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Sep 9, 2020 · Fans of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi book know the plot of Dune, but fans of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya may not. Here’s a quick summary of what you need to know, from the main characters ...
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A mythic and emotionally charged hero's journey, "Dune" tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people.
Sep 8, 2021 · Longtime fans of the "Dune" novels and the (admittedly campy) 1984 adaptation are excited to see how director Denis Villeneuve brings this iconic story to life in his upcoming film.
- Henry Blodget
- "A movie about fate and destiny.”
- What Is Dune About?
- Dune Movie Images
- Why Dune Was Split Into Two Movies
- Who Are the Bad Guys in Dune?
- Dune's Desert Planet: Where Was Dune Shot?
By Jim Vejvoda
Updated: Sep 9, 2020 4:25 pm
Posted: Sep 9, 2020 4:23 pm
Note: IGN screened an extended, press-only version of the Dune trailer launch Q&A that included additional quotes from the cast and director.
Dune director Denis Villeneuve was the same age as the story’s 15-year-old protagonist Paul Atreides when he first read Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel. Villeneuve devoured the first book and went on to read the entire series. “I became obsessed by it,” said Villeneuve, whose passion for Dune arrived at the same time as he first dreamed about making films. “I felt that it had a massive potential on the screen.” Now, decades later, Denis Villeneuve’s realization of his lifelong obsession to adapt Dune as a film is almost finished. The first trailer for Dune was released Wednesday, providing viewers with their best look yet at Villeneuve’s interpretation.
During a trailer launch Q&A with host Stephen Colbert, another huge fan of Herbert’s books, Villeneuve shed light on what makes Dune unique among sci-fi sagas and what the story and his screen adaptation are really about beyond giant sandworms and space spice.
As a teen reading the book for the first time, Villeneuve was “craving” for “deep human adventure” and found it within the pages of Dune. “It was a very powerful, human story.” But, over the years, Villeneuve has appreciated the multiple levels Herbert’s story works on:
“At its core, Dune is, you can see it from an angle as a simple adventure, powerful but simple epic adventure story. But it has so many roots in so many things. That is why it makes the books so rich. And we tried to keep that richness in the movies. So it's always tricky to choose one word or one specific theme because it has so many elements. But I would say that you could say it's that humans, we need to earn our destiny in order to change the world. And it's something for me, the movie's a kind of a call for action, for us to change things. Specifically for the youth. And that's what I would say, yeah. A movie about fate and destiny.”
Oscar Isaac, who plays the noble Duke Leto Atreides I, father of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul, agrees with that grounded, relatable assessment. For Isaac, Dune is ultimately about “the clash of cultures and tribes. And the vast cultural history of humanity. And I think that's what Frank Herbert was really interested in. And so, this has a lot more to d...
But as intimate and human as Dune is, it takes place on a vast universe populated with many complex characters and story threads. That’s why one of Villeneuve’s conditions for production company Legendary Pictures, when he agreed to direct Dune, was that it be split into two films.
“It's completely natural for us as screenwriters to break the story in two parts,” Villeneuve explained. “But the movie itself has its own arc, it is totally sustained itself as one journey. But to tell the [whole] story, we needed two movies.”
One of the many rich yet complicated aspects of Dune is the vicious dynamic between the rival Great Houses that control politics, wealth, and power in the Galactic Padishah Empire. In a nutshell, Duke Leto’s House Atreides are the good guys and House Harkonnen -- led by Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron Vladimir Harkonnen -- are the bad guys. For Villeneuve, distilling such complex maneuvering down into an understandable subplot for this first movie proved “a challenge,” but he cited one particular cast member as his “secret weapon” for making it work.
“The politics of Dune is quite interesting and we try to keep it as simple as possible, keeping how rich it is. That was a challenge. I will say that my secret weapon for that was Stellan Skarsgård,” Villeneuve explained. The morbidly obese Baron Harkonnen is strapped into “suspensors” in order for him to be able to move (or, more precisely, float), which lent itself to how Villeneuve could depict the power dynamics between the Baron and other characters. “Because you put Stellan with the way we designed the Baron and we shoot him after five seconds onscreen, people will understand right away with is his position regarding the Atreides and the difference of moral values between the Atreides and the Harkonnens. So, frankly, I use the full power of cinema in order to bring that tension alive.”
In addition to demanding that Dune be split into two movies, Villeneuve‘s other condition when signing with Legendary was to film the scenes set on the planet Arrakis in a real desert. (The movie was partially shot in Jordan.) Beyond just giving his actors a tangible environment to respond to and the camera a real-world to capture -- “My argument was that they didn't shoot Jaws in a swimming pool” -- Villeneuve said filming in an actual desert was also key to conveying one of the main components of Frank Herbert’s novel and its environmentalist themes.
“Dune is about [an] ecosystem. At the very core, what I deeply love about Dune is [the] exploration of life and the ecosystem and biosphere,” the director explained. “And all the science that Frank Herbert put behind that, it's so beautiful, it's so poetic. I think that in order to bring Dune to the screen, I needed to be as close to nature as possible.”
Oct 21, 2021 · Here's everything you need to know about the original book, its follow-up stories and the various attempts at adapting the story to film. Spoilers follow from the books!
Dune (titled onscreen as Dune: Part One) is a 2021 American epic science fiction film directed and co-produced by Denis Villeneuve, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth. It is the first of a two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert.
Feb 27, 2024 · “Dune: Part One” began with House Atreides being given control of Arrakis, a desert planet whose harsh conditions mask rich deposits of spice. Water is extremely scarce, and the massive...
