Fair warning – spoilers ahead! If you’ve not seen Dune, bookmark this page, watch the movie and come back to finish your read.
Adi’s tl;dr Dune’s a spectacle, one that gets better on the second watch. And more so if you go in expecting half the story, for the time of one!
Sahil’s tl;dr Come for the science fiction, stay for the spectacle.
You can see what makes Dune an Oscar contender – a story that’s been nearly impossible to translate to screen, the technical prowess of the movie from Hans Zimmer’s inimitable music to Director and Writer Denis Villeneuve’s vision for the saga. Considered seminal to science fiction, Frank Herbert’s Dune was published in 1965 and is the story of Paul Atreides, the heir to the noble House Atreides surviving political machinations and the destruction of his House on the inhospitable desert planet Arrakis.
Dune is set in a future far, far away where humans have built a society devoid of artificial intelligence – no computers, no phones, no robots. Nothing like the future of humanity envisioned in the Star Treks and Star Wars of the world! The known universe is ruled by a feudal aristocratic empire, where planets are divided among noble houses. The stage is set for a power struggle between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, engineered by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and the Bene Gesserit (a powerful pseudo-religious cult that’s influenced the course of human history for centuries) to weaken the two strongest houses in the empire and eliminate any threats to the emperor’s rule. ‘Spice Melange’ or ‘the Spice’, a substance found only on Arrakis, fuels space travel and lengthens human life making it the most valuable substance in the galaxy, and the currency of power in the world of Dune. House Harkonnen led by Baron Vladmir has controlled the ‘Spice Desert’ for 80 years and the movie starts with the royal decree to transfer the control to Duke Leto, the leader of House Atreides. Leto worries about the political implications of this decision, but is driven by the possibility of economic growth and of forging ties with the underground tribe ‘Fremen’, the free folks of Arrakis who have resisted the emperor’s exploitation of their planet for generations.
And that brings us to Paul and Lady Jessica, his mother and Leto’s partner, who make up the other half of this narrative bringing intrigue to the story that goes beyond politics and ‘Spice’ to matters more mysterious. Lady Jessica is part of the Bene Gesserit and has trained Paul since birth in ways of this secret society of sisters, playing mind games with the mighty men of Dune. The Bene Gesserit have been awaiting ‘the one’, much like Morpheus, just not as cool as him. There’s a growing suspicion that Paul is the fabled ‘Kwisatz Haderach’, the messiah born to guide humanity to a better future. Paul, with his dual training from Leto and Jessica, makes a strong candidate, albeit with ‘Neo-esque’ reluctance and doubt. Through the course of Dune, we see Paul’s growing awareness of his powers, culminating with him setting on a journey to realize his full potential.
Adi’s Take
Dune is the first part of two movies covering half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel ‘Dune’. And one could argue that was Villeneuve’s true master stroke. The decision to split the story in two likely made the matter more manageable for creators of this epic, presenting an opportunity to do justice to a story that’s been tough to tell. But it does come in the way of fully realizing the potential of this first installment. I was left wanting more in the way of character development and world building, especially the mythology surrounding the universe of Dune and the stories of characters we are asked to get behind. This is one of those times when a pre-read (we watched this intro to Dune on YouTube!) is essential to bring you up to speed. TBH, that’s not usually what I think of as a prerequisite to movie watching!
Still, there’s a lot to love about Villeneuve’s take on this epic sci-fi tale. I’m especially partial to the immersive visuals (incredible desert-scapes, the ship emerging from underwater sequence), the musical score that heightens every scene and the eclectic casting. From Timothée Chalamet’s Paul to Oscar Isaac’s Leto to Jason Momoa’s fiercely loyal Duncan Idaho and Javier Bardem’s no-nonsense Fremen chief, Stilgar – there’s acting talent everywhere you look. But I can’t quite shake off the feeling that they are waiting for something to happen, to fully come into their own, to light up the screen. And this feeling is most acutely felt with Oscar Isaac – the powerhouse that rocked my world in Ex Machina (That dance is LEGENDARY). We are told to believe that Leto is a great ruler, a strategic leader, a warrior who commands undying loyalty but not shown what makes him tick and that’s the challenge with loving Dune in a nutshell. We’re asked to get behind characters, to fear the depths of danger that surround our heroes, to mourn their loss, to be enraged for those betrayed. How I wish we were made to feel this with narrative tools and storytelling, instead. There’s also Zendaya playing the Fremen Chani and Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck in the mix, whose presence is felt throughout the movie but we’re left wanting more from both to understand the role they play. One can only hope that there’s more to these characters in the second edition of Dune.
Dune’s also a fascinating take on human evolution – the lack of sentient machinery, the presence of rituals and kingdoms – it’s an interesting dichotomy of the new and the old, when we think about human history. The emotionality displayed by the men of Dune, especially the male bonding of the men of House Atreides, is a positive envisioning of human evolution. They are warriors and politicians, leaders and fathers, but none of those roles have them trapped in societal structures and expectations, inhibiting their ability to express love and loyalty for one another. The greetings between Paul and Duncan Idaho, the tenderness of Leto and Paul’s relationship is a welcome break from tropes of manhood, of toxic masculinity we have come to expect from stories of kings and wars. In one of their few scenes together, Leto and Paul talk about duty and carrying on the family legacy. Leto tells Paul that immaterial of the choices he makes, he’ll ‘always be his son’, he’ll ‘always be enough’, in a refreshing break from stereotypes. Paul’s motivated by a sense of duty to protect his family and House Atreides, and not by a crippling desire to seek his father’s approval, which brings meaning to the choices he makes. I wanted to see more of this character development, to bring the viewer into the world of Dune not just as a spectator enamored by the grand visuals, but making the world relatable at an emotional, human level, despite the eons that separate our realities.
