FH Mini 41 - If it Ain't Brokaw Dune Fix It

[0:00] So I was watching I was watching 10 things I hate about you today and I'm

[0:08] sure classic Halloween film are there are there prop houses in LA that

[0:14] specifically do school desks but sized for adults because I think that's for

[0:23] the price the prop house not the flop out start well fucking prop house

[0:28] fucking FaceTime me right now I'm just waiting for your FaceTime yeah adults

[0:34] and high school students are not that yeah I think you have not when was the

[0:40] last time you tried to sit in one of those desks I think I was 17 I definitely

[0:50] sat in one when I I was trying to be I was trying to be a teacher I was

[0:54] misguided and it was tough man it was tough to fit in that cram my my big

[1:02] wiener and bowls into that into that chair bigger desks they don't give me

[1:09] the offer like I had to sit in the desk for the like interview process I thought

[1:18] you were like hey let's break down the barriers I'm not any better than you why

[1:21] should I have this big desk I'll sit in one of your teeny weenie desks well it's

[1:25] like one of those one of those Broadway shows where like you suddenly realized

[1:28] that the whole cast is like hidden in the audience well I got the kids here

[1:33] like looking around like where's the student where's the teacher it's just a

[1:37] student here and I whip off my fucking beret and my half cape and I'm like I'm

[1:42] not one of you cool kids it's me Stuart okay in that voice huh yeah yeah I was

[1:49] trying something new I mean they all made fun of me and I left crying well I

[1:55] feel like we've started the episode already I'll just mention that uh this

[2:01] is welcome to Flophouse this is a mini week when we do not talk about a movie

[2:06] that we watched but instead just kind of do whatever I of course am the rotating

[2:11] host for this episode my name is Elliot Kalin and joining me are my co-hosts who

[2:16] have also taken their turn hosting minis and they are Dan McCoy Stuart

[2:23] Wellington and guys I've got a very exciting mini for you today people may

[2:28] remember my Elliot explains the Eternals episode from whenever that was I don't

[2:34] remember anything about it okay well all you need to know is the Eternals are

[2:39] fairly dull but I'm sure it'll be very exciting so I was super excited recently

[2:46] when I learned of the casting of well not super excited let's say I was

[2:50] intrigued casting of Will Poulter as Adam Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy

[2:54] 3 and more like is one of my favorite Marvel characters of course my

[2:58] favoritist is spider-man but Adam Warlock might be number two and he's a

[3:03] character a lot of people don't know he's a very he's interesting character

[3:06] it's kind of the closest that Marvel Universe has to Elric of Melnibon the

[3:11] clear it up anymore from I think I've explained to him in terms we all

[3:16] understand it's time for something I'm gonna call Elliot explains Adam Warlock

[3:23] so here's the Elliot explains okay sometimes people don't know about Adam

[3:28] Warlock like me don't worry pal I'm gonna tell you all about Warlock from

[3:34] New Mutants no a different character named Warlock he's got a first name

[3:38] Adam so here we go I'm gonna show you all about Adam wait hold on did you guys

[3:45] here hold on a second wait no someone's knocking at my door hold on a second oh

[3:50] dear yeah okay yeah I guess so okay yeah sorry guys I apologize something's come

[4:02] up we're not gonna be able to do the Elliot explains Adam Warlock episode

[4:06] someone just walked in he wanted to talk to you guys he should probably

[4:10] introduce himself well hello gentlemen it's Oh me Tom Brokaw America's favorite

[4:17] newsman and I have to say I had to come here from my complex in Bozeman Montana

[4:22] when I heard that Elliot was hoping to do a flophouse mini without asking me to

[4:29] join and talk about the movie event of the third millennium that's right the

[4:34] new adaption of Dune of the movie event of the second millennium of Tom Brokaw

[4:39] yeah yeah it was the 1984 adaptation of Dune and the movie event of the first

[4:43] millennium was the Bible I guess Dan do you have any questions I very much

[4:52] wanted to talk about the film yeah the weekend before we record this yes Daniel

[4:58] before you do that maybe you should just explain to our younger listeners who the

[5:03] hell you are just just because they may only know you as a Dune fanatic it's

[5:10] pot I mean at this point that is pretty much my full-time occupation is

[5:14] spreading the gospel of Frank Herbert's brilliant Dune a novel series but some

[5:20] may know me as the your bit you ask your parents about me and they'll tell you

[5:24] that I was a longtime host of NBC nightly news and perhaps the most

[5:29] trusted man in American broadcasting for quite some time I also co-wrote the

