Dune (2020)

[A Jay]

What's with the whole obsession in the story's world with spice? I would have liked a little exposition on that subject, it's just left to your imagination if you're not familiar with the books. A psychoactive substance seemed to be the only explanation in the films.

The "audiobook" that Paul is listening to between minutes 6 and 7 in Dune Part 1 tells the audience that the spice has health benefits and allows the space navigators to plot their path, making spice a requisite for space travel and therefor the most important substance in the galaxy. So the exposition was there, I guess you just missed it.

 

[SlipNet]

The "audiobook" that Paul is listening to between minutes 6 and 7 in Dune Part 1 tells the audience that the spice has health benefits and allows the space navigators to plot their path, making spice a requisite for space travel and therefor the most important substance in the galaxy. So the exposition was there, I guess you just missed it.

Ahhh, gotcha! I totally missed that.

 

[truepositive]

I wonder if they are actually going to attempt book 4, things get weird, fast. The mini-series stopped right before that part :P

 

[Persej]

I finished watching the first season of Dune: Prophecy and I liked it. They don't talk much about spice, some are using it just for pleasure and some are using it like an English tea, where it's more like a mild sedative than a powerful substance that can speed up the evolution of mankind, but I like how they approached the theme of thinking machines. Perhaps the creators of the show thought that the topic of AI is more interesting to the current audience than psychoactive substances? I love the cast, especially the young women, who look very much like their old versions of themselves (Tula and Valya). Actors are quite diverse, but I haven't noticed any woke nonsense.

 

[meadow_wind]

Some people were inspired by Dune movies!
European Figure Skating Championships - Tallinn, Estonia 2025
Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck, representing Spain
Dancing division, Free program on DUNE
They ranked 5th in Europe, 4th in the 2024 ISU Grand Prix Cup of China ice dancing competition, and won bronze at the 2024 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Skate America.

It's a beautiful choreography and sound mix. I would never get tired of training on any Dune soundtrack mix, especially Herald of the Change and Leaving Caladan.

 

[Persej]

Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck, representing Spain

English woman and German man representing Spain.

 

[Arlind]

I thought this recent piece from Culture Critic captured why Dune, though impressive Lore and Story, may not appeal to some. In my case it has all the elements of good epic storytelling and it touches on important themes of the human condition but barely felt any "connection" to it throughout the two movies. And that is all I have to go by, only being exposed to the rest of the expression of the that world (books, tv series etc) through what I've read here and heard from some fans.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1903140180023783923

 

[unkl brws]

They're calling this the "epic conclusion" of Dune when in the original books, it is merely the prolouge. The new trailer for Dune: Part Three is now out.

 

[meadow_wind]

They're calling this the "epic conclusion" of Dune when in the original books, it is merely the prolouge.

In this context, Epic conclusion means the conclusion of Denis Villeneuve's project: the conclusion of the movie trilogy.

 

[Persej]

Even for Denis, after the third movie the story becomes too crazy to make another movie.

 

[gdpetti]

Doesn't the story go to the 'normal' empire building phase we enjoy so much here in 'purgatory'?
The emperor goes crazy with power or something? Perhaps the usual suspects don't want the public to see that?

 

[Alejo]

They're calling this the "epic conclusion" of Dune when in the original books, it is merely the prolouge. The new trailer for Dune: Part Three is now out.

I've watched the two movies and I'm looking forward to this one. They're well made and enjoyable.

I agree that right now it feels as though it's an allegory to the Middle East and oil, manipulation propaganda and so on. On the tweet above, comparing Tolkien to Dune, I tend to agree, while I have enjoyed the movies, they haven't really left an inspiring imprint in me, they're just really good movies.

 

[Iain]

I thought this recent piece from Culture Critic captured why Dune, though impressive Lore and Story, may not appeal to some. In my case it has all the elements of good epic storytelling and it touches on important themes of the human condition but barely felt any "connection" to it throughout the two movies. And that is all I have to go by, only being exposed to the rest of the expression of the that world (books, tv series etc) through what I've read here and heard from some fans.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1903140180023783923

Absolutely. Dune and Lord of the Rings are very different stories with very different themes, even though they may both appeal to those who enjoy deep, epic tales.

