My Unconventional Journey to Becoming a Dune Fan

Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Kwisatz Haderach

At the time of this writing, Dune: Part Two from director Denis Villeneuve has amassed an impressive $368 million at the box office. That number will continue to climb as it expands to more markets and reaches new audiences. The movie is a hit, and it’s all but assured to receive a third entry in the series to form a trilogy. There has never been a better time to be a fan of the universe first crafted by author Frank Herbert in his novel Dune published all the way back in 1965. I would count myself among those fans, but my journey to becoming one is fairly unconventional.

My first exposure to Dune came in the ‘90s as a kid. It wasn’t through the books or the rather infamous movie adaptation. No, I first learned about Dune through the series of real-time strategy computer games. The first one I played was Dune 2000 from Intelligent Games and Westwood Studios in 1998. In all honesty, it didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I remember it as more or less being a Command & Conquer clone. It was fun enough, but it didn’t really do much to differentiate itself from other real-time strategy games at the time. The game that did catch my attention was Emperor: Battle for Dune.

Developed by Intelligent Games and Westwood Studios and published by EA Games in 2001, Emperor: Battle for Dune was a huge step up from Dune 2000. The basics of the game were you played as one of three Houses (House Atreides, House Harkonnen, or House Ordos), and you set about battling the other two Houses for control of the desert planet Arrakis and its precious natural resource: spice. While doing so, you also had to be wary of gigantic sandworms that could burst out of the sand and destroy your armies. I thought it was awesome and made for an incredibly fun experience.

Despite how much I enjoyed the game, I had no clue that it was based on a series of novels or that a Dune feature film even existed. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it’s true! I was completely and totally ignorant about the world of Dune outside of these computer games. I eventually became aware of the David Lynch film from the ‘80s, but it never really appealed to me. I pretty much stopped thinking about Dune altogether the older I got. Then I saw Jodorowsky’s Dune.

Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013) is one of the wildest documentaries about the making of a movie that I have ever seen. Directed by Frank Pavich, the documentary tells the story of the attempt by Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky in the 1970s to adapt Dune into the most ambitious science fiction film ever made. I would describe Jodorowsky as equal parts genius and madman. He came to prominence by making psychedelic experimental films like El Topo (1970) and Holy Mountain (1973). When I say these films are psychedelic, I mean it. Jodorowsky says very early in the documentary that he strives to make films that induce the effects of LSD in the audience without using the drug. Jodorowsky parlayed his success into securing the rights to adapt Dune despite having never read the novel. He then proceeded to accumulate the most ridiculous amount of talent I have ever seen to make this movie. He brought in Dan O’Bannon for special effects, Moebius and H.R. Giger for storyboards and set/character design, bands Pink Floyd and Magma for the score, and a cast that included David Carradine, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, Udo Kier, and Salvador Dali among others.

As you have probably guessed, the movie never actually got made. Despite that, many of Jodorowsky’s ideas were incorporated in his comic book series The Incal that was illustrated by Moebius. Many of the set designs from H.R. Giger were also used in Alien (written by the aforementioned Dan O’Bannon) and Prometheus. Most importantly (for me), it inspired me to finally watch the 1984 David Lynch movie.

I am sorry to say that I hated it. I didn’t even bother finishing it. Despite being directed by one of my favorite directors and starring the likes of Kyle MacLachlan, Patrick Stewart, Virginia Madsen, and Sting, I could just never get into it. I was immediately turned off by the exposition dump from Virginia Madsen at the beginning, and the constant voiceovers by the cast to explain what their characters were thinking drove me nuts. I don’t think I even got halfway through it before giving up.

As far as I was concerned, my time with Dune had come to an end. I never had any interest in watching any of the made-for-television miniseries, and even the announcement that Denis Villeneuve would be adapting the novel into a feature film in 2016 wasn’t enough to pique my interest (in my defense, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 hadn’t been released yet at that point, so I didn’t realize he was going to become one of the greatest science fiction directors on the planet). Of all of the things that could lead to me becoming a Dune fan, who would have thought it would be a global pandemic?

When the lockdowns started in the spring of 2020, I ended up confined to my apartment with nothing but free time on my hands. It was the perfect opportunity to tackle some novels that I hadn’t bothered to read because their length required some serious time commitment. What is a novel that fits that description? How about the 800 page behemoth known as Frank Herbert’s Dune? I figured if I was ever going to understand the reverence so many people have for this universe, now was the time. I devoured the entire thing in three days. I loved it. I found Frank Herbert’s prose to be mesmerizing, and the world he created was incredible. It became immediately apparent how influential this book had been on the science fiction and fantasy genres in the years since it was first published in 1965. It both established many tropes that have become prevalent in science fiction and fantasy, and it deconstructed some of those tropes as well. It was a fascinating examination of imperialism and colonialism while also exploring how dangerous ideas of messianic prophecies can be. It’s an incredible novel, and I would encourage anyone to read it. I also couldn’t have read it at a better time because Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One would be released the following year in 2021.

Armed with the knowledge from having just recently read the novel for the first time, I went into Dune: Part One with extremely high expectations. For the most part, those expectations were met. Villeneuve’s direction and Greig Fraser‘s cinematography created a film that was truly a visual spectacle. Combine that with fantastic performances from actors like Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, and many more, and you have yourself one hell of a film.

My only real complaint with the film is that it only adapts the first half of the novel, so it ends very abruptly with no resolution whatsoever. My enjoyment of this film and the novel convinced me to give the Lynch film another try, and you know what? It’s better than I initially gave it credit. It’s still an incredibly flawed film with some aspects that just scream “studio interference,” but it’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the source material that wasn’t afraid to be weird as hell. It isn’t a movie that I’ll ever love, but I at least get the appeal now.

That brings us to present day and the release of Dune: Part Two from Villeneuve. While I thought Dune: Part One was excellent, Dune: Part Two is a genuine masterpiece. From purely a visual standpoint, it is a spectacle on a level I haven’t seen since Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Villeneuve and Fraser have established themselves in my mind as the best duo in the world at crafting a science fiction spectacle that looks and feels truly unique. Combine that with Hans Zimmer’s incredible score, and you have a cinematic experience that must be experienced to be believed. The cast is also firing on all cylinders. Chalamet and Zendaya are fantastic as the leads, and new additions to the cast like Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and Lea Seydoux are all at the top of their games. Even Christopher Walken joins the fun this time around!

The film even makes some key changes to the source material to better clarify the message that Herbert had intended to deliver with his original novel. I’ve seen it three times on the big screen at this point, and I’m tempted to go back for more.

I enjoyed the film so much and was so excited to see how Villeneuve would handle the third film that I decided to finally start reading the other novels in the series written by Frank Herbert. Herbert wrote a total of six novels in the series: Dune (1965), Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune (1976), God Emperor of Dune (1981), Heretics of Dune (1984), and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985). There are another twenty novels cowritten by Herbert’s son (Brian Herbert) and Kevin J. Anderson that take place within this universe, but I have no intention of getting into those. I picked up Dune Messiah right after seeing the film for the second time, and I burned through it immediately. There is just something about Herbert’s writing style that makes his novels so easy to read and difficult to put down. I grabbed Children of Dune over the weekend, and I’m quickly churning through it as well. It may have taken a long time to get there, but I finally understand why this series is beloved by so many.