Dune 2

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Dune 2—well done! Now that’s how you tell a sci-fi epic.

I especially liked that it leaned into the darkness of the concept. Space Arabs against Space Nazis, with eugenics and feudalism—this isn’t a kiddie sci-fi tale, this is Old Testament. And indeed Frank Herbert himself thought of Dune as critiquing, not glorifying, the messiah concept. (More in this Salon article.)

My first exposure to Dune was the 1984 David Lynch film where—well, I’ll leave it to my late stepdad to describe. One time in the 1990s I was watching it on TV and he walked in, took one look and said, “What is that, Italian Star Wars?”

The Lynch film sort of leaned into that Luke Skywalker hero’s journey—but it had shades of darkness that suggested it wasn’t quite so sunny. But, alas, tonal confusion (and other confusion) is part of what we’ve lived with from that adaptation.

But this new doubleheader from Denis Villeneuve—it’s cool. Paul Atreides isn’t Luke Skywalker. He’s Michael Corleone. And he knows it, he fears it—losing his humanity—and then it happens to him anyway. That’s awesome. Bravo.

I want to know one thing: how do they get off of those worm rides?

It seems likely we’ll get a Dune 3, adapting the sequel book, Dune Messiah—and that one is bonkers.

P.S. From Wired: Apparently Frank Herbert himself tried to adapt Dune into a script. I saw this article and thought, “Awesome, I gotta read this!” Then I started to read and honestly...I will never finish this article.