All right, here we go. Quiet. Roll up. Hello and welcome to The Big Picture podcast where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of yesterday and today, and try to make it all make some sense.
Seated across the microphone from me is Film Buff Online contributing editor Natasha Bogusky. Aw, and seated across the microphone from me, always, is the incomparable Rich Treese. I do not pay her to say that, but it's awfully nice that she does. Hi, good morning.
This is a little bit of an earlier record for us than normal, but I'll still be dropping this on like Monday or Tuesday of the week. Yes, I am leaving to go out of town in a few hours, so... You are having a great girls weekend with a couple of your girlfriends. I am.
Heading up to Manhattan for some high art. Yes, we are attending the opera. But no, I wanted to make certain that this was on the books before we left. We just got done seeing Dune about, not even 12 hours ago.
True, Dune part two. Yes, Dune part two. And just before we dive into our thing, I just want to say, while you're at the opera, I will be sitting at home watching the Marx Brothers A Night at the Opera. So it's all good.
It's all good. I was half tempted just for the one scene to have us all watch Pretty Woman before we left, but I'm like, I can't put him through that kind of torture. Oh, come on. I haven't watched Pretty Woman in forever, but I feel that it probably holds up fairly well.
I remember thinking this is a good movie. It was my cup of tea when it came out. And I do have somewhere on a hard drive, an earlier draft of the scripts when it was called, I think, The $10,000 Date or something like that. That was much darker.
Yeah, I've read it's pretty dark. It doesn't have a happy ending. You know, he doesn't come back and sweep this hooker with a heart of gold who doesn't really do stuff, but is still kind of off her feet. I don't think, just now that I'm replaying Pretty Woman in my head over the past couple of years, I probably haven't watched it in about 10, 15.
I can see where the movie was supposed to end and probably didn't play well in a test screening. And they had to go back and reshoot a new ending. I don't know if they had to do that, but I could see where somebody at some point said, no, we need to make this a more commercial ending. Yeah.
Shall we say. I think, was that screenwriter J.F. Lawton on the original? I honestly can't remember.
I think it was. For some reason, that's stuck in my head because he also wrote the Howard Stern movie Private Parts. Oh, what? You just watched my head pretty much explode with that knowledge.
A glitch, you know. You know, folks, when you watch an old TV show or a movie from the 60s where a person is playing a robot and the robot is supposed to suddenly collapse because somebody presented something that violates logic to them. You know, like every third episode of Star Trek. And you see like the person kind of go like, make that weird face and, you know, twitch around a little bit.
And then they speed the film up to make it look even faster. That's what I just saw in real time. I know. Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, the only good one of the three films.
When the fembot starts to, like, shake her head and everything after he does his mojo in his Speedo. That's what that looked like to me. Without you having to undergo the horror of seeing me in a Speedo. Thank you.
Yes, you're welcome. But yeah, no, my brain could not compute that knowledge. It's fun to look at people's IMDb page sometimes and you just go, oh, that's a great movie. That's a great movie.
That's a great movie, too. But what? How do you get from that to that? You know, so it's job.
Sometimes it is. I mean, okay, case in point. Peter Jackson, low budget horror films, slightly a higher budget horror film with The Frighteners. And then he does something really different, like Heavenly Creatures.
But none of that, none of that really kind of hints at Lord of the Rings or what you're going to get with Lord of the Rings. So, yeah, it's always great. And that's what's wonderful about movies. Although he did bring a couple of scenes.
I mean, Bilbo's lash out in Rivendell is a pure horror. That's a pure Jackson going, I got to get a little something in my night in there. That's a great jump scare. Yeah.
But speaking of range, let's dive into Dune and go, hey, aren't we glad that Feyd-Rautha didn't have an Elvis accent? You had to go there. Yeah, I know. That's the only way I could segue us in.
But anyways, Dune Part 2, as you are hearing this, has opened. We just saw it last night, Thursday night. I had seen it a week prior on IMAX for the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle. Our podcast review is already out there floating around.
