This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Henry Ryeder. Find him on Instagram at @henryryeder. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
To regurgitate decades of praise, Frank Herbert’s Dune stands in a league of its own in American fiction. The groundbreaking science fiction novel not only inspired entire genres and subcategories of storytelling in literature and film, it proved singularly eloquent in its depiction of post-industrial colonization.
Pulling from Islam, Judaism, Jung, Heidegger, Bedouin tribes in North Africa, and yes, the Oregon Dunes, Herbert created a mammoth universe of lore and characters. The novel centers around a planet rich with a precious resource: the spice melánge. He who controls the spice controls the universe, Herbert writes, and the indigenous Fremen on the spice-rich planet Arrakis have spent generations fighting colonizing powers vying for their land. When one of those colonizers, Paul Atreides, is forced into hiding following an ambush that leaves his father dead, he slowly convinces (and is slowly convinced himself) that he is a messianic figure able to bring the Fremen to prosperity through a holy war.
Herbert’s vision of ecological extractivism that culminates in a violent resistance continues to prove its relevance generation after generation. While Dune has become more popular in recent years thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation, the novel has seen adaptation attempts in many different ways over the decades. While they haven’t always been successful, they’ve always been revealing of Dune’s significance to a creator hellbent on honoring a transcendent story of revolution, and a marketplace obsessed with getting that spice melánge.
Huck Atreides
Following the novel’s publication in 1965, and critically acclaimed films of the late 1960’s, it seemed natural that a film adaptation of Herbert’s popular novel would follow. Arthur P. Jacobs, famed producer of Planet of the Apes, acquired the film rights to Dune in 1971. Unfortunately, Jacobs died on the set of a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn (pre-Big River, so forget that authentic country-inspired score.)
Produced by Hollywood hit-machine Reader’s Digest, this Huckleberry Finn film isn’t just the tragic final credit for Jacobs, nor is it simply the big-screen star turn of future Superman star Jeff East, it’s a solid encapsulation of the Hollywood that was attempting to adapt Herbert’s novel. Caught between a young generation of moviegoers favoring small-scale gritty realism and an older generation of moviegoers caught in nostalgia for the conservative excesses of a bygone era. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a big-budget, mind-bending sci-fi experience, doesn’t it?
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Perhaps the most famous film never made, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune was set to be an epic for the ages. After a French consortium purchased the film rights in 1974, Jodorowsky was tapped to direct.
The Chilean filmmaker had a proven track record of creating thought-provoking and controversial material. A trained mime and surrealist artist, Jodorowsky rose to prominence on the nascent “Midnight” circuit with his 1970 film El Topo. Screening for several months in New York City at the Elgin Theater, El Topo became a favorite of locals Yoko Ono and John Lennon, who convinced their manager Allen Klein to finance Jodorowsky’s next project. Jodorowsky’s next film, 1973’s The Holy Mountain, would be a breakthrough for the director, showcasing intricate set designs and surrealistic, psychedelic themes and characters. While a falling out with Klein would tank wide distribution opportunities for The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky continued to garner a cult following, and his appetite for directing ambitious projects only grew.
For Dune, Jodorowsky assembled a dream team of “spiritual warriors” to complete his vision. Straying from the source material but capturing what he saw as the essence of the novel, Jodorowsky’s film was to begin with an unprecedented wide shot of the universe, moving through lightyears as it ended on a race of dog people discovering a robot’s account of Arrakis. This would serve as a framing for the events of the film, which would star Jodorowsky’s son Brontis as Paul Atreides, Salvador Dalí as Emperor Shaddam IV, Orson Welles as Baron Harkonnen, and Mick Jagger as Feyd-Rautha, complete with an original score by Pink Floyd.
Despite an impressive roster of talent (not to mention daily, 6-hour long martial arts training sessions for Brontis that would last for two years), funding quickly became an issue. As French funding dried up, Jodorowsky turned to Hollywood, where he shopped around a large art book containing storyboards and concepts to the major studios. As mentioned before, Hollywood was still in the midst of its “New Wave” era, favoring intimate, grounded films such as Midnight Cowboy, The Last Picture Show, and Taxi Driver. On top of this tendency toward smaller-budget productions, the explicit and grotesque content of Jodorowsky’s planned adaptation scared studios worried about the film’s reception by older and family audiences.
Needless to say, Jodorowsky’s Dune never materialized. However, the team that Jodorowsky assembled proved long-lasting. Concept and visual effects artists Jean Giraud, H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, and Dan O’Bannon would team up to work on Ridley Scott’s Alien, while Giraud and O’Bannon would work together on Blade Runner.
David Lynch’s Dune
The first successful attempt for Herbert’s novel to reach the silver screen would happen nearly a decade later. After film rights for Dune were purchased from the former French consortium by famed producer Dino De Laurentiis (Serpico, King Kong, Flash Gordon), Ridley Scott was hired to direct. Unfortunately, the death of his brother Frank in 1982 ended a lengthy pre-production process. Scott, wanting desperately to throw himself into a project that would take his mind off his brother’s passing, decided to adapt Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, which would turn into Blade Runner.