Lord of the Rings is fundamentally a British myth created by Tolkien as he felt Britain had no mythological 'creation' tale of its own. Thus, it includes elements of many European myths and a truly inspiring tale of heroism against an objective evil.

Dune on the other hand appears to contain much the same heroes journey at first glance, but beyond the first novel, Paul is no hero. The prophesies of his Messiah-like ascension are manipulations of history, genetics and propaganda (mostly by the bene gesserit, but there are others in the books). There are also definite allusions to elements of environmentalism and oil (plus a bit of 'off-screen' over-reliance on computers/AI) - Herbert had an interest in these things back before he wrote Dune.

They are just completely different tales and Tolkien often argued that stories should not include so many 'real world' ideas or be so fatalistic. Personally, they are two of my favourite works, just for very different reasons (and two of the best book to film adaptations ever made in my opinion).

 

[Persej]

Doesn't the story go to the 'normal' empire building phase we enjoy so much here in 'purgatory'?
The emperor goes crazy with power or something? Perhaps the usual suspects don't want the public to see that?

No, I don't think it's about that.

Part of the issue here is that everything that has made Dune parts one and two so fascinatingly different from other science fiction and fantasy fare over the past few decades is exactly the same nutty, psychedelic spice of cosmic life that eventually sends the series of books into utterly bonkers and completely unfilmable territory. Villeneuve has so far delivered a common-or-garden story of epic revenge, a tale as old as time in which the scion of a defeated family rises up and takes out the very bad guys who destroyed everyone he loved in the first place. One of the reasons Dune on the big screen is more interesting than that sounds is to do with the pepperings of highly enjoyable mystical nonsense that keep popping up to add kick to the recipe. Unfortunately the further the books go down that particular psychedelic rabbit hole, the more it is impossible to imagine them on the big screen.

‘Completely unfilmable’: the Dune universe is about to get weird

While Dune: Part Two might currently be the world’s favourite movie, Frank Herbert’s books hint at stranger things on the horizon …

www.theguardian.com

 

[Iain]

No, I don't think it's about that.

Yeah, not at all. The first book (or two films) goes into the ascent of Paul as some sort of prophesised hero (who I suspect knows full well he is not the Messiah) who then ignites a galactic jihad killing likely billions/trillions of people to take over the empire…

Spoiler: Spoiler

He is no hero, the Bene Gesserit have manipulated events for thousands of years to reach their end goal of creating a controlled, male version of themselves they can use to see the future and control everything in some sort of galactic Utopia:

• Spent thousands of years trying to reach a point where they have bred a male Bene Gesserit
• Manipulated the Fremen to believe in a Messiah
• Manipulated events to get Paul to Arrakis

Of course it doesn't work out as his mother defies the order and has a male child too early, he is not raised by the Bene Gesserit so he has too much free will and then takes revenge when his family is wiped out - going so far as to decide to lead the Fremen in their jihad and take over the Empire. Basically the Bene Gesserit had a bit of wishful thinking going on and lost control of their plan…

The 'mystical nonsense' is nonsense - the Bene Gesserit made much of it up by twisting far older Christian and Muslim beliefs to manipulate events and control the empire from the shadows.

There is some obvious 60's psychedelia to the Spice - but it is definitely more of an oil analogy since it is used to allow faster than light space travel (albeit by the navigators swimming in the stuff to open wormholes or something…!)

The two films so far only adapt the first (longer) book. The next film from what I understand, adapts the second book, Messiah. Over the last 4 books things do indeed start to get a bit too weird and cover, from what I remember, hundreds of thousands of years. Plus, Frank Herbert never finished the story before he died, if he had any plans to.

It seems to me that both Lord of the Rings and Dune are compared so much simply because they were both widely read by in the 60's… Lord of the Rings became hugely popular around that time and most people seemed to completely miss the point of it (mostly focusing on the pipeweed - despite the fact it was clearly tobacco…). Dune came out in 1965 and also became hugely popular (in part because of the psychedelic Spice…?) but explored a few topics becoming more popular at that time; environmentalism, anti-heroes, dangers of empire etc.