Why Dune Needed More Sweat 

#releasethesweatycut

As a person who moved from Arboreal Michigan to the desert of Las Vegas, NV, I can honestly say that the dry air in summer will evaporate sweat instantly, and leave behind intense salt deposits on skin and clothes. It was like moving to an oven with no humidity whatsoever. The lenses and frequent night scenes gave Dune a coolness that betrayed a very bright, very hot landscape. There weren't even visible waves of heat on the horizon, and no one wore eye protection, which is kind of a nitpick after living under the desert sun for almost two decades.

It's a dry heat, sweat evaporates immediately. The actors should appear blushed, though.

"In dry climate the sweat generally gets evaporated, without wetting the skin surface)." Arrakis' air is dry, so sweat is only reserved for the pain box and when melange addiction triggers Paul's prescience.

Huh, now I realise it - I got almost no feeling that Arakkis was HOT during the whole movie

As someone who used to live in Phoenix, AZ, the desert heat is very dry, meaning that sweat evaporates within seconds. Sweat occurs more in jungles or other hot places with high humidity, not in deserts.

I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought this. Still loved the shit out of the movie tho

I loved Dune. And I also love seeing criticism of the things I like from the point of view of someone analyzing the syntax of the medium these things are painted on. Really most of the criticism of Dune falls on the side of "its boring", "its slow", " its not epic" blah blah blah. But you really nail a good point (and even funny but not less important because of that). These kind of analysis really keep the discussion smart, interesting and curious. Congratulations!

The air on dune is so dry that sweat would evaporate instantly. The sweat is captured IN the Still Suit. So there would be very little visible sweat on Dune. Just like the movie portrayed.

I honestly thought this would be another unnecessary spotted nuance on the last fashion movie to justify an old school video essay, but you got me there with that plethora of sweat in movies. I almost even forget the role it played in Do the right thing. So thanks for the effort collecting and analyzing all of this.

I agree that they should have made more of an effort to make Arrakis look HOT because it was a big part of the first book and the culture of the Fremen. However, a dry desert heat doesn't necessarily cause as much sweat as a more humid environment does. Arrakis is also not just a normal desert, it would likely be so hot there that sweat is evaporated almost as soon as it starts. Sweating also happens much more when you are well-hydrated, which even the house of Atreides would not be on Arrakis. They have to have special suits to capture the sweat and recycle it for drinking water. Water is so starved on this planet that it's a big thing to the Fremen if someone sheds a single tear. Having everyone sweating at all times would almost be counter to what Dune is. The Fremen would certainly all see it as incredibly wasteful

we sweat less in low humidity. dune maybe need more cracked lips to show the dryness.

In Total Recall a single drop of sweat was enough to let Douglas Quaid know that the man standing in front of him was real and under real stress (therefore lying to him) not just an image inserted into his mind.

I agree with this a lot. I've either lived in Albuquerque or Phoenix, my whole life. Phoenix is obviously hotter at 110+ during the summer and 100+ for half the year. I see a lot of people saying your sweat dries up fast, but I feel like one that ignores sweat that soaks into your clothes immediately which can be very visible. Also when you come back in from the outside you're usually sweating a lot more visibly since it's cooler and more humid which usually continues for like 10 minutes until your body stops. Also if you're hydrated you usually do see sweat on people's faces, even as it evaporates since more sweat is being made. Not sweating can be a warning of oncoming heat stroke-due to lack of hydration and buildup of heat in body. I think also that they don't seem to be reacting to the heat that much, like keeping their layers on and not looking particularly uncomfortable makes the message of the Atreides having trouble adjusting to the ways of the Fermin less obvious.

Great video and analyses. But maybe the lack of sweat in Dune is due to the dryness of the planet. Dune is a huge desert, so its not only hot, but also dry. The desert dryness + Paul's Bene Gesserit control over his feelings would result on that. It would be coherent in a way, i guess. But, of course, we don't notice distress visually. Pros and cons

Man, this is the most interesting video about sweat I've ever seen.

Don't ever lure me into a video with a thumbnail of sweaty Timothee again, how dare you

Yeah, it's weird when they're having a weather report saying it's 110 currently with a high of 140 and it'll be 130 in like 15 minutes (I don't remember the specific numbers) and then you have Paul in a thick black long sleeved uniform without a hat on just perfectly dry

Man I absolutely love your video essays I really wish you uploaded more often!

Thermogenic Anhidrosis. You don't sweat in the desert. You sweat only when there are moisture in the air.

