Elmo allows fear to pass over and through him, overcomes Dune's Gom Jabbar test

A fan edit of last year's Dune replaces Timothée Chalamet's Paul with Elmo

By Reid McCarter  |  February 7, 2022 | 9:15pm
Film Features Elmo
Elmo allows fear to pass over and through him, overcomes Dune's Gom Jabbar test
Muad’Elmo of House Henson confronts a terrifying ordeal. Screenshot: Sesame Swap

Fresh off the heels of his career-invigorating feud with a rock that wants to take his oatmeal raisin cookie, Elmo has returned to the spotlight yet again to prove that he’s a thinking, feeling organism who deserves to be treated with greater respect than both inanimate objects and the world’s animals.

Since there is no better way for him to prove such a thing than to look to an ordeal devised by Frank Herbert in the novel Dune, Elmo has now been made to prove himself through an edit of the 2021 film adaptation’s take on the Gom Jabbar test.

Posted by a YouTube channel called Sesame Swap, the video sees Timothée Chalamet replaced by Elmo for one of Dune’s best scenes. The hapless Muppet is summoned by a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. He is made to stuff his fluffy red paw into a box filled with agony, has the deadly Gom Jabbar pushed up to his neck, and must then allow the fear of all this pain to pass over him if he wants to prove himself human… or Muppet.

He endures, wiggling around and facing torments beyond imagination. Though the Elmo voice used to question the Reverend Mother and cry out in pain may be a bit off, the premise alone is more than enough to justify the edit’s existence.

That it ends with Elmo traveling through a kaleidoscope of ominous events yet to come—including seeing himself set upon the path that will lead to the long prophesied fiery destruction meme—makes an iffy Sesame Street impression a very fair trade-off for what we’re given here.

The video also proves that Elmo is not only tough enough to start beef with an enemy as implacable as a rock, but that he’s also a brave young Muppet whose destiny will make him to be one of the most consequential figures in all time and space.

Before long, Muad’Elmo will triumph in knife fights, ride sand worms, and become a mighty figure who can enjoy all the oatmeal raisin cookies he could ever want.

[via Boing Boing]

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