The trailer for Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune arrived this morning, heralding another attempt to adapt author Frank Herbert‘s sci-fi triumph for the big screen.
The clip is brilliant news for fans of the series, folks who geek out on the director’s earlier work, and people who enjoy looking at Timothée Chalamet.
But the flick may present a challenge for those who like to read the novel before planting themselves in front of the big screen, as Dune is a verified chunker.
My copy is 794 pages – and that’s before the appendices, maps, and translation guide.
@queen.murder.explosionElio Oliver ##callmebyyourname ##lgbt ##gay ##dune ##timotheechalamet♬ original sound – theatrenerd219
Villeneuve himself confirmed the events of Dune will be split into two films, and Dune itself is the first book in a series of six, not including the extended universe gear which Herbert left for his son to write.
What I’m getting at: Dune, the book, is a weird and worthwhile read, but you may not have time in your busy day to suss out the subtleties of the Harkonnen lineage or work out the difference between Fremen and the Fedaykin.
For that, we have memes.
The DUNE trailer looks so good pic.twitter.com/2Pw7K13Ms5
— Jorge Molina (@colormejorge) September 9, 2020
Dune is the story of Paul Atreides (Chalamet), the scion of a noble family, who is forced to adapt to a new life on the harsh planet of Arrakis. His initial impressions of the place are not good.
As some punters have pointed out, it’s a little bit Holes, but with extra royalty.
https://twitter.com/mycterismus/status/1303887909934829573
dune looks really cool pic.twitter.com/whwLOtIHoX
— adam (@adam_notsandler) September 10, 2020
so excited for dune ✨ pic.twitter.com/OqQbJ9XI0X
— monika 📼 (@cinemoni) September 9, 2020
Arrakis is a pretty dire place, with the vast majority of the planet’s surface covered by roiling deserts. More perceptive readers may have already ascertained this is where the name Dune comes from.
I lost my shit watching the Dune trailer when Paul said his famous line from the book pic.twitter.com/d17jQ9hCO7
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) September 10, 2020
Dune trailer review pic.twitter.com/iy3CITCou1
— Ryan Perry (@rynprry) September 10, 2020
The Atreides family arrives on the planet to oversee the extraction of an extremely valuable resource called spice, which, essentially, makes space travel and interplanetary colonisation possible. More on that later.
The whole ‘ripping resources from the earth to power civilisation’ thing makes Dune a bit of an ecological fable, and some folks have, perhaps bleakly, compared the trailer’s orange-cast cinematography with real-world imagery of red skies over America’s West Coast.
https://twitter.com/filmbypeterp/status/1303864101093875712
But other folks want in on those fossil fuels spice, leading the extended Harkonnen clan (Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, and more) to cause a ruckus.
As the Atreides clan deals with threats both political and environmental, Paul encounters a third group – the Fremen – who have, against all the odds, learned to live on Arrakis’ seemingly barren wastes. That’s where Zendaya and her mates come in.
zendaya and the sun in dune. that’s. that’s the tweet. pic.twitter.com/ITzTszLa9g
— fran multi 💫🕷️🕸️ (@hpspideywayne) September 9, 2020
There’s a fourth group which lives on the planet, though. Really, this group is the planet.
Anyway, that group is giant fucking worms.
https://twitter.com/ldrinkh20/status/1303716465758134274
https://twitter.com/chillipede/status/1303876230169718785
people who don’t care about dune be like: pic.twitter.com/X7q69Bok1M
— lukas (@traiinspottiing) September 9, 2020
https://twitter.com/colinyourking/status/1303878406656921601
mfw Dune trailer releases tomorrow pic.twitter.com/CaiM39tJWy
— guy online (@fellawhomstdve) September 8, 2020
— guy online (@fellawhomstdve) September 9, 2020
Everything on the planet is locked in a delicate cycle, including the creation of spice itself. There’s a lot going on under the surface. Shake in some matrilineal warlocks, nose tubes, time-warping dreams, and a grown man named Gurney, and you’re halfway there.
— (e)𝕷𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊𝖏𝖔𝖍𝖓 (@eclittlejohn) September 8, 2020
Dune is slated to hit cinemas on December 18. Feel free to revisit this article as many times as necessary before then.
don’t get me wrong. dune looks great. but. i simply can’t ignore the similarities of the worm to a cats asshole. pic.twitter.com/KnWi7e8ehR
— elise evans (@someones_evans) September 9, 2020
