Dune: Part Two

House Harkonnen, aided in secret by the Emperor and his elite Sardaukar terror troops, has destroyed House Atreides and taken back control of the desert world of Arrakis, source of the spice melange, the most valuable substance in the universe and the cornerstone of the galactic economy. Unbeknown to the Harkonnens, Paul Atreides has survived and struck an alliance with the Fremen, aided by a prophecy deliberately seeded millennia earlier by the Bene Gesserit. Paul and the Fremen strike at spice production, threatening to throw the galaxy into chaos. The Emperor has no choice but to personally intervene.

Two and a half years ago Denis Villeneuve delivered his first take on Frank Herbert's Dune, the most popular science fiction novel of all time (if only just, with The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy always sniffing at its heels). Two prior adaptations of Herbert's 1965 novel had been arguable failures, stymied by a lack of run-time (David Lynch's 1984 movie) or a lack of budget (John Harrison's 2000 mini-series).

Villeneuve's effort was undeniably superior, with a visual eye that made almost every frame a work of art and the time to allow the story to breathe. However, Villeneuve made the curious choice to eschew his superior run-time's allowance for greater worldbuilding and characterisation in favour of epic imagery and mood shots. This meant greater emphasis on shots of the sandworms destroying harvesters or Zendaya walking on sand dunes, but also meaning that vital character arcs - like Dr. Yueh's betrayal of the Atreides - are given short or no shrift.

This successor - less of a sequel than a direct continuation of the first film, picking up minutes later - does try to course-correct. The latter part of Frank Herbert's novel, focusing on Paul amongst the Fremen and his unifying of them into a huge army, is curiously underwritten, giving Villeneuve a tremendous amount of leeway in telling this part of the story in more depth. He refocuses the story tightly on four protagonists: Paul as he struggles with the need to unify the Fremen into a fighting force to destroy the Harkonnens, but desperate to avoid becoming a religious figure who will abuse them; Chani, as Paul's love who believes in his leadership but despises the idea of him becoming a religious figure; Stilgar, as Paul's greatest believer and first apostle; and Jessica, Paul's mother who becomes a Reverend Mother of the Fremen and fanatical in her manipulations of raising the Fremen in the name of her son. The interaction and intersection of these character arcs gives the film a lot of tension: Paul's internal debate, externalised in the debates and arguments between Chani and Stilgar, is very well-played, if different from the novel (where Chani harbours relatively few, if any, doubts about Paul's path).

Villeneuve also skirts the weirdness of the book which Lynch jumped into with enthusiasm. Dune is in an incredibly internalised book where the major, game-changing moments happen inside characters' heads whilst they look vaguely constipated, staring into the middle distance whilst coming to mental realisations about how to proceed. Lynch addressed this issue by allowing us to hear characters' thoughts, a somewhat cheesy device that feels outdated in 2024. Villeneuve has to externalise these debates through dialogue, although he does hit on an interesting halfway house by having Jessica debate strategy with her unborn daughter (Alia, although perhaps better known as "Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film," for the most part).

Dune: Part Two remains visually powerful, with some outrageously fantastic imagery like the gladiatorial fight on the bleached black-and-white surface of Giedi Prime. Like the first film, there's lot of fantastic imagery, and Hans Zimmer's score is somewhat less intrusive than in the first movie meaning you can enjoy the film without worrying about your skull bursting like that THX gag in The Simpsons. Also like the first film, there's a lot of excellent actors giving superb performances. Timothee Chalamet gives great Paul Atreides, and Zendaya excels in having to pick up a larger amount of the plot as Chani then in the novel. Jessica Ferguson gives 150% as Jessica, and Josh Brolin's world-weariness as Gurney Halleck remains compelling. Léa Seydoux gives a superb performance and steals the scenes she's in (possibly channelling her "weird WTF" energy from Death Stranding) despite only being in the film for five minutes. Austin Butler is the stand-out of the newcomers, with an outrageously charismatic, evil energy as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. Florence Pugh is also great as Princess Irulan, despite having not a lot to do.

