Hand Signal Thingies

[Khan]

Why is it that in the film whe Piter tells the Harkonnen guy to take Paul and Jessica to the desert he made all those hand gestures? Yet he never ever did them ever again in the film.

[TMA_1]

my impression on that part of the movie was the fact that he drank sappho juice before talking with the emperor. This was a sort of stimulant. If you know what those feel like, you know that you have all sorts of weird ticks and oddball things.lol

[Vanguard3000]

My interperetation was that Piter underestimated Nefud. As a Mentat, he was so much smarter than the average person that he thought he had to do this to convey his message. You'll notice he also talks very slowly. Similarly, in the first scene with the Harkonnens, he talks with Feyd and Rabban as if they are children ("Feyd... Rabban... go quietly..."). To a degree, Thufir does this slow talking as well in the movie, while he talked very fast in mathematical code while communicating throught that photocopier thing.

In addition to this, remember that Piter, being a twisted mentat, is pretty much batty. In the last scene with him alive, you see him twitching when the Baron chides him for "killing the doctor too soon". I think Brad Dourif (the actor) did an amazing job with Piter. He really captured the insane/reserved/pedantic character of the twisted mentat.

[Colonel_Worf]

I really loved the Piter in the movie... totally creepy. :P

[Tezcatlipoca]

Heh. The particular character he was talking to at that point was a deaf Harkonnen trooper. The trooper was specifically picked for the reason that he could not be effected by "the voice." (unfortunately they sent someone else along with him)

The reason he was talking slow, was so that the guy could read his lips better. The hand signals were basically a version of sign language to help convey his message.

[Khan]

I see, thank you Tezcatlipoca. Thanks for choosing an easy to spell name ::)