Escape Hatch Episode 1: Dune (1965) 1/2

Tapedeck 00:02

This is a tapedeck podcast

Matt Haitch 00:15

everybody its haitch, and welcome to the very first episode of Dune pod, your one stop shop to enjoy the new dune movies. This week I'm joined as always by my co host Jason. But

Jason Goldman 00:26

you know in general, I'm wildly optimistic and I've set my expectations impossibly high. And by

Matt Haitch 00:32

poet and spiritual advisor protolexus,

proto 00:35

after seeing what he's done previously, I have very high hopes for this movie. This is the one right this is where they're actually going to get it right.

Matt Haitch 00:43

First up on the two year anniversary of recording our first episode, Jason and I reflect on the origins of the podcast and how far we've come since beginning this journey. Spoiler alert, we interviewed denis Villeneuve, then we present the original episode with part one of our discussion of Frank Herbert's original masterpiece, Dune, in the episodes ahead, will cover all of Frank's dune books and the amazing movies by the cast and crew of denis' new Dune, including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac and more. If you like what you hear, JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER where you can hang out with us online whenever you want. A link is in the show notes. And now without further ado, you do? How do we want to start JSON? Episode One?

Jason Goldman 01:31

Yeah, the beginning?

Matt Haitch 01:33

This is it right?

Jason Goldman 01:34

The beginning is a very delicate time. You can't improve upon perfection. This

Matt Haitch 01:38

is a look back, we now have the benefit of a view from two years into the future from episode one.

Jason Goldman 01:46

Man, if I knew I wouldn't have held I wouldn't have held all this crypto, that's for sure. By knowing what I know, then, my God.

Matt Haitch 01:54

The future turned out a little different than we were expecting.

Jason Goldman 01:58

Do you remember when we thought the pandemic was going to end? Yeah, like in 2021. Amazing.

Matt Haitch 02:04

But we were so young, like, yeah, back and listening to our voices and hearing us then this was like a whole a whole new world.

Jason Goldman 02:13

Yeah, I had half the children I have now. So I've definitely I've definitely aged. Obviously, the colonoscopy is a big event. You know, a lot of people this is coming out for episode one.

Matt Haitch 02:26

This is now Episode One, the special edition. Right? This is, but you're listening to it.

Jason Goldman 02:31

So you'll have to listen up until like Episode 97, before we introduce goldtoes woes one of the best recurring segments we've ever done. But I'll have you know that I've heard from literally twos of people who are excited about the colonoscopy content. So if you hold on, you could maybe be one of those literally threes of people who've written to me appreciating it.

Matt Haitch 02:54

Yeah, I'm glad we prepped to have the colonoscopy pitch be our first part for new listeners to this.

Jason Goldman 03:02

They should know what they're getting into.

Matt Haitch 03:03

So we started this podcast in May of 2020. And the concept was, we were gonna be very rigorous. We were going to do Frank's books. And then we were going to do exclusively the movies by Denis Villeneuve, and the cast and crew of Dune, so that we'd had this really tight expectation of what the pod would be. And this was a time where literally the only thing we had about the movie was that single image of Timothy walking on the beach.

Jason Goldman 03:31

Yeah. And like it was perfectly timed. Because we would do the pod, we would be able to cover all the Disney movies, we'd be able to cover a bunch of like Timmy movies and a bunch of like other movies from people in it. But like, you know, not so many that we'd have to like stretch or whatever. And then dune would come out October would come out 2020. And then we would retire the pandemic would be over and we'd go about crypto voting. Yeah, we'd go do some other stuff.

