Published in 1965, Frank Herbert’s Dune is arguably one of the best science fiction novels of all time. So why has it languished without an effective or commercially successful adaptation for over 50 years? I finished Herbert’s novel only a few years before Villeneuve would announce his ambitious plans to adapt it; I was delighted with it but also heavily surprised. Raised on both contemporary sci-fi like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, as well as a healthy dose of sci-fi classics such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I had a very clear vision of what I thought Herbert’s Dune was going to be before I read it. However, I was immediately shocked by Herbert’s focus on interiority and world building coupled with his utter disregard for action and epic battles. At almost every point in the book, you know exactly what its main character Paul Atreides is thinking due to a running inner monologue, and the story lingers on locations and builds up physical conflicts, only to skip over most of the actual action and fighting. This dynamic has proved to be an incredible problem for adaptation.
I watched Villeneuve’s first Dune movie in a movie theater with a few friends, all of whom had not read the book. While I wholeheartedly enjoyed it, I remember seeing one of my friends go on the Dune book’s Wikipedia page to follow the story while another fell asleep. Both of them did not have favorable things to say as we walked out the theater and I realized that by faithfully telling the first half of the book’s story, Villeneuve lost many viewers due to its glacial pace and complicated story. While the first movie was bogged down by its weighty, slow-paced subject matter, Dune: Part 2 has garnered far more critical and commercial success for its riskiness as an adaptation and its own merit. Villeneuve’s own touches to the film most notably include his spin on Chani (Zendaya) as more defiant of Paul’s (Timothée Chalamet) actions. These changes create a film that does justice to its source material not only by being visually stunning with scenes like the black and white Harkonnen gladiator fight, but also by telling its own story that, just like the book, is engrossing from start to finish with high-stakes dialogue, enthralling action choreography, and dramatic moments that keep viewers on the edge of their seat. I have no doubt Villeueve will continue paving his own narrative path in Herbert’s world with Dune Messiah, the presumed third film in the groundbreaking trilogy adaptation.
