Dune

No one was more excited to watch the film adaptation of ‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert than my father was. He had forced me to read the book before there was even any vague concept of a new movie being made, and I guess I should listen to his advice more often, because ‘Dune’ is one of the best science-fiction books ever to be written.

If I’m being honest, when I first heard about the upcoming film, I was a little skeptical. People have always considered ‘Dune’ to be somewhat… unfilmable. There are so many fantastical elements and characters and creations that I thought would only be possible to envision in my mind, and the 1984 movie adaptation by David Lynch only proved this belief (Spoiler alert: it was a disaster). So, I was pleasantly surprised when the ‘Dune’ movie, directed by Denis Villeneuve, managed to recreate everything almost to perfection. The experience of watching it was immersive in a sense, something that the 1984 film couldn’t achieve. 

With its star-studded cast (Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, and Josh Brolin among others), this movie was destined to be a box-office hit, and sure enough, it earned over $40 million in the opening weekend itself.

Timothee Chalamet was perfectly cast as Paul Atreides, a royal heir who is speculated to be the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’, which is something of a superbeing in the world of ‘Dune’. 

The movie sounds great, right? But here’s the catch – you will not enjoy this movie until you have read Frank Herbet’s book first. Although the movie tried to keep the made-up languages of Arrakis and Caladan, there’s a high chance that the film will make zero sense to you unless you read the book first. I loved watching it, so did my father (although he was a bit disappointed), but my sister, who has never read the book, had a confused look on her face the whole time.

In my opinion, the ‘Dune’ film adaptation was incredibly well-made, but it was incomplete. They appeared to have expected their entire audience to have read the book, and did not spend enough time introducing the characters, or giving a background to the story. The story itself felt somewhat rudimentary – the film did not manage to capture even one-fourth of the book’s intricate plot. 

My suggestion is to either read Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ before watching it – or watch Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation for its art rather than the story.