Dune Review Part 1

Dune Review Part 1

I love Dune, the book this movie is based on. I cannot talk about the 2021 Dune by Denis Villeneuve without mentioning the book. In fact, for most of this, I’ll be talking about the movie in the book’s context. What they changed, what stayed the same, do those changes ruin the story and butcher all the core characters as so many adaptations do? We shall see in this review.

Dune saved my sanity. I first read it on Thanksgiving break, first semester of college. I wasn’t having fun in school. But I was learning the stuff I needed for my career. Shouldn’t I at least be passionate about the content? I was already questioning the whole computer science thing.

Then I read Dune. It reinvigorated me. I felt alive, totally immersed in the story and characters. I binged the 600-page book in a few short days. I know, for some of you, that’s nothing. But, at the time, I was only reading school work and wanted nothing more to do with the written word. At least, I thought that was true.

I’m now pursuing a career in storytelling, all thanks to Dune. I haven’t published anything yet, but I have projects in the works. I’d never even considered a writing career before Dune. I’d never been so drawn to an art form before. I loved the easy to follow hero’s journey mixed with all the other stuff that makes Dune what it is. The political philosophy, the economic philosophy, the environmentalism flowing from everything, even taking a look at what does and doesn’t work in government, all of it makes the book something truly special. Dune is ultimately a story about the reasons not to blindly follow charismatic leaders.

Does the movie live up to those expectations? Or is it yet another studio attempt at some quick money which leads to a bad movie and bad adaptation?

Dune is the story of the war between the royal houses Atreides and Harkonnen. The houses have been in constant conflict for several generations. The Harkonnen are savage warriors with a brutal culture of take… take… take, from each other and from everyone else.

“Dreams are messages from the future,” says a strange voice at the beginning of the movie. How relevant that single line is to everything that comes in this magnificent story.

We learn through an opening narrator played by Zendaya that the Harkonnen’s have been ruling in fiefdom over the planet Arrakis (also known as Dune) for over 80 years. They’re there to harvest a substance called “Spice.” This Spice production has made them wealthier than even the Emperor himself.

The Spice is a psychoactive substance only found on Arrakis. It allows for long life, higher mental acuity, and even, in some, the gift (or curse) of prescience. The Navigators of the Spacing Guild use the Spice to see safe passage between the stars. Only with the spice is interstellar travel possible in the Dune universe.

Breakfast with the Bene Gesserit

We get a wonderful scene introducing the protagonist, Paul Atreides, played by Timothee Chalamet, and his Bene Gesserit mother, Lady Jessica, played by Rebecca Ferguson. She has him practice “The Voice” on her to give him a glass of water from her end of the table. The Voice is one of many tools the Bene Gesserit wield, more on them later.

The Voice allows one to influence another person. Through their extreme observation skills, a Bene Gesserit can construct a psychological profile of her target very quickly and with extreme accuracy. They observe behavior, how one holds themself, how they respond under pressure, their mental fortitude, etc. Tailoring her pitch and word choices toward the profile, she will give a command and the target will obey. The target will do it before they’re consciously aware of what’s happening. It is the ultimate weapon of influence. Only anther Bene Gesserit even has the skills to recognize the voice, let alone resist it.

An example from the book is when Jessica commands someone to sit in a chair. They’re in the seat before they even consciously registered her order. There was no chance to resist.

The movie does an excellent job conveying the Voice in a visual medium. Without any exposition as to how it works, we get the idea. With just the vidiography, music, and sound effects, you feel the impulse to act without awareness. Even with all of that, the editing makes it perfect. Paul says the order “give me the water.” Jessica responds by picking up the glass and moving it toward him. While it’s in mid transit, we cut to Jessica seemingly waking from a trance. Then we cut back to the water and it’s near Paul. We don’t see her put it down. That part’s missing. Oh, it works so well because that’s how it feels inside her mind. The key part isn’t there, not under her control. I can’t think of a better way to possibly convey the Voice in a visual medium. It’s fantastic. Funny enough, one of the best scenes in the movie, IMO, wasn’t even in the book. That whole breakfast scene was a movie original and I love it.

The next scene also didn’t happen in the book. The Atreides are given fief over Arrakis by the Emperor. The Harkonne were withdrawn from the planet without an explanation as to why. The Atreides undergo a ritualistic passing of the torch presided over by “The Herald of the Change.” Papers are signed and sealed.