This is part of one my criticisms of the movie , which is that the movie tells me you can be on the desert for 2 hours without a stillsuit, but I don’t FEEL like the characters needed them. And sweat would aid at that

in alien, even though it’s not technically sweat, the androids milk/sweat/blood is a great example of inhuman sweat, incredibly eerie to me

After 2 hrs 40 mins of Dune I had to finish my whole water bottle and drank 3-4 glasses on returning home. All the same time it was freezing cold in the theatre. So I guess yeah, the really sold the feeling of Arrakis to me. And that's why it's a great film to me

Gotta disagree. I live and exercise in the desert and I don't have much visible sweat until I'm back indoors where there's moisture in the air. On the other hand, I used to live in a more humid climate and might have beads of sweat everywhere just walking around. Standing sweat happens in jungles, not deserts.

This is why I love this channel, makes you think about the little details.

paul wasnt sweaty talking to the palm tree guy because he was probably inside before the scene. he wasnt sweaty leaving the tent because he probably dried himself off before they left

While I do love this video and the way it educated me on how sweat is used in films, I do have a nitpicky thing about characters not sweating in Dune: Isn't the whole point that they're NOT supposed to go out when it's hot? Especially when Paul and Jessica are out in the open desert, we don't see them when the sun is high. We see them during dusk, night and dawn. Desert nights can get pretty cold, with an average of 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, the characters shouldn't be sweating all too often. That being said, with the importance of their stilsuits and how it recycles sweat into drinking water, it would have been cool to see that process.

Highly dry regions sweat is absorbed into the atmosphere very quickly. I've had friends stationed in Afghanistan who after showering would be dry in just a couple minutes because the moisture was so quickly absorbed into the air.

Truly peak youtube video essay

I like these videos because it encourages the audience to actually think about the things they see in movies, even when they are as small as sweat

I haven't seen the movie yet, but this is an excellent point! Also, I consciously had no idea that sweat was associated with stress, but it makes sense now that I think about it. Last Sunday I had an anxiety attack and was sweating a LOT.

This is a great detail that I actually noticed while watching the film i never thought of the planet as a hot one because of lack of sweat and I actually remember asking myself "why are they so at ease when being in the desert?"

FIrst, insanely dry heat. Second, some major characters have Bene Gesserit training, or other extreme (as in, impossible today) mental or physical training. Remember that Jessica for example control her physiology enough to select the sex of her babies. Maybe there's some inconsistencies, I would have to re-watch the movie. But you can remove a lot of major characters from that analysis, especially Paul who is both a Mentat and had deep Bene Gesserit training, and is (well, will be) the bringer of the one and an almost end product of the genetic breeding program. Yes the movie doesn't spell all of that out. Yet. So?

I love it that everyone sat in the theatres in awe except you. You where like, where is the sweat! Love it! :)

Never even clocked that in the Matrix - great work man!

I will need several showers now

Surprised to not see a single shot from Top Gun - the most inexplicably sweaty movie I’ve ever seen.

This video is perfect. Thank you.

This is a video about the use of sweat in cinema and it's amazing.

I completely agree. I'm finishing the book and realize how many subtle juxtaposition are lost in the film. Not only in regards to about the House's tensions regarding the impending betrayal. But the essential role of water in Arrakis, it could have be specially used to juxtapose between the Atraides family and the Fremen when it comes to understanding Arrakis as their home. Where Paul's sweet could by reduced by time, as he is expecting his father death but also comes to understand his role in Arrakis as Muad'Dib.

I need to watch it again, but didn't they generally avoid the midday sun?

I assume by the year 10,000, Sweat Block (aluminium chloride ) will be easily available to royalty. The Bene Gesserit control of the body. The dry atmosphere of Arrakis. It worked for me. Stillsuits have so little to collect ... most consistently moisture from exhalation. But I appreciate the filmmaking analysis, and will better observe how sweat is used in film in the future.

Just saw it for the second time yesterday!

You seem to miss the point that on Arrakis, sweating is losing precious water so everything is focused toward sweating the least amount of water.

Dune was overall just too easy to swallow. They would talk about how brutal the Harkonnen were but then would cut away during the brutality. The scariest thing the Baron did was eat food. Hell, I do that shit every day.

