Relevant comic:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21

This motherfucker watched a movie where a girl inherits all of the memories of her 4 most recent female ancestors because her mother used drugs while she was pregnant and he's like "that isn't how sound moves through sand"

I think that Neil doesn’t understand something very vital about being a science educator which if there is one thing people know about them, it’s that they are smart as hell and whether that is actually true or not the science educator must adopt a self-deprecating, disarming character to be relatable to the audience within the context they are in because of it.

You can’t play the character of a king and be relatable if people perceive you as actually being a king outside the context of the play….

Similar story. I liked him a lot, read one of his books, and started listening to his podcast. But the more I listened, the less I liked him.

Ah yes, loved CinemaSins, ruined how I watch movies, then became too annoying to watch.

OH GOD THE BELLS

That one tweet about the stars in Titanic was the only good one of those.

I want Neil to give a scientific explanation for Leto II (2) turning himself into a sandworm.

I need that meme where he talks about kissing himself in the mirror

Actually it does work with regular sand dunes. The sequential baked layers creates a reasoning champer that amplifies sound at certain frequencies.

https://youtu.be/v29ou094luc

Which means Neil is actually upset with how much scientific world building Frank Herbert did, since it confuses people like him who haven't studied sand dunes for decades.

Besides the sand worms can pick up on the vibrations. It doesn’t need to be loud. Just be a consistent pattern.

So having the thump sound is there for artistic purposes. For the art. In a medium used for art.

Neil failed to remember that they are on Arrakis, not in the Mojave desert.

Honestly I think it's just his form of boomer humor. Like he slaps his brain knee. At least it's weird and not like malicious.

There's also a lot in there about how a planet's ecology influences culture. Also the long term effects of banning computers. Also about how in the far future people will forget about Earth but some cultural artifacts will remain even when people have forgotten why they do things. Also about how over enough time, people may change so much they may not even be recognizable as human. Also how with the existence of FTL travel it may become impossible to escape the killer robots people will inevitably build unless someone turns themself into a worm.

So, you're saying he should...pound sand?

The specific thing he's bitching about is sand physics, that is that sand doesn't really 'thump'.

This is something that is actually specifically addressed in the book, I'm not sure about the movie; short version is that the sand and weather on Arrakis are weird, and the sand forms more solid areas than elsewhere.

So not only is he complaining about a minor (from a realism perspective, it's important in-universe) detail, he's also showing that he did not read the book

This is all a bit of harmless fun beginning to end, but this is such a model of misinformation it loops around to being actually fascinating.

Harmless event>fair but misleadingly titled article>social media responding to the headline. There's some worm life cycle for you. Simultaneously elegant and horrifying.

Um, actually, in the books, the Spacing Guild Navigators use the spice only to gain prescience into the future as a way to steer the ships while undergoing FTL travel. This can't be done with a computer or droid like in Star Wars because thinking machines are illegal.

Sand worms have pulsating segments. Sure snakes slither but they can also move forward by pulsing. This isn’t some impossible thing.

Or maybe this snake doesn’t exist?

Mysterious snake moves in a straight line

Everyone knows Alex Jones is a piece of shit. We expect more from NDT, and nitpicking everything doesn't help inspire more people into STEM.