On today’s special Ruminant, Jonah assembles a Mount Rushmore of geekdom (David French, Haley Byrd Wilt, and Jack “Butlerian jihad” Butler) to review Denis Vileneuve’s movie adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Be prepared for perhaps the nerdiest episode ever, as the quartet explores why it took so long for a Dune movie to be produced (David Lynch’s doesn’t count), what the film got right, and whether any elements of the book were unjustly left out. There’s also broader discussion mixed in on the awfulness of the Star Wars prequels, the best movie adaptations of great sci-fi novels, and why sci-fi as a genre is inherently conservative. Muad’dib!

Show Notes:

- Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, for the uninitiated

- David Lynch’s Dune adaptation, best left forgotten?

- Haley’s Dune-filled Twitter feed

- Jack’s Dune review

- National Review now has a Dune tag

- The Chung Kuo series

- The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu

- The Time Traveler’s Almanac

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