The Couch Philosopher: The Movie Landscape is Perfect for DUNE
Lackadaisical op-eds on everything viewable (or readable) from the comfort of your couch.
In 2016 Legendary Entertainment announced Denis Villeneuve as director for the 2020 film adaptation of Dune. Villeneuve’s (and cinematographer Roger Deakin’s) success with Blade Runner 2049 — the incredible sequel to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner — makes Villeneuve a fan-favorite choice to bring Dune to life on the big screen.
Dune, Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel, imagines a faraway, futuristic galaxy where a young man from a prophecy threatens an Emperor’s hold on the galaxy. If that tagline sounds familiar, it’s because it also describes Star Wars. However, the elements of Dune that separate it from the other “hero’s-journey-space-operas” are the very same components that will make a Dune movie perfect for the current, popular culture climate. And it really starts with the way those plot elements affect current audiences.
In 2019, the entertainment industry finds itself in a position that is both loathsome and incredible: its audiences have become prosumers. Casual viewers of TV and movies alike have so many diverse viewing options that even the most amateur fans demand brilliance in any and all of their viewing experiences. Audiences also found their voice. Conventions, expos, and social media sites, like Twitter, allow fanbases to come together and directly engage with the people creating the content they love so dearly.
Essentially Hollywood faces an audience that knows exactly what it wants, has the depth of choice necessary to refuse what it dislikes, and actively lets creators know when it’s been let down. Which, of course, is good and bad. Increased audience storytelling literacy fosters great entertainment. Shows like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and The Wire (aka the best show of all time, but that’s a piece for a different day) were only possible because audiences began to enjoy longform, slow-build, big-payoff dramas.
However, the worst part of an educated audience is its profound sense of entitlement. The idea that a story should be exactly how fans want it has reared its head in ugly ways. Think of the vile, incessant, internet harassment of Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s Kelly Marie Tran. Or an example featuring less-gross behavior (unless you’re an HBO exec) — the mass volume of largely negative Tweets concerning the terrible Game of Thrones finale.
All of this indicates that Dune will fit right in with modern audiences. Dune is unique to sci-fi like Game of Thrones is unique to fantasy. Dune comes complete with deep lore and conflicts created by the fictional universe’s diegetic realpolitik. Like Game of Thrones, the characters in Dune are caught in the crossfire of violent and treacherous political maneuvering for control of the Empire. This similarity not only makes the movie more appealing to fans of GoT’s brand of high fantasy with tangible political stakes, but also distinguishes Dune from existing sci-fi franchises like Star Wars.
Dune, like Star Wars, contains recognizable themes, aesthetics, and power systems from our own reality. Where Dune differs from Star Wars is the items, ideas, and context which are chosen to reflect own our reality. Star Wars tells the story of a farm boy (Luke Skywalker) who teams up with a gunslinger (Han Solo), a beast (Chewbacca), and an old wizard (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to rescue a princess (Leia). In the end, the team defeats an evil empire whose uniforms and behavior match the earthbound horrors of militaristic fascism. The story, based on serial adventures George Lucas loved as a child, takes simple archetypes from popular culture and pits them against the villains of the 20th century: the Nazis.
It’s an incredible franchise (I love it), however, its inspirations are what a pretentious professor might call “accessible.” In other words, they are simple. The story is good vs evil — again billions of dollars says there’s nothing wrong with that — but it does seem shallow when compared to the way Frank Herbert chose to represent the modern world in Dune’s sci-fi universe.
Dune’s galaxy is controlled by a singular emperor, like Star Wars, but it is also controlled by the demand for natural resources, unlike George Lucas’ epic. In the Duniverse (sorry), the most sought after resource is a drug called “melange” or “spice.” Spice can grant some humans the ability to see the future, think like a computer, and even grant longer life. In a bit of a not so subtle commentary, spice is also indirectly responsible for travel. It’s also wildly addictive. So spice is essentially modern medicine, oil, and cocaine wrapped up in one. “He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
Dune’s central conflict is rooted in the schemes of separate royal houses whose intentions are to control the planet Arrakis, nicknamed Dune. It is the only planet where spice can be found. It’s nearly inhospitable, filled with kaiju-sized carnivorous sandworms, and the Fremen indigenous people, who open the novel up to anti-imperialism ideas.
In other words, there is a TON going on in Dune, and that will make it a box office darling. Like the Fremen who survive in the wilds of Arrakis, Dune’s inevitable commercial success is a product of its environment. Its built-in fanbase, fathomless lore — what I covered was the tip of the iceberg, go read the book — excellent narrative, and epic-length equate to a movie perfect for today’s rabid and educated audiences.
The movie is even incidentally following current trends; Dune will technically be a reboot of the franchise since David Lynch already adapted it to film in 1984. Lynch’s version left most audiences disappointed — it has since accumulated a cult following and retrospective reviews claim it is a maligned classic — but Hollywood is going all-in on Dune 2020. If you don’t believe me, check out the cast here. The roster including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem (to name a few) paired with the fact that Dune is set to arrive in two separate installments means that Hollywood is betting the house on its success. I hope it works out, but sometimes the most logical outcomes don’t come to pass. Or as Frank Herbert puts it:
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.