Matt Haitch 03:57

Yeah, well, that didn't quite happen. But we have over the course of the last two years. And for people that are just joining us, you can jump anywhere you want on this podcast. You know, we have both the walkthrough of the books which you can listen to either with or without reading them. But we also have done an incredible sort of view of movies, both by the cast and crew, as well as just a whole bunch of other killer movies. So if you just scan through the list, you're gonna find your favorite movies and some of the best across a broad range of films,

Jason Goldman 04:31

a broad range of films, as long as they were made between 1983 and 1987. Very, very broad within those parameters. Lebowski was 97 Yes, no, there's there's some movies outside of that range. But like, you know, our sweet spot is movies that were released in general proximity to David Lynch's Dune, I would say yes,

Matt Haitch 04:54

that's definitely fair. We certainly have a love affair with the 80s and 80s sci fi which resonated you kind of the end of Frank's life and definitely was entangled with the legacy of what he was building at that time. But it was really fun to go back and listen to this episode and hear it now that we're that we're in the midst of this and like, we were just getting so many things wrong. Like we thought it was pronounced Zendaya. I thought it was pronounced Ville new. Our audio was pretty rough. Jason.

Jason Goldman 05:21

Yeah. The first episode, you know, you'll hear I was recording in a closet that had no air conditioning in San Francisco. And I don't even know I must have been using like some USB mic, but I would have been better if I was using air pods. Like it sounded terrible. It was a terrible mic.

Matt Haitch 05:37

I would say that picture of Ira Glass and in that closet, and like I did the closet thing.

Jason Goldman 05:42

I did the closet part right. But the microphone was essentially a tin can and a string. It was terrible. And so now we have a slightly better setup.

Matt Haitch 05:49

Yeah, well, and it's been an absolutely amazing journey, both in terms of getting to explore all these films. But then also, we've created now a really wonderful community of people on the dune pod discord, where we have screenings of the movies every week with live chat with everybody in there, we have live streaming of the recordings of the episode every week. So I hope if you listen to this episode, and you'd like the discussion that we have, really getting into the details on the first book, we cover the first half of the first book, and if you'd like that, you know you'll really enjoy the book episodes where we go very deep but also on films, we get really into the movie we're very into you know, awesome production and music and sound effects and creating just kind of like a great soundscape that hopefully will be very immersive for people as they're listening to that that's been a really fun part of this. Yeah,

Jason Goldman 06:41

and like the I would say the community that I don't think so much we created as like was created like for us or was created by the people who who hear us Who are ya are in proximity to us has really been the best part the most unexpected part of the podcast because we certainly didn't start the podcast and say like oh, we should have a discord that came much much later. And obviously anything that's like dune kind of specific we ended up talking about in the discord but a lot of it really has nothing to do with dune whatsoever. There's you know, a bunch of discussion about movie and pop culture and other things of that nature. But there's a lot of talk about just like other things going on in the world and it's just a great, great group of folks and it's really fun to hang out there. I encourage you to check us out in the discord it is a little daunting doing this like Episode One special edition because it feels like almost like putting like a message in a bottle like I know when people are gonna bump into this and so like I'm telling them to like come join the discord and what if they're like finding this and like you know we've had a horrible falling out or there's been like a schism on the discord and now there's right to discord yeah war so I don't know join my Discord don't fuck with discord if that's if that's the case at to Jason Yeah,

Matt Haitch 07:55

I just want to say that I was kind of amazed with what happened I expected us to kind of get up and running and do episodes and do some stuff and and then to just see it really blossom. Yeah, we just crossed 200,000 downloads like there. A lot of people have discovered and listened to this show. We were able to get Steven scarlotta the producer of Jodorowsky is dune which is an incredible documentary and one of the real touchstones of the dune community and to be able to have him come on not once but twice and get into that. We went to the Mill Valley Film Festival Jason We met Denny Villeneuve we enter met him Denis Villeneuve.

Jason Goldman 08:32

We didn't touch him because of COVID protocols. But we talked to him. That was incredible. Seems like a dream. It was a dream. It was a dream. It's the greatest professional accomplishment of my life in the last two years for sure.

Matt Haitch 08:47

Bar none, bar none. Bar none. I'm right there with you, buddy. I mean, this has been I'm truly proud of the work that we've done. And it's been a hell of a good time. So as you listen to this episode, you know, you'll hear us just trying to figure out what the hell's going on. This was a very early date, we didn't know the movie was for sure. Even happening on any reasonable timeframe. And you'll hear that as you listen to episodes. But again, jump to any episode you want. Any movie that you want, and start listening. And we really we hope you have a good time with it. Thanks for joining us. Yes, welcome. And now, dune pod episode one. I mean, the first question is why? Why a dune podcast?

