Christopher Nolan Compares Dune: Part Two to The Empire Strikes Back

One does not necessarily need to possess the intellect or wisdom of a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother to see the commonalities shared by Frank Herbert’s Dune and George Lucas’s Star Wars. While still a wholly unique property, the latter franchise borrowed many of its ideas from Herbert’s influential 1965 novel, with several of the conceptually engaging and visually distinctive elements of the original Star Wars trilogy taking direct influence from Dune. The properties’ similarities are well documented and oft-explored; they’ve even been commented on by Dune director Denis Villeneuve, who described Dune as “Star Wars for adults” in early 2018.

Renowned filmmaker Christopher Nolan has recently brought the comparisons back into public consciousness, though not for the reasons you might expect. While speaking with Villeneuve during the Q&A portion of a recent screening of Tenet in Los Angeles, the Oppenheimer director shared immense praise for his contemporary and the upcoming Dune: Part Two, comparing the film in scope to a Star Wars movie considered by many to be the strongest of the franchise.

“For me, I don’t think it’s saying too much to say that if Dune: Part One was Star Wars, this, to me, was very much The Empire Strikes Back, which is my favorite of the Star Wars films,” Nolan said. “I just think it’s an incredibly exciting expansion of all of the things [Villeneuve] introduce[s] in the first one.”

"I think [Dune: Part Two] reminded me of it [The Empire Strikes Back] in all the right ways whilst being completely different from it. I think it’s an extraordinary piece of work and I think people are going to be amazingly excited to see it."

Expanding the World of Dune

Part of the United States Library of Congress's National Film Registry, 1980’s Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back is widely regarded as one of the most influential films of all time, a sci-fi fantasy epic that told a focused, character-driven story while simultaneously expanding the stakes and scope of the already vast world established in 1977’s Star Wars. The film was impactful on filmmaking in general, serving as a massive step forward for special effects while crafting the blueprint for what a sequel should strive to accomplish.

Nolan — himself the auteur behind a definitive sequel in 2008’s The Dark Knight — feels as though Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is an effective expansion of the world he established in 2021’s Dune. “What I was really struck by was the sense of immersion in that world,” Nolan said. “There’s a little bit of grit to it, there’s a little bit of the emotion of that . . .  Without saying too much about the finished film, it’s a film that has so many unique images. There are so many things that you’ve never seen before in this movie, time after time. I was so struck by the detail of everything . . . They’re not all from the book.”

Though he didn't get into specifics, Nolan is perhaps referencing the distinct stylistic choices Villeneuve made regarding several of the film’s settings and characters. Through trailers and television spots, we’ve learned that Giedi Prime — the home planet of the Harkonnens — will be presented in stark black and white while several Harkonnen-affiliated characters will have black teeth or wear unique costumes. These visual choices originate from Villeneuve’s mind as opposed to Herbert’s novel.

These are just a few of what will ultimately be several differences between Dune: Part Two and the novel from which it’s adapted. “It’s a movie that I’ve tried to create to be a standalone, meaning that it’s like a direct continu[ation] of Part One, but I wanted the movie to be built [so that] someone who has not seen Part One will be able to enjoy Part Two,” Villeneuve said. “I gave enough clues in it to make sure that you don’t need to have seen Part One. I feel it’s a much more muscular movie. It’s a movie that has more action sequences. As a filmmaker, it was much more challenging, but much more fun doing it, because it’s a guerilla warfare movie where we follow Paul and Chani starting to do guerillas against the Harkonnens.

"I will say, for fans of the book, the people who know the book, that the movie is slightly different, I can say that. There’s some more, throughout the movie, I feel it could be seen as more tragic than the book. When Frank Herbert wrote the first book, he was a bit disappointed of [how] people perceived the book, because for him, Paul was not a hero. He was a dark figure. The book was a cautionary tale about messianic figures. To correct the perception, he wrote Dune Messiah to make sure that people would understand that Paul had turned to, let’s say the dark side for lack of a better way to put it . . . I knew what was the intention of Herbert, so I tried my best to do this adaptation closer to the initial intention of Frank Herbert."

Dune: Part Two will be a more "tragic" adaptation

Villeneuve’s warning about the tragedy presented within Dune: Part Two is in line with comments he made last month regarding the film’s conclusion. “I think the movie adaptation is more tragic than the book,” Villeneuve said in January, per ComicBook.com. “The way that Part Two ends… it would create total balance and equilibrium to finish Paul’s storyline in what we could say in Part Three.”

Villeneuve plans to conclude his Dune trilogy with an adaptation of Dune Messiah, the 1969 Herbert novel that partially wrapped a bow on the events of Dune. The director is not yet sure if it will be his next film.

Dune: Part Two will release internationally on February 28 and domestically on March 1.

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