'Dune's Two Films are Sanded Down, But Still Achieve Greatness

Back in 2021, it was difficult to tell if people were more excited for Denis Villeneuve to bring his unique brand of ultra-sleek spectacle to Dune, or that Dune might get an adaptation that might not be outright terrible. Frank Herbert’s landmark 1965 novel charted the struggle for imperial power on Arrakis, a desert planet filled with the most valuable substance in the universe. It didn’t just become one of the biggest-selling science-fiction novels of all time, but also the unofficial pipedream for every director with epic sci-fi aspirations.

Dune is a dense, patient story, as interested in ecology and religion as it is in intergalactic war, and the existential stakes and dry prose don’t easily translate over to the language of blockbuster cinema. Still, Villeneuve has pulled off a difficult task – both Dune and now Dune: Part Two (adapting the second half of Herbert’s novel) have turned the text into thoughtful and exciting cinema.

Yes, a lot of the intricacies and nuances of the world-building have been sanded off (ha), namely the Islamic influence for the Fremen people (Arrakis’ natives who rebel against their colonizers) and the pages Herbert dedicates to the fascism of religion clashing with raw ecology, but it was a seismic, atmospheric interstellar battle for empire in a tactile, emotional world – the type we rarely see at the movies. There were also a couple of very large worms, which is always a treat.