I want to see it on IMAX. Maybe next weekend we'll take a trip to Philly. So. And it's amazing.
I think. Okay, review over. Done. We'll see you next time.
Yeah, no. Yeah, I know. Wow. It's flyover dancing.
I was a little tipsy, too, when I went in to see it. So that actually helped, like, open up the experience for me. Thank goodness we weren't on any like those D-Box or those motion moving seats because that would be crazy. Now, here's the thing.
I mentioned, you know, that I saw it on IMAX. It's beautiful on IMAX. One of our, one of my colleagues there at the film critics circle, Dan Tabor, who writes for Synapse, he went and saw it again on a second critics slash influencer screening in Dolby DX. And he said the Dolby, the sound mix and everything in that is amazing.
So if you're looking for what version of presentation to see this movie in. I'm going to go with what my friend Dan says and say, go go to the Dolby. I would like to. I thought the sound mix was really nice where we saw it last night.
I think it wasn't, you know, it wasn't Dolby. It wasn't IMAX. It was just the conventional theatrical sound mix. And it worked really well.
But again, you know, you want sometimes you want that little extra kick in the base. I have a feeling it'll be amazing during the Colosseum scene, which, by the way, I was in another world. Well, yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, I was I was far out, man. I'm staring at that screen.
I'm like, there were a couple of times I definitely adjusted my seat to make myself feel sit up higher. I was I was feeling the movie. I wasn't watching it. I felt like I was part of it.
Now I will say, too, beyond the Colosseum scene, Dan pointed out any time they're on a worm riding the worm, he goes, this movie lets you ride the worm. And I jokingly said to him, ride the worm. Well, there's your poster quote right there. You know, this was a 90s movie.
But overall, okay, this film. Okay, pretty much you better seen Dune part one because this just kind of drops you. Boom. Right in.
Right into the story. You get a hair of some recap in that first scene with the princess and the emperor. But beyond that, no, you are right into right. Where they left off.
20 minutes after. Yeah. After credits rolled on the last one. In fact, you could probably very easily edit the two of them together into like one six hour long or five and a half hour long experience if you wanted to.
And that would be fun, too. I'm okay with that. Yeah. I think actually the first film, as well as it plays, probably plays well, better if you were to watch them back to back or, you know, smush together like that.
So because there's a lot of setup in the first half and much of it is paid off in part two. I mean, you get a bit of a character arc for Paul in the first half of him going from, you know, kind of a dilettante to accepting his role as I am the heir to Duke Leto and I'm going to have to seek revenge. So I'm going to have to hang out with these desert dwellers now. But it doesn't really pay off in a larger way until all of this movie.
Yeah. And in some ways, you know, the the outlander coming into a culture, learning their ways, leading them in a rebellion for their freedom. It feels like Lawrence of Arabia in outer space to me. And I love it.
It has that same type of epic grandeur, has that same type of hero who's filled with self-doubt about what he is doing and a revulsion of what he knows will come from his actions due to the death and destruction that this fight will ultimately lead to. I don't know if Brian Herbert's ever really the writer of the original novel. Never really addressed that in any interview. Frank Herbert.
Frank Herbert. Excuse me. Brian Herbert is his son. Frank Herbert wrote six Dune novels.
Brian wrote another dozen with Kevin J. Anderson based on notes and stuff from his father. I can't be too critical of that because I'm a J.R.R. Tolkien fan.
And You know, the first time- you know, I was really thinking about this last night while we were watching this, and this is my second time watching part two, that um Stilgar kind of pushing that and kind of making that stuff. What if, ultimately, I mean, he was- it is what it is in the film, but an interesting alternative version of the story would be, what if Paul wasn't the person who was supposed to fulfill the prophecy? They just pushed him into that role, and then that person rises up a generation later to oppose Paul. And that's an entirely different way that this book series could have gone.
