Movies

If the recent release of UFO information by the White House was not all that exciting, then you may want to turn to Hollywood for a boost.

On June 12th, Steve Spielberg’s movie Disclosure Day comes to your local movie screen. From what I read in the press and previews, it should lift your spirits if you are looking for something strange out there, real or imaged.

However, if you want a good summary of the upcoming film then you are out of luck. Everyone is talking about how Spielberg is the master of hiding the plot from the rest of us. I suppose that will keep us in suspense, but will it put butts in theater seats?

This is the totality of what Universal Pictures is sharing about the plot:

If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to eight billion people. We are coming close to … Disclosure Day.

While that summary was worthless, you have a lot of information to play with in the film trailers. You can also see what other are saying, from those who are pulling apart the trailer to others who are posting their theories about the real story behind all the hype.

So I recommend you review all of this to determine whether this film might be for you.

Or you can simply await full disclosure on June 12th without ruining the surprise.

I can understand that actors and actresses want to make some extra money on the side with advertising gigs, but sometimes the result is more comical than convincing.

For example, actress Zendaya is now featured in Rolex watch advertisements with images of her as Dune’s Chani. It even has the slogan “Reach for the crown.”

Anyone who understands the Dune books and movies would know that Chani is a Fremen who has no use for ostentatious wealth. The last thing a Fremen would seek is a heavy, ornamental watch in the desert. The only riches for the Fremen is water.

Maybe Rolex would find a better fit with Stellan John Skarsgård and his Dune character Baron Harkonnen (below) for those times the Baron not taking a bath. The Baron seems like a Rolex kind of guy.

Zendaya is just following others here. Dune’s Timothee Chalamet is part of advertising campaigns with Chanel and Lucid Motors. And let us not forget that Omega was the official watch for NASA (below).

I just recommend that the stars and their sponsors show some awareness in their ad work.

With all eyes on the Moon mission, it is worth revisiting the musings of Frank Herbert as he provided one possible path for mankind.

While the Dune: Part Three movie is not set to premiere until December, the first trailer is out to prepare us for what is to come, and it is a powerful two-and-a-half minutes. You can see bits of our favorite characters as well as new ones, including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, and Isaach de Bankolé.

This is a mind-bending, beautifully crafted, yet bleak story about the will to power, where one man leads his followers in a war that killed sixty-one billion humans, sterilized ninety planets, and wiped out the followers of forty religions. From this wisp of a teenager in Dune: Part One, we witness him becoming the whirlwind that darkens the galaxy.

Frank Herbert explained his fears in the introduction to his story story collection Eye:

Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader’s name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question. That’s how 900 people wound up in Guyana drinking poison Kool-Aid. That’s how the U.S. said “Yes, sir, Mister Charismatic John Kennedy!” and found itself embroiled in Vietnam. That’s how Germany said “Sieg Heil!” and murdered more than six million of our fellow human beings.

What Mr. Herbert left for us is an amazing story that continues to live on in the careful work of Denis Villeneuve. He has created a piece of art that not only entertains us but also warns us, like all good story-telling.

One of the comments from someone viewing the trailer was:

[M]y grandfather had the original star wars trilogy, my father had lord of the rings, [I] have dune.

Fortunately, all of us now have all three.