Dune is the latest movie adaptation of the first part of the first novel in Frank Herbert's Dune book franchise. The novel follows Paul Atreides and the battle for the galaxy's most valuable resource.

Dune, in my eyes, is most famous for unofficially inspiring Star Wars. Because of this and my undying love for the film franchise, I was worried that Dune would feel like a rip-off of Star Wars (even though the original novel of Dune came first). Fortunately, I didn't feel ripped off; the two movies felt very different, however shared some similar elements. The main story, which was probably one of the weakest parts of Dune, didn't seem to have inspired Star Wars all that much. Rather, there were features that were similar between the two such as the presence of a desert planet, spice, space travel and 'sand people'. In fact, it was these elements that I loved the most about Dune. It felt like Dune and Star Wars could actually be co-existing in the same universe which made it feel like we were almost watching a Star Wars movie. Disney recently released an experimental series of short anime episodes 'inspired' by Star Wars. This series was painful to watch and was possibly the worst thing to ever have come out of Star Wars (maybe except for the infamous Holiday Special). Dune felt like a better version of this experiment and felt similarly 'inspired' by Star Wars with the inclusion of elements like an Emporer, the Messiah or Chosen One and beings similar to Jedi using mind tricks or the Voice. I know that this was not the case since Dune came first and the two movies are made by competing studios, however, this made the movie more enjoyable to watch for me personally.

The best part of Dune for me were the similarities to Star Wars. However, for many, the best parts will be the incredible planets, costumes and ships, which coincidentally are often the best parts of Star Wars. Dune was a movie that was easy to marvel at and is one that will likely be remembered favourably in movie history. The movie's visual effects and cinematography including the clever yet intense music will be analysed in future media classes.

The most captivating part of Dune was watching the spectacular space things happening on screen. At no point was I ever really captivated by the story or the characters' journey. The story was at points weird and creepy whilst the lack of likeable characters could turn many people off this movie. Often the movie sidetracked and lost pace from some epic action to show a vision or try to explain the story a bit more. The movie was also very confusing with lots of space-terms that will go straight over most people's heads. This may have also been what added to a lack of fascination for the story.

The movie was also very long. And I felt that the longer it went on, the worse it got. I was impressed for the earlier parts of the movie by the cool sci-fi tech but once I grew used to these elements, there wasn't anything to keep me from getting bored. I haven't yet read the book so I cannot be certain of this, but it felt that everything that was in the book was crammed into the movie. Dune is a hard book to adapt into a movie due to its density and stacks of detail. However, modern cinema technology allowed director Denis Villeneuve to succeed in making a stunning piece of cinema. It's just that any movie adaption of Frank Herbert's novel will struggle with making a good movie out of a story that was meant for a novel.

It is because of all this that Dune is not for everyone. The average movie-goer who wants an enjoyable easy-to-watch movie will probably not like Dune. However, critics, fellow movie-makers and those who can appreciate a movie beyond a hard-to-watch storyline will probably enjoy Dune or at least be able to admire and applaud the director for creating an impressive movie from a book that has already spawned a poor movie adaptation.

There's no doubt that Dune is an incredible piece of cinema. Its exciting effects sequences as well as the costumes and similar astonishing elements made the movie a spectacle to watch. However, its lack of likeable characters and a gripping story unfortunately would turn off the majority of average movie-goers.

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Mamoa, Zendaya

Year released: 2021

My rating: 6.5/10

Review by Tristan Carr

Last edited: 10/04/2022