Sahil’s Take
When you think science fiction or fantasy one of the first things that comes to mind is “world building”. Perhaps also Hans Zimmer but more on that later 😉 Dune carries the promise of a world that’ll enthrall, ensnare and entrap you but eventually fails to meet that promise. It does come close in a number of ways.
The movie opens like an epic spectacle, a story of grand proportions, of royal households fighting over a battlefield of a few thousand planets, of an enslaved, hunted, yet guerilla race, of a young savior, the result of hundreds of years of superstition, ritual and science rolled into one. The world that Villeneuve launches along with an ethereal musical score from Hans Zimmer will capture your imagination with its grandeur and scale but it lacks the oral richness you associate with world building. From it’s awe-inspiring cinematography that would look spectacular in a movie theater, to the sharp attention to detail in costumes and set design, Dune merits a couple close watches if you’re taken by the universe. Unfortunately, there isn’t as much dialogue (and I don’t mean exposition) as you’d hope to hear to go along with the visual and musical bounty. Hans Zimmer’s score has the perfect other-worldly, futuristic feel you’d expect from music in the year 10,191 AG / 23,352 AD and creates the ominous sense that chases you throughout the movie. Although oftentimes there’s too much dependence on the music and it’s left to do all the heavy lifting in a scene. The desert cinematography and futuristic feudal setup would remind you of Star Wars, The Mandolorian and Mad Max Fury Road and depending on how other movie(s) in the universe turn out perhaps as big a franchise. There’s always been strong speculation that Star Wars borrowed from the Dune universe and if you’ve seen Star Wars some of those things like a galactic empire or sandworms or a desert planet (Tatooine v Arrakis) would be immediately noticeable as you watch Dune. As to how much Star Wars ‘borrowed’ from Dune depends on your reading of the Dune books and I’ll simply have to take the internet’s word for now!
There are two tribes in Dune worth pointing out – the Bene Gesserit (more a secret society than a tribe) and the Fremen. The Bene Gesserit are a religious sect that operate in the shadows across Dune’s political, religious and social structures, posing to guide the flow of human evolution while the Fremen are the native population of Arrakis who are resisting and fighting a somewhat losing battle over the control of their planet and it’s natural resources. As you see more of these two groups play out in the movie, you can’t help notice the mix of rituals, superstitions, and at times medieval magic-like witchcraft they practice. Both of them operate in the shadows, one from a place of incredible power using subterfuge to guide the course of events in the galaxy and the other who use guerilla tactics and an Avatar-like connection with their arid planet to resist outsiders and protect themselves. A number of these superstitions and rituals, as they often do, culminate in the existence of ‘the one’ or the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ as the Bene Gesserit know the savior or the ‘Lisan al Gaib’ according to the Fremen. The movie ends with Paul Atreides, becoming the leader or Duke of his House along with the potential Kwisatz Haderach or Lisan al Gaib and joining the Fremen. What you’ll notice as you watch the movie, especially if you do it a second time, is how Frank Herbert used a number of world religions to infuse rituals and language in the Dune universe and Denis Villeneuve does a great job of bringing these alive in the movie, often times in very subtle ways like when you see how the Sardaukar army prepares or the culture of the Fremen.
There are two scenes in the movie that sum up the vision and achievement for me. The spectacle and science fiction comes alive in a scene where a drone silently attacks Paul Atreides. While the murder attempt fails, the scene captures the ominous and poised direction of Denis Villeneuve, Hans Zimmer’s musical score and the richness of the Dune universe. There’s another scene that demonstrates the promise of the movie and how it fails to capitalize on it. As the Bene Gesserit leave after testing Paul with a deadly trial of will to see if he deserves to wield their power, Paul and his mother Lady Jessica have a conversation that’s shrouded in mist. While the cinematography is incredible, as the camera moves from the characters speaking in shadows from afar to zooming in to show a closeup of their faces clearly, the two movements break the enchanting spell the scene tries to cast. A scene with Shakespearean potential is lost due to over engineered effects and technique and not as much focus on dialogue.
We’re left with more questions than answers at the end of Dune – what happened to Josh Brolin / Gurney Halleck, what’s the Bene Gesserit’s endgame, what does Lady Jessica know, was she betrayed by the Bene Gesserit sisters, her kin and community. This is great for the filmmakers who want us on the hook for the second edition, but somewhat frustrating for viewers who have a long wait ahead to see the saga unfold without being as invested in the characters. Dune is part of a small, elite group of sci-fi movies nominated for the ‘Best Picture’ award in the history of Academy Awards. Only time will tell if Dune makes Oscars history by winning this ever elusive category, but we’re not betting on it!
The Popcorn Waltz Rating: 3.4 / 5 aka a must watch, can’t wait for part 2, but not a ‘Best Picture’ winner!
Adi & Sahil