[5:35] bestseller the greatest generation of the story of the men and women who

[5:40] fought World War two it's an epic tale almost as exciting and as inspiring as

[5:47] that of Paul Atreides the heir of house Atreides as he makes his way from Cal

[5:53] to the one who is seeking to bring enlightenment to the universe but

[6:00] instead contributes only violence and conflict in the end and eventually has a

[6:05] descendant who becomes a big sandworm it's amazing in a later book but you

[6:13] perhaps know me best as Dune head a number one yeah I don't know I don't

[6:21] know anything about the story where it goes after the initial novel so this is

[6:26] interesting well throw out everything you think you know about doing Dan or

[6:31] Daniel or Dune's berry which I was very disappointed to discover years ago was

[6:36] not a comic strip adaptation of Dune the novel or in fact a delicious berry which

[6:41] when you ate it gave you the knowledge of the Dune series it is in fact a

[6:45] political comic strip following a ever-expanding cast of characters as they

[6:50] just live in these this modern America but Dan so it's a it's an amazing ride

[6:56] I hardly I highly advise you to take it and if you gentlemen have no objection I

[7:02] think it's time for another installment of my recurring segment if it ain't a

[7:07] bro call Dune fix it mm-hmm sure so I'm assuming you saw this in the movie there

[7:15] because you want the whole experience right I very much I did not see it well

[7:18] I did watch it both in the theater and at home to see if it was a full second

[7:24] stare screen experience the second screen was an iPad with Dune playing on

[7:28] it as I watched doing on my large television I call my iPad my small

[7:33] television and my regular television my large television I refer to movie

[7:37] screens as a big big television so I did see it first on the big big television

[7:42] first by myself secondly with my wife Lorraine Bracco and then third I saw it

[7:48] in 4d where your chair shakes when the spaceships are going up and down then I

[7:52] watched it at home on the small television and also the teeny tiny

[7:56] television is that what I called them before I don't remember but yes I've

[8:00] seen it a few times now in the past four or five screens what was your what was

[8:06] your what was your snack of choice well I wanted to say to myself what would

[8:11] they eat in the world of Dune so of course I had a tube going into my mouth

[8:15] that was attached to my own sweat glands so I couldn't recycle my my

[8:20] moisture like the Fremen on Arrakis would do and otherwise there's not a lot

[8:25] of food in Dune and so I mostly ate sand and worms just a big bowl of worms and

[8:32] sand I wouldn't recommend it now it's delicious okay cool just when one uses

[8:39] the spice as a as a drug rather than a means of interstellar travel do you eat

[8:45] that or is that a do you inhale it I I was unclear about that element of the

[8:51] grains of the spice are so small that you can it's more more trouble not to

[8:56] inhale them and that is why it suffuses the air of the planet and if you spend

[9:00] too much time on Arrakis you will become a spice addict who cannot live for long

[9:04] outside of the planet itself without a supply of spice

[9:12] yeah did either of you and I did I know this is a foolish question did either of

[9:18] you see the film of course knowing that it is a it was perhaps the defining

[9:23] cultural event of our generation I include you both in my generation

[9:27] although I am roughly 30 years older than you well I saw it yeah I saw it two

[9:34] days ago Stuart did you see it I have tickets to see it tomorrow but last

[9:38] night I played at Dune Imperium the board game version of the movie I played

[9:43] the role of Paul Atreides and I lost to the Harkonnens well spoiler alert that's

[9:49] not what happens in the story I apologize I will have many spoilers to

[9:55] talk about I'm sure but it's fun to be honest if you haven't read Dune by now

[9:59] are you

[10:00] even really human. Probably not. And so I have no compunction about spoiling a story

[10:04] you should have read. I also just looked myself up on Wikipedia and realized I am about 40

[10:08] years older than you, not 30 years. And still, I consider us all the same generation, generation

[10:13] Dune. Those of us who are here for the year 1 AD, that is after Dune, which all time will

[10:19] be considered from now on. Now, Daniel and Stuart, you did see the movie before playing

[10:24] the game or you did not?

[10:26] I have not seen the movie yet, although I did hear we did get some good news today.

[10:30] Dune 2, it's on the way.

[10:32] It was announced today that Dune Part 2 will be coming to theaters in the year 2023,

[10:40] and a very long time to wait to find the ending of the series. But you know, I feel like they

[10:47] made the right choice by splitting the film into two so that you could really spend a lot of time

[10:52] walking through the desert, just looking at how beige everything is.

[10:57] Tan, what were your thoughts about the film? I know what my thoughts are. What are yours?

