2 Dune 2 Handle: Popcorn Buckets and Monoculture
This week I'm wrong about my excitement for a sci-fi franchise film, plus my Valentine's Day history
In ten days, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two will be released in theaters. In twelve days, I will have seen it twice. You could say I’m excited.
Today’s post will be a short one (because I’m visiting my parents for a few days to ski in New Hampshire—a privilege of no longer being tied to a school schedule), but also because there’s only so many ways to say “Dune: Part Two looks absolutely bonkers in the best way and I can’t wait to see it.” There will be little profound commentary in the following paragraphs; nothing I write here is going in my best of 2024 list. But Dune: Part Two is my current Roman Empire (it replaces my previous Roman Empires of the past few months, in reverse order: carbonara recipes, my chess.com rapid rating, Tua Tagavailoa, and When Harry Met Sally). So I’m going to write about it, and why I’m so excited for it.
I read the novel Dune by Frank Herbert in the fall of 2020, knowing the movie adaptation was on the way. I always like to read the book first—even in the rare occasions the film version is superior (Stardust, Villeneuve’s Arrival, some others). For a book devoid of stylistic playfulness or a sense of humor, it was a very fun read full of political intrigue and surprisingly relevant commentary on environmental and cultural issues of the moment (and filled with the kind of implied orientalism/racism that sci-fi fans are great at ignoring and adaptations are never able to fully work past). It also featured (spoilers) a hyper-intelligent, morally ambiguous demon-baby and multiple giant worms who eat sand. I was a fan. It kept me entertained for several weeks of covid isolation, when I wasn’t cooking increasingly complex breakfast burritos (my Roman Empire of the time) or playing zoom-based games of Codenames.
Villeneuve’s Dune, which came out in 2021, was one of the first movies that drew me back to theaters after years away at the beginning of the current pandemic. As I had hoped before I took the subway to the Times Square IMAX, it featured a lot of famous actors fighting in front of CGI landscapes and spaceships, an appropriate amount of Inception-style BWAAAAAAAAHs in the soundtrack, a giant worm, and Oscar Isaac being arguably the most handsome man alive. I watched it again on a plane, and it held up impressively on a screen roughly 1/1000000th of the size. I’ve known ever since that I would be excited for the eventual sequel.
But my anticipation has grown not just because the movie has gotten strong reviews so far, or because this film will adapt the far weirder (and therefore more fun, in my opinion) half of the book. I am excited because for whatever reason, we as a culture seem to have decided that Dune Part Two is going to be a THING.
By a THING, I mean a movie that your younger cousins and your aunts are equally likely to see. A movie that you can talk about before your book club or before your pick-up basketball game. A movie where every seat in every theater on opening weekend will be filled with people willing to gasp at a shocking moment, cheer at a triumphant one, or laugh at something funny (I don’t expect that last one to happen much for Dune), and where at least one person will be dressed as a member of the Bene Gesserit (the all-women illuminati with mind-control and ninja powers in Dune). I love being one of those people in one of those theaters—caught up in emotions and experiences that feel bigger than me without being important and stressful. These THINGs don’t happen often. And they are some of the most pure moments of collective fun we are able to have in our culture.
It’s been a little bit since our last moment of similar monoculture, mostly because we’ve all decided that superhero movies are no longer compulsory viewing, but also because of the recent domination of streaming and TV showss. The most recent live-action Spiderman movie came closest—I did sit in a theater full of people and scream “That’s Andrew Garfield!” and have multiple people high five me when I was right—but the moment died on the vine. Nobody was talking about that movie after a few days, probably because it wasn’t very good beyond those moments of fan service.
The last time I remember a truly satisfying theater-full experience, like I’m hoping to have in a couple weeks, was back in 2019 for the most recent Avengers movie. That was such a big THING that it might be the reason we haven’t had another since—no superhero movie will ever compare to the anticipation and build up that comes from every person in America watching 19 movies to get ready to see the 20th. We’re mostly done collectively following along with those convoluted and increasingly sterile movie-worlds (it probably is just my awareness of and thoughtfulness about that staleness that increased, to be fair). And while I think I (who saw every Marvel movie in theaters through Quantummania, so am in no way above them) am happy to find a different kind of movie to obsess over, I do still want to enjoy the process of getting obsessed with something I can assume any random passerby knows about.
How do I know Dune: Part Two is a THING?
Because if I had wanted to book opening night tickets to an IMAX showing with two friends three weeks ahead of time, we would have needed to sit in two separate rows.
Because Zendaya is promoting this movie, which is some level of equivalent to Taylor Swift attending the Super Bowl.
Because the promotion of this film features so many massive celebrities being so, so weird—Josh Brolin wrote a poem about Timothée Chalamet that is probably already banned from Florida schools.
Because AMC is producing a Lovecraftian-horror-popcorn-box that looks like the gaping maw of a giant sandworm, and SNL produced a pretty funny video about that popcorn box.
Because I’ll probably order popcorn just so I have one of those Worm-buckets.
Because if I did not attend this movie within hours of it being released, I would be afraid to log onto twitter or eavesdrop on a stranger’s conversation without being spoiled.
And if thinking about the FOMO you might experience weeks ahead of time isn’t the sign of a cultural moment, what is? See you at the theater.
Valentine’s Day
The one time I had a serious girlfriend in the same location as me during Valentine’s Day, 2021, we sat six feet apart and made no physical contact, outside, in 20 degree weather in a park in Northeast DC and exchanged books. I picked one of my favorite books in the world about love and community. She gave me The Secret History, a book about murderous classics-obsessed college students in Vermont. It was very romantic.
I have had several first or second dates on Valentine’s Day, most of which involved going to nice cocktails or a jazz club and happily going home early. People often tell me they’d never go on a date on Valentine’s Day so early in a potential relationship, but I think it would be a nice story if it worked out (a married couple I’m friends with have an upsettingly romantic story where the LEAST romantic thing is they had their first kiss on Valentine’s Day), and it’s almost a bonding experience to do something a little stupid and over the top with a mostly-stranger who you might never see again.
This year, for the second time in the past decade, I will spend Valentine’s on an Amtrak, alone. The last time I did so, I was texting a friend beforehand about how I might meet a beautiful single woman on the train and our love story could be turned into a romcom called Back on Track. Instead, I scrolled twitter for five hours and ate alone at a Boston Cheesecake Factory at 11PM.
Whatever your Valentine’s Day plans—I see you and I support you. Please root for me as I live out 2 Back 2 Track.
I will probably wait a couple of days after Dune opens to see it. I too have been reading about all of the anticipation. Be sure to read Herbert for his philosophy because that is what he is underneath his writing. Two stories: when the original Star Wars was released in 1977, there was no advance publicity. I was in the record business in those days and went to see the first showing with several co-workers and there were only about 75 people in the theater. Astonishment of course. Then I went to work, got on the phone with corporate in Los Angeles and ordered 400 copies of the soundtrack saying I wanted them in Denver ASAP. They were gone in 72 hours. I think we sold a thousand in three weeks. Second story: one of the best New Yorker covers ever. Two trains at a station heading in opposite directions. A guy in one train looks up as a girl in the other train looks up. They are each holding the same book. A short tragedy of sorts. But I wrote about it devising a happy ending. Keep reading on trains. I meant to ask last week if you have read Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea books. If you have not please do. I love the world she creates.