This scene gives me a great excuse to mention the music. It’s almost abstract. The name of the track is “Herald of the Change.” If you haven’t heard it yet or want to listen again, I highly recommend it. It’s very odd, yet fitting and epic with a sense of foreboding. It’s everything we’re supposed to feel. Yet again Hanz Zimmer kills it. This scene in particular has some very strange rhythmic qualities that I haven’t heard before, especially in a movie score. Heavy bass is utilized through much of it, bringing out rumbling or vibrations that you can feel with a good sound system.

I’m no musician but Thomas Flight talks about the thematic elements and why the score adds a layer to the storytelling that isn’t there without it. You should check that out if it interests you, after you’re done here, of course. Why is Dune’s Score Like That? – YouTube

The Atreides taking hold of Arrakis shows us something else. We get to see, for the first time, the true scale of the Dune universe. Hundreds of Atreides soldiers stand in battalions during the ceremony. The ship the Empire’s Harold and observers come in is gigantic. It’s a sky scraper in the shape of an egg and it can fly. All the space ships are massive. We get several more scenes throughout the film with hundreds, if not thousands, of troops organized and awaiting orders. Star Wars is the only thing with a similar scale to it.

The Dune universe is gigantic and you can’t help but feel intimidated and awed by the spectacle. I would argue that’s exactly what you’re supposed to feel.

Jason Momoa was a controversial choice for Duncan Idaho. I wasn’t sure myself. He doesn’t match the image I had in my head but damn does he do a great job. He exudes badass sword master with an undying loyalty to the Atreides family. Again, exactly what we’re supposed to feel. We also see a nice expansion to Paul and Dunkan’s relationship. In the book, they don’t spend much time together. Here, Duncan feels like an older brother to Paul. Duncan’s intro scene was yet another movie original.

I’m just going to have to stop saying scenes are movie originals. The next one also didn’t happen in the book, at least not the way it does here. That’s the thing about the first hour of Dune. It does what the book did. It conveys much of the same info and has many of the same scenes, but they’re either reordered or streamlined. Surprisingly enough, I don’t have any complaints with how many changes they made.

Changes

I classify two types of changes in this movie. There are omissions: things they had to leave out for the run time. This movie could have easily been five hours, still only covering the first half of the book. So, there are a lot of things they left out. Some characters get stripped down quite a bit. A lot of the world building is left out all together or only hinted at. Those things I don’t like. That’s natural, it’s my favorite book and they couldn’t keep everything in. I understand why they did it, so I’m not upset about what they left out. Well, there are a handful of things I wish we got more of, but oh well. For a 2.5 hour running time, we got a ton of what matters most.

The other kind of change is an actual change: something that didn’t happen or happened differently in the book. Those… I like. In fact, there are several big changes from the book that, I think, improve the story. I know, right? Changes the movie made add to the story. These changes don’t ruin things, they enhance aspects that weren’t touched on much. Aspects of the situation or the world which are shown off more.

Paul speaks with his father Leto, played by Oscar Isaac. Leto is visiting the old family graveyard as a final goodbye. Paul wants to go to Arrakis with the advanced team, but his father will hear none of it. He’s too important. He’s the heir to the Atreides line.

Paul expresses doubts. What if he’s not the future of house Atreides? What if he doesn’t want to rule or isn’t cut out for it? Leto responds with, “you’ll still be the only thing I ever needed you to be… my son.”

Fuck, Leto is a good father. Both Timothee Chalamet and Oscar Isaac kill their performances in this scene and everywhere else. I can’t help but feel the depth of their relationship. Leto himself wanted to be a pilot and only found himself in charge. He never wanted it, either.

This bit about Leto wasn’t in the book and it’s probably a meta reference to the fact that Oscar Isaac played Poe Dameron, a badass pilot, in the recent Star Wars trilogy. Fortunately, Isaac got to play a role in a good sci-fi film this time.

One change they made (remember, there are changes and there are omissions), which seeds some character development that wasn’t there as much in the book. Paul feels more like a child here, in the beginning. I always got the sense that Paul understood exactly what was going on in the book. In the film, he feels more like a sheltered youth. He’s just a teenager who’s never been in any real danger. Now that House Atreides is taking over fiefdom from their bitter rivals, the house is in grave danger. I like that Paul’s mentors have to explain this to him several times before he really gets it.