[11:01] Well, you know, I've read the book once, the first book. It seemed to be a pretty

[11:08] faithful adaptation of the first half of the first book. I found it a little bloodless.

[11:15] It didn't bother you that there were no quotes from the Princess Arulin

[11:18] telling us about what about the future of Mod Dib?

[11:21] Oh, that's right. There are those little quotes that enter the thing.

[11:25] You can call them little quotes. I think they encompass a galaxy of wisdom.

[11:29] That's true. I forgot about that element.

[11:34] I thought it was a very, very beautiful movie. I liked Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson's

[11:40] performances. What? You love two great actors?

[11:43] Yeah, they are. I found it a little bit of a pretty. It's like looking at a very pretty

[11:53] diorama that I wasn't that engaged by narratively, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[12:00] I understand that. You have to keep in mind that inevitably any adaptation of Frank Herbert's work

[12:05] is akin to looking at the world through a keyhole. There's only so much they can provide of the

[12:10] macrocosm that exists within that beautiful tale.

[12:16] So at least you felt like you were enjoying the experience,

[12:19] even if it didn't enrapture you the way that, say, the book Dune might.

[12:25] I enjoyed the first two hours and then was kind of bored by the last 30 minutes.

[12:30] You weren't as much of a fan of the scenes where they were just walking through the sand?

[12:34] Yeah, those got a little samey.

[12:37] I have to admit that I had a few similar thoughts about it. I thought it was a

[12:43] very fine adaptation of the film there. I did not mind the walking through the sand,

[12:49] but at the same time, I did have to leave the theater very briefly during that sequence.

[12:55] Perhaps I was overcome by seeing this world brought to life before me. Perhaps I had had

[13:00] just too much Coca-Cola and had to eject the extra fluid from my bladder. That was, in fact,

[13:07] what happened. And I remember being angry at my own urine stream, at how long it was taking

[13:12] to leave my body and get me back into the theater. Perhaps if I had been wearing a stillsuit,

[13:17] I would have just let it flow, knowing it would come back to me as drinkable water

[13:22] and stayed in my seat watching the film. The strange thing is that I did not learn my lesson

[13:28] and had to leave to use the bathroom at the same exact point every time I watched the film.

[13:33] And I had it on my phone to watch that sequence while I was using the bathroom, and yet somehow

[13:41] I still managed to miss the scene. I suppose it was hard to hold my own manhood and hold the phone

[13:47] steady and watch the screen without causing quite a mess. And so there is a sequence when he was

[13:53] walking through the sand that I was not completely privy to. But keeping that in mind, I feel like I

[13:58] got the gist of the major narrative. Yeah, probably. I think you're safe. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you mentioned

[14:05] Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson. Did you have trouble? Did you not approve of the other performances

[14:11] in the film? I thought Timothee Chalamet acquitted himself quite fine, and Zendaya did what she

[14:18] could with a role that was essentially just her looking at the camera with her hair blowing around

[14:23] her. Yeah. The marketing of this has foregrounded Zendaya and that she's a wonderful,

[14:31] very charismatic actress and personality. I understand why they would do that. But yes,

[14:36] I can only assume that because her character doesn't come into the book until after what

[14:44] the movie covers, they're like, hmm, how can we shoehorn as much of this charismatic performer

[14:52] into our movie as possible? Let's just have a bunch of flash forwards of her sort of looking

[14:59] wistful in front of the satellite. Yeah. The amount of screen time she has as Chani, it was not enough

[15:04] yet to topple her as Michi in my particular understanding of Zendaya's career. Now, Stuart,

[15:11] when you were playing Dune Imperium, what was it that you felt lost you the game? How did you fail

[15:18] of all Atreides as he could very well fail if he takes the wrong path and makes the wrong decision?

[15:26] I had made a play in a battle and I thought I had won it, but I was betrayed by another player who

[15:38] won the battle but ended up losing both of us the game. So I guess I'd focus too much on military

[15:43] strength. It seems like you, in a way, lived the experience not of Paul, but of Duke Leto after

[15:51] having put his faith into his doctor, Dr. Wellington Yew, played by Chang Chen, only to be

[15:58] betrayed. Spoiler alert. But again, you should have read the book by now. You should know these

[16:03] things are happening. Or seen the other movie. Or seen the other movie, the one directed by Alan

[16:07] Smithy, a talented young director. I don't know what else he's done, but he did a fine job with

[16:13] the 1984 Dune. He did Burn Hollywood Burn, an Alan Smithy film. I'm not familiar with it. Is it like

[16:20] Dune? Well, they were both not successful. I would say that the Dune from 1984 is successful on its

