. I think you did. And from reservoir in here in Melbourne, it's Lockie. Lockie, here, have a Chocke. Oh, have a Chocke. And finally, from Inchicoreore in Dublin in Ireland, it is...

Starting point is 02:11:26 We are looking at how... ...nonsense... ...makes no sense... Don't talk over them! ...interesting, related and often unclear indeed Irish names as well. So make sure to stay tuned in, consider subscribing for more learning... Yes! ...as the spelling is confusing as is often the case with Irish names, but it's pretty straightforward.

Starting point is 02:11:45 Avine. Avine. Avine. I'm not joking, that's the same guy that taught me how to pronounce Dinny Villeneuve. He's the best. I love this man so much. Matt, your impression is very good. So it's Avine.

Starting point is 02:11:59 Avine. And finally for me, I'd love to welcome in from Newgicore in Dublin, Ireland. It's Avien Hobson. Avien, just hook them up to my veins like IV. Sounds a bit like an IV trip. An Avien trip, yes. Listen, I'll go here. Dave, you are the Quizzettes' hater.

Starting point is 02:12:21 You're here to deliver us from, deliver us to paradise. That's how good your wordplay is. That's right. It's funny that you went for IV because the name sounds more like vein. Like there's more of a close thing to vein than... I thought you were going for vein as well actually. Welcome in.

Starting point is 02:12:38 I was about to say hook them up to my veins. You know, we were all there. We were hanging out. We were having a good time. Welcome into the clubs. Make yourselves at home, get some soup, beat those worms in for the soup. Avina, Lockie, Nathan, Jamie and Alex Petter. Anything we need to tell people just before we PO?

Starting point is 02:12:58 Just that we love them so much and anybody can suggest a topic. You don't have to be a Patreon to do so. So if you would like to, if there's a story you want to, um, you think would make a good do go on report, chuck it in the hat, the hat. Um, there's a link to it in the show notes. It's also on our website, which is do go on pod. And you can find us on social media at do go on pod as well. And we're also, um, uh, doing comedy festival shows. If you're in Melbourne,

Starting point is 02:13:24 um, come along to those. And we're also doing comedy festival shows if you're in Melbourne. Come along to those. They're on Sunday afternoons over the next couple of weeks. I don't know what day it is, but come along. It'll be fun. Fourteenth is one with Maseo, Nick Mason. The seventh is sold out. There's an extra show on the fourteenth and maybe there's a couple of tickets left for the twenty first.

Starting point is 02:13:40 Nice. I think there's eight left of the time of recordings. Who knows if they'll still be there. Nice. Yeah, we're big time, AJ. I'm so impressed. We're in eights, Ada. Yeah, pretty crazy. AJ, thank you again for coming and

Starting point is 02:13:55 doing the pod. Have fun editing this as well. And if you could also do some of my other tasks, like, I don't know, update some social media or something, that'd be great. I will. Yeah, I'll take media or something that'll be great. I will.

Starting point is 02:14:06 Yeah. I'll take your dog for a walk or something. If you wouldn't mind. Of course, of course. All right, Dave, bring this baby home. Hey, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, we'll say thank you so much and goodbye. Bye.

Starting point is 02:14:21 Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Two In The Think Tank - 441 - Dune: The Unfilmable Novel

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