"Dreams are messages from the deep." Dune, 2021
Like I Was Saying...
In 1999, my best friend Jerry and I moved to Fort Worth to pursue our moviemaking dreams. Was the D/FW area hotbed of moviemaking?
No, but we moved to the D/FW area anyways.
We had both dropped out of college. So our plan was simple, we would move to the D/FW area, find jobs, and start cranking out short films and build up to a feature-length movie - somehow.
One evening Jerry and I went over to our friend Jay's house to hang out. Now, Jay was an avid reader. So he had an extensive library of books. While hanging out, Jerry saw a copy of Frank Herbert's Dune. So Jerry asked if he could borrow it, and well, there went the whole ballgame.
Jerry spent the summer absorbed in the tomb. Now, in all fairness to Jerry, this was his sabbatical after his four years in college. Some people visit Europe after college; Jerry went to Dune.
The thing is, all of our immediate plans came to a screeching halt. Not that there were a lot of plans there, to begin with, anyways.
So, there began my love-hate relationship with Dune. See, because Jerry would talk about the damn book incessantly. Twitter wasn't around yet, but I hooked up to this fire hose, getting fed paragraph by paragraph breakdowns.
And because Jerry was listening to crap I was going through, it was only fair that I listened to his play-by-play of Dune. It's what friends do.
So because of this, I developed a deep loathing for anything Dune.
Sure, I had seen the David Lynch 1984 version, but Dune was just another movie I had seen. Granted, the Duke Harkonnen, played by Kenneth McMillan, grossed me out (still does), but Dune wasn't a big deal to me until Jerry started reading it.
I saw the trailer for the newest version of Dune a long while ago. I want to say, Pre-COVID, and I thought it looked interesting visually. Still, I was reluctant to watch it, the near mention of the Kwazak Hareik triggering bad memories of that aimless, awful summer.
So when Lucy asked if I wanted to watch it, I said, okay. Thinking I'd hate it, but at least I'd be working through my unresolved issues with the damn story.
The newest version of Dune is fantastic. One, it's visually striking, and the special effects are off the charts. Then there's the all-star cast and another tremendous score by Hans Zimmer (one of my favorites.)
I'm not too familiar with the newest actors playing the leading roles, but it's well cast. The only faux pas is that Jason Momoa (spoiler alert) shaves his beard.
Lucy and I watched it again tonight, mainly so my Sister-in-law could watch it, but Lucy also got more out of the story. And she could sit through the two-hour and thirty-five-minute run time because Dune is so well done.
I want go watch it at IMAX because I want Warner Brothers to make the next installment. Yes, it's that damn good.
On the plus side, I knew what the hell was going on because of that summer almost twenty-two years ago.