A Casual Half-Watch Of The Dune Reboot. A Defense Of Nonchalantly Watching Movies.

When Dune first arrived on the scene in 2021, it arrived as a big deal.  With a 165 million dollar budget and having already been delayed due to Covid-19 concerns the anticipation for this movie was relatively large.  I knew vaguely of the prior movie, the original book, and even the video game Dune 2000.  I knew the story generally concerned space, a desert, giant worms, and something called spice.

Still, I couldn’t really get myself to watch it.  Two and a half hours for what I assumed would be a far too hard to understand movie, and one that I wouldn’t be able to get over with a bit of a half-watch.

I have found that I tend to half-watch things now more than ever.  Typically, reality style television shows such as Survivor, Masked Singer, or The Challenge, as well as some live sports.  The television format for these shows rarely if ever changes, giving me the freedom to scroll through my phone, text my friends, play a video game on the side, or even try to write an essay.

When I half-watch things, it becomes the equivalent of speed reading.  Yes, I've gotten further along, I’ve absorbed the basics and I might even pass a test if someone wanted to examine what I've retained.  But I often lose the full picture and the ability to think to critically about the story.

Eventually, due to the amount of fanfare the film was still getting and the face that the film would apparently be leaving the streaming service I had subscribed to (HBO Max), I succumbed and decided I would give the film a half-watch on my tablet and replaying Diablo 3. 

The key to absorbing anything in this form is to keep my game volume low to off, and the movie volume loud enough to take most of my attention.  Diablo 3 to me is the equivalent of driving a car.  As long as you understand exactly what you’re doing, you can drive on a highway at 65 MPH, be listening to a podcast and simultaneously perform complex actions.

However, Dune was insisting upon itself.  The character design, the sounds and score of the film, and the ability of the writing to be both loud and obvious while carrying a mystery.  I would constantly find myself rewinding and rewatching scenes that I wanted to understand or appreciate a bit more.  The artistic imagery and imagination were worthy of the accolades they received at various award shows.

The movie was great!

However, now a new reality was starting to set in.

I had become incredibly tired.

I thought that by starting the movie at roughly 9PM would mean that I would be able to stay awake until roughly 11:30 or maybe even just a little past midnight.  I thought that if I had a can of Pepsi Nitro, which had objectively more than enough sugar and caffeine that I shouldn’t have had any opportunity to get tired.  The movie I was watching was good!  The side game was stimulating enough, and I had some traditional stimulants.  Still, my eyes felt so heavy that I found myself briefly sleeping then falling back into my consciousness.

I wasn’t going to make it.  I was not going to finish Dune, and I would succumb to my bodies age and needs.

To be sure, I never regret this decision.  There are few activities I love more than going to bed when I’m exhausted.  The sensation of the soft sheets against my skin and the presence of my wife sleeping silently beside me dive me to a place of peace.  If the cost of this nighttime nirvana is the premature stopping of part 1 of a 3-part movie series, I will always pay the toll.

Anyway, this is a huge bummer, since I don’t know if I’ll be able to resume the movie after I wake up.  April 9^th will be 1 day past the displayed availability.  So when my feet hit the floor the next morning and check my paused tablet to discover an error.

Sadly it looked like my lack of late night energy costed me the opportunity to finish my half-watched movie in full.  However, as I exited the program, for whatever reason, a fresh Dune icon came up indicating the move was still On Demand.

Instead of watching at roughly the point where I had left off, I start the movie over again from the beginning.  In some ways, by half-watching the movie twice allowed for a better comprehension as to the full plot.  It drew me in further when I watched a second time, this time with a bit more of an attentive ear.  It made me a fan and looking eagerly towards the next installment.

I didn’t watch the story the way it was originally intended.  I think that most sci-fi and fantasy fans would be horrified in my casual approach to a sci-fi epic.  Yet in the end I loved the movie, and can’t recommend it enough, even if you want to do something on the side and give it a modern half-watch.