On the one hand, book Paul was meant to be more than a teen. He’s vastly wiser and more intelligent than most adults. So I see why he followed what was going on pretty well. He was very much intended to be an ascended master. Already a man on his way to becoming a type of Buddha (there’s a lot of eastern and western philosophy going on). At the same time movie Paul is innocent with little life experience, so it makes sense that he’s not afraid of the danger. He’s never really been in a situation that might be life threatening. These are two different ways to view Paul. I like both. I don’t feel one version is better than the other. They’re just different.

Plus, in the book, it’s easy to understand why Paul is the way he is. We can get pages of internal monologue going over the types of psychological conditioning he’s been training himself with for his whole life. In the movie, it would be difficult to convey why this boy isn’t afraid or why he’s so aware of the greater situation.

Combat Isn’t What You Might Expect

Gurney Halleck! Played by Thanos himself, Josh Brolin, Gurney is the Guard Dog of House Atreides. Though Duncan may be head of security, Gurney is a whole other animal. Again, Brolin wasn’t my first pick for Gurney but seeing him in the role made me love it. He’s a hard man. He’s seen horrors that most would have broken under. He mentions that Harkonnens are brutal. Well, book Gurney was a Harkonnen slave for a while, in the fighting pits. He knows. It’s not explained in the film why he knows this, but we very well know his position anyway.

We meet Gurney in the training scene. I want to mention one point that was quickly stated and glossed over in the film. Paul is working on a dummy with one of his knives. Gurney enters the room on the other end, chastising Paul for having his back to a door. Paul states that he knew the footsteps. Gurney counters with the fact that someone could mimic his footsteps. Paul says he’d know the difference. It’s small, but what they had to leave out was Gurney’s inner monologue at that point, “He probably could.” It’s a little thing, literally a single sentence of inner thought. But it gives a much different feel to what we got. It adds emphasis to this type of stuff. Reading people, distinguishing between a man’s footsteps and someone trying to mimic those steps. Stuff like that is all throughout the novel and can’t be covered as easily in the movie.

Along with Gurney in the training scene, we get to see the shields, kinetic barriers that the great houses use for defense. It’s essentially THE Sci-Fi force field. I don’t know if this concept was used before Dune, but it’s certainly one of the reasons it’s so common today.

The barriers work simply. A slow object can pass through without an issue. You wouldn’t want your chair to fly away from you while you were trying to sit, would you? Fast objects are repelled. Naturally, bullets don’t work anymore. The Empire has transitioned into martial arts with knives and swords once again. Ships still have ranged weapons but ground combat is old school pre-firearm style.

Let’s talk about the choreography. It’s good. It’s fast, the opponents are trying to strike each-other and not their weapons, it feels weighty and like there’s actual danger. As someone who’s spent multiple years studying Kali knife and stick fighting, I’m very happy. I’m also pretty sure they used Kali as the basis for the Imperial martial arts, which is a double pointer for me because Kali is basically the definitive knife fighting art. I’m sure there are others which are just as devastating, but none are talked about like Kali. At least, not in the circles I’ve been in.

The choreography isn’t the most realistic knife fight ever, but then again real fighting doesn’t have to slow down to strike the opponent. Remember, the shields influence combat. One must be fast and nimble during the attack and defense, but at the moment to strike they must slow down dramatically for the last few inches before they reach the flesh or their blade will be pushed away by the shield.

I’m going to try to avoid talking about the 1984 film very much but I have to say how objectively better the choreography is. Paul in that movie didn’t even look like he knew how to hold a knife, let alone defend himself with one. I believe this Paul knows what he’s doing. I believe he could kill with one.

A Test of Life and Death

The next scene, which takes place about 20 minutes into the movie, is one of the first in the book. This time they’ve reordered things. Again, I don’t mind. The narrative flow still works and what happens next is more frightening because we’re more invested in the characters.

One of the people who came to witness the changeover of Atreides is her reverence Gaius Helen Mohiam. She’s one of the elder masters of the Bene Gesserit, teacher to Jessica, and now the Emperor’s truth sayer. A truth sayer is just that, someone who examins people to ensure they’re telling the truth. Just imagine if a Bene Gesserit was an interrogator.