Jason Goldman 09:26

Why not? This should be so many more. I think obviously, I think there's a lot of interest in June right now because the villain of movies coming out in December. But also, I think there's a lot of perennial interest in dune because it's a seminal work of science fiction that also has sort of these unknown and sometimes unseen cultural resonances. Like there's just references that pop up from the fan base, and other things. And so it kind of always sort of floats beneath the surface a little bit, and then occasionally there Are these bigger cultural moments where it pops up? And the fan base of Dune is also kind of a chillax fan base? Like, you know, there's not the, I don't know, I assume there are dune cons, but like, I've never been tempted to go to like a dune con or whatever. And instead, it's just kind of folks who I think kind of like the cultural flow kind of routinely come back to it. And so yeah, it's it's a work with durable, durable interest in power. And so I think that's why, why it keeps coming back.

Matt Haitch 10:31

It's pretty wild, just kind of rereading it to see how many references have been made to it from so many different works, whether it's Star Wars or other things, like it's just like, so many of these elements that have been picked up and taken and blown out from there, for better or worse, through these different interpretations.

Jason Goldman 10:49

Yeah, it's sort of like would be as if Star Trek only existed as like, the original series. And like, the original series, wasn't on television, like it had been like a comic book or something that like, was a Gangbuster comic book for like, five years, but like, never came back. And then every 20 years, someone tried to make a movie out of it. But like, the movie was basically only ever Star Trek, The Motion Picture, it was just kind of bad. But like, you know, in all of these other things, there still was like, teleporter technology. And there was like, you know, there's transporters, and there was, you know, photon torpedoes and like, all this other stuff. And I was like, yeah, it all comes from that one, like comic book that, you know, was was pretty good. But like, no one's been able to do anything with it. So it's like, it punches above its weight, in terms of its cultural footprint, which is

proto 11:35

cool to note also, is that they are working on a TV series as well, or at least a mini series. Is that on HBO? HBO? Max? Yeah. Ever heard of it? Yeah. Because, you know, Dune is such an amazing universe with so many different stories that you could tell with just all the different sects and you know, different players in it. And all this history worked into it. There's so many different things that would be interesting to see.

Jason Goldman 11:58

Yeah, like, why be precious about it, too, because obviously, like Frank, Herbert wasn't very precious about it after the show, after the initial trilogy, it kind of became like, Alright, I guess people are in it, let's keep writing stuff. Then like, his kid is like, great. I'm gonna write stuff too. And in some of those things, there's really cool ideas that carry forward, you know, parts of what made the original really good. So I think it also has like sort of an advantage there where you don't need to be super precious about it. Like because it is something that there isn't a canonical representation of it outside of the books like in media. Everyone's like, tried something, but it's, it's not like oh, yes, like that's the one that really nailed it. So just try it try stuff. See what see what works. Totally.

Matt Haitch 12:40

Can we back up for just a second proto? Did you have a hot take on Star Trek The Motion Picture? No, not a hot take just made it you made a face to face in the moment. So

proto 12:50

I love the old Star Trek movies. I just think the new ones are kind of boring, right? I love the stories they try to tell because to me Star Trek, what's so compelling, is no, you're in space. You can create whatever kind of story you want. Whatever kind of creature any kind of storyline, it could be wacky and crazy. And that's what they do in the early movies. But then these later ones, they're just to me, just like normal action adventure movies that could be in any universe. They're not that compelling. Sure,

Matt Haitch 13:21

sure. And kind of famously, for Roddenberry's vision of the future, it was very simple and very peaceful. You have the Federation, everything's come together. And like humans are really leading the way and you know, the beacon on the whatever on the spiral of the galaxy, as opposed to dune where things are so messy, and there's so much interplay between the different the different groups that are battling for control of what's going on, as well. So, Jason, where did you first get involved? Like, what was your first introduction into dune? How did you get started on it? I'm