I always sweat a lot, even in super cold weather - and that gets so much more annoying because the sweat just freezes, so I end up just feeling super cold while sweating

One scene with sweat I like is the first close up of Arnolds face in Terminator. He's all sweaty, which is weird considering he's a robot. He shouldn't sweat. Later in the film Kyle Reese points out that newer versions of terminators are so hard to spot because they're sweating.

The sweat must flow!

"Hey, Mr. Krabs is getting all sweaty again!"

I understand you're point of view, but thinking of it in the context of the story, I'm not sure I completely agree. Paul's lack of sweat could be due to a lot of things. One, as he is trained to be a Bene Gesserit, he's learned to control his physiology, to point that assimilating the planet's heat isn't too difficult - I don't recall Paul or his family ever complaining about the heat in the books. It was more of not understanding and being confronted with the subjective value of water. Secondly, as someone who grew up in a tropical environment, my body's perception of how hot it needs for me to begin sweating is different from someone who grew in a colder climate, and vice versa. Not to mention, once their wearing still-suits, their bodies' sweat is being recycled, so I don't think that the of lack it, was an oversight.

I can see why there isn’t a lot of sweat in Dune. For Paul, i imagine it’s because of his Bene Gesserit training. You even made of point of this as the only times he does sweat is when the Gom Jabber is held to his neck and when he is hallucinating, two things his training couldn’t really prepare him for. And for the Fremen, their body’s have adapted to release as little moisture as possible.

I do think that you are right in some way. The viewer loses a sense for heat. But it is also the lack of sweat that helps to lift up Dune from a lot of other movies. Most Movies are sweaty and even if the characters skins should look a lot more sticky, it ads to the visual language of the film. And it is probably one of the best looking films i've seen, they mastered the colorpalette on this one. Making them look sticky would make a whole other movie as you said. I like it just the way it is. Very interesting topic though, who else but you thinks about that when watching a movie

This is a important lesson in visual story telling. Maybe games would highly profit from it when they would incorporate his in they mechanics and/or cinematics.

Nitpick, but when you said the line about inhabitants of Arrakis needing to recycle their own sweat to survive, you showed an image of the desert mouse drinking beads of moisture from its ears. It's not drinking its own sweat in that shot. It's actually drinking dew which it collects using its own ears. It's described this way in the novel, but also that species is from Earth and actually exists here where it does exactly this. Again, this is a nitpick.

I never thought that a video on sweat in movies could be so interesting ! 😂

Great closer! Blood, sweat, and tears 👏

You acknowledged that it would be a deliberate choice for the lack of sweat, but never tried to think about what that choice was. Denis Villeneuve has earned enough clout for us, as an audience, to be aware that certain choices in his films are indeed deliberate and have a reason to them. It would be common sense to say "This is a hot Planet. The characters should be sweating." If they're not, then why? This could be considered as an oversight, especially for less experienced film makers, but for someone like Villeneuve...He would have meant for a lack of sweat.

Can someone pls tell me what movie is at 0:41? (the guy smoking)

It’s really obvious you didn’t read the book.

I fucking love this channel.

I don’t sweat, I perspire….like a boss!!

my lizard brain associates sweat with heat, not stress hahah

what's the movie on 2:12 please ?

I really missed the heatwaves. Should be everywhere. I also thought about the lack of sweat, but others explain that it's dry heat something, so I guess that's fine

Thanks for making me see it

"blood, sweat and tears". yeah those are very important things for the fremen.

Maybe Paul isn’t sweating and the other character is because he’s been outside for an extended period…?

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This was the first thing I talked about with my family after watching it, where’s the sweat? The fact that it was in a couple scenes made me think it was for extra emphasis there but it was really bizarre to hear how hot it is when they look totally fine. Especially living in Southern California it really stood out. Great video, thanks

is it really hot? I don't remember they saying it was very hot, mostly very dry, which makes sweat evaporate very fast!

Dune (2021) 3.5 stars: not enough sweat

yea was thinking that for the whole movie. I mean even I was sweatier than the people in the movie.

Omg, this is it. I had such an empty feeling towards the world Dune had, personally, and I thought it was because the backdrops were so much drier and stiller than in BR2049, for example, but this might have hit the nail on the head for me. Great video as always, it's something I'm glad that I'll be more conscious of from now on.

Whiplash. That sweat on the ending drum sequence... man.

Good video

This is great.