She demands audience with Paul.

I get chills just thinking about it. With Jessica guarding the door so that none will interrupt, Gaius Helen Moniam uses the voice and orders Paul to kneel before her. He chastises her for this, of course. Then, she tests him. He must place his hand in a box where no light enters. As soon as he does, she places a needle at his neck. Within is the Gom Jabbar, an instantly lethal poison. The test is simple. If he removes his hand from the box, he dies. Within the box, there is pain. Terrible pain. Excruciating pain.

The execution is phenomenal. The swelling music. Jessica having a breakdown, chanting the Litany Against Fear so she may hold herself together as her son is being tested. The fantastic acting on everyone’s part. The defiance in Paul’s eyes while he stares down Mohiam as he feels his hand burning to ash.

He survives, enduring more pain than most initiates are ever forced to experience. It’s not mentioned in the movie, but Mohiam realizes after the test is over that she must have wanted him to fail.

The purpose of the test is also simple. Paul (and all initiates into the Bene Gesserit), train in many things. They learn to read and manipulate people to the greatest extent. The voice is the perfect representation of that. They also learn to control their impulses. The Gom Jabbar is the ultimate impulse test. An animal will chew its own leg off to escape from a trap. The human will lie in wait for the hunter to return so they may destroy an enemy to their kind. The Bene Gesserit skills are far too powerful and dangerous for an animal to wield. Only the strongest of humans is allowed the power.

After the ordeal, Mohiam and her escort of Bene Gesserit leave Caladan. As they walk through the misty night, Jessica and Mohiam have a bit of an argument.

It turns out that Jessica was ordered to have only daughters. It isn’t explained how in the movie, but Bene Gesserit have astonishing control over their bodies. Jessica could have chosen to have a daughter. They can control their bodies down to the chemical and atomic level. She wanted to give Leto a son and heir, so she defied the order, screwing up the Bene Gesserit’s plans.

The Bene Gesserit present themselves as aids, advisors, spies, and concubines. In reality, they control the Empire through the shadows. Over thousands of years, they’ve run a breeding program. Taking the genetics from promising lords and dukes, the Bene Gesserit have birthed the new race of humans. Still human, according to their laws they cannot make something that can’t be considered human, but they’ve bread an elite class. That class will then go on to mate with others within the Bene Gesserit’s sphere of influence to make even better offspring.

By having a son rather than a daughter, this breeding program has been thrown off course, for this program exists to bring about the Kwisatz Haderach. This would be a man who can take on the abilities of a reverend mother, the leaders of the Bene Gesserit. Now, what that fully means, we’ll have to wait for the second movie to find out.. But the Kwisatz Haderach can pierce the veil of space-time and see into the future.

An important aspect of these visions that this movie actually got right was that he cannot see THE future, but many futures. The sea of time is ever changing and any small thing can have drastic consequences.

Anyway, after the ship leaves and Jessica is alone in the fog, we see that Paul had been there, listening to the entire conversation. He exists with a purpose in mind. Jessica believes he is the Kwisatz Haderach, though Mohiam is skeptical.

I’ll cover this here because it’s a great place to do it. Paul is angry. Paul feels betrayed by his mother and her order. It makes perfect sense. He knew nothing of the Gom Jabbar test until his hand was already in the box with the needle at his neck. He’s upset and pissed off, but doesn’t scream or shout like a lesser writer would have him do. Book Paul didn’t seem as upset to me. He rarely got angry. He was far more controlled. He went with the flow, only angry when dealing with other Bene Gesserit or in the tent. He never came across as angry with his mother for her part in all of it, at least not to the same extent he is in the movie. I’ll compare more when we have a different scene. He was frustrated and chastised her for her part in the plan, but it never felt angry. He seemed more disappointed to me than angry. Maybe that’s just my interpretation from the text, but I’ve never felt the anger like I did in the movie. I really like that. Again, a change. This change gives different context but that isn’t a bad thing. Paul, yet again, feels more like a young man dealing with problems whereas the book version always felt far more in control of the situation. At the very least, the situation rarely affected him on an emotional level. There’s a reason for that.