[16:29] own terms, which is as a crazy kind of spaghetti mess of a movie. I mean, you know, I meant just,

[16:35] you know, in a larger sort of financial sense. Yes, yes, yes. I think part of the problem was

[16:41] in their understanding of the Dune series. It was very much in 1984 seen as a new kind of Star

[16:48] War, and it is very much not a Star War. Now, this movie, on the other hand, one of the few issues I

[16:54] had with it was that it could have used a little bit more of that kind of Star War joy. It's a very

[17:00] bleak movie and a very downbeat movie, very dour. And in fact, it would have seemed even more dour

[17:06] if my screening had not followed the trailer for the new Batman movie, which seems like a true

[17:11] descent into hell, a grim vision of a world in which no one exists but criminals and victims,

[17:17] and in which the supposed hero Batman is invulnerable and wades through bullet fire to

[17:22] smash men's heads against walls. Truly, it made my tummy hurt and made me wonder what was happening

[17:29] in the America I did so much to chronicle in my career, when this is the kind of escapist

[17:35] entertainment we're looking for, when the hero literally says, I'm vengeance, and then in the

[17:40] last scene, the last image is him walking towards a burning car in order to beat a man to a pulp.

[17:46] It seems like not the Batman I knew and fell in love with when Adam West played him. I don't

[17:52] remember any episodes of the old show where Adam West beat a man to a pulp or was shot point blank

[17:57] in the chest or told anyone that he was vengeance. Do you guys remember that?

[18:00] I don't. I just remember the one where he runs around with a bomb.

[18:06] That was hilarious.

[18:07] Well, that's the movie. That's a 1966 film.

[18:11] Well, it's the film adaptation of the show. I can only imagine that if the current Batman,

[18:16] played by Robert Pattinson, was faced with a similar bomb problem, he would take the bomb

[18:23] and slam it so hard into a Batman's head that the man's head would shatter.

[18:27] And then the bomb would, of course, explode, sending fragments into the bodies of several

[18:31] other people. Truly a horrible world that I cannot wait to not visit and not experience.

[18:37] But you know me, I'm kind of a geek and completist, so I may need to go see it

[18:42] and just wade through the bile and feces that is the new Batman movie.

[18:48] Certainly a river of sewage poured into multi-places nationwide.

[18:54] Dan, I believe that there is a promo for this episode. Perhaps it's time to throw to it now.

[18:59] Sure, right after a river of sewage. This episode of The Flophouse,

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[20:05] Because if so, that is a very well-trained cat.

[20:07] Well, there's that cat that ran across the field at, what, Yankee Stadium this season,

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[21:21] I will say, I also am a fan, I take very good care of my three cats, Paul, Catrades, Dunkat

[21:28] Idaho, and of course Baron Harkitten, they're the loves of my life, I just take good care

[21:33] of them.

[21:34] My wife, Lorraine Bracco, sometimes jokes that I love the cats more than I love her, which

[21:39] is of course a joke, there's no one I love more than my wife, Lorraine Bracco, we call

[21:45] ourselves the Bracco-Brocas, or sometimes the Broca-Bracos.

[21:48] Do you call their litter box a rackus?

[21:50] I would, I feel like it would be a bit disrespectful to the planet itself, there's more than just

[21:56] a place for my cats to deposit their waste, but, you know, that's a funny idea, perhaps

[22:01] I'll bring it into my regular slang vocabulary during the day.

[22:06] Okay, let us know.

[22:09] Yeah, I will let you know, I'll keep you updated on that as I fold that term into my regular

[22:16] cat box discourse, perhaps I'll tell my wife, Lorraine Bracco, that I have to go and search

[22:24] a rackus for Paul Catrades, she'll know of course that I'm not really looking for the

[22:28] cat but for, of course, his waste.

[22:31] Sandworms.

[22:32] Well, hello, I'm Renee Colvert, hi, I'm Alexis Preston, and we are the hosts of Can I Pet

[22:41] Your Dog, and we got breaking news, we got an expose, all the beans have been spilled

[22:45] via an Apple podcast review that said this show isn't well researched, well, yeah, no

[22:52] duh, of course it's not, not since the day we started has it been well researched, guessing

[22:56] and anthropomorphizing dogs is what we do, the Can I Pet Your Dog promise is that we

[23:02] will never do more than 10 seconds of research before telling you excitedly about any dog

[23:06] we see, I'm gonna come at you with top 10 enthusiasm, minimal facts, we're here for

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[23:20] Fun Network.