I get everyone in the comments saying that, in a real life desert like say Arizona, the heat is actually very dry and causes sweat to evaporate quickly, making you stay dry too, but I'd like to counter that. In film making, and media in general, being accurate to real life isn't necessarily as important as *feeling* real. I completely agree with NYSI that Dune probably should have been sweatier because, as much as they kept saying how hostile and hot Arrakis was, I didn't really feel that as a viewer. It felt like I just, forgot how hot it was most of the time, if they were sweating more I wouldn't have that problem. As it stands the only real danger I felt from the planet itself was the worms. Also, just as an added point, they have to be sweating on Arrakis quite a bit considering its literally a vital part of how they stay alive in that climate

Good video essay, thank you! I agree about the sweat aspect, and personally I think this is just part of a larger process of "sanitization", where most stuff looks too clean cut and in order. It's not necessarily a bad choice but one that makes a supposedly harsh environment seem too orderly, even "tame." As an example, the lack of white-skinned characters pinking or tanning in the sun (once they're constantly exposed) also takes away from that feeling, imo. It just doesn't *feel* like a harsh environment for the invaders. There's more than one way to do it - like people worrying about their water reserves. But there's very little to really show it.

I read the book and immediately knew exactly what you meant.

Do you sweat? Prince Andrew: *stops sweating nervously*

i wanted to see the poopy peepee stillsuit stuff RELEASE THE EXCREMENT RECYCLING CUT DENIS

It should also be noted that Bene Gesserit training actually does give you control over your sweating response (among many, many other physical responses that you shouldn't be able to control) So Jessica and Paul shouldn only ever sweat by choice, but all the rest of them should be running around with pit stains and chugging water every time they go outside

"Are you okay? 'Cause you're sweating pretty profusely." -Along Came Polly

Glad you talked about this! This may be one thing why the movie, although beautiful lacked a layer of atmosphere and felt... dry, although not in a way that it made Arrakis feel dry. There was another cut in Dune that seemed off. Idk if it was at the Gom Jabbar or the tent scene, but one moment Paul was dripping wet and he was dry the next.

'when in reality the house had trouble adjusting to the harsh environment of arrakis' um, guys... should we tell him?

I didn't pick up on the lack of sweat when I watched it, my nitpick was that none of the newcomers looked sunburned- I'm sure there was some techno-uv protection in the book, but these ppl were coming from space Scotland, even incidental sun exposure should've given them nasty burns.

unrelated to the movie but I read somewhere that most Hollywood stars go through a medical procedure that kills the sweat glands in their armpits, which makes it impossible for them to have that uncomfortably, distracting sweaty underarm patch most of us regular people can have sometimes. Apparently the reason behind this is that they don't want to 'ruin' the optics of their glamorous outfits when they raise their arms to wave at red carpet events. I'm not sure how legit this is though, it just felt to me like an interesting thing to throw out there and maybe ponder about

Not only blood, sweat, and tears. But blood, toil, sweat, and tears.

You should have made the video more specifically on sweat in film. Dune was fine the way it was and I'm sure we'll see more sweat in the sequel. 8)

You will not see sweat beads in very hot and DRY weather. So no, no sweat.

Not everyone sweats. My roommate in college had a skin disorder that prevented her from sweating-it made even slight hot environments very dangerous and ac in summer a safety item...even in Michigan. Also, Missed a great opportunity to say blood, tears...and sweat!

i’m getting absolutely raging deja vu right now

In the first season or two of Dexter all the characters were just constantly sweating and soaking through their clothes. It gave it a very grimy, low-budget feel (in a good way), but for whatever reason they very noticeably stopped after a while and I think that's a shame. Maybe the actors got tired of being gross all the time.

movie at 4:18?

I'm completely with you if they whanted to portrait the beyond human control jessica and paul have, they should have the other atreides be more sweaty that would have also shown their diffrent type more after all Jessica is also close being "perfect" in their mad eugenics based idea.

Well, where I live is hot but not humid. So, we don't sweat that much. Sometimes, I'm dying by he hot weather but not sweating. Dune doesn't have humidity at all. So, I didn't find the characters' dry skin weird at all. But I get what you mean. Good analysis.

Also am I the only one who finds once upon a time in the west main theme odly similar to the dune one?

Excellent video but you did not talk about do the right thing enough!!! Sweat could damn near be a protagonist in that movie!

Falling down had very memorable sweat

Great analysis as usual, although in the case of Paul Atreides I think it's a good decision that he doesn't sweat too much because, after all, he is the chosen one, and the fact that he seems to get used to the heat of Arrakis without problems perfectly complements what Liet Kynes said about the Kwizatz Haderach in the stillsuit scene.