Jason Goldman 13:54

pretty sure it's the lynch movie. I think as a kid, I saw the lynch movie on like, you know, Saturday afternoon television or something like that. I definitely didn't see it in the theater. I don't remember ever not knowing the lynch movie. Like it's one of those. It's one of those things where it just kind of predates my conscious memory of understanding movies and culture like I similarly I don't, I don't remember not knowing about Star Wars, like my entire life. I feel I've known Star Wars even though I'm pretty sure Jedi was the only one I saw in the theater. And even then, that's maybe questionable. I was too young to see Empire or a new hope in the theater. And I definitely didn't see June in the theater. But at some point, I saw, you know, one of these versions of the lynch movie on television, and we had a pretty extensive, you know, VCR operation in our house where we're just taping things off of off of TV. And one of the things that stood out to me about the lynch movie was that there are these different versions of the lynch movie and there are these multiple different cuts and edits. of the lynch movie. And at some point, I realized pretty early that I was seeing a different movie when I had gone back to revisit it. And I was like, Wait, this scene wasn't even in here, or this came later or, you know, this just didn't happen. And that was so fascinating to me as a kid, I was like, How can there be different versions of you know, that that had never happened? And that really, I think, is what drove me to the book was like, Okay, well, if I gotta like, figure out what's going on here, then I'm going to have to go to the source material and read the book. And so I read the book sometime in junior high school, to kind of like, establish canonically what the story was, and then found out that some of the stuff that I loved and Lynch movie wasn't even in the book. Right? And so it was this like, constant unfolding of the story and my understanding of it as time went on. Nice

Matt Haitch 15:45

and just around the corner, we're gonna get into that deep analysis of the book. So stay tuned, folks. for that. Proto How about you? I remember we got into this I think earlier this year, right? This was your first time reading dune?

proto 15:57

No, actually, I had read dune before in my teen years. But my first introduction to the dune universe was my parents gave me Brian Herbert's prequel series for Christmas one year, and I've read those before reading the original raising Yeah. Wow. So reading dude, I know a lot of people say it's, it can be dense, it's hard to get into there's a lot of names, blah, blah, blah. But I never had that experience because all of the characters that you meet in Dune, you get kind of get their backstory from the prequels. So I was already familiar with that universe. Or just even some of the you know the the names. I don't know if you guys read the prequels, but it's a lot about Leto when he's younger, and Jessica's mother and Jessica growing up. So it fills in all those stories. So going into reading Dune, I felt very comfortable with all the characters. Yeah, so I read those first and then I read dune. And then with our recent reading, though, is my first time that I've gone past the the first book. Yeah,

Matt Haitch 16:59

so I discovered the books, like a lot of things my older brother read introduced me to comics, you know you to REM various things. But he turned me on to dune when I was 13. So this was the summer of 83. And I took a trip from Florida out to California to stay with my aunt uncle for a couple of weeks, and I got dune maybe like at a beadlet in or something, and then got on the airplane. And I just remember reading it the whole time. And while I was in California, and just completely being blown away by this book and sucked into it, something about Paul having this just incredible, you know, control of his body, his mind. And this, this idea of this perfection that he represented, and this goodness, that was the seed that really resonated for me at the time. And then of course, I saw a tune in the theater in 84 with Lynch and I remember reading like the Time magazine article that was all about this crazy $40 million budget movie that was kind of unprecedented. And I had no idea what to really make of it, it was way over my head in terms of some of the darker themes that he was going for. But I always remember they had a translation sheet with all the glossary terms that they handed out to you with your ticket. It was that complex. So anyways, I definitely came to it at an early age and I had read dune and and Messiah and Children of Dune multiple times, but never got all the way through until this year when proto and I started a read through so that was that was definitely a good experience to crack through that. Anything we want to say, you know, you referenced the dune movie, you know, coming out like seeing these pictures of whether it's challenge a walking on the beach, or, you know, Stilgar or just the beards in this movie are just off the hook.