Again, something, you know, I was thinking about last night. I was like, huh, that'd be an interesting way to take it. It's not where they do, but I mean, the elements are there, which I think ultimately speaks to the fact that this movie has a lot going on. I mean, it's drawing from the book series, obviously.
But I see where other adaptations have failed, really, in trying to get this kind of complexity. We're looking at five and a half, almost six hours of film here, and they still leave out stuff from the book. You have to know what to cut, what to keep. I mean, I was talking to Darren about that, my husband, on the ride home last night, and he mentioned, well, the sister never comes in, really.
She doesn't really play a part. You know, at this point, Chani and Paul, this is- this takes over years in the book. But here, it's within Lady Jessica's pregnancy. Yeah.
She hasn't even given birth. They compact five years down to about six months. I know, yeah. And I said to him, as an adaptation, you need to know what is okay to alter, what is- what needs to be cut in order to propel your story forward.
They have presented the fact that his little sister is there in the womb. She can hear things. She's very powerful. We have a vision of her, what she's going to be like in the future.
But to bring in another character would muddy up a story that needs to be as simple as possible with an emotional attachment in order to get the actual world-building and political complexities. You need to keep your characters tight. As a television medium, maybe you could go into that a lot more because you have a lot more time you can spend on it. And I compared it to Tolkien with, particularly with Arwen.
Arwen was given a lot more to do in the film than she had in the books. And that was because they needed to streamline some of the story. Well, I think back in the 80s, saying we're going to do a two-part adaptation of a film is absolutely unheard of unless you were The Godfather. So Lynch, you know, had to compact all of that book down into two hours and 20 minutes.
And I think in terms of getting plot across, he does a fairly decent job. He doesn't, he just doesn't have the room to dig into a lot of the complexities and into the mythos a bit, in terms of thematical material. You know, it just doesn't resonate. You don't get an idea really about the Fremen's religious fervor or even the factions within their religion, the way you do here.
Okay, so I actually kind of want to talk about something in the book Chani understood, Princess Irulan, and the decision that Paul made. Here, she storms off. Yes. I like this better.
It does give her more agency. And I think, you know, having to watch the man you love be in a marriage of convenience while you're technically his royal side piece is not as tragic an ending as her feeling betrayed by what he had to do. Bingo. And it's not just like an emotional betrayal on his part to her.
It's a betrayal of the idea that he was just like, look, I just want the revenge. I don't want anything else. And she sees that by him becoming that religious leader, and that's, you know, immediately where she gets pissed off. The moment he takes the water and becomes the Qizad Haderach, you could tell she's losing him from the first moment he steps up on the dais and tells everyone pretty much, shut the fuck up.
He's doing everything he told her he wasn't going to do. I even noticed that when they all kind of are reacting when he's up on that dais and everyone's reaching for their weapons, she does as well. And it's interesting to watch her, you know, her internal battle of her culture coming up against the man that she loves, but seeing what he has become. When he says to her, I need you to know I will love you for as long as I breathe.
Right before turning around and saying to the emperor, I'll settle for the hand of your daughter. It's, it is sincere, but at the exact same time, it's the last nail in the coffin. And it is a moment and a change that could conceivably make Chani look more naive. Like, would you say you love me?
You know, you want to go marry, you know, but they lay the foundation for it so well that even though, you know, we're compacting their entire five-year relationship in the book down to six months, I mean, remember in the book, they have a son who gets killed when the siege is attacked. I think, you know, Villeneuve and John Spates, his co-writer on the adaption, handled this material so well. I think, yes, there are changes like that, like the compression of time. I think they're handled so well though, that they work within the movie itself.
That's the process of adaption. And that's what makes it work so, so well. Agreed. I, I really just, I loved everything about it.
By the way, got to talk some performance stuff here. Florence is fantastic as Irulan. I love what they've done with her. In the, in the Lynch version, she was just kind of there at the end.
