Speaker 1: Welcome to a bite sized episode of x ray Vision
Speaker 1: of the podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics,
Speaker 1: and pop culture. Today, we're hopping into the time capsule
Speaker 1: to revisit one of the biggest hits of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: June Part two. Here's a quick recap of Dune Part two,
Speaker 1: which blew me back in my seat when I watched
Speaker 1: it in the theater, not even the Imax version. This
Speaker 1: picks up on the events of Dune Part one pretty
Speaker 1: much right minutes after the end of Dune Part one,
Speaker 1: Paul and his mother, the Lady Jessica, traveled to switch
Speaker 1: Tabor with Stilgar. The Fremen slowly grow to accept Paul.
Speaker 1: His relationship with Channi is deepening, as are the rumors
Speaker 1: that he is the Lisa al Gabe, the Fremen Messiah
Speaker 1: come from the outer world. Paul proves himself as an
Speaker 1: able warrior. He takes part in frem And raids, bringing
Speaker 1: Harcne and Spice operations to a standstill. And guess what
Speaker 1: that makes the Baron mad. He didn't like that because
Speaker 1: the whole reason that he connived with the Emperor to
Speaker 1: kill off the a Tredees and get Dune back. Is
Speaker 1: because he wants that. He wants that spice money.
Speaker 2: He needs that spice baby. He wants to be in
Speaker 2: charge of needs that.
Speaker 1: It's got a flow. So he fires his nephew, the
Speaker 1: beast Rebond, who had been managing spice productions. Nephew, he
Speaker 1: was incompetent. Okay, he installs his absolutely terrifying but very
Speaker 1: competent nephew, the I mean the serial killer Fade. Ralpha
Speaker 1: and the Benajeseritz. They love this because fate is kind
Speaker 1: of like their genetic backup plan to Paula trades back
Speaker 1: on Dune. Jessica drinks the water of life aka worm piss,
Speaker 1: and she survives her unborn child that Leah becomes a
Speaker 1: fully sentient human being inside of her womb. Jessica then
Speaker 1: replaces one of the Fremens dying reverend mother becomes their
Speaker 1: reverend mother. Now paul is now a full fledged Fremen.
Speaker 1: He also drinks worm piss, becoming the only man in
Speaker 1: history to survive this ordeal. And after that, the Fremen
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, one hundred percent, you are the Lisa
Speaker 1: and I'll give you you are him. That's the guy.
Speaker 2: Yes it's you, no question ten out of ten no questions.
Speaker 1: Paul is reunited with his old friend Gurney Halleck, who
Speaker 1: survived the Hardcone and Mascre and has been working as
Speaker 1: a smuggler and also busking on the side. Paul gets
Speaker 1: his family atomic bombs back now and then with the
Speaker 1: Fremen lure the Emperor to Aracus. It's a trap. The
Speaker 1: Fremn wipe out the Sartokar. They take the Emperor hostage,
Speaker 1: also Princess Irlam Baron Fade, other notables taken hostage, and
Speaker 1: Paul makes his big offer. Hey, resign as emperor. I
Speaker 1: will marry your daughter and then I will rule the galaxy.
Speaker 1: And if you say no, I destroy all spice production
Speaker 1: on Aracus, which would cause, you know, the mother of
Speaker 1: all supply chain problems and bring the galactic economy to
Speaker 1: its knees, not to mention all the millions, if not billions,
Speaker 1: of spice addicts across the galaxy who would just like
Speaker 1: drop dead painfully at times withdrawal. It would be bad.
Speaker 1: The Emperor is like, I'll think about it, but you
Speaker 1: got to fight my guy Fade, and Paul is like, fine,
Speaker 1: lots of trash talking, but Paul of course wins, and
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful like mirror image of his duel with
Speaker 1: Gurney from June one. Deal is on. Unfortunately the houses
Speaker 1: of the lands Rad, who have just arrived in orbit
Speaker 1: above Dune or like, we don't agree, and so Paul
Speaker 1: is like, guess what. I didn't want to do the jihad,
Speaker 1: but now we're doing it. Let's ride, Let's go up
Speaker 1: there and let's kill everybody. And and they go up
Speaker 1: to take out the forces of the lands Rad. Meanwhile
Speaker 1: Channie goes off into the desert to think about everything
Speaker 1: that's just happened. Your reactions, Yeah, so I mean too.
