Further Down the Wormhole: An Ode to the Dune Popcorn Bucket
Exploring an uncanny object that provokes delight and derision, and some thoughts on the movie that inspired it
This month’s newsletter contains spoilers for the films “Dune”, “Dune: Part Two”, and Frank Herbert’s novels “Dune” and “Dune Messiah.” To skip, check out my remarks on “Assassination Vacation” in the section below.
Dune: Part Two, dir. Denis Villeneuve
After years of anticipation, Dune: Part Two has finally arrived, and like a Spacing Guild navigator high on spice, it left me seeing stars.
I sat dead center in the last row of the theater, having purchased my ticket days in advance and hoping to have the best view possible. As others trickled in around me, I realized I was sitting in a row of mostly other solo male viewers. For most of my life, I’ve avoided seeing movies alone, but now, as a dad, it’s often necessary. To avoid the extra expense of a babysitter, my wife and I now regularly take turns venturing out in the world to indulge our love for movies, and largely, it works out great. I wondered about the other guys in my row. Were they also dads taking their turn at the movies? Nerds like myself that needed to see the movie as soon as possible on the biggest screen possible? Both? In any case, I was clearly amidst my people.
Dune: Part Two has probably been my most anticipated film since the first half debuted in 2021. In the time since, I’ve re-read the original book for the first time since high school as well as its sequel, Dune Messiah. The third entry in the series, Children of Dune, has slowly been rising to the top of my reading pile.
Like Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Lord of the Rings, what strikes me most about the Dune films is that director Denis Villeneuve’s love of the source material is obvious, but he also knows where to smartly deviate from the books. The most significant change in Dune: Part Two is the depiction of Chani, the Fremen woman whom Paul falls in love with. While in the novel, Chani is essentially a demure figure, unwavering in her support of Paul, the movie gives her much more agency. Here, she’s a full-on freedom fighter championing the cause of Fremen independence over the tyrannical rule of Arrakis from imperialistic outsiders. What I love about this change is how it allows Villeneuve to make explicit some of the most important themes from Frank Herbert’s original novel.
At the conclusion of Herbert’s Dune, it would be easy to mistake Paul as having undergone a typical “hero’s journey” arc, having been separated from his family only to follow his “chosen one” destiny and overthrow the evil Harkonnens who usurped his father’s kingdom. You kind of have to read a bit between the lines to understand that perhaps trading one fanatical, imperialistic sovereign for another is maybe a bad thing. But by making Chani a principled revolutionary for the cause of a free Arrakis, Villeneuve can make these themes an unmistakable part of the narrative. The novel ends rather abruptly after Paul dethrones the Emperor and proposes a diplomatic marriage to his daughter, Princess Irulan. By placing a more resolute Chani in the film version, this final scene offers the audience an active point-of-view where Paul has betrayed us. It’s made explicit that Paul has been swept up by fanaticism in his quest to overthrow the Harkonnens. Not only has Paul taken advantage of the Fremen, a people that are not his own, we experience Chani’s anger and disappointment as he leads them down a much darker path of holy war and conquest.
Where the novel and film are much alike is that both their endings leave Paul’s story unresolved. It’s not until Frank Herbert’s sequel Dune Messiah that we complete Paul’s tragic arc, and all signs seem to be pointing towards Villeneuve adapting this as a third film in his series. I’m excited for this not just because that story provides some much-needed narrative closure, but apart from a few sequences, Dune Messiah is aggressively uncinematic. I can’t wait to see how a visionary like Villeneuve approaches the material.
Where Dune has many of the trappings of an epic adventure story, Messiah is mainly about a conspiracy to overthrow Paul, full of hushed meetings and political intrigue. One of the most significant plot threads is who will produce Paul’s heir, Chani or Princess Irulan, so already some narrative work lies ahead to reunite Paul and Chani in the film adaptation. (Assuming they choose to adapt this plot, but I don’t see how they couldn’t, given its importance to Messiah and the other Dune sequels as well). Messiah also begins to delve into the weirder corners of the Dune universe, giving us more time with characters like the Guild Navigators, humanoid figures that live enveloped in chambers of spice to utilize its psychoactive effects to navigate space. Or the Bene Tleilax, shape-shifters with powerful tools for disguise and can raise the dead. I’m sure those other nerd dads of the world share my anticipation of how Villeneuve will bring these strange and unworldly factions to life.
But let’s talk about the show's real star, and that’s the novelty Dune Popcorn BucketTM. This unholy abomination of plastic and tin prompted quite a stir from fans and the cast alike. In a press junket, Josh Brolin remarked that if he saw a bunch of people in the theater with these buckets in their hand, he’d say, “Yeah, you’re an idiot.” To which I say—yeah, probably. I found it so bizarre and hilarious that I knew immediately I had to have one.