At the beginning and at the end. That's Virginia Madsen. Whereas here, she not only is an active part, she's a force. I feel like she is definitely a commanding force to be reckoned with.
And I would love, I mean, I know she says I'll be your willing bride, but her, her character feels like if I was watching some sort of political historical show like The Tudors or something, she would be the queen who's just kind of doing everything from the shadows. She's creating her own rebellion. She's taking things on. She's plotting against her husband.
Like I can picture all that. That's not exactly what happens here, but like, that's what I can picture for this version of this character. And I think some of that is helping plant seeds for what's going to come if they do an adaptation of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. We also see, you know, one or two other elements that are kind of planted ahead of time for a hopeful third film in this franchise with Lea Sido's Lady Margo character.
I'm really not sure that that was in the book at all. I can't remember. Lady Margo? Yeah.
Yeah, she was there. Oh, and what she does with Fade? I don't remember if that was there. Because I'm reasonably sure that pays off later on down the road.
I'm not surprised. Yes. So hopefully we'll have more because this is an amazing piece of filmmaking. Just the epic broad stroke of it.
There's not a, you know, not a false note. Can we talk about the production design for this for a minute? Yeah. Yeah.
I'm already looking at it going, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar for next year. Yeah. We're looking at a world that because there was an issue with artificial intelligence, you know, computers above a certain level are now outlawed. So we don't have a lot of shiny panels with flashy buttons and lights in the design here.
And there's a real gritty reality to things. You know how you would watch an older science fiction movie and you look at kind of like their version of the future and it looks kind of dated. Yeah. Like, oh, that's the future in 1960s or that's the future in 1970s or something like that.
This movie feels like this design is not going to feel dated 10, 15, 20 years from now when you watch it. Agreed. It's very organic. I was gonna say it draws a lot on like what feels like current technology and like the orthopters and stuff like that in terms of like tweaking the design just a little bit.
It's recognizable, but it's still different. It's it's unique enough and it's not so much in your face because of the grittiness and the reality of the world around it that when there are pieces of technology and machinery, they're meant to look just, they're supposed to blend. They're not supposed to stand out. Yeah.
Um, one of the things I love, and I noticed this when I was watching the first film as well, the, uh, their airships that look like dragonflies. When they all take to the sky at once, that is a terrifying sight. Yes. And yet really unique, really cool.
And like I said, it has an organic element to it. I think everything does. And I appreciate that so much. Another thing about the, the design of like when we were on Caladan and when we're on, uh, the emperor's home world and we're anywhere really, these are giant spaces filled with very tiny people.
These tiny people are making mammoth changes to the course of history in the galaxy, which is interesting, but also you have like these giant grand halls that feel very empty except for these small people interacting around in there. And it gives me the feel of like, this is an empire discussion that's been ongoing in Dune fandom for decades over this by now, but I will probably still always wind up calling them the Harkonnens, putting the accent on the wrong syllable probably. Yeah, you do that a lot. I know.
Good trait for a podcaster. So anyways, you were leading into this. Yes, the Harkonnens. What did you think?
We have a new player. I really enjoyed their portrayal here. I think it's similar to Lynch's. Lynch likes to kind of wallow around on the edges of excess.
So you get a bit more of people who are just like sadistic for the fun of being sadistic, where you see the Beast Rabanne just sitting there laughing himself silly at stuff that his uncle is doing. You have that whole thing with the heart plugs and everything. And, you know, I'm blinking on the actor from the Lynch version who played the Baron, but he's fantastic, but he's also kind of over the top and ridiculous. Yeah.
Here there is a definite sadism to what they do. But it's in pursuit of power. It's in pursuit of personal wealth. And they understand, or they feel, their understanding of the world is the only way you get ahead is by being sadistic and you can't be a good person.
There was a line somewhere where the Emperor even says, you know, Duke Leto's problem was he tried to lead with his heart and you can't do that. And that made him weak, which in Paul's eyes actually made him strong. And that's an interesting discussion that doesn't get into in the movie, but I think the movie at least presents that question. And I appreciate that Austin Butler coming in to play Fade Ralpha.