Speaker 2: I watched You in two in the front of the
Speaker 2: IMAX because I got to the screening too late, and.
Speaker 1: I was that was your neck?
Speaker 2: It was well, you know what it was. It was
Speaker 2: I I kind of tried to lay back as much
Speaker 2: as I could on the recliner and then I just
Speaker 2: felt like I was in the movie. Like I wrote
Speaker 2: an article for Igan about it because it was just
Speaker 2: so outrageous, Like when the sand whims, it was like
Speaker 2: Shihalud was coming to eat me, and I was like, ah,
Speaker 2: the Grandfather wha like. It was extremely viby, the sound
Speaker 2: was great. I was a huge fan of the first
Speaker 2: Dune movie. I was lucky enough to see it at
Speaker 2: the Imax headquarters where they edit all the Imax movies
Speaker 2: and stuff, and I just thought it was so good.
Speaker 2: It had this kind of slowburn British four part miniseries
Speaker 2: like on a Sunday afternoon drama vibe, so I wasn't
Speaker 2: fully surprised when most people I told to watch it
Speaker 2: were like, this is boring. So I've been incredibly happy
Speaker 2: to see how much people love this movie, because it
Speaker 2: is like a wild feat of filmmaking and it is
Speaker 2: very beautiful. And I love Charnie and I love the
Speaker 2: way that they changed her character in this. She gets
Speaker 2: to have way more agency in the book. She in
Speaker 2: the book, she's more of just like his supplicant lover, like,
Speaker 2: no matter what happens, she stands by him, and yeah,
Speaker 2: and the prince, you know, and obviously and he's and
Speaker 2: she's like, oh, you got to marry this woman for
Speaker 2: some other reason. Cool, Like, I don't mind whatever. So
Speaker 2: I've seen some really interesting kind of theories in the
Speaker 2: Dune Pod discord and online about the idea that Channie
Speaker 2: maybe is gonna become like a resistance leader against Paul
Speaker 2: and the war, which I think would be so interesting.
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of changes actually from the book.
Speaker 2: I mean even the Alia stuff in the book. You know,
Speaker 2: she's already born at this point. And but I think
Speaker 2: the way they did it was really interesting and works
Speaker 2: for the movie. And there's only so much suspension of
Speaker 2: this belief you can do, and the Aalia character from
Speaker 2: the book would have really pushed that for people. I think.
Speaker 2: So I thought, yeah, I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: I think that would be Yeah. I loved it. I
Speaker 1: was blown away. I felt we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: is Paul the bad guy in a second. But you
Speaker 1: mentioned that the theory that Channie is going to be
Speaker 1: a resistance leader potentially against Paul. I think the conversation
Speaker 1: around Paul being the bad guy is fascinating because I
Speaker 1: think what very clearly the Dune books want to do
Speaker 1: is show how a charismatic leader can rise to power
Speaker 1: and how it's not good m h. Because what happens
Speaker 1: after the first Dune book into Dune Messiah and elsewhere
Speaker 1: is basically Paul just falls on his face again and
Speaker 1: again and again, and a kind of splinter frem and
Speaker 1: cell of fighters who are like, God, is is this right?
