Why do the people in Dune still fight with swords?

Dune is set in the distant future, when technology has grown by galactic leaps and bounds, but people are still sword-fighting. Why? Let’s get into it:

Dune is set thousands of years into the future, after mankind has populated the galaxy. A lot happened in the interim. At some point, humans fought a war with machines and have since basically outlawed computers, or any machine that can think. But don’t worry: we’ve compensated.

“At some point in the Dune history, the human brain will reach a level of control where there’s no more computers in that universe, so the brain is trained to be able to make insane calculations and have control over your body,” explained Denis Villeneuve, the director of the upcoming Dune movie.

This was all laid out by author Frank Herbert in his 1965 novel Dune, and I’m really looking forward to see Villeneuve’s take on it.

But I have questions. For instance, if technology has advanced to the point where we can travel through space and make our brains like computers, why do people still fight with swords? We see a glimpse of that in the trailer for the movie: lead character Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) spars with his tutor Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) and at one point we see Atreides family swordmaster Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) carving his way through some dudes:

As it ends up, that has a technological explanation, too. “In this universe there’s an invention: The Holtzman Shield,” Villeneuve said. “It’s something that you can wear on your body, and will deflect something fast coming towards you. Only something slow can penetrate that shield. So, it made them use things like bullets less. Humanity went back to close combat, where you fight with knives and blades because it’s the only way you can kill someone through those shields. You can penetrate the shield slowly with the blade.”

You can get a look at the shields in action when Paul and Gurney are sparring:

Image: Dune/Warner Bros.

“I developed with our stunt coordinator and choreographers a way of combat that is closer to a chess game than a fighting sequence,” Villeneuve continued. “When you fight someone with a shield, the idea is to distract them with moves in advance. You want to distract them with a specific move so you can slowly bring the blade into their body. It’s a totally different way of fighting. It’s a way of fighting that is very fast. It’s like a chess game, you have to plan in advance and distract the adversary. It’s a very specific, new art form of combat.”

That all sounds pretty cool, and it provides a believable way to work swords into your space opera. Star Wars did it with light sabers, Dune is doing it with shields.

Expect Jason Momoa, in particular, to really show off some bladework. “Jason is a beautiful fighter. He’s like a ballet dancer. He loves it, and he’s so good at it,” Villeneuve said. “He’s elegant, very precise, and he’s very generous. Duncan Idaho is a cross-mix between a samurai and one of the best knights in the galaxy, and also is known to be a beautiful man. So I needed all those elements. Jason also brought calm. It’s a Duncan who is very calm, very patient, with the deep soul of an explorer. He’s someone where you feel that if s— hits the fan, you want to be behind that guy! You know he will protect you.”

Villeneuve weighed in on a couple aspects of Dune’s unique mythology. For instance, why are the villains — including Glossu “the Beast” Rabban, played by Dave Bautista — so incredibly pale?

DAVE BAUTISTA as Rabban Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release.. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures

Glossu is a member of the Harkonnen family, longtime rivals of the Atreides. He was running the planet of Arrakis, aka Dune, with his uncle the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) before the Atreides took over.

“Geidi Prime, the Harkonnen planet, is one where the sun is obscured most of the time by heavy clouds of pollution,” Villeneuve explained. “It’s an artificial world, it’s a world made out of plastic and cut off from nature. Their skin is not used to sun, so they have to protect themselves from sunlight when they go on Arrakis. Their armor is almost closer to an astronaut suit than anything else. I tried, for each tribe coming from different planets, to see how they would use their technology to try and adapt. The Harkonnens are brutal colonizers, brutal invaders, but they are still vulnerable to the environment.”

Stellan Skarsgård As Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures

As for the Baron himself, Villeneuve had a very specific vision: “I didn’t want the Baron to be a buffoon or caricature, I wanted him to have the feeling of strength, a strategist. I wanted the Baron to be seductive, someone who has a certain kind of sensuality to him. Most important, I wanted the Baron to have a deep intelligence.”

So the new movie will probably avoid stuff like this:

And of course, there are the sandworms to consider.

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures

“I think that as soon as you say, ‘okay, let’s make Dune,’ you go back home and the first thing you ask is, ‘okay, what about the worm?'” Villeneuve said. “It’s a fantastic central figure of Dune’s story, that massive creature that lives in the deep desert, so when we were creating the worm I tried to create a lifeform that you will totally believe can go and survive in this land. So of course it has to have some prehistoric quality to it, because it’s living in the most rough environment. It was a lot of dreaming. We took our time with it. I deeply love the worm we came up with. It was important for me to understand that this huge creature has a soul, to understand that it is revered as a god-like figure.”

Dune hits theaters on December 18…maybe:

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h/t Entertainment Weekly