Jason Goldman 18:51

Yeah, they definitely were anticipating the Coronavirus beard wave by giving everyone a really lush, really lush setup. I mean obviously it's really exciting because Villanova's such a great filmmaker, I'm a big fan of his Blade Runner remake and I thought some of the initial photos like that, I think were the Vanity Fair photos looked a little flat but I kind of think that was just like sort of because they were still photos from the set and then the shower may photo I thought was dope. I thought that looked really really good. The cast is ridiculous for genre film, I mean Anna genre film that's like, like an aura genre film. Like obviously, it's not you cannot disguise that this is anything but like a really, really weird science fiction movie. And they got, you know, a complete a name list of folks. I guess. I'm interested to see sort of what they leave in and what they cut and how they do the, you know, sort of multiple movie split. But you know, in general, I'm I'm wildly optimistic and I've set my expectations impossibly high. Yeah,

proto 19:54

I mean, after seeing what he's done previously, I'm very high. hopes for this movie. I think this, this is the one right? This is where they're, they're actually going to get it right. And it is amazing that they're going to do it in two parts. What is your guest for where they would break the movie Up in the two? To me, it seems like the natural breakpoint might be when Paul and Jessica are in the desert. And like the movie cut the credits right there. But I don't know, what do you guys think?

Matt Haitch 20:21

That's a good question. I mean, I think, you know, certainly there's a lot of shots of some of the freshmen and so I think they're gonna have to get at least Partway into that story. But I think they will expand out some of the the initial machinations like the raid on like Ed prime that was in the books, but not covered. Like, that would be a really cool thing to be able to see. And you can imagine taking a little bit more room in that first film. I was just completely shocked that they did not film the whole thing, and then just chop it into two parts, like the notion that they're gonna go get everybody and go back out into the desert and stressful.

Jason Goldman 20:58

It is. Yeah, that's what's gonna screw us is that the first part is gonna be amazing. And then it's gonna be 1000 years until part two because like, you know, that never happens. Yard rescues doing part two, right.

Matt Haitch 21:09

Electric Boogaloo? Yeah.

Jason Goldman 21:11

I think I would probably cut it at the Jessica takes the water of life scene, like, which is I think the end of part two in the book. Like Paul's, like, fully God is like meant out awareness. He's present. He's got like, you know, all that stuff. He's not yet like, he hasn't taken the water of life, obviously. And he's not like, become a sand writer, either. I would basically do it there. I would like have him be fully into like, you know, he's he's got the relationship going with Chani. And Jessica is taking the water of life. And it's clear that like, now he is a friend, you know, he's going to be a part of the Fremen world. And then part two, I would have liked the opening be, he becomes a sand rider. Like he rides the worm. Because like, why not? Why wouldn't you start there? And then I think that also helps explain a little bit why you don't have Feyd In part one, which is a bummer. But hopefully that means you can do more of like the feyd stuff in part two and just introduce him as a primary antagonist in part two, that makes a lot of stuff which I think would would work.

Matt Haitch 22:11

I love feyd in the Yeah,

proto 22:12

because not seeing him in the cast list. I was like, what's the deal? Is he cut out of this movie and that seemed like a strange choice. But yeah, putting it that way that would make a lot of sense. Introducing him in the second part. Yeah,

Jason Goldman 22:23

because one of the best scenes I don't actually remember if it's in the miniseries, but like one of the best scenes in the book is feyd's gladiator fight against the captured atreides from that failed at prime raid. And that seems amazing. It has like everything good in it that isn't on a tradies you know, it's got vade it's got the fair and it's got Bene gesserit witchcraft. It's got you know, the count Fenrig Lady fenrig It's a chockablock seen

Matt Haitch 22:50

Feyd is running his own mission. You know, the Baron has his own thing going through first got a plot going on in the background. Like it's super intricate. It's so yeah,

Jason Goldman 23:00

so I think it would just make total sense. Like save that as like a part two like showpiece. Like his intro is like the first thing you see and fade as he's like, suiting up to like, do battle on his gladiatorial. You know, his 100th match, you know, in the arena and that's like his intro and you're like, Who is this? You know, badass because like, establishes like, like for the end that this is someone who like is an actual threat like you never really believe staying is like a credible threat in the lynch movie.

Matt Haitch 23:27