Whoa. He's so good. I mean, we haven't even gotten to this year's Academy Awards. That's next weekend.
But if I had to place any money for an early contender for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, it's going to be him. This film is too much of an ensemble to pick out any one particular performance. If he's not in the conversation, at least. He'll probably be in the conversation, but he won't make it to the nominations.
The movie came out way too early. But holy crap. And I saw something somewhere where Stellan Skarsgård had said that his first day on set with Austin, he couldn't stop laughing at Austin. How so?
Because he could see just how much Austin was enjoying the devilish glee of being so evil and sadistic. He was just having the time of his fucking life with it. And Stellan was getting the biggest kick out of that. That's fair.
That's fair. I don't want to say it's a fun performance because that sounds weird, but it's a really good performance. And it feels real. It feels real.
And as you watch it, yeah, you get a little bit of like, okay, he's having fun being evil here. He's having serious predator eyes. Because the character is such a freaking psychopath that he doesn't need to go over the top with it. And I think working with Stellan a lot probably helped him rein in any of those impulses to take it big.
Stellan plays things very low, but layered. And that's what makes him a lot of times when he's doing roles like that so fucking terrifying. So having that person kind of mentoring you through your own journey, that's a good family unit right there. Except for when he's trying to kill him by not drugging the slave in the arena.
Yes, I got that, by the way. I don't think he was trying to kill Faeed. I think he was trying to toughen him up and make sure that he understood that you can bloody your knife with someone who's not handicapped in the fight. And it's a nice little moment too to give us to the end of Doctor Huor.
That is not what I saw. Okay, how did you see that? You said it yourself. The Harkonnens do what they do.
They're not sadistic, not just for the sake of being sadistic. They're sadistic for power and wealth. This is his name day. This is his birthday celebration.
What better way than to give him the chance to die because you're too much of a threat to me? Or if you survive, I can use you to gain even more political power. Which is why he says you tried to kill me in the arena. And he goes, yes, he toughened him up.
But it was, if I remember correctly in the book, he did try to kill him. And when it backfired on him, he went, no, I can see what you're made of. And I'm going to maneuver you into a position where you could become Emperor. Yeah.
Which is why he does that when Fade confronts him after the arena scene. Okay, that's possible. I mean, it is ambiguous on the point of at the beginning of the gladiatorial fight, we cut to the Baron and he says something along the lines of, happy birthday, my nephew, or whatever. Once everybody realizes, hey, that one guy he's fighting isn't drugged.
It's going to be an actual fair fight. I think the gift was, you know, him saying, I'm seeing the measure of your worth. The book allows you to know that, you know, the Baron was maybe a little bit cautious or on guard about Fade's power and possibility of being a threat to his own life. I think the movie doesn't necessarily give us that.
No, you need to play with it a little bit more. And I'm fine with what the movie does give us because ultimately it shows the Baron still manipulating Fade, saying, okay, I've just shown you that you can kill and you have that ability within you. And if things come to pass, I'm going to put you on the throne. So you need to be ready.
I mean, again, it's a slight difference and that just comes through the process of adaptation, but I like it. I was happy to see Christopher Walken back. He didn't walk in all over the place. Well, his delivery had some pauses in there.
I mean, we haven't even gotten to this year's Academy Awards. That's next weekend. But if I had to place any money for an early contender for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, it's going to be him. This film is too much of an ensemble to pick out any one particular performance.
If he's not in the conversation, at least. He'll probably be in the conversation, but he won't make it to the nominations. The movie came out way too early. But holy crap.
And I saw something somewhere where Stellan Skarsgård had said that his first day on set with Austin, he couldn't stop laughing at Austin. How so? Because he could see just how much Austin was enjoying the devilish glee of being so evil and sadistic. He was just having the time of his fucking life with it and Stellan was getting the biggest kick out of that.