Speaker 1: Like is Paul the best thing for the galaxy and
Speaker 1: for us? Like that happens, and it would be very
Speaker 1: fascinating if Chohanny was the spearhead of that. I will
Speaker 1: say that. Listen, when I first read the Dune, the
Speaker 1: first Dune book, as a kid, I was like, holy cow,
Speaker 1: Paul is amazing, like a classic hero in the in
Speaker 1: the classic kind of fantasy, Like yeah, and it's only
Speaker 1: you know, as you get older it but surely you realize, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's actually like quite a lot of sign posting that
Speaker 1: what Paul is doing is not right. And I think
Speaker 1: they even make it more explicit in the movie with
Speaker 1: the mentions of the billions of dead and how he
Speaker 1: himself is like I don't if I go out there,
Speaker 1: it's going to start a war and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: very very bad. But he's swept along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think that. Yeah. Frank Herber actually said,
Speaker 2: like in Dune Messiah, he tried to make it like
Speaker 2: really obvious because he was like upset that people didn't
Speaker 2: realize Paul was a bad guy and kind of this
Speaker 2: false prophet. So DENI was like, I'm gonna make it
Speaker 2: really obvious, Like, if you don't know that Paul is
Speaker 2: a bad guy by the end of this movie, you're
Speaker 2: in trouble.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned that. So you know, there's a
Speaker 1: Frank Kerber quote that gets thrown around around a lot
Speaker 1: from my interview in sixty nine, which I think is
Speaker 1: the year that Dune Messiah the second book came out,
Speaker 1: and he basically says, the difference between a hero and
Speaker 1: an anti hero is where you stop the story, you know,
Speaker 1: the first version of live long enough to see yourself
Speaker 1: become the villain exactly. I think that while I understand
Speaker 1: Frank's annoyance and confusion that people were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the hero, at the same time, I also kind
Speaker 1: of feel like, well, of course they were confused, because,
Speaker 1: like Frank very intentionally imbued Paul with all of the
Speaker 1: things that we associate with a classic, iconic, you know,
Speaker 1: grand adventure style hero. His father is killed by evil forces.
Speaker 1: The forces arrayed against him are unquestionably immoral and darkly,
Speaker 1: darkly darkly evil. He survives death and comes back to life,
Speaker 1: you know, which is a thing that we associate with
Speaker 1: these kind of like grand messianic heroes. There is a
Speaker 1: prophecy about him and all that stuff. But wonderfully and again,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, and as we've been talking about, like
Speaker 1: the thing that is like so overt in the movie is, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a it's essentially like Bena Jeserit propaganda and planting
Speaker 1: in this society to keep power, to make these people
Speaker 1: more controllable.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jason, let's take a quick break, but don't go
Speaker 2: anywhere day, Let's not more. Right after this, your boss
Speaker 2: come back.
Speaker 1: And that leads us to a new segment, which is
Speaker 1: loop We're calling Loop me in, which is basically like
Speaker 1: there's a there's always these kind of like isolated, siloed
Speaker 1: conversations going around at different different corners of the Internet.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they bubble into the mainstream and it can be
Speaker 1: trying sometimes to try and figure out like what is
Speaker 1: this about? Okay, So there was a conversation that bubbled
Speaker 1: up and that has been a boiling for as long
Speaker 1: as Dune has been out there, and consciousness, which is, yeah,
Speaker 1: is Dune a white savior story? Let's dive into that.
Speaker 1: The conversation around whether Dune is a white savior story.
Speaker 2: Look, the truth is yeah, And this kind of goes
Speaker 2: back to kind of what you were saying that there
Speaker 2: can be as much well intentioned like slow Burn political
Speaker 2: meaning as Frank Herbert wants there to be. But once
Speaker 2: you write a book or you put a film out
Speaker 2: into the world, it is for the people to read
Speaker 2: into it, right, And I don't I do not misunderstand
Speaker 2: or think that there's anything wrong with people who have
Speaker 2: read this and think, oh, it's a white savior story,
Speaker 2: or oh, they've watched the movie, because as you said,
Speaker 2: it follows the hero's journey. It does a lot of
Speaker 2: white savior stuff. He's a white guys, it's dancing with wolves.
Speaker 2: Here's the best version. He's the lassan al Gayebe. He's
Speaker 2: the one who can do it better than all the fremen.
Speaker 2: Which is the setup for a white savior story. But
Speaker 2: in the case of June, it is actually more complex
Speaker 2: because all of that is to actually critique that trope,
Speaker 2: because it then becomes about what would actually really happen
Speaker 2: if a white person went into this space and got
Speaker 2: this power as a kind of false idol and then
Speaker 2: took it across the world, and what would happen. They
Speaker 2: would cause like a you know, a g had where
Speaker 2: eighty six million people died. And I think that the
Speaker 2: problem here is less about like a literacy around the
Speaker 2: book or the film, and more about do people want
Speaker 2: to wait three movies to get to the point of
Speaker 2: the twist.
Speaker 1: Or do they want to become fift thousand.
Speaker 2: Word books to get to the point of the trist.
