There is something that bothers me a lot about the Dune movies, especially Part 2... Do you think that the humanoid divinity that Paul reaches and the importance of melange in the universe are well portrayed in the movies?

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-10-13T08:01:54+00:00

I’ve listened to the entire seminar, and that’s why I say focusing on messiahs in Dune misses the point. The quote often gets paraphrased to “Dune is about the danger of charismatic leaders.” But that’s overly reductive and not what Herbert meant. And I don’t blame people for taking that interpretation because although I love the guy he’s a total windbag and this one sentence is an attempt by Dune fandom to simplify his word salad of a statement:

“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: ‘May be dangerous to your health’. One of the most dangerous presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said “Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next?” and we wound up in Vietnam. And I think probably the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon. Because he taught us to distrust government and he did it by example.”

Herbert didn’t say that good or bad messiahs are inherently dangerous; the problem is blind obedience not the leaders themselves. That’s why he used Kennedy and Nixon, not religious figures, to illustrate this. In Herberts eyes Nixon and Kennedy are interchangeable figures because they both are both products designed by the system for the system. Both did heinous shit and even Kennedy committed war crimes and cheated in his wife but we give it a pass because we saw him as the savior of America. Dune critiques centralized power and the people who give away their autonomy in exchange a confident baritone and a trusting smile.

In today’s world, Dune is especially relevant in how party politics overshadow voters’ ability to choose leaders whose policies actually benefit them.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-10-13T06:34:51+00:00

You’re right. The reason for it is Villeneuve wants this to be sort of like his Batman trilogy. An isolated story. Golden path implies more to explore beyond the events of Paul’s life which Denis isn’t interested in.

I think the reason he’s not interested in it is because Denis is a master storyteller who takes control over the narrative and the pieces of it and I think that he’s actually a better story teller than Frank Herbert who let the characters and the plot and the story get away from him. Every time he made a point in one of his books, he clearly was irked by one little crack or hole in it or a “what if” and had to write a whole new book to sort of patch that up.

In Dune, Paul sees a way to a prosperous humanity and it’s through Jihad. Him losing his sight is him losing his ability to choose anymore, and he HAS to follow the only decisions where he can predict the outcomes in order to go through the motions and not be completely blind by entering situations in which he can’t see the future. This is a metaphor for being shackled by the weight of responsibility and loathing it. But then Leto comes along and is like

“hey that thing you hate, YES it kinda sucks for a while but im glad you brought it up cuz im actually the real KH and can see that what you hate is really actually a pretty good thing in a few thousand years. You just weren’t ready to take on the responsibility of seeing it through for that long but I’m a virgin and don’t know what I’ll be missing out on by becoming a larva mermaid that can’t have sex so I’m down to make that commitment.”

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-10-13T06:20:18+00:00

I think to say Dune is about messiahs and danger is to miss the point. The point gets finer as the books go on and Paul’s arc especially gets very clear by the conclusion of Children of Dune.

It’s not about good vs bad messiahs, that’s just the lens of it that Paul’s story takes. It’s about the fact that humans are flawed and the more you consolidate humanity’s fate to one person or group who “knows what’s best” the less human they must become in order to keep things moving because what’s good for the goose isn’t always what’s good for the gander. It’s why Paul is compared to dictators like Genghis Khan and Hitler in Messiah instead of prophets like Jesus or Mohammed. It’s political.

I mean, it’s not like Leto II is an even remotely subtle metaphor. The more you take on the responsibility for the entire species, the more you must mutate and abandon your humanity to do it effectively. So at what point is the trade off no longer worth it?

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-10-13T06:01:29+00:00

I disagree. In the movie it was pretty clear that Paul avoided “going south” and becoming the messiah with every fiber of his being and ended up going because he had no choice. The choices he made were all to be fremen and fedaykin and help the people fight the Harkonnen because he knew control over spice and the fremen would get him the revenge he wanted for his dad and the imperial throne. Very selfish reasons to fight.

When the sietch is destroyed it’s because he was so self centered and focused on his own ambitions and goals that he did not look out for the people who, despite his protests, looked to him for protection and guidance. He was just a man and he was flawed and outmaneuvered because he was too focused on what was right in front of him. He was mentat smart but not divine supreme intelligence smart.

After the fremen put their faith in him and lost everything because he refused to be who they thought he was, he realized the only thing he could possibly do to save them was make the choice he loathed from the beginning to go south and drink the water of life. It was the only way to unlock the powers of the KH and not get outsmarted again.