That's fair. That's fair. I mean, it's a fun... I don't want to say it's a fun performance because that sounds weird.
But it's a really good performance and it's... It feels real. It feels real. And as you watch it, yeah, you get a little bit of like, ah, okay, he's having fun being evil here.
He's having serious predator eyes. Because the character is such a freaking psychopath that he doesn't need to go over the top with it. And I think working with Stellan a lot probably helped him rein in any of those impulses to take it big. Stellan plays things very low, but layered.
And that's what makes him a lot of times when he's doing roles like that so fucking terrifying. So having that person kind of mentoring you through your own journey, that's a good family unit right there. Oh yeah. Except for when he's trying to kill him by not drugging the slave in the arena.
Yes, I got that, by the way. I don't think he was trying to kill Fade. I think he was trying to toughen him up and make sure that he understood that you can bloody your knife with someone who's not handicapped in the fight. You know, and it's a nice little moment too to give us to the end of Doctor Huor.
That is not what I saw. Okay, how did you see that? You said it yourself, the Harkonnens do what they do. They're not sadistic, not just for the sake of being sadistic.
They're sadistic for power and wealth. This is his name day. This is his birthday celebration. What better way than to give him the chance to die because you're too much of a threat to me?
Or, if you survive, I can use you to gain even more political power. Which is why he says, you tried to kill me in the arena. And he goes, you know, yes, he toughened him up. But it was, if I remember correctly in the book, he did try to kill him.
And when it backfired on him, he went, no, I can see what you're made of. And I'm going to maneuver you into a position where... You could become Emperor. Yeah.
Which is why he does that when Fade confronts him after the arena scene. Okay, that's possible. I mean, it is ambiguous on the point of at the beginning of the gladiatorial fight, we cut to the Baron and he says something along the lines of, happy birthday, my nephew, or whatever. Once everybody realizes, hey, that one guy he's fighting isn't drugged, it's going to be an actual fair fight.
I think the gift was, you know, him saying, I'm seeing the measure of your worth. The book allows you to know that, you know, the Baron was maybe a little bit cautious or on guard about Fade's power and possibility of being a threat to his own life. I think the movie doesn't necessarily give us that. No, you need And okay, yeah.
And yeah, the way he can jump back and forth between the different characters and sometimes it happens in the face and in the eyes, and sometimes it's just a body movement change, just one small little change, and then all of a sudden, you know, that person's gone and another one's taken its place. That's what Timothy's done here. When he woke up from the water, it was a whole other person. I did not see Paul Atreides, Duke of Arrakis.
I saw Paul Muad'Dib Usul Atreides, Duke of Arrakis. And it was like, holy shit. And I'm not sure we get that, as much as I love Kyle MacLachlan, I don't think we get that in the Lynch version. No, he just kind of stays one note.
Yeah, he gets a moment where he holds up his Chris knife and yells, father the sleeper has awakened. And then we go on to more mayhem and action. I like Lynch's version, but I, I can't believe I'm gonna say this. And there's gonna be a lot of Lynch people out there, you know, screaming, burn the witch and crucify me for what I'm about to say.
He chose the style over substance. Well, that's in this case, in his version of Dune, yes. Yeah, I don't think, I mean, Not a lot of his other films. I would just say with Dune.
Yeah. Lynch's Dune is gorgeous to look at. Oh, it's stunning. And for years, I would go back and rewatch it just because I love the designs.
The design of the throne room for the emperor, the design of the thing that the, the guild navigators come in. Even like the guild navigators, stage one, the guys in the long black trench coats with the, the microphone thing. I mean the costumes, you look at Aurelian's costume in the beginning, and it's very much based off of, I think like mid 1700s England with the, the high collars and the curl, curled wigged hair. It's, it feels very much of another time period.
Um, but here, what Villeneuve is trying to do is, style is important, but not so much as the substance and the themes. It's like a good piece of cake. It has to look pretty, but it has to taste amazing. And if one of those things is out of whack, then the whole balance of everything is gone.