Speaker 2: I will say the one critique that I think is
Speaker 2: very fair of the movies, and obviously the books have
Speaker 2: always been critiqued but also celebrated. There's like it's a
Speaker 2: very divided conversation about the Orientalism and the books and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. But I will say the films didn't
Speaker 2: do a great job of casting like Middle Eastern people
Speaker 2: at in the Fremen culture, which is obviously what it
Speaker 2: is inspired by. So I do think that that adds
Speaker 2: to that conversation. But generally, Paul is not a white savior,
Speaker 2: and that's like that if you're really putting like it's
Speaker 2: a pin on it, he isn't, because the whole point
Speaker 2: is he's actually the villain. Spoilery la. If you didn't
Speaker 2: get it, he's already's.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's not a white savior story, but I
Speaker 1: think to your point, it's complex. Here's here's Herbert on
Speaker 1: something of his intent behind writing the story from that
Speaker 1: same nineteen sixty nine interview, and he's basically talking about
Speaker 1: envisioning Doune as a critique of Lawrence of Arabia of
Speaker 1: ten Lawrence. He says, quote, weave western man, set out
Speaker 1: our missionaries to do our dirty work for us, and
Speaker 1: then come along behind them with a certain belief that
Speaker 1: we're right in anything that we do because God has
Speaker 1: told us so, God and the person of the Avatar. Basically,
Speaker 1: what he's saying is, yes, Paul is a quote unquote
Speaker 1: white savior, but he's there because of this long running
Speaker 1: plot to place him in that position and manipulate the
Speaker 1: indigenous people of this world. So it is, to your point,
Speaker 1: a critique of the entire dynamic, and unsurprisingly it's one
Speaker 1: that that eludes people because it is quite subtle, although
Speaker 1: less less subtle in June too. I hope they make
Speaker 1: a third movie and show and show Paul just tripping
Speaker 1: over Rakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, in two hours.
Speaker 2: The book the movie has Dune two has made almost
Speaker 2: six hundred million dollars, So I think Dune Messiah is coming. Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, every episode we're gonna close the show with a
Speaker 1: variety of fast moving segments. Today it's Who's Who, in
Speaker 1: which we talk about some of our favorite weird characters
Speaker 1: from a given universe. In this episode, we're doing our
Speaker 1: favorite weirdo from Dune, Rosie. Who is your favorite Dune weirdo?
Speaker 2: This is very hard because Dune has so many good widows,
Speaker 2: but I am going there's so many you couldn't even
Speaker 2: believe it. Like when you were just doing the recap
Speaker 2: of the movie, I was like, we need to do
Speaker 2: recaps of the books because it's so funny when you
Speaker 2: just try and list out everything that happens. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going for Alia book version and this is no shade
Speaker 2: on two. I understand why they needed to do this,
Speaker 2: but literally, she is a baby who is born with
Speaker 2: the full consciousness of like a thousand generations of Bena
Speaker 2: Jesuit who are witches. And when she's four years old,
Speaker 2: she's like running around with the knife. She's the one
Speaker 2: who kills the baron with the gomjabar. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: one of the most bonkers characters of all time, and
Speaker 2: I love the four year old murder baby.
Speaker 1: She then has a romance with a clone of Dunkan Idaho.
Speaker 1: It gets crazy, folks. My favorite Dune weirdo is Edrick
Speaker 1: oh Spacing Guild, a navigator who is part of the
Speaker 1: plot against Paul and listen, Dune is not a story
Speaker 1: that has a lot of humor, but I find Edric,
Speaker 1: who is getting dunked on mercilessly when you first meet
Speaker 1: him in the book, is just getting absolutely pantsed as
Speaker 1: he's trying to like lay out this plot against Paul.
Speaker 1: I find it really funny. I find it hilarious. So
Speaker 1: that's that's my favorite Edward. We didn't see a lot
Speaker 1: of like the classic book style Spacing Guild navigators, but
Speaker 1: maybe we will if we get a third book.
Speaker 2: And I just need to say we picked those in
Speaker 2: a world where they are There's a character who's literally
Speaker 2: a giant human sand and there are witches with magical vaginas,
Speaker 2: so we were really like, we really it's from the widows,
Speaker 2: but Dune has a lot of widows.
Speaker 1: Thanks to you. Next Show by x ray Vision is
Speaker 1: hosted by Jason Ncepcion and Rosie Knight and is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith
Speaker 1: and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a booz Afar.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme
Speaker 1: song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Laude, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 2: and Heidi our discord moderator.