[23:22] Bria, what's your reader wheelhouse?

[23:25] A woman on a journey, space, post-apocalyptic roads, and magical food.

[23:30] Mallory, what's your reader wheelhouse?

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[23:54] Reading Glasses, every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

[24:01] I enjoyed the film, but as I have to say, as I spent time away from it, I did find things

[24:07] about it not totally sitting right for me, and the main thing is somewhat the bleakness

[24:11] of it and the beigeness of it.

[24:13] It is a very overwhelmingly beige film, and there's a certain richness and filigree quality

[24:19] to the ceremony and culture of the books, which is not, I think, fully reflected in

[24:24] the very brutalist architecture and kind of muted costuming of the film.

[24:29] One thing that really struck me was that the Atreides house, it's very clear, is not right

[24:36] for Dune.

[24:38] They are not ready for the challenge of Arrakis, and they will be overwhelmed by it.

[24:41] And yet when they arrive, they're already wearing what I would call dune tones rather

[24:45] than the earth tones, the greens and so forth.

[24:48] You would expect from a forested planet like Caledon.

[24:51] And I kind of wish that the Atreides, House Atreides legions had been dressed in armor

[24:56] that was not fittingly colored for Arrakis as a way to show how out of place they were.

[25:02] That's just an idea that Denis Villeneuve can borrow from me for Dune Part 2, or if

[25:06] he would like to do a Dune Part 1 special edition in which he uses CGI to change the

[25:12] colors of the uniforms, much as George Lucas has done in his Star War films.

[25:18] But of course, my largest problem with it is, as I mentioned when I talked about the

[25:24] trailer of the film, my previous If It Ain't Broca Dune Fix It segment was the absence

[25:31] of Feyd-Rotha.

[25:33] Where is Feyd-Rotha Raban, the other evil nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who again,

[25:39] as we mentioned, is played by Sting in the other film, and has a memorable climactic

[25:44] duel with Paul Atreides?

[25:45] Now, I understand from a screenwriting point of view, it makes sense to give your villain

[25:50] one evil nephew rather than two evil nephews.

[25:53] And the idea of Dave Bautista playing Feyd-Rotha, he is laughably large to play that part.

[26:00] He can only play the Beast.

[26:02] I assume they've collapsed those characters just into this one nephew of the Beast, Raban,

[26:06] and that he will have the climactic fight with Paul Atreides.

[26:10] And if you fellows disagree with me, I'm willing to put a little bit of money on it, and we'll

[26:16] see who actually is right about whether there will be a climactic Paul Atreides-Dave Bautista

[26:23] fight in Dune Part 2.

[26:24] So what's the action you guys are willing to give me on this?

[26:29] I should mention that I have a Dune-based gambling addiction.

[26:33] I've been willing to gamble on what is going to happen in the books, which is strange because

[26:37] I've read them all and know what's going to happen.

[26:40] But I will oftentimes bet my wife that they will have changed since the last time I read

[26:44] them.

[26:45] So alive do I find the story, and I am always wrong and I always lose.

[26:49] Luckily, we share a bank account, so I don't actually lose the money.

[26:53] But I do lose a certain amount of face, and thus my masculinity comes into question.

[26:57] So what odds are you willing to give me on this very good bet?

[27:01] I don't know that I...

[27:03] I'm sorry, I can't take that action.

[27:04] Although I do appreciate the idea.

[27:07] I think it would be very funny to see a movie in which Timothee Chalamet fights Dave Bautista.

[27:14] Not funny?

[27:15] I think it's going to happen, Daniel.

[27:16] I mean, whether or not it happens has no bearing on whether I find it a humorous idea.

[27:25] Would you like to bet me otherwise?

[27:27] Yeah, it appears Tom has access to the Benny Jesserit sisterhood.

[27:32] If only, if only I did, although they are quite frightening in real life, as we saw

[27:36] from Charlotte Rampling's performance as the Supreme Mother, the Reverend Mother.

[27:44] Now I imagine it would not be that different from the big fight I assume ends the movie

[27:48] Stuber between Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani, which I have not again seen the film, but

[27:53] I assume they have a fight to the death.

[27:56] They're on the same side.

[28:00] The commercials and posters made it seem like Kumail was very afraid of Mr.

[28:04] Bautista. And I can only assume it's a movie like Collateral in which Tom Cruise and Jamie

[28:09] Foxx were very much not on the same side, but on very different sides.

[28:13] I don't know. They seem like they were doing pretty well, but I had to stop at about two

[28:17] thirds of the way through.

[28:19] Did you also have to use the bathroom?