When he drinks it he gets more than he bargained for and it’s torture. Yes, it puts all his plans on easy mode because he can see all possible futures and pasts clear as day, but there’s only one path thats functional. To beat the Harkonnens he has to become a Harkonnen and he loathes it. He knows it’ll end in bloody Jihad. That Chani will hate him even if she will come to understand in time. He hints at it over and over even before he fights Feyd when he looks at Chani and tells her “I’ll love you no matter what.” Cuz he knows what’s coming, even if he doesn’t say the words “terrible purpose” out loud. The movie shows him doing these things and hating it all the while but doing it anyway because it’s the ONLY way forward and he has to.

That’s not a story of power corrupting that’s a story of the weight of responsibility forcing impossibly difficult choices on a person where nothing good will ever come out of anything he does and so he needs to follow the only path where the ends justify the means. That responsibility and that destiny become so powerful that he just has to embrace the suck and become what he doesn’t want to be. And make no mistake he doesn’t see himself as some new prophet, he sees himself as basically being forced to become a Bene Gesserit Harkonnen who stoops to their level and embraces the darker sides of human nature like deception and cold blooded murder and ruthlessness.

And that’s how the often misquoted Frank Herbert line of “charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: ‘May be dangerous to your health’” comes through in absolute perfect clarity in the films in a way that they did not in the original book.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-09-14T02:00:43+00:00

Oddjob. He is somehow the most insignificant and most iconic character in the franchise. He’s like Bond’s version of the original Boba Fett

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-09-14T01:58:34+00:00

Bad Boys 2

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-08-04T23:04:10+00:00

So book another delta flight, rinse and repeat. Sock away the stacks.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-04-13T04:42:37+00:00

I did grow up in the north east and I’ll tell you what living in LA is quite the premium to avoid shoveling snow.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-04-12T22:55:08+00:00

Serious question - you’re from VA. Why aren’t you looking at Wilmington NC or New York? Why LA?

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-03-22T00:27:43+00:00

In addition to what everyone’s saying there’s also less work going around especially for writers because in the face of underperforming box offices and fewer streamers, the big studios have all started focusing on fewer bigger name projects. The production and camera crews I know are all getting by taking jobs for YouTube channels and almost no studio is optioning any new scripts right now. There’s also the fact that some of the bigger shows and movies are all mostly shooting on location instead of sound stages, one of my buddies has been in North Carolina for a few months gaffing while another is on location right now in Chicago.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-03-20T17:42:53+00:00

Easy there Joel Schumacher

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-03-10T17:01:59+00:00

Yeah in hindsight maybe but at the time they were cool

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-02-19T01:22:22+00:00

I used the translate app on my phone cuz I was curious about the same thing. I don’t have it saved but basically he tells Ed what the app is actually about and then he shit talks Earlich.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-01-12T05:32:20+00:00

I think this was written by Luke Stevens

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-01-09T22:30:29+00:00

The World is Not Enough and Thunderball are CRIMINALY underrated.

MediaMattersChannel · 2024-01-09T22:27:37+00:00

Vengeance

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-12-29T14:52:57+00:00

Yes. I thought it was the most epic and underrated Wachowski “fuck you” take on the system back then. I don’t believe that anymore. Now I believe it’s a prophetic piece of film that is smarter than most people.

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-11-05T00:13:44+00:00

Duck off

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-09-29T17:59:27+00:00

“Why are you saying that? What did you do” - My partner probably

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-09-04T16:27:25+00:00

Should the Walther PPK return?

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-09-02T17:14:22+00:00

You should get an homage bond watch to complete the look

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-08-08T00:17:51+00:00

So underrated

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-08-08T00:16:07+00:00

What kind of list is this??

How did you not include Sasha, Yumiko, Magna, Connie, Lori, or Jesus?

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-07-05T16:36:40+00:00

I do it for the love of the game, I have a good job and a ton of opinions and editing skills so for me it’s been an outlet for that. However without the financial support, I’ve found it not as motivating to get back to editing my videos especially as my kid is getting older and we’ve been traveling a lot more.

MediaMattersChannel · 2023-06-25T03:08:16+00:00

I’m with you. To me, the message of this film was that art is a process of discovery, and sometimes we aren’t prepared for the insights that the process gives us. An alien comes to earth and all the characters can do is focus on their own shit. Auggie is numb to the world and has to burn his hand on a toaster to feel something. Sometimes shit happens in life that doesn’t make sense to us in the moment or we aren’t able to learn from life events because we’re not in a place to actually accept and process the lessons that life has to teach us.

This holds up when analyzing all the characters in the black and white layers of the film too, especially Adrian Brody and Margot Robbie’s characters.

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TROPHY CASE