Thoughts on Dune

I’m a long-time fan of Dune; watched David Lynch’s film countless times since childhood, read and listened to the handful of early books by Frank Herbert and played the games. Though my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic, it’s reasonable to say I’m drawn to the franchise for its human framing of science fiction. Of course, Denis Villeneuve’s new series of films are incredibly visual works on par with his prior films, maybe even exceeding them. All that said, I have decided to do a retrospective look at my thoughts on the Dune brand.

Early On

Growing up, the books were around, the cover art by John Schoenherr and others was impossible to ignore. It conveyed the epic scope of the stories in an arresting way that exceeded other fantasy illustrations with symbolic tones that vibrantly combined the narrative with the mythos.

Later on, a VHS copy of the 1984 film with Kyle MacLachlan materialized and made me feel the same way that Star Wars did. The practical effects and analog textures had begun to fade away due to CGI but were more comfortable to my eyes. Despite the director’s disavowal of the movie, I wore out the tape. It wasn’t until years later that I learned George Lucas drew inspiration from Herbert’s stories for his own space opera.

There was a real-time strategy game that was released, my friends and I stayed up late after renting the cartridge, downing pop and snacks into the night to beat the game as the Atreides faction.

I think well-planned and topically interesting content or stories can do that; transforming and transcending any one medium. They are ready to be converted into shapes necessary for new eyes, ears, and other senses. You can read, watch, listen, and even play Dune — it’s a platform.

It has depth — the experience can be entered from all sorts of vectors and there is probably something for all sorts of different people. Dune brand “spice” seems inevitable.

The Audiobook Series

Dune

Dune by Frank Herbert is great whether it’s read, watched, or heard.

This production plays like a radio adaption. Narrated throughout by a primary voice, highlight scenes are fully cast for dialog. There are also a few points when atmospheric music appears. If you’ve already read Dune and others from the series, give this audio version a try.

It’s a good way to get reacquainted, I thought.

Dune Messiah

Dune Messiah is the second installment of Frank Herbert’s series. It operates like an epilogue to the first book, going deep into the court intrigue and the immediate relationships around Paul. Messiah also sets up alot of the radical dynamics the series will explore in future books.

It addresses computation, consciousness, and genetics against a backdrop of theocracy. The book is much shorter than the original and wrestles with the nature of Paul’s rise to power as well as tactics during the jihad. Personally, I’m not certain the plan always was to indict him for these actions the way Herbert does in the sequel. Paul was a heroic figure and was perceived as such by readers. He went back and added a forward to the original book and subverted him here in Messiah.

This audiobook is also well-executed by a number of voice actors

Children of Dune

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert completes the arc of Paul Atreides and establishes the reign of Leto II. I wouldn’t say this book completes the trilogy of Paul so much as bridges us into the next book.

It explores the idea of multigenerational history both from the standpoint of memory and planning.

Overall, the series explores cloning, spirit possession, and eugenics in this context.

God Emperor Dune

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert jumps forward in time thousands of years but still relates the arc of the Atreides family through the life of Leto II. The first half is insightful about faith and society before making the story personal, focusing on the introduced characters. I find that to be very similar to what Pynchon did with Against the Day.

If you stop at Children of Dune you get the full arc of Paul but are really short-changing yourself in regards to the Golden Path. God Emperor of Dune succeeds the two previous novels while not relying on familiarity of characters in ways that a series lets you get comfortable with typically. Sure, Leto II is there as is a well-known ghoula in addition to the ghosts of long-dead family members but this book is tuned like the original. I assume many readers will find it tough to work through a pair of novels just to get here but, as mentioned earlier, Dune Messiah operates like a coda and Children of Dune as a prelude.

I watched Dune Part 1 by Denis Villeneuve on HBO Max when it was initially released. Its wrong from the very beginning. It’s beautiful.

Dune: Arrival 2049

If you like the aesthetics of Arrival and the color palette of Blade Runner 2049 (minus the neon), the film looks fantastic. This film ends on an uneven note that’s less of a cliffhanger and more of an uncertain intermission. David Lynch pulled it off in one movie. I’m just saying. You don’t have to like his 1984 release, he doesn’t.

There is a lot wrong and missing from Villeneuve’s film. It’s clinical and has none of the charm of the 80s movie. However, the cast in the 2021 edition is solid — I’m glad they were able to bring the characters to life again. It’s utterly goofy that they put all that effort into half a movie and didn’t have assurances that the rest would get made.

Oh yeah, Zendaya is too present and has a line like “This is just the beginning” at the very end of the movie. Did I want to see the rest of this story get made? Yeah, then I did. Would I care by the time it was released? I rewatched it though because visually it is spectacular.

I think anyone not overly familiar with the content will enjoy the movie. It works as a modern take on what is now classic sci-fi. I’m just not certain that book fans are really getting the faithful version they hoped for right now. Comparative blinders perhaps.

Are people perceiving this film to be more book-accurate because of how faithfully it renders the parts of the story shown onscreen after previous attempts? There’s a lot that is minimized or excluded that drives the story far off source.

Part 2

Did Denis Villeneuve need two films to get the whole story of the first book on screen? While that is debatable, he does take advantage of the collective runtime of five hours and twenty minutes. Unfortunately, while he does give us extended looks at the world of Giedi Prime as well as Paul’s relationship with both Duncan Idaho and Chani, it omits some important components from the nearly nine-hundred-page book that it draws from as its source. These two movies deserve extended editions to incorporate whatever ended up on the cutting room floor.

It is visually excellent and the story is mostly intact. Changes were to Chani because they needed to validate Zendaya being perceived as a star but no biggie. Part 2 didn’t jump the shark like I thought it might.

Ultimately, I saw the film four times in the theater, twice in standard and twice in IMAX.

I felt there was too much unnecessary strong female energy for Chani that was essentially pointless because Rebecca Ferguson was fire through the whole thing. The film definitely establishes Chalamet as a more powerful actor in the final 30 minutes — I have not seen him perform to that capacity before this.

Chani becomes a foil for Paul’s ascendency in Messiah, I assume. It was good, though there’s a change they make of the ending which was no big deal. However, I don’t know why they decided to not just follow the book more exactly.

Will he successfully bring Messiah to the big screen? It has been given the green light based on the success of the first two films.

Dune as a brand or a texture is obviously ripe for adaptation. It has enough nuts and bolts to fill whatever vessel you might like to carry it in as a creative, as illustrated by the wide variety of channels it has traversed over the last six decades. There’s a beachhead to land on from whatever direction you choose to come to it.