[28:20] Was that the reason?

[28:21] I did. And that's why I stopped the movie entirely is because I'm like, I had to go

[28:25] home. I had to take a shower after going to the bathroom, even though it's just a number

[28:29] one. I had to wash everything.

[28:31] Is that usually your routine?

[28:33] It seems like a real inconvenience.

[28:36] Well, I also suffered a fair amount of splash damage, if you know what I mean.

[28:40] Damage?

[28:42] Do you have acid pee, like some kind of xenomorph urine?

[28:47] I think a personal question.

[28:48] Next, next one.

[28:50] You guys got any more questions about my pee?

[28:51] That is a very personal question.

[28:53] I'd like to depersonalize it by asking, do you think the xenomorph has acid pee?

[28:58] It would only make sense.

[29:00] But it's drool is not acidic, is it?

[29:02] I think just its blood.

[29:03] If it was peeing blood, I would advise the xenomorph to see a urologist immediately.

[29:08] Well, and you would also think that it would become a much more popular figure to be

[29:12] peeing on car logos than Calvin, because it's pee would disintegrate those logos.

[29:17] Yeah, sure.

[29:19] Maybe the problem is that you can't draw that because the artist is like, oh, this

[29:24] logo would be gone by now.

[29:26] You know, I mean, yeah, but like the thing is, it's not like a person pees forever.

[29:32] It's not like they're like capturing a moment that will stand forever.

[29:36] I mean, it's a snapshot at the very moment that the urine stream arcs up and is just

[29:42] beginning to touch.

[29:43] I mean, it seems like that is the way pictures work, Daniel, is they they can take

[29:47] any moment in an event.

[29:49] It doesn't just have to be the last one.

[29:52] Yeah, the portrait is like, oh, it's why there's such a thing as pictures of ice

[29:58] and not just pictures of.

[30:00] puddles of water, and yes to it, as why every portrait is not of a corpse,

[30:04] decayed just to bones.

[30:09] I find it fascinating, Daniel, that at this point in your life you still have not

[30:13] fully grasped the mechanics of how time works in still imagery.

[30:18] Now, can we talk about one thing that, like, I...

[30:21] It's your podcast. Well, thank you.

[30:24] One thing that bothers me about you, like,

[30:28] as the

[30:30] Dune books go on, again, I've only read the first, but it's my understanding that

[30:33] they're very much

[30:35] uh... sort of a questioning of the

[30:39] white messiah, kind of colonizer messiah, uh...

[30:44] the... what's the word I'm looking for, the... Savior?

[30:48] Savior, yeah, sure, that sort of thing.

[30:52] The sort of Lawrence of Arabia, Tarzan type thing, where, I mean, Tarzan being, I shouldn't

[30:57] equate the two, but where a white person becomes part of another

[31:02] culture and ultimately conquers it and becomes the best one of it?

[31:05] Yes, yeah.

[31:07] And saves it from some other thing or another? Last samurai, or...

[31:12] Yeah, your last samurais, your, uh...

[31:14] uh...

[31:15] what are some other ones? I'm forgetting some other ones, I'm sure there are

[31:18] very many. Your John Carter's... Uh, Dancing with Wolves is kind of that, I guess.

[31:22] Yeah, sure, you're dancing with the wolves, yeah, of course, yeah.

[31:27] You know, but in the context of just the first book, which turns, you know, like, foreboding at the end,

[31:34] but is still kind of a triumphant book, and certainly in the context of just this first part of the movie,

[31:43] it's just kind of a weird thing that the film, I don't know, has, like, laid the track to make me know

[31:51] where it's going with it, like, the problem with it as a story that is, like, incomplete,

[31:57] you know, like, there's some weirdness with that, especially when, I don't know, they're like, okay,

[32:02] you got the white colonizers and sort of the, you know, Arabic-coded Fremen,

[32:11] but then you've got, like, the Harkonnens, who have the racial problem that a lot of science fiction

[32:18] seems to have, where there's just, like, one race that's just gross, like, or one family that's just, like,

[32:25] we're a bunch of, like, really bald, like, pale, like, blob men, I don't know,

[32:34] and there's nothing wrong with being bald, but I'm saying the way that it's made up.

[32:38] You certainly said it in a pejorative way.

[32:40] That's true.

[32:41] I believe my friend J.K. Simmons would be very unhappy with you.

[32:45] Thank you, yeah.

[32:46] But do you know what I'm trying to get at?

[32:48] Not to mention my other friend, Howie Mandel.

