A Father and Daughter’s Journey through the Many Lives of Dune

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides in Dune (2021). Chiabella James

The wind was crisp as my dad, my husband, and I walked up to the Roseville AMC theater. I threaded my arm through my dad’s, and we linked up. He pulled me closer with a gentle smile.

“I’m so glad we get to this see this together,” he said.

A lump formed in my throat. “Me too.”

“There’s no one I’d rather see it with than you, sweetheart.”

I squeezed him. “Same.”

In some ways, it felt like a miracle my dad was walking next to me. He’s been through a lot this past year: He had a blockage in his heart, then he broke his back in March. When he fell, he landed on his head. Since then, his memory isn’t what it used to be. Honestly, we’re not sure whether it’ll ever get better.

My dad lives out on the East Coast. Between my having a baby and the pandemic, I’ve hardly seen him. Some days it feels like time is ticking down faster than it should. But maybe that’s because my dad’s health has been unstable my whole life. I’ve never had the luxury of assuming he’d be around for my next big milestone. When you grow up with a sick parent, that’s your ever-present reality.

And that reality made this moment—walking up to the theater—all the more precious.

Dune.

It’s our thing. And despite all the setbacks, my dad flew in just so we could see this movie together. As we got settled into our theater seats, we smiled stupidly at each other. When Chani’s voice began to narrate the film, another wave of emotion washed over me. I grasped his hand tightly in mine. The new movie was finally here, and most importantly, my dad was sitting right next to me to share it.

Sharon Duncan-Brewster as as Dr. Liet Kynes. Chiabella James

Dune is a story that’s permeated every part of me and soaked all the way down to my bones. I don’t remember life before Dune. It was always there with me, the way Star Wars was there for so many of my generation and the ones that followed me. My dad loved Dune, and because he loved it, he introduced the story to me the earliest he possibly could, which was with the 1984 film. For a long time, David Lynch’s version was the only version I knew. Flawed as the film is, it gave me a chance to share in my dad’s great love.

It wasn’t until middle school that I first tackled the books and discovered how truly wonderful and bizarre they are. I also discovered how different the book was from the movie I’d grown up with. Lynch’s film, however nostalgic I feel toward it, dilutes and abandons many of Frank Herbert’s most important themes. There are many different videos of the author explaining that the saga of Dune is about how leaders make mistakes, and how their mistakes are amplified by the number of people who unquestioningly follow them.

Lynch completely removed the manipulation of the Fremen and all of Paul’s complicated feelings as he gets swept up in a legend that isn’t of his making. This lack of nuance makes Paul’s motives too simplified and makes him too much of a savior. At the end of the film, he makes it rain on Arrakis. Not only does this solidify him as a weird superhuman savior, but it goes directly against what Herbert writes: worms die if they are subjected to water. It’s a weird oversight on Lynch’s part that would’ve made sequel movies rather difficult to tell.

David Lynch’s 1984 Dune. Universal Pictures

The 1984 adaptation also suffers from pacing issues. In order to fit the story into one movie, it skips most of the latter half of the book in a series of montages to get to the climax. There are other problems as well. My dad always hated how the Baron Harkonnen was portrayed in Lynch’s version—a weird, over-the-top, finger-tenting villain and a caricature of the book’s main antagonist.

When the Dune miniseries came to the Syfy channel in 2000, we were hopeful that it would be more faithful to the books and not rush through the story. We were disappointed. While the miniseries follows the books’ plot more closely than Lynch’s film, neither of us like how Paul’s character is written. He is bratty, self-absorbed, and extremely whiny, a significant change that makes it seem like the writers completely misunderstood the point of Dune’s story. The miniseries, like the previous film, also suffers from pacing issues. Important scenes are rushed through, while added scenes slow the story back down. The costumes are terrible, the dialogue poorly written, and the acting stiff. The Syfy sequel, Children of Dune (starring James McAvoy), is much better, but Dune 2000, in my dad’s and my opinion, is subpar to Dune 1984.

Given the mountain of issues surrounding these adaptations, we weren’t sure whether there would ever be a version of Dune that would do the book justice. Dune is a dense, complicated story. It’s written in third person omniscient, which means the reader knows what everyone is thinking all the time. The book starts slow and gradually ramps up the pace. There’s a reason it had been 20 years since someone last tried to adapt Dune for the screen.