A Disservice to the Mentat

Now, we must backtrack a little bit. Do you remember the bringer of the change scene from earlier? The music, the foreboding, all of that? Well, we were also introduced to a character named Thufir Hawat, played by Stephen McKindley Henderson. He’s the portly black gentleman who rolled his eyes up into his skull and gave off some numbers.

This is one of the great omissions the film made which really disappointed me. The word Mentat is never spoken once. Thufir is a Mentat, as it Piter de Vries, a character who doesn’t even get named in the movie. It’s the Barron’s creepy assistant. He’s much more of a character in the book.

Before I explain what a Mentat is, I need to mention some world history that got totally glossed over in the movie. You might have noticed that there weren’t any AI. No great computer scenes. Very simple electronics for most of it. That is because of the Butlerian Jihad. 10,000 years before the events of Dune and 10,000 years into our future (yes, Dune happens about 20,000 years from now) there was a great purge. Thinking machines, AI, were banned throughout all the empire and utterly destroyed. According to the Orange Catholic Bible, no machine may be built in the image of man. Everything from Artificial Super Intelligence down to the calculator was banned as heresy and a danger to humankind.

Kind of an important detail, wouldn’t you agree? I don’t know why it’s never mentioned in the movie, but it’s crucial for why the setting is the way it is.

Seeing as we rely so much on computers these days, it’s hard to think why we might want to get rid of them. The answer was simple. We relied too heavily on their use and those in power used them to control us all.

To get around this problem and still not break the rules, Mentats were created as human computers. These people think faster than a supercomputer. They can take in copious amounts of data and formulate detailed analysis within seconds. They are the cold analysts where the Bene Gesserit are the cold controllers. Different abilities, yet both so important for the empire.

That is what Thufir is. He’s also a more important character in the book. Not only that, but Paul was also trained as a Mentat as well as a Bene Gesserit. I think the fact that we don’t get that mentioned at all in the movie may be why he’s so much more emotional than the book version. The movie Paul isn’t a trained Mentat. At least, I’m guessing he isn’t, since it was never mentioned. Book Paul is much more in control of himself and rarely upset. That is due to his Mentat training. Not having him be a Mentat gives him more room to feel like a teenager. Good or bad, that’s up to you. I like both interpretations.

That is one of the big omissions that I do not like. Mentats are extremely important both in the setting and the story and they’re never even mentioned. There are two scenes where a Mentat is calculating. The one where Thufir mentions how expensive the visit for the Herald of the Change is… andpart of the Baron’s intro.

Since I’ve had a reason to mention him, I think that’s who I’ll talk about next.

The Barron

The Beast Raban, played by Dave Bautista, enters a dark room. He has a temper tantrum about losing Arrakis. If you’re familiar with Bautista, he’s a big dude. He playes Raban very well. He’s basically a blunt instrument, filled with anger issues, is the nephew of the richest man in the universe, and really likes killing things. He’s awesome and so intimidating.

Unfortunetly for Raban, he doesn’t hold a candle to his uncle.

The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is a man of great and terrible things. He’s morbidly obese and has strange technology grafted to his spine. We see all of this when he’s in his steam bath.

It’s in this scene when we see Piter doing his Mentat computations for only a small moment. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Stelan Skarsgard was perfect for this role. He’s so menacing, even when he’s naked and in a steam bath. The low scratchy voice is exactly how I imagined the Baron would sound. His coldness and sadism just flow through every scene he’s in. They also added a nice touch that wasn’t as emphasized in the book. He’s unhealthy. He’s barely holding together and yet he keeps eating anyway.

He’s indulgent. He is consumed by greed and gluttony. Yes, he’s consumed by them. He is the manifestation of everything that can go wrong when one man is extremely wealthy. It’s all wrapped up in one huge package of evil.

I’ve never had the chance to talk about it on here before, so I will now. The Baron is one of my favorite villains of all time. He’s straight up evil but still feels like a person. In the book, we even get him as a point of view character sometimes. He’s vial and some of his truly wicked stuff wasn’t even touched on in the movie. I wonder if they’ll go there at all… it’s rather dark and more for an R rating than PG-13.

Anyway, the Baron is fantastic. I’ll try not to mention the 84 film anymore but holy shit did they destroy him in that one. He wasn’t even the same character. At all. He was a cackling maniac who came across more as a man who had power simply because of his birthright rather than his intellect.