[32:51] The nights that me and my friends J.K. and Howie drive around in the dune buggy, that's what I call my car,

[32:57] and just whoop up the town, they're also big dune heads.

[33:01] I apologize.

[33:03] They're very valuable to me, and I don't appreciate their baldness being used as a pejorative.

[33:08] No, no, no, I didn't. I'm saying that I think the movie uses it as a pejorative.

[33:12] I apologize in general.

[33:14] I was telling my friend Elliot, who was here before you came, that I'm very tired right now,

[33:18] so I don't think I'm being as articulate as I could be, but do you understand what I'm trying to get at?

[33:23] I understand not everyone can be as articulate as I am.

[33:26] So I think pronunciation being one of my finest characteristics.

[33:31] Now, Daniel, I think what you're asking for is partly that you want the answers that Part 2 will provide,

[33:39] but you're not going to get them until Part 2.

[33:41] No, it's true.

[33:42] Part of the brilliance to me of Dune is that it takes this same sort of Lawrence of Arabia, white savior story

[33:49] and turns it somewhat on its head by showing that the main character understands that by doing this

[33:55] he is only going to inevitably make the situation worse, and he thinks through his willpower,

[34:00] perhaps he can change that and lead things to a different path, but no, it's impossible.

[34:06] Much like in the story of Oedipus Rex, there is one destined path, and though each of the characters tries to avoid it,

[34:14] all roads lead to him doing his mom, even though every character has tried to not let that happen,

[34:21] and that ultimately trying not to make it happen has only led it to happen.

[34:26] Dune is somewhat like that, and I feel like if there is another flaw with the film,

[34:30] I feel like it does not fully communicate clearly that Paul Atreides sees ahead of him a future of almost apocalyptic violence

[34:40] and makes the choice to follow that future assuming he can change it, but instead locking his destiny in place.

[34:47] One small problem I had was that when they showed his vision of his hordes decimating whole cultures,

[34:53] that was represented by roughly a bunch of dudes fighting in the desert and the burning of a small pile of bodies

[34:59] when every time I imagine it while reading the book, I'm imagining thousands, if not millions, of burning piles of corpses

[35:06] as they lay waste to other civilizations, attempting to force them to worship the Mahdib Kusatardak.

[35:13] But I think what you're looking at is that part one is, hopefully, the setup that creates our expectations,

[35:21] and then part two will be the payoff that subverts those expectations by making us question that narrative.

[35:28] It's a bit like judging a joke from the punchline.

[35:31] If I said to you, a man walks into a bar, and he says, that's a can't-judge-the-joke-off-of-that.

[35:38] I haven't told you the thing that comes after it.

[35:40] Of course, the punchline being, ouch.

[35:43] The punchline is ouch, because he walked into a different kind of bar than you thought he walked into.

[35:49] Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[35:52] No, no, no. I think that that's true, and I do think that the problem is it's just hard to give the foreshadowing that's necessary

[36:02] of visions inside his head and make it clear.

[36:07] It's a complex idea for the film to try and communicate.

[36:10] It is very complex, perhaps better described in prose, or maybe they could have just had a character more clearly say it.

[36:17] It's sometimes difficult to know when it's better to have what's called an exposition dump or info dump or ID,

[36:26] meaning info dump, not Independence Day, which of course is ID4, the hit film,

[36:31] which did not have the plot complexity of Dune, but did have Brent Spiner in it, so you've got to give it some credit for that.

[36:38] So perhaps it's hard to know when to say it in images and when to say it in words,

[36:45] especially since, as Dan has made clear, images can only show the very end of a thing

[36:49] and cannot show the intermediate steps or even the beginning.

[36:53] Yeah, that's why they're so useful for fortune telling.

[36:57] Yeah. Oh, yes, very much.

[36:59] That's why the story, the portrait of Dorian Gray, is not considered supernatural or even interesting

[37:04] because all portraits show the horrible ending of the person who has fainted.

[37:09] Yeah, it's a slice of life.

[37:11] It was a very controversial book when it came out because people said, yeah, we know this.

[37:15] Why did you bother to write a whole book about it?

[37:17] I don't know how I got here, but I love it.

[37:22] Hey, Oscar Wilde, here's what's truly wild that you thought we needed to be told how portraits work.

[37:27] You burned them. You really got them.

[37:29] Should be Oscar Mild, right?

[37:31] Talk about Oscar Mild, yes, indeed.

[37:33] Did you guys – here, this is a little off topic, but when you saw the movie Something Wild,

[37:38] did you expect to see Oscar Mild in the film? Because I did.

[37:42] I guess I forgot that his name is spelled differently.