And he finds the right balance here between acting and thematical and style and music. And it just comes together to make the perfect cake. True. Now let me ask you this.
Villeneuve has put several years now into realizing his vision for this book, a two-part movie adaptation, five and a half hours long, probably what, five, six years in the making. Do we want him to continue on making Dune movies for another book or two? Or do we want to see him now go off and do something else? Or thirdly, go off, do something else and then come back right back to this.
What would you like to see this? I mean, does this work really well? Is this, do we want a third movie that could be equally as good? Or do we want to run the risk of maybe a third movie that's kind of like Peter Jackson's The Hobbit films?
Looks pretty, but kind of doesn't work as well as The Lord of the Rings stuff. I would be okay if he went off and did something for him and then came back. But the thing is here is Dune is, Dune is a passion project for him. And it has been ever since he was a kid.
So when he was given the opportunity to do this, he wanted to make certain it was done right. I don't think he could screw it up. Sort of what I felt about The Hobbit. But there were so many forces at play with The Hobbit, though.
And I will admit I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here a little bit. A little bit. And the thing is, is Peter Jackson delivered with Lord of the Rings. Yes, true.
Before The Hobbit. So we have The Hobbit went to pieces 10, 15 years later. Yeah. Dune is sci-fi Lord of the Rings.
It's Game of Thrones. And it is Star Wars all wrapped into one. If, if you look at that time period, I think Lord of the Rings as books came out a little bit earlier than Dune did, but Dune was 65. And I think, oh gosh, I'm blanking on Lord of the Rings.
I thought that was 40s or 50s. Late 50s, early 60s, because the books came out, I think once every 18 months or something like that. It doesn't matter, though. They were both very much the landmark works in their genre at the time of their publication.
And they've stood that tall ever since. And I think the adaptation we got here is probably going to stand the test of time. The way that Jackson's films have stood the test of time, at least for 20 years. Go back a couple of months and listen to our podcast on the 20th anniversary of Return of the King if you don't believe us.
And I think that if he does do another film in this franchise or not, that's not going to change the status of Dune. I would love to further explore this world. I'd love to follow Stilgar and the Fremen out on their jihad across the galaxy and see what kind of ramifications that has for Paul and everybody else. There's a lot to explore here.
I seem to recall, I did not read all of God Emperor of Dune. It was a tough slog that first 150 pages or so, and I kind of gave up on it. And that's where I checked out on the Dune series. But looking at Wikipedia, there's a lot of lore, a lot of things there to explore.
Supposedly HBO Max has a. Sisterhood of Dune. Yeah, Bene Gesserit series in development. They've had it in development for a long time.
Well, they also had a strike to deal with. So, of course, nothing was in production. True, true. But even before that, you know, they've been going through like a lot of script development and stuff like that, trying to, I guess, find a story that works.
So hopefully we will see a lot more of this version of Frank Herbert's work. I think that just about wraps us up for this week. Indeed, it does. Remember, you can find us online at BigPicturePod.com and we are now available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play.
So either use the link in the show notes post or head directly there, search and hit subscribe. And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a positive review because that always helps us connect with new listeners. Dune part two right now is in theater. So rush right out, see it once, see it twice.
Plan your soda consumption accordingly because it is three hours of movie. Yeah, I learned that the hard way last night. We will be back next week with our hot takes first reactions show to a little thing called the Academy Awards. It's the most wonderful time of the year.
That's right. It's the 96th annual Academy Awards. I think this is gonna be our sixth or seventh annual hot take show that we recorded right afterwards. But remember, this year, the Oscars start at 7, not 8 o'clock.
They start an hour earlier, which is great because this means I get to bed at 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time instead of 3 o'clock after doing all the editing and production work on the podcast to make sure it's available right there on Monday morning. Okay, fine. And you can find that all right here on The Big Picture Podcast. Transcribed by https://otter.ai