The following contains minor spoilers for Dune.
Audiences finally got to see the long awaited Dune from director Denis Villeneuve this past weekend. Now that the movie is in theaters and on HBO Max, people can finally see whether or not the notoriously unfilmable novel works on the big screen or not. And while fans of the book will have lots to devour in the way of references that are maybe not entirely explained in the film, the easter eggs in the movie aren’t limited to the world of Dune. Jason Momoa put in his own special moment that will mean more to his own son than anybody else.
Speaking with IndieWire, Jason Momoa spoke about the intense physical work that the cast had to do for the movie’s action sequences, including learning aspects of multiple styles of martial arts. One of those was kali, the national martial art of the Philippines, and Jason Momoa’s son is actually a student of the style. And so, Momoa's character has a particular moment to the film specifically for the actor's son. Momoa explained…
We had to fight numerous people, so a lot of training went into that last battle scene…We did a bunch of stuff like Kali. I never really learned that. My son does that. There’s definitely these intimate moments where I’m signaling to my son. That’s a Kali move, where you put your hand on your heart and put it on your head. That’s to Timothée in the movie, but that’s to my son in real life.
Without going too deep into spoiler territory, the scene comes later in the film when Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho decides to take on a group of soldiers in order to allow Timothée Chalamet’s Paul to escape. He gives Paul a salute before closing the door behind him. Later, before getting into a fight himself, Paul gives the same salute as a callback to his mentor.
Those that know the martial art will certainly recognize the inspiration for the salute, for the rest of us, it goes right by, and folds seamlessly into the world that Denis Villeneuve created for Dune.
The big question now is what does the future hold for Dune. Based on the response from critics and the early box office numbers, things are looking good for the new movie. The biggest problem that the movie certainly has it that it is very much half a film. It needs a second entry to complete the story, and while the first movie did call itself Part One in the opening titles, no Part Two has been officially greenlit as of yet.
At this point it seems likely that a second movie will happen. Although, since it hasn’t started filming yet, it will be some time before we actually see it.
