In other words, when making an adaption of the Dune novel, take away all that makes it extraordinarily epic, such as its brutal take on toxic capitalism and its detrimental effect on cultures and climates, not to mention its more nuanced take on the dangers of cult of personalities slash hero worship, among other critical subplots, and you end up mostly with a Diet Dune a la a George Lucas Star Wars Trilogy.
Now, I’m not saying that Lucas’ Star Wars isn’t wasn’t epic, because it certainly was to this former 1977 twelve-year-old, but what I am saying is that I have to agree with what Denis Villeneuve said during a recent interview in Madrid while out on global tour pimping Dune II out to international Academy Award voters in hopes of snagging an Oscar nomination from them.
Q. There was a generation that grew up with Star Wars as something more than a simple cultural reference, and to this another followed perhaps that did the same with The Lord of the Rings. Will Dune be able to do the same?
A. It would be very pretentious of me to try to compare myself to those two cultural icons. The potential lies in the novel itself. It is a mythological story that has been extended over countless novels. In fact, I would dare to say that Star Wars is nothing more than an interesting adaptation of Dune. I think George Lucas should admit it. (My emphasis)
Denis Villeneuve: “Star Wars is nothing more than an interesting adaptation of Dune. I think George Lucas should admit it”, El Mundo, November 27, 2024
A lot of folks felt slash feel that way, especially Dune’s author Frank Herbert, as thoroughly discussed in and evidenced by Polygon’s in-depth article.
To fans of Dune, especially of Dune the novel, this debate is nothing new, obviously since Herbert led the charge upon the release of Star Wars.
But for those of you new to the debate, I could list here all the ways that Star Wars is, if not Dune-adapted, then at the least Dune-inspired, such as the easy ones like The Force, Luke, use The Force versus the Voice of the Ben Gesserit, or the similarities between Princess Leia and Princess Alia, but there are many, many nerdy articles out there that can identify them better than me. And the Nerdist has one of them.
Before we just dismiss this so-called debate as nothing more than a nerdy scifi Inside Baseball spat, we need to consider the legacies. George Lucas is a gazillionaire with a name that even non-scifi nerds all throughout the globe probably already know, or at least are familiar with.
I feel comfortable guessing that on the same global scale of non-scifi nerds the name Frank Herbert barely even registers, and that Herbert’s estate is nowhere close to being worth the gazillions that Lucas is.
Anyway… as an aside, Villeneuve’s Dune I was epic, not as epic as the first Star Wars obviously because that set the precedent for epic scifi films, but epic in a fresh and creative way nonetheless.
His Dune II, however, is highly forgetable to me. Literally, it was so boring I snoozed through most of it so I don’t really have a clue what it was about or how it compares to the novel. I guess I need to screen it again to see if it has the same lullaby effect as the first viewing.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Villeneuve was on his hustle enough to get the votes for an Oscar nomination for it. If not, then my initial take is probably right and it would be a waste of time to watch it again.
While you’re here, why don’t you pop on over to Amazon and snag one of my books today. They are all free until midnight tonight (PST), including my latest release, Sorrow.
An aging white male forsakes humanity, changes his name to Sorrow, and begins identifying as an it, just as its white son learns his Black girlfriend is pregnant, and you begin a murderous rampage targeting interracial couples just like them...