New images from Dune show Harkonnen troops, the Fremen and more

With each new image from Dune, my hype grows. Also, director Denis Villeneuve explains why he was “half-satisfied” with David Lynch’s 1984 version.

It’s Thursday, which means that…let me check…yes, I am still very excited to see Arrival director Denis Villeneuve’s take on Dune, the classic sci-fi book by Frank Herbert. Empire put out a new issue today with Dune as the centerpiece, which brought a closer look at the modern classic in the making.

Okay, yes, I may be overselling a film I haven’t even seen, but just look at some of this stuff:

This is a very early scene from the story, where the young noble Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) meets with Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), a Reverend Mother of the powerful Bene Gesserit sisterhood, which holds sway throughout the galaxy in Herbert’s far-flung future. The Bene Gesserit have spent millennia tracing genes through generations in the hope of creating a messianic figure known as the Kwisatz Haderach, and Gaius Mohiam is here to see if Paul is that figure. The test to find out is not a pleasant one.

The test on happens on Paul’s home world of Caladan, which is covered in lush forests. He eventually leaves with his father and mother for the desert planet of Arrakis, aka Dune, where the bulk of the story is set.

The Padishah Emperor has charged Paul’s father Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) with governing Dune, but it may be a trap. Duke Leto hopes to survive it by making headway with the Fremen, the native people of the planet. Living among them is Liet Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), an ecologist who has a dream of terraforming Dune into a green planet flowing with water.

But there’s a lot that has to happen before that can be achieved. On Dune, the Atreides aren’t just opposed by the harsh conditions, but also the forces of their sworn enemies the Harkonnens, who are a constant threat.

Eventually, Paul and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) come into close contact with some of the Fremen people, including Chani (Zendaya) and the Fremen leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem).

Villeneuve has a wonderfully stark sense of visual style that definitely fits this story, as the pictures above show. I’ll also note that his upcoming movie will adapt only half of Herbert’s book. We don’t know exactly where the cut-off point will be, but Paul and Jessica meet up with the Fremen about halfway through, so I’d wager on it ending not long after that.

Dune has been adapted to the big (and small) screen before, but never quite successfully. The most notable attempt came from David Lynch in 1984, with Kyle MacLachlan starring as Paul. Lynch, who did not have final cut, has since disowned the movie, saying it’s the only one of his films he’s not proud of. Villeneuve is a little more kind to it.

“I’m a big David Lynch fan, he’s the master,” Villeneuve told Empire. “When I saw [Lynch]’s Dune I remember being excited, but his take… there are parts that I love and other elements that I am less comfortable with. So it’s like, I remember being half-satisfied. That’s why I was thinking to myself, ‘There’s still a movie that needs to be made about that book, just a different sensibility.’”

Dune will be in theaters on December 18. At one point I was wondering if it would hit that date with the coronavirus still at large, but it seems to have worked out for The New Mutants, so I’m betting it’ll happen for Dune.

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