The Bene Gesserit wage a "war hidden in plain sight" in epic new Dune: Prophecy trailer

Today at New York Comic-Con, HBO released a shiny new trailer for Dune: Prophecy, a spinoff of its hugely successful Dune movie franchise from Denis Villeneuve. And like Harkonnens dealing out spice, the studio has benevolently also released this trailer online so that we all might partake of its wonder and gasp in awe.

I'm playing up the trailer here, but honestly, it feels pretty justified. This thing gives us our best look yet at Dune: Prophecy ahead of its release next month, and wow does it look amazing. Watch it below, then we'll talk about what it all means:

Dune: Prophecy trailer establishes the major players for the series

So far Villeneuve has directed two Dune movies, which together adapt the entirety of author Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 novel. While Villeneuve is working on his third and final film in the series, Max is launching a television show to keep the Dune fans ravenous for more. Dune: Prophecy fills an interesting space in the vast mythos of Herbert's fictional universe; it's set more than 10,000 years before Dune, when factions like the Imperium and the Bene Gesserit are just starting to get their footing after a catastrophic war with artificial intelligence, known in the books as the Butlerian Jihad.

The earliest years of the Bene Gesserit are covered in a novel called Sisterhood of Dune, which was written by Herbert's son Brian Herbert and co-author Kevin J. Anderson. Dune: Prophecy takes place around 30 years after that book, which means that it has a lot of room to tell its own story without stepping on the toes of the source material.

In the trailer, we meet some of the major players who'll grace our screens, including Mark Strong as Emperor Javicco Corrino, Jodhi May as Empress Natalya Corrino, Emily Watson as Valya Harkonnen, Olivia Williams as Tula Harkonnen, and Travis Fimmel as Desmond Hart. Of those characters, Valya played a prominent role in Sisterhood of Dune, when she was a teenager being freshly inducted into the Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit.

Now, decades later, Valya and her sister Tula are the ones in charge of this cult of space witches. "The Sisterhood draws women from many worlds to advance our species...and govern the future," we hear as the trailer starts rolling. For anyone who's seen Dune, the Bene Gesserit are infamous by the time of that story for their iron grip on the Imperium, which they control by manipulating the great houses from the shadows. But in the days of Dune: Prophecy, they don't yet have that level of control. I imagine we'll see them gain it over the course of the series.

Who is Desmond Hart in Dune: Prophecy?

But in order to do so, they're going to have to gain some kind of leverage over Mark Strong's Emperor Javicco Corrino, who is "surrounded by vipers" at court. As Javicco seeks to keep his power firmly established, the mysterious Desmond Hart offers him an alliance against the Bene Gesserit, warning that a "war hidden in plain sight" is taking place. He claims to be "the only one" who can reveal the truth to the Emperor, and to have been gifted "a great power" to wipe the Sisterhood off the worlds of the Imperium. Unlike Valya, Desmond isn't from the books so far as I know, so I'm really intrigued about who this character is and how he fits into the overall picture.

A few other takeaways: The sets and effects in this trailer look gorgeous; I gasped out loud at the shot of a sandworm on Arrakis swallowing an entire castle. We also see plenty of instances of Bene Gesserit sisters like Valya Harkonnen using the Voice to command others to do their bidding. I love the bit where she says "I run a school for young women, we're not a threat to anyone," as the scene cuts to her slicing open someone's throat. And of course, shout out to the fact that the trailer begins with a Bene Gesserit Voice shouting "Watch now!" Chills, chills all around.

One other interesting thing about the Dune: Prophecy trailer is that it makes it really hard to tell who the good guys are. The Bene Gesserit certainly come off as fairly intimidating, but the official description for the series states that it "follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit." So that certainly makes it sound like they're working for the good of humanity. But as we know from Dune's Bene Gesserit, ultimately the Sisterhood's agenda always has more to it than it seems at first glance. I have a feeling the moral ambiguity is going to be high in this one.

Alison Schapker serves as showrunner and executive producer for Dune: Prophecy. Additional cast includes Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Josh Heuston, Chloe Lea, Jade Anouka, Faoileann Cunningham, Edward Davis, Aoife Hinds, Chris Mason, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Camilla Beeput, Jihae, Tabu, Charithra Chandran, Jessica Barden, Emma Canning, and Yerin Ha.

Dune: Prophecy's first season will run for six episodes. It debuts November 17 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max.

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