“Dune” fan breaks down his homemade sandworm from viral video
“The thought popped into my head…it’d be so f---ing funny to ride a worm,” Jesse Myer tells EW.
An Oklahoma moviegoer took the internet by (sand)storm when he arrived to his local multiplex riding a homemade sandworm to celebrate the release of Dune: Part Two.
Jesse Myer, a social media content moderator in Tulsa, spent his weekend crafting a rideable worm vehicle that looks like the Shai-Hulud from Denis Villeneuve’s new sci-fi epic. “The thought popped into my head Friday night: It’d be so f---ing funny to ride a worm,” Myer tells EW. “It just entered my head and it would not leave. So I spent my entire weekend making this worm.”
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Jesse Myer rides his sandworm from 'Dune' through a theaterMyer had previously made a stillsuit — the water-recycling jumpsuits sported by the Fremen on Arrakis in Dune — for a local convention over the summer, where he says he won a costume contest for his outfit. “All I had to do was figure out a way to make the worm,” Myer says.
Myer assembled materials from a local craft store, including collapsible tunnel tubes and long sheets of fabric, and attached them to his Onewheel electric skateboard to create his portable Shai-Hulud. He used massage sticks to replicate the Fremen’s wrangling hooks. “It was super slippery, so the sticks were actually pretty useful for balance,” he says.
He had already seen Dune: Part Two on Friday and was prepped for a second round on Saturday night. “I was gonna ride the worm into the showing on Saturday, but the one thing I overlooked was attaching the worm inefficiently,” he explains. “It got snagged in the wheel and was unrideable.” Myer still saw the movie that night, but delayed his viral ride until Sunday afternoon.
Once he’d worked out the kinks, Myer called the manager of the AMC Southroads 20 to get permission to film himself on the worm inside the theater. “Rolling up to the theater was really fun,” he says. “I’m weaving in and out of traffic on a freaking worm, and people are rolling down their windows and waving and taking pictures. People were shocked to see it, and our local news guys were outside the theater freaking out, so that got me excited.” The reaction inside the theater was a little more muted, though still fairly enthusiastic: “Since it was a Sunday matinee, I couldn’t tell if some people were there for something other than Dune and didn’t know what the worm was.”
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Jesse Myer rides his homemade 'Dune' sandwormUnsurprisingly, Myer loved the movie. “The whole cast is amazing,” he says. “Zendaya’s awesome, as always — it’s fun to get more screen time with her and Timothée Chalamet the two of them since they didn’t get a ton of time in the first one as a couple.” He was especially enthusiastic about Chalamet’s portrayal of Paul Atreides, his favorite character in the saga. “Timothée Chalamet is just a phenomenal actor, he totally delivered. I don’t know if anyone else could do the role.”
Myer is happy that his creation has been embraced by Dune fans around the world. “The fact that I can give other people some joy from a goofy thing is what it’s all about.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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