Frank Herbert's Dune has graced celluloid before, twice actually, with the first, David Lynch's legendary but polarizing vision, having surfaced in various edits. The second adaptation proved a popular, John Harrison-helmed, SyFy miniseries that begat a popular, Harrison/Greg Yaitanes-helmed sequel. Prior, proposed attempts by Franklin J. Schaffner and Alejandro Jodorowsky have become legendary, to the point that their unfilmed constructions have made indelible, what-if marks among Herbert's sect.
One could argue against retelling the extraterrestrial Lawrence of Arabia yet again, but when it comes to transferals-to-film, one can't keep a good book down. (Consider The War of the Worlds, Treasure Island, Jekyll/Hyde, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Moby Dick, Beauty and the Beast and Hamlet, to cite but a few.) This third Dune won't be the last. Count on that, and I'm not referencing the promised Part 2, either, but remakes yet to be born. And yes, you read me right: Dune '21 is but half the novel, with another cinematic installment teetering on the horizon with an undisclosed release date.
When push comes to shove, and no matter the risky content split, one must accept the fact that another savored mythology has been rehashed: a dreamy, exotic thing based on other dreamy, exotic things that have sprung from applauded literature. Fans of Herbert's work won't turn away from it, even if they should choose to admonish it.
But how does director Denis (Blade Runner 2049) Villeneuve's Part 1 hold up? His screenplay, co-penned with Jon Sapihts and Eric Roth, is well paced. From that, Dune draws one in as would any silken, theatrical narrative. Its Parnassian visuals, Greig Fraser's cativating cinematography and Han Zimmer's metaphysical score also embolden the package.
The plot, of course, is known to the point of arguable fault (whether severed or in whole), so I won't restate the capitalist-driven strand here. I'll simply share the obligatory, who's-who, character/cast roster: Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides; Oscar Issac as Leto Atreides; Rebecca Fergusen as Lady Jessica; Jason Mamoa as Duncan Idaho; Josh Brolin as Gurney Hallek; Javier Bardem as Stilgar; Dave Bautista as Glassu Rabban; Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet-Kynes; Zendaya as Chani; Charlotte Rambling as Gaius Helen Mohiam; Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh; David Dastmachian as Peter de Vries; and Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, "the floating fat man". (Alas, there's no Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in this segment, which to me is like leaving Little John or Friar Tuck out of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, but then they're obviously saving him for Part 2, right? I'd choose Justin Beiber for the role. The little-girl demographic would drive ticket sales through the Arrakis roof!)
In the revisionist scheme of things, there are other wee nuances that come and go with this venturesome, giant-worm warm-up, and that will happen with any retelling, but I suppose the ravagers-raping-the-spice-laden-land implication remains in the forefront and could be taken as an allegory for current immigration abuses (which really comes down to translocating imperialism, you know), but the allusion is more a matter of accidental timing and something that could (should) fall to the wayside with the second half. (Dune's "petroleum-warring" allusion, though, will probably continue to penetrate, if one so chooses to acknowledge it.) The point is, Herbert's saga (with books and movies combined) can mean whatever one wishes. In other words, Dune isn't precisely parabolic in the manner of Planet of the Apes or Star Trek.
I don't mean any disrespect in stating that, for there's nothing wrong with a saga being no more than an exciting exploit. Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan stories are a string of such examples, and for the enjoyment they bring, they deliver the goods without a hitch. Herbert's novels and their '21 half-incarnation pluck Burrough's strings, though with a Jack Kennedy surrogate leading the loquacious, neo-Camelot pageantry.
If its aesthetic exposition earns majority approval, the new Dune could result in a thriving, theatrical franchise. In this regard, it could become, as its advance supporters have been fast to blab, the next Lord of the Rings, but then the distinguished John Carter deserved that eminent niche, and we all know how that turned out. Guess we'll just have to see what the ol' cha-ching determines in this arenaceous instance. Yeah, I believe Part 2 will be greenlit, but will it be enough to spread fanatical cheer or a lackluster, exclusive-streaming premiere? As the petulant Prince of Denmark so proclaimed, "Ay, there's the rub."
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