Gummy worms and sand worms

The long-awaited day finally arrived on Sunday.

Dune: Part Two.

It was long-awaited in a couple respects. In one sense, I was waiting for it since the end of the first Dune in late 2021, not because I had to find out how it all turned out -- I had read the book, and these aren't the sorts of movies that leave you on the edge of your seat in terms of the drama. (And having seen the second movie, it's clear that "how it all turned out" is just another stop in the road in what seems to be envisioned as a long Dune franchise.) No, I was waiting for it because being transported to that world was such a surrounding, fulfilling, tactile experience that I wanted more of it. You could say, we go to any movie because we want more of that sort of immersive experience. The movie finished in my #9 spot for the year. 

The other reason the day was long-awaited was that this movie was supposed to come out either three or five months ago, I can't remember which. If memory serves, the delay was due to the writer's strike, though in the end, not many titles actually moved their release date for this reason. Remember the writer's strike?

And then it sort of felt like a long wait between Thursday, when I would have liked to have seen it, and Sunday, when I actually did get to see it.

Fortunately, I was able to carve out an ideal 4:15 viewing slot on Sunday, on a suitably large screen at the Sun with a suitably soul-rattling sound system. (That's a phrase I used in my review, which you can find here.) 

I don't normally get to go to the movies in the late afternoon, usually requiring a 9 p.m. time slot, which can be a bit of a challenge for a movie that lasts two hours and 45 minutes -- even one as engrossing as this one. But I've started to become conscious of possible times on the weekend when I can sneak in such a viewing, which also includes the first pre-11 a.m. viewing of the day (it was in this time slot that I recently saw The Zone of Interest) and the so-called "quiet time" time slot, since my kids are allowed to have "quiet time," i.e. get back on their screens, around 4:30 on weekend days, but sometimes as early as 4. 

Anyway, I don't have a lot to say about the viewing except for the series of logistics I've already rattled off. I'll let my review speak for itself. 

If you don't want to read the review, well, in short:

Is this a perfect movie? No.

Does it still deserve 4.5 stars because of the staggering scope of its achievement? Yes, yes it does.

Oh! One final thing.

The subject is a reference to the fact that I had a bag of gummy worms in the movie with me when I watched this movie about giant sand worms. Technically they were gummy snakes, but if you are splitting hairs on the difference between a snake and a worm, you're doing it wrong.

One survived the entire movie, and at the end, I saw it sitting there, looking up at me from the seat next to me. 

That one went down the hatch too.