There will be spoilers below this paragraph. My non spoiler review of the movies is this: If you haven’t read the books, and have yet to see these movies, I think they’re good films, and recommend them. If you have read the books, and have yet to see the films, I’d say see them, but understand that they are not going to be exactly like the books, as converting Dune into a film is a difficult task.
Spoilers:
To include some background: I have read all of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, all of Kevin J Anderson’s and Brian Herbert’s Dune prequels, have watched the 1984 David Lynch film the 2000-2003 Syfy Dune + Children of Dune miniseries, played the Command and Conquer style Dune games such as Emperor: Battle for Dune, and indulge frequently in media related to lore theory. I’m well read on anything related to Dune, and I feel comfortable in analyzing and critiquing anything related with the Dune universe.
I believe that Dune as a novel is what it ought to be consumed as first and foremost. This is not to say that movies, TV shows, or video games about the Dune universe cannot be created. But the original story of Dune, the story of Paul Atreides, is a difficult novel to convert to film. To even just call Dune The Story of Paul Atreides is an understatement. Paul Atreides is but the protagonist in a singular story in a much larger, and fleshed out story that involves ecology, political interests, philosophy, conflict and interpersonal relationships. Frank Herbert really crafted something special in Dune. Most novels have fairly one or two dimensional characters, motivated by very direct interests. More or less, everything is like Star Wars: The bad guys are trying to defeat the good guys. But in Dune, there really are no “bad guys” or “good guys”. There’s just people, living in an environment, in a time period, with a way of life and thinking. No Dune media outside of the novels has captured what Frank Herbert captured with the environmental factors of Arrakis, and the spice cycle, and how that impacts the greater economy of the Empire, and human civilization overall. Even the Syfy miniseries, the most faithful exposition of Dune, in my opinion, discusses the importance of spice in a fleeting video that Paul watches as his family departs Caladan. There’s just too much going on all at once to describe with the brevity needed for the screen.
That being said, there were quite a few changes from the books to the film that I was rather confused about, and still have not gotten over. Whereas the Syfy series at least mentioned the reason for the importance of spice, these films had zero explanation at all as to what spice is, or why it is critical for the function of human civilization. I’ve seen both movies twice, with two different sets of people. Those who had read the books already understood what spice was, and didn’t think much as to why it was never mentioned. The other group, those who had not read the books, also did not pay it much mind. However, when I asked them as to why there was a whole conflict over spice, the second group could not describe a reason at all. Spice had been turned into a prop mcguffin, rather than as a metaphor for resource scarcity that motivates all human politics and conflict. I find that, and the changing of space folding from essentially teleportation, to wormhole technology, unforgivable. Dune is nothing without spice allowing the spacing guild to predict the future, to safely fold space, and allow interstellar commerce to occur. Frank Herbert went into meticulous detail about the impact of spice on human society, and throwing it away I believe places these films in last place of screen adaptations.
I understand that I’m giving such a harsh review for a fairly minor oversight for most people, but Dune is akin to a sandwich: The individual components may taste ok on their own, but together, they make something better, something greater than the sum of its parts.
There were other parts of both films where the changes made perplexed me. The whole timeline of literal years of fighting in the desert, condensed down into less than 9 months, I guess makes some sense for brevity. However, large parts of the story were completely missed. Alia has yet to be born, and thus never killed the baron. If there is to be a Dune Messiah or Children of Dune sequel, Alia’s fall to abomination is going to require some interesting storytelling that is going to exist outside of the book. Chani’s character arc was stark as well. In the books, while Chani was initially suspicious of Paul and Jessica, she eventually came to unconditionally love Paul, and bore him his first son, who as killed during the course of the desert war. After Chani came to love and trust Paul, she never doubted in the prophecy surrounding him, and was one of the chief devotees to the religion surrounding Mua’Dib. This is contrasted by the Chani of the films is overtly atheist, and explicitly speaks out against traditional Freman religious beliefs and practices. At the end of the film, as the Fedaykin are departing for the Jihad, Chani is seen departing into the desert, distraught that Paul would actually follow through on using the religion surrounding him to take the Imperial throne. Finally, the character arc of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was subtle yet distinct. In the novels, the Baron is a formidable political actor. The plot to eliminate House Atreides on Arrakis using the assistance of the Emperor was but one move in a greater game to achieve the throne, using literally every tool at his disposal, including his own family. The Baron saw Rabban as a disposable idiot, a pawn that could be used to uplift Feyd-Rautha as a potential marriage prospect for Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s eldest daughter, and would put Feyd on the throne as the Emperor, with Baron Harkonnen pulling the strings as the puppet master. While the Baron in the films was fairly cunning, his plan to blackmail the Emperor for participating in the elimination of House Atreides is something I see as rather low tier for a political operative like the Baron.
I’ve said quite a bit about what I’m unhappy with in the films, and it exclusively has to do with the interpretation of the films. I do give some license to the films, as the battles/fights might not be as easy to translate. The weirding way can be interpreted as simply a fighting style, or as literal Jedi reaction powers (as seen in the Syfy series). I thought the costumes and the sets were amazing cinematography; the idea that “Every frame is a picture”, was taken to its ultimate conclusion. There was not a single scene in the films that I did not think warranted anything less than the highest praise. There was a lot of care and hard work into making these films look the way they did, and I think they nailed the feeling of what living in the Dune universe would have looked like. The battles in particular were spectacular. In most Dune adaptations, the battles are fairly campy, mimicking Earl Flynn in Robin Hood style sword battles. In the films, the battles were chaotic, with shots usually tight and upclose, to give the perception of tunnel vision, with the lighting and sound creating effects of chaos. My favorite particular battle was the one where Rabban took a large force of Death Hand to seek out and destroy Paul’s forces. After blowing the side of a mountain up with a massive airstrike, Rabban deployed his forces in a sandstorm, with low lighting. The shot of Rabban with his troops on the ground is confusing, the lighting is dim, and the sandstorm made it difficult to see anything. The shots were tight on Rabban, and as the chaos of the battle unfolded, the true realization of the terror that Rabban is facing is realized, as his forces are almost completely wiped out by the Freman counterattack. Rabban barely escapes with his life, and is only saved from a Freman fanatic attempting to board his craft by one of the few men that managed to escape with Rabban.
Despite my harsh critiques, I have seen both films twice, and am happy to see them again if any of my friends invite me to attend. I think overall the films are decent films, and I hope that they motivate those who have not read the books, to read the books. I like seeing the Dune universe, and it was really fun to see not just the story, but the setting as well.