One of the big musical moments we’re really looking forward to is the opportunity for Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) to finally show off his musical chops. In the book, Halleck plays a 9-string baliset, a futuristic instrument that’s basically the result of lutes and lyres evolving over tens of thousands of years. Halleck was supposed to play from his baliset in the first “Dune” movie, but the scene was cut to make room for more crucial book material that the movie needed to cover.
“Tonally, [Villeneuve] was right [to cut] the first one,” Brolin acknowledged to Total Film. “This one [‘Part Two’], the placement is right. I wrote the lyrics, and Hans wrote the music. I didn’t think the scene would turn out as well as it did, but I’m really happy with it.”
So far, Halleck’s music has only been played in the 2000 miniseries. Patrick Stewart’s version of the character in the ’84 film did technically get to jam out on the baliset for a minute there, but that scene was tragically cut from the theatrical release for time as well. It’ll be interesting to see what “Dune: Part Two” does with it, especially since we know from the “Hunger Games” series that you can never quite tell how catchy a song could be just from the lyrics written in the book. Back in 2010 when “Mockingjay” released in bookstores, did any readers predict that the depressing “Hanging Tree” song would soon become the catchiest banger of 2014?