That’s one of the reasons the Baron is so amazing as a villain. He’s smart. Genius level smart. Piter de Vries, played by David Dastmalchian, is his Mentat. We didn’t get to see them together nearly enough because they have great chemistry in the book. Remember what I said about Mentats? Human computers? Well, I always got the impression that the Baron kept up with Piter. As in, he was just as smart as a human supercomputer, if not smarter. He’s the kind of man who spends decades formulating and executing a plan. When a man like that is the wealthiest in an interstellar empire, well, you get some scary implications.

That’s the man the Atreides are up against. Stelan Scarsgard was amazing playing this part. All of that being said, he’s not book accurate. Book Barron is much fatter and his suspensers work differently. In every film adaptation (both theatrical movies and the sy-fy original series), the Barron can fly with them. The book version specifically uses the suspensers because he can’t hold up his massive size. His legs only ever feel 40 of his 400 pounds. Also, it’s more like a bunch of balloons attatched to his entire body, rather than a single row of them along his spine. I always saw it like a bunch of suspensers attached all over, on his arms, his legs, his chest, his back, etc.

It’s not the book look but it has more menace to it.

Arrakis Control

All of this has happened and we haven’t even gotten to Arrakis yet. I could keep going on and on about what I’ve already talked about but I think it’s time we get to Dune itself.

As soon as the Atreides land on Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit work can be seen. Because they’re so damn good at manipulating people and planning in the long term, they had a fail safe. In case the Kwisatz Haderach ended up on Dune, the Bene Gesserit ensured he could survive.

The Fremen are natives of Arrakis. Other humans, for there are no aliens in this universe. But these humans were on Arrakis long before the Empire found it. They’ve made it their home. This uncaring desert which will suck a man dry within hours, is their home.

Their religion is not their own. No, the Bene Gesserit took a hand in its formation, generations ago. They spread a messiah story among them. The Lisan Al Gaib, the voice from the outer world, shall come from another world. His mother will know the wierding ways and be a powerful practitioner in many things. The Lisan Al Gaib will know the Fremen ways as though born to them. He will come and save them from their oppressors.

Paul doesn’t like this idea. Another Bene Gesserit control mechanism. There is no escaping their influence. Jessica wants to use the advantage.

Isn’t that just fantastic? A whole culture controlled through their religious beliefs to aid a Bene Gesserit creation. It’s genius, both in a real life sense and a storytelling one.

The actual sequence with the Atreides landing on Arrakis and flying to Arrakeen is quite spectacular. We get a sweeping landing zone which must go on for miles in all directions. I never would have associated the Atreides with bagpipes, but the song that plays swells in my chest and there’s an grandiose feeling to it. Apparently Hans Zimmer can do no wrong in a soundtrack.

Jessica is adorned in a beautiful flowing dress, face hidden by a gold veil. Her dress is so long she has 3 assisitants who hold it in the whipping wind. So impractical yet regal at the same time. It’s weird. I guess women’s fashion never makes sense, even in the far future.

Oh they did Arrakeen good. The seat of power on Arrakis is Arakeen, one of the largest cities. Frank Herbert wasn’t a big fan of description. There’s a lot of stuff in the Dune universe but he never explained how most of it looked. It’s a named object but that’s as far as it goes. Generalities, rarely specifics. So, Arrakeen could have looked many ways. There was no real description of it at all. In a sweeping shot following the Ornithopters (I’ll get to them later), we see it in all its glory. A metal city, sealed all around. It looks more like one wide structure than a city. Perhaps a city covered in a giant metal blanket. It’s got a Mesoamerican feel to the architecture.

It’s not what I saw in my mind. I must say it’s better than what I saw. This Arrakeen feels like a city that could survive the deserts of Arrakis.

I wish we’d seen more politicking so far. Something the movie glosses over is the constant scheming by everyone involved and we haven’t seen nearly enough of the Barron or his side of the story yet…

I Must Depart

I’ve been going on for quite a while, haven’t I? We’re not even half-way through the movie yet and we’ve only just reached the most important desert in the universe. I think I’m going to end this here and get up a part 2 sometime soon. I might as well split this up if I’ve got so much more to say. If you liked this so far and want to read part 2, join the mailing list to get notified when it’s up. Thanks for reading this so far. I hope to see you back soon.