It might easily have been the 21st century’s answer to Ralph Bakshi’s unfinished The Lord of the Rings, left dangling for the rest of eternity. But fortunately for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, the critics were kind, the box office has been impressive for a movie released simultaneously on HBO Max in the US, and we’re going to get a chance to see what happens in part two.
Thank goodness the worst did not happen, for Dune would make no sense if the story had ended right there, with Timothée Chamalet’s Paul Atreides having only just bumped into the dusty Fremen. Without wishing to give too much away (and this piece will inevitably contain spoilers for those who have not read the novel), the whole point of Frank Herbert’s novel is for Paul to achieve his destiny as the messianic Kwisatz Haderach and take revenge against the horrible Harkonnen following the death of his father and brutal destruction of House Atreides. Ending it all here would be a bit like deciding there was not much point in following Frodo all the way to Mount Doom to watch him dispense with the One Ring, when the story could be neatly tied up before anyone has even set so much as a hairy hobbit foot in the Mines of Moria.
So what can Villeneuve bring us that is new in part two, while cleaving to the style introduced in Dune: Part One, as it is presumably now destined to be called?
We can expect to see the Emperor at some point, Shaddam IV having played a pretty big part in setting up the Atreides for their sudden fall from grace. Vengeance will need to be exacted. Then there’s Princess Irulan, Shaddam’s daughter, who is destined to play a pretty big part in future episodes should Villeneuve decide to continuing adapting Herbert’s six-novel space saga (the Canadian director has already made it clear that 1969’s Dune: Messiah is likely to form the basis of a second sequel).
As for the Harkonnen, we haven’t yet met Feyd-Rautha, the Baron’s nephew who was played by Sting in David Lynch’s misfiring 1984 version. , Villeneuve decision not to introduce him until part two is a reasonable move, as the character doesn’t play much of a role in the novel’s early scenes, and Dave Bautista’s Glossu Rabban (another nephew) made for a perfectly repellent stand-in.
Might we expect just a little more Hollywood feelgood vibes in part two? Don’t bet on it. The fascinating thing about Dune (part one) is that it breaks some major rules of blockbuster film-making: there is barely any love interest (Zendaya’s Chani makes only a fleeting appearance), and nothing in the way of joy. The opening scenes are coloured by impending doom as we wait for the Atreides to fall into their desert trap, and the rest of the film is one chase scene after another as Paul and his mother struggle desperately to avoid being crushed under the Harkonnen boot. Even the brief climactic triumph, in which the young Atreides masters his fears and defeats one of the Fremen in combat, doesn’t really feel jubilant.
What’s remarkable is that audiences seem to have lapped up all that grey, dusty, bloody intensity and come bounding back for part two. Perhaps in the era of Game of Thrones, audiences are more open to complex characterisation the sense that the good guys may be primed to turn to the dark side in the blink of a cruel eyelid. This has to be a good thing for Villeneuve, for to reference a saga which was itself influenced by Herbert’s books, Paul Atreides is probably closer to Star Wars’ doomed Anakin Skywalker than he is to the angelic Luke. It is only going to get darker and weirder from here on in.