Seeking a director to pass the reins toward, De Laurentiis hired David Lynch. Lynch, a rising star following his cult classic Eraserhead in 1977 and the acclaimed Elephant Man in 1980, was a natural choice for the material. With a hefty production budget and a moviegoing audience primed for epic space operas following Star Wars, David Lynch’s Dune seemed destined for greatness.
Sadly, market pressures would also hamper Lynch’s take. The cast for Lynch’s Dune was nearly as impressive as Jodorowsky’s planned lineup, including Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, Sting as Feyd-Rautha, and Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck. Yet the talents of the cast were no match for the anxieties of producers, or as Frank Herbert later described concerning the adaptation, “the potboilers of corporate boardrooms.” Over length and over budget, De Laurentiis mandated that the film be edited down and reshot to accommodate a conventional two-hour structure. This made for a confusing, jumbled finished product that Lynch himself would disavow. The film was released in 1984 to poor reviews and a dismal box office run.
While Lynch’s Dune was largely abhorred in its time, the film has gained a cult following over the decades. It lack of coherence and homophobic anachronisms notwithstanding, fans have gravitated toward its wacky camp value and the first collaboration between Lynch and Kyle MacLachlan, a partnership that would culminate in the seismic television event Twin Peaks.
Sci Fi – Frank Herbert’s Dune
Between 2000 and 2003, the Sci Fi Channel (now SyFy) conducted the mammoth undertaking of adapting three of Herbert’s Dune novels to miniseries. Written by Greg Harrison and directed by Greg Yaitanes, Frank Herbert’s Dune and Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune were praised for their faithfulness to the book series, but criticized for their relatively low production values and performances.
Still, the sight of young James McAvoy as Leto II and Susan Sarandon as Princess Wensicia is quite entertaining. If you want as much of the book series distilled in screen format and aren’t willing to read hundreds of pages, this is the adaptation for you. Just don’t expect the sand worms to look like sand worms, or for the sand to look like sand for that matter…
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune
And on to present day. Legendary Pictures acquired the film rights to Dune in 2011. Five years later, fresh off the critical and box office success of Arrival, director Denis Villeneuve expressed his interest in adapting Dune in an interview. By the end of 2016, Villeneuve was in talks with Legendary to direct the film.
Pre-production began in earnest two years later, with Timotheé Chalamet entering final negotiations to star as Paul Atreides in 2018. Principal photography began in March of 2019, with additional filming taking place in August of the following year. The release was delayed due to the pandemic, and the film’s theatrical box office run was stymied by Warner Bros.’ pandemic-era decision to platform all films on HBO Max concurrent with their theatrical releases.
While the first Dune film was met with positive reviews for its production design, score, and performances, it was criticized for its limited story scope. The first film ends with Paul and his mother Jessica escaping to the desert following the Harkonnen ambush. This concise structure left some fans feeling that the first Dune lacked the narrative heft that the book promises.
Luckily, Dune: Part Two succeeds in many aspects where its predecessor fails, offering sweeping visual moments of action and intricate character arcs. The increased narrative events precipitate the inclusion of some of Dune’s tastiest characters, most notably a delightful Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, who took inspiration from “animals, like a snake and a shark” for his performance.
Tongue of the Hidden
So, has Hollywood finally cracked the code where artists and auteurs failed? Is the box office return for Villeneuve’s adaptation evidence that compromise is the cornerstone of creative diplomacy? That the marketplace really can foster solutions where principles fail!?
Well, let’s just answer the essential question. Is Villeneuve’s Dune movie accurate to the book? In some respects, it’s very faithful. Its portrayal of many of the story elements, such as the Bene Gesserit, Mentats, and power struggles between alternate family houses, all follow closely to the source material. However, the deviations are impossible to ignore. Villeneuve’s Dune whitewashes large portions of Herbert’s Islam and indigenous peoples-inspired story. This is evidenced by the bowdlerization of the term jihad from the films, instead replaced by the terms holy war and crusade. The casting in and of itself is curious. While the Fremen are largely cast by actors of color, it’s admittedly strange watching Timotheé Chalamet claiming he’s the Lisan Al-Gaib (an Arabic phrase.)
While Villeneuve’s Dune may be the most financially and critically (for whatever that’s worth divorced from finances) successful adaptation, so much of the novel’s soul can’t be conveyed in a mass-market Hollywood film. Dune is a radical work of art; it portrays a struggle against colonialism and ecological deterioration as indigenous people seek vengeance on their oppressors. In other words, not something to which your typical Hollywood producers can relate.
So if you’re up for anything Dune-related, I highly recommend reading Herbert’s first book. If you can’t, then you can play the PS2 game from 2001. Just kidding…
What’s your favorite adaptation of the Dune series? Leave a comment below!
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