What Is the Movie DUNE About?

You’ve probably been bombarded with press interviews and red carpet photos of the beautiful Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet promoting the movie Dune. But besides two beautiful people in a desert, like me, you’re probably wondering, “What is the movie Dune about?”

Well, after watching the movie Dune, I’m genuinely still having a bit of a hard time answering that question but you know, we’ll still try.

Let’s just break it down one by one.

This is such a complex question because Dune has such an immensely BLOATED plot. There are so many unique elements that are introduced to the story, yet not expanded on. There are so many really cool concepts, yet these individual concepts were not well woven together.

We were constantly getting introduced to new aspects of this new futuristic world and the people within it without digging deeper into any of them.

I want to touch on all these elements and lay all the puzzle pieces out so we can see what we’re working with here.

The different elements of Dune include: THE DREAMS, THE VOICE, THE BOX OF PAIN, THE MESSIAH NARRATIVE (the chosen one), POLITICS, and THE SAND MONSTER.

DREAMS

“Dreams are messages from the deep.”

Off the bat, these are the first words that greet you when watching this movie. Immediately after that, we see Paul wake up from a cryptic dream. Obviously, the concept of dreaming is going to be an integral aspect of the plot. However, the importance of the dreams was highly understated and quite underwhelming.

We see Zendaya, this mysterious desert girl doing absolutely nothing important. I read a tweet that said it looked like she was doing a perfume commercial and there is literally nothing more spot-on than that. Just a beautiful desert girl looking like a supermodel.

What is the significance?

By the end of the movie, we meet her in real life and it felt completely meaningless. Her presence in the movie held no weight. You could remove all the scenes with her in it and the film would make just as much sense.

I heard that the dreams and Zendaya’s character would play a more prominent role in Dune Part 2 but that doesn’t exempt Part 1 from being a full well-rounded story.

THE VOICE

“The voice” is an incredibly intriguing concept that was introduced near the very beginning of the Dune story. It’s this powerful, compelling tone that can persuade anyone to do anything against their will. This ability is cultivated within the Bene Gesserit which is a mystic group of women that most closely resembles a witch coven in my mind.

“The voice” is a super cool superpower and sends chills down your spine when you see it in action so I fully expected it to become a consistent, exciting point of the plot.

Instead, it was used maybe two times in total during the whole movie?? It was so disappointing that “the voice” didn’t play a bigger role. I really was hungry for more of this powerful tool but they totally underused it.

THE BOX OF PAIN

Moving forward, the Bene Gesserit discovers that Paul is having these intense, important dreams and the leader of the coven finds him and puts him to the test.

This test is a strange one.

Very strange indeed…

The convent mother (AKA: Reverend Mother) puts Paul’s hand in a box of pain and threatens that if he removes his hand, she’ll poison him with a needle she holds centimeters away from his neck.

As a viewer, many questions arise in my mind. What is this box? How does it hold pain? And how many other strange spontaneous tests will the Bene Gesserit subject Paul to?

All of these questions were left hanging in the air.

In fact, the Reverend Mother doesn’t make much of an appearance again.

It was disappointing to have such an intense moment that felt like it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.HE MESSIAH NARRATIVE

After Paul’s encounter with the Reverend Mother, we discover that Paul is suspected to be “the chosen one.” A savior of some kind to free the people of the Desert Nation (I assume).

Apparently, the Bene Gesserit have been trying for over 1,000 years to create the perfect combination of genes in order to breed “the chosen one,” who was supposed to be a girl for some reason.

They were mad at Paul’s mother for not giving birth to a girl, as if she had power over that, and I just wanted to know more. Could she control the baby’s gender? Off topic but a totally valid curiosity…

When Paul lands in the desert nation with his family and his people, the desert inhabitants view him as their Messiah.

Besides these two moments, we don’t really revisit or build upon what exactly Paul’s purpose as a Messiah is.

What are those prophecies about the Messiah, who they are, and what they do? I still feel like it’s a bit too much of a mystery.

POLITICS

Now this is the aspect of the movie that is probably the most elusive to me.

I’m not good with politics and don’t care for it but there was definitely this war and tension between nations going on.

Nations were taking advantage of the desert land and harvesting its spice for their own purposes.

Then the King of all the nations decided to kick the Bald Kingdom out of the Desert Nation and have the Ocean Kingdom rule them instead?? (I don’t remember names, I remember the big picture.)

A lot of deceit, secret plans, backstabbing, and the like went on and I quite frankly could not follow all of it.

I would say, out of all the elements in this story, the politics of the spice on the desert planet was the most consistently prevalent element of the story. It drove the main conflicts of Dune but was also the least interesting and most confusing part of the story to me.

I simply wasn’t invested in that part of the narrative.

THE SAND WORM

There were gigantic sand worms added to the story to heighten the danger of the “already dangerous desert.”

Let me just pause for a moment and say that despite how treacherous, blazingly hot, and deadly this desert was, I did not see a single droplet of sweat, fatigue, or heat exhaustion on anyone’s face.

In fact, Paul was walking around in the desert maskless several times and I was just thinking — didn’t they say you’d die if you’re unprotected for too long? Why does he look so comfortable?

Anywho – back to the sand worm.

So the sand worm was YET another obstacle to the story, disrupting spice harvesting and posing a threat to civilians on the desert land.

My issue with the whole thing is that there are TOO many obstacles being presented where it becomes overwhelming and we don’t get immersed in fully understanding the danger of one obstacle let alone 10.

There are the harsh conditions of the desert, then the sand worms, then the bald guy who floats, then the Reverend mother with her box of pain, then the “killer bee” — all of these antagonists to the story weaken the plot.

Less really is more.

Give us one or two main antagonists that the audience can digest and expand on them.

Introducing several antagonists weakens their danger. We need to spend quality time with both the agonists and antagonists to truly become involved in the outcome of their battle.

This film had a whole two and half hours to get us immersed in the characters and it just wasn’t done.

Favorite Aspects of Dune 2021

Obviously, this film was visually stunning. Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya are easy on the eyes and the film took full advantage of this (almost too much).

Paul (Chalamet) definitely should have had his mask on more in the desert. Idk how he didn’t die of dehydration and heat stroke.

The world-building was phenomenal. From the landscapes to the costumes to the advanced technology. It was truly a spectacle to behold.

The soundtrack also was so majestic and watching it in theatres really sends the vibrations of the intense moments straight down your spine.

The marketing team for this movie really put their back into it! Zendaya and Timothee were absolutely EVERYWHERE looking fly as heaven being their cute selves.

However…

As beautiful as this movie was, the overcrowded plot and the dragging pace had me dozing in the theatre. So many elements were thrown at me that it became difficult to follow them all and even more difficult to re-engage with every new element.

Plot-wise, this movie was really lacking for me. I know there’s going to be part 2 but part 1 is supposed to draw you in in the first place. The way the movie ended doesn’t have me eagerly anticipating another installment of this story.

A good plot is the foundation of a good movie and Dune didn’t put as much effort into a seamless plot as they put into the more shallow elements of the story. And for that, I can’t love it.

I wanted to love it. I really did but it almost put me to sleep with how disengaged it left me.