I couldn’t see Part Two on opening night, but I’ve become such a Dune nut that I asked a friend (and noted nerd dad himself) who lives near an AMC to pick one up for me before they sold out. (Nerd dads gotta stick together, y’know?) And let me tell you—this thing possesses an uncanny aura like no other. It’s repulsive and yet beautiful, stupid but genius. It inspires admiration (me, writing an ode to it here) and derision (my wife telling me to “get that thing out of my house” as if it were a haunted doll).
Is it odd seeing a story about the complex interplay between environment, politics, and religion suddenly reduced to an object of meme-ified mass marketing? Yeah, sure. But it succeeded in its mission of getting more people to talk about Dune, and if it ultimately sends more nerds like me further down the wormhole, then for that, I salute you, Dune Popcorn BucketTM.
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
My reading history is littered with unfinished books on American history. Doris Keans Goodwin’s Lincoln biography Team of Rivals sat on my Amazon wishlist for years. Was I enthralled with the analysis of James W. Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters? Absolutely. Did I finish? Um, no, sorry. I tried on the role of “Civil War-dad” with Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative on Audiobook and discovered a new cure for insomnia. But hey, I did finish David McCullough’s 1776, but don’t you dare quiz me on any details.
Let me be clear—the problem is definitely me and not any of the esteemed works listed above. Despite possessing some deeper desire to better engage with the history of my country, somehow consuming it in text often feels like homework. Which is why I found Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation to be a revelation. Vowell is obsessed with American history, American presidential assassinations in particular, and embarks on a journey of American landmarks to better understand them. Her journey is infused with dry wit and self-effacing humor and was injected with the kind of liveliness and personality that it turns out I needed to better engage with history. The book is full of asides like this one in which she describes John P. Hale, the father of Lucy Hale, the secret fiance of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth:
Hale, a New Hampshire Republican, was the first abolitionist ever elected to the U.S. Senate. One reason he was so keen on absconding to Europe on a diplomatic appointment was to put an ocean between his pretty daughter and Booth, whom the senator knew to be a pro-slavery southern sympathizer and, worse, an actor.
Rather than a start-to-finish linear journey through history, Vowell’s travelog takes us through sights such as the Oneida community, which is now known for their flatware and home goods was once a free love society and briefly home to Charles Guitea, the assassin of President James Garfield. Guitea was an eccentric, wound-up guy, so much so that he couldn't even get laid with a free love group, and the rejection both there and from his pleas for a diplomatic role in the Garfield administration led him down the path of presidential assassination.
The journey is meandering and ponderous in the best way possible. Vowell’s mission here is to explore what does or does not get remembered and how. Before reading this book, I couldn’t tell you much, if anything, about the Garfield or McKinley assassinations, and that’s very much part of Vowell’s interest in the subject matter. (And I’m guessing that unless you are an aspiring history dad, your knowledge on the subject is a bit thin). Vowell marvels at how Garfield was assassinated on the National Mall, and yet, despite its abundance of monuments, Garfield is essentially a forgotten figure there. Similarly, Garfield’s political rival Roscoe Conkling and Presidential successor Chester A. Arthur both are commemorated with statues in New York’s Madison Square Park, while Garfield’s New York remembrance is a children’s playground in Brooklyn called the Garfield Tot Lot. Vowell observes that the political rivals would each probably delight in the historical anonymity of the other.
But I think where Vowell’s attempt to square historical reality with physical remembrance is in the comparison between the Freedman Memorial and Lincoln Monument in Washington, DC. After a lengthy first chapter describing how nearly every relic of the Lincoln assassination has been carefully kept and cataloged (a stark contrast to the largely forgotten history of Garfield), Vowell concludes by describing Lincoln’s first commemoration in our nation’s capital. To call this monument perplexing would be a bit of an understatement.
The statue, which features Lincoln looming over a huddled enslaved person, was likely perceived with as much discomfort at its debut as it is today. In a speech commemorating the statue, Frederick Douglass referred to it only as an “interesting object” before recounting Lincoln’s history with slavery, initially only opposing the expansion of slavery and placing more emphasis on the preservation of the union. And yet, Douglass also notes the joy he felt upon the delivery of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Which, of course, is Lincoln’s lasting legacy. As Vowell ponders the memorial, she’s passed by a smiling black woman who cheers, “Emancipation Proclamation! Freed the slaves, amen!” It reflects how historical result lives in our collective memory far better than the journey to how we got there.
Next month!
2024 has a really exciting slate of horror films on the horizon. I’ll share some notes on Late Night with The Devil, a found footage-style film that takes a turn towards the demonic. Next month I’m also hoping to catch up with Sundance darling I Saw The TV Glow. You can check out the trailer for that below, see ya next month!