Ty Franck, one of the authors of the Expanse novels (under the joint pen name James S. A. Corey) and executive producer for its TV adaptation, wrote on Twitter earlier this year, “I still believe that Dune is the novel that great movie directors break themselves on.” This is a very telling take.

My dad and I, like many lovers of the books, were skeptical when we heard Denis Villeneuve was going to attempt another adaptation. Given the structure of the book and all of our past experiences, could he actually figure out how to bring the best-selling science fiction novel of all time to the big screen?

After viewing his movie Arrival, I felt like there was a good chance Villeneuve could pull it off. After Blade Runner 2049, I had absolute confidence. The pacing, direction, and feel of those films told me I could trust him with Dune. My dad remained skeptical until he watched the first trailer, and even then he still wasn’t sure about “that kid” who was playing Paul because he looked so young. When I reminded my dad that Paul is 15 in the books, he said, “I know, but I’m used to the old movie. I’m trying to be open.”

In the theater, after the Gom Jabbar scene, my dad leaned over to me and whispered, “I changed my mind about ‘the kid.’ He’s amazing.”

Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) tests Paul (Timothée Chalamet) in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. Chiabella James

Amazing indeed. Timothée Chalamet perfectly embodies all of Paul’s complexity and nuance, and the same can be said for Rebecca Ferguson and her portrayal of Lady Jessica. It is easy to understand what these characters are thinking even without the whisper thought dialogue that Lynch relied so heavily upon in his version. Chalamet is Paul.

My dad and I elbowed each other constantly throughout the movie because there were so many moments that blew us away. From the little details (such as the bull’s head that Leto preserves after the untimely death of his father) to the execution of the Voice, we were smitten.

The design of the ornithopters got the biggest reaction from us. Most of Dune’s technology is described vaguely in the book, which leaves a lot of room for imagination. Both the 1984 and 2000 versions had similar designs that envisioned the aircraft as short and boxy with little wings. But in Villeneuve’s film, they look like dragonflies.

Designing the aircrafts for DUNE was the perfect intersection between art, biology and engineering. I was honored to help visualize Denis Villenueve’s world and to help the ships become characters in his visionary film. #dune #frankherbert #conceptart #scifi pic.twitter.com/2G4EdfABei

— GeorgeHullDesign (@georgehullcom) October 27, 2021

After the movie was over, we gushed about how well done it was and how beautiful it looked. The pacing was good, the events were close to how they were plotted in the book, and we loved the design of the sandworms.

We had our criticisms, of course. Both of us wished Gurney Halleck and Thufir Hawat had had bigger roles. I also wish we could’ve spent more time with the Harkonnens. Piter de Vries, the baron’s mentat, is onscreen, but I don’t believe his name is ever mentioned. We also both wish there had been more time with Dr. Yueh. A large part of the novel is about the Atreides family’s knowledge that there was a traitor on Dune and their failed attempts at smoking them out.

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck. Chiabella James

Villeneuve also changes some of the story to bring the theme of colonization to the forefront and make it the main one of the movie. This mostly involved little changes, such as the Fremen being more distrustful of the Atreides family. I was fine with these save for one line: Liet Kynes talking about how the Fremen wanted to change Dune into a paradise world until the spice was discovered, and then nobody wanted the desert to go away. This throwaway line has some implications if later books are to be adapted. The dream of turning the desert into a paradise wasn’t something the Fremen had ever thought of, either—that dream began with Liet’s father, also an imperial ecologist.

The fact that I had such a visceral reaction to this change shows how protective I feel over Dune’s story. But if these are our biggest complaints, it shows how well Villeneuve adapted the book. In the end, our criticisms are just nitpicks.

As I write this, the internet is still buzzing over the movie. There are memes going around. People are expressing their love for the film and are excited for more. Honestly, this is a dream come true. It’s like the general public has finally discovered the thing that is so precious to me.

Chiabella James

Dune: Part Two is coming. I’ve seen other book fans joke about what it would be like to adapt the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune, for the big screen—a book that would be 10 times more difficult to adapt than the first novel. If you haven’t read the books and want to know what I mean (and don’t mind being spoiled a little), just look at the book cover art. You’ll see what I mean.

Whether the Dune sequels will be adapted remains to be seen. For now, I’m just enjoying the ride. Dune will be on HBO Max for a few more weeks, and I plan to watch it again during that time. The Dune revival is here, and because of it, the spice continues to flow.