[37:45] Yeah, that's your mistake. There's a terminal E on Mild.

[37:50] It is the same issue I have every time I watch Wild America,

[37:53] thinking I'm going to see Oscar Mild's adventures in America, which he had,

[37:57] but instead it's just a nature documentary.

[37:59] What about Wild Things? Did you have the same issue?

[38:02] You would have loved it.

[38:03] Guys, I think we can all agree that Oscar Mild would have loved Wild Things.

[38:07] Oscar Mild would have found its air of sluggish decadence and lugubrious, let's call it, scandal.

[38:15] He would have found it really up his alley.

[38:17] Oscar Mild would have given it, I think, four velvet stars.

[38:21] In fact, I feel like I want to tell the producers of the film Wild Things,

[38:27] just go ahead and put a blurb from Oscar Mild on the box.

[38:30] You know he would have loved it.

[38:33] Now, I think to finish off my thoughts about doing part one of the film,

[38:37] I think that I was heartened by it.

[38:40] It felt like a nice, straightforward adaption of the story.

[38:44] It did not reach the same heights of transcendence that I find in the book,

[38:48] but then what does? I'm sure if they made a movie of the Bible,

[38:51] which they've never done, but maybe someday,

[38:54] I'm sure it would not reach the same heights of religious importance for people.

[38:58] Otherwise, they'd stop printing Bibles and they'd just show people that movie,

[39:02] which would be inconvenient when formats changed and you'd have to get a whole new one

[39:06] when you bought a DVD player or a laser disc or whatever.

[39:09] But I feel like there's promise in there for doing part two,

[39:13] and I just hope that the second part has a little bit more of the feeling of life

[39:19] that Frank Herbert brings to Arrakis.

[39:21] I would love to see if in the second part,

[39:23] as Paul learns more about life on Arrakis and surviving there,

[39:26] if the planet itself looked less beige and dead and took on more of a vibrancy.

[39:31] It's just another idea I'm throwing out there for Danny Boon to take.

[39:34] Go for it. I will not sue you if you use it. That is fine with me.

[39:38] But for If It Ain't Brokaw, Dune Fix It,

[39:41] I've been America's favorite newsman, Thomas J. Brokaw.

[39:45] The J stands for Just Readin' Dune.

[39:48] Well, thank you for that.

[39:52] I think Elliot originally started this mini,

[39:57] so I'm going to let him.

[40:00] Finish it. Let's uh, I just want to say before we do that. This is one of those episodes that makes me

[40:06] delighted and mystified that people

[40:09] Listen to the show and seem to enjoy

[40:13] Hey guys, I'm back Tom Brokaw just let me out of the bathroom. He locked me in. I don't know

[40:17] I assume I don't know what he was talking about. I assume probably a chair or whatever

[40:21] Yeah, he had put a chair up there and then he said and then he said see you sucker and just walked out

[40:25] Um, I guess we're running we're running out of time. So I'm gonna have to talk about Adam Warlock at some future episode

[40:33] Do you think they cast that kid because his eyebrows look like Adam Warlock's eyebrows?

[40:37] I have to assume that's what it was. You got a cast eyebrow

[40:40] like

[40:41] Like kind of pointy on the sides. Oh, I mean you can't do that with makeup effects. That's like

[40:48] I was listening to interview with Rick Baker. We sing out eyebrows are still the Achilles heel of any makeup artists

[40:53] So when you want to have a character with crazy eyebrows, you gotta go out and get a crazy eyebrow person, you know

[40:58] Or train two caterpillars

[41:01] That's if you laugh, but that's the easiest solution for a Peter Gallagher. Yeah

[41:06] Well this well the funny Peter Gallagher

[41:09] The funny thing is that he was he was trying a new skin treatment where you put glue on your face and two caterpillars crawled

[41:14] On while he was sleeping

[41:23] What a charming idea

[41:25] well, it makes I think it we should leave on that on that delightful note of Peter Peter Gallagher with a caterpillars on his

[41:33] eyes on his face

[41:35] I'll come back next time. I guess to explain Adam Warlock to everybody. I do hope to do that

[41:40] I can't wait to listen this episode and find out what you guys were talking about Tom Brokaw

[41:43] I imagine it was pretty straightforward and and made a lot of sense

[41:47] But for the Flophouse, I've been Elliot Kalin I've been Dan McCoy and I'm still

[41:54] Stuart Wellington

[41:56] Bye

[42:03] Maximum fun org comedy and culture artists owned audience supported

FH Mini 41 - If it Ain't Brokaw Dune Fix It

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