So Mrs. Vasicek and I saw the new Dune movie in theaters last weekend, and let me just say, it was awesome in every sense of the word!
Speaking as someone who’s read the novel three times and fervently believes it to be the most perfect science fiction book ever written, this movie did not disappoint. Not only is it the best movie adaptation of the book, hands down, but it may be the best adaptation that it’s possible to make of the book. Denis Villeneuve has done for Dune what Peter Jackson did for Lord of the Rings. It’s incredible.
With all of that said, I’m not sure if the movie would make much sense to anyone who hasn’t already read the book first. Dune is really a story within a story within a story, and while the movie captures that aspect quite well, it also touches very, very lightly on the outlying stories, which could be confusing for someone who isn’t already familiar with the novel. Even in my first read, I didn’t fully appreciate the complexity: it took two rereads before I began to grasp the full significance of all of the moving parts.
At its heart, Dune is about the struggle of Paul Atreides (the Chosen One) to push back against his destiny, because he knows that his success will be far more devastating, for him and for the galaxy, than his failure. In that, it’s a brilliant subversion (in the truest sense) of the hero cycle. But all of that takes place within the story of the Bene Gesserit and their quest to create the Kwisatz Haderach, a super-human who can see the past, present, and future all at once. But the Bene Gesserit scheming is all happening within the political intrigue of the Great Houses and the Imperium, specifically with the feud between House Atreides (which presents the greatest threat to the emperor) and House Harkonnen—and all three stories converge on the planet Arrakis, amidst the struggle of the Fremen to terraform their desert world into a lush, green paradise when all of the powers of the galaxy want to exploit it for the spice that is so important for interstellar space travel.
For someone who is already familiar with all of that from the book, the movie hits on all of those nested stories perfectly, without getting bogged down or missing the most important story of all: Paul’s internal struggle with his own destiny. But for someone who is new to all of that, the movie might be really confusing. It will be really interesting to hear what my Dad thinks of it, because he’s never read the book and he plans to stream the movie over Thanksgiving break. I’ll report back when I hear his reaction.
Some people are criticizing the movie for ending at the wrong place, but I actually think it ended at the exact right spot: where Paul becomes one of the Fremen by killing his first man in a duel. It’s subtle, but the whole movie builds up perfectly to that moment, making Paul’s character arc the central driving story arc. For me, it didn’t feel at all like I’d only gotten half a movie, or that the director was drawing the story out to make it into a trilogy. It felt very natural to end the story there, and a great set-up for the sequel, which should wrap up Dune itself. The third movie will conclude Paul’s story by giving us Dune Messiah, which should be really interesting, since the first movie actually did a lot to set that up. If the second movie is as good as the first, then the third one may actually be better than the book.
It’s become very fashionable these days to cast a major character as an ethnic minority, which can be really annoying. However, I wasn’t all that bothered by the decision to cast Doctor Kynes as a black woman. It did some interesting things for the character that I thought worked really well for the story, and for Paul’s relationship with Kynes. So even though that was the movie taking license from the book, I felt like it was a really good call.
One criticism that I do tend to agree with is that the characters feel a lot more like archetypes than like real people. That’s fair, not only for the movie, but for the book. My wife says that’s the main reason why she didn’t like the book, because none of the characters felt “real” to her. But that focus on archetypes is something I really enjoyed about the book, so it wasn’t as big of a problem for me with the movie.
Another point of criticism that my wife had was that neither the movie nor the book have a whole lot of joy. That’s also fair: the movie does tend to hit the same emotional notes over and over, without much variation. The most humorous part was where the Reverend Mother tells Paul “farewell, young human. I hope you live,” which wasn’t actually meant as a joke (and Mrs. Vasicek and I are totally going to use that line on our own baby from now on).
But it really did hit the sense of wonder quite spectacularly, not just with the big things like the desert and the sandworms, but the fine details like the control systems of the ornithopters, or the grittiness of the stillsuits and the spice mining equipment. It really does stick with you long after you’ve watched the movie, and makes you want to watch it over and over.
All I can say more is that I’m really, really, really looking forward to the next one!