Javier Bardem has some of the film's best moments as true believer Stilgar, and is responsible for the majority of the film's surprisingly not-non-existent humour, although I worry that he and Villeneuve go too far and make Stilger a little bit too much of an avuncular comedy figure, something he very definitely is not in the books. Stellan Skarsgård remains imposing as the Baron, but doesn't have much to do, and in the finale he feels too much like a chump (to be fair, a problem of the book and the Lynch movie as well). Also, casting an actor of Christopher Walken's stature as the Emperor only for him to have maybe four lines and just look imperious feels a little like a waste. Also, those looking forwards to seeing Thufir Hawat again will be profoundly disappointed.

The first half of the movie is excellent, with some great character beats and action sequences. A scene where Paul and Chani team up to take down a Harkonnen harvester under fire from a sniper in an ornithopter is outstanding. But the film's epic finale feels rushed, bordering on the implausible. A bit more explanation of why Paul's plan works would not go amiss. A lot of these problems have obvious causes: the total absence of the Spacing Guild from the second movie when their machinations drive a lot of the background events causes way more problems than simply including them. The absence of Alia also causes story issues, even if the reasoning is sound (i.e. having a two-year-old wandering around killing people and talking weirdly looked deranged in the Lynch movie).

Part of the problem I think is Villeneuve skirting around the edges of Dune's fundamental weirdness but not fully engaging with it, and the rest is the realisation in the making of Part Two that he'll probably adapt Dune Messiah, so either punts off some elements to that story or even engages in a lot of setup work for that story that feels incongruous here.

As a result, Part Two feels a little bit undercooked from a character and thematic angle. But, as sheer cinematic spectacle, it is preposterously impressive. Huge (and real!) desert landscapes, crazy gladiatorial arenas, vast sandworms, immense Fremen hideouts and a massive (and not unnecessarily-drawn-out) concluding battle all combine to mount a sustained assault on the senses. Dune: Part Two (****) is worth seeing on the biggest screen possible and enjoying the sheer wonder of it. But the weaker elements are irritating, and make a persuasive argument that, despite Villeneuve's successes, we have still to see the definitive version of Dune in live action. Fourth time lucky?

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New trailer for DUNE: PART TWO released

Warner Brothers have released a second trailer for their upcoming movie, Dune: Part Two.

Following on from Dune: Part One (2021), this film adapts the second half of Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 science fiction novel. It focuses on the exiled Paul Atreides as he aligns himself with the Fremen and seeks to destroy the Harkonnens who cast his family from power on the desert world of Arrakis.

Dune: Part Two is due to hit screens on 3 November.

DUNE: PART TWO unveils first trailer

The first trailer for Dune: Part Two has dropped.

The film, again directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Jon Spaihts, completes the story begun in 2021's well-received Dune: Part One. Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem return from the first film. Joining them will be Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken and Léa Seydoux.

The two films together adapt Frank Herbert's classic 1965 novel Dune in its entirety. Villeneuve has expressed interest in adapting the first of Herbert's five sequels to the original novel, Dune Messiah, to complete a film trilogy (although the narrative arcs of the first book actually conclude in the following novel, Children of Dune).

Dune: Part Two wraps shooting

Principle photography on Dune: Part Two has wrapped, according to star Timothée Chalamet.

The film started shooting back in July, with Denis Villeneuve returning to direct and stars of the first movie Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling and Stephen McKinley Henderson all returning. They will be joined by newcomers Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Souheila Yacoub as Shishakli and Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Henring.

The film will be based on the second half of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, as the full book was deemed too long to adapt into a single film. A prior attempt, by David Lynch in 1984, had to rush the story to fit everything into a single film, although a 2000 mini-series for SyFy managed to adapt the entire story over five hours but with a very low budget that sold the epic scale of the story short.

Villeneuve has expressed an interest in returning to direct a third film, based on the second Dune novel, Dune Messiah (of six in total), but this will depend on the financial performance of the second film. The first movie did reasonably given the COVID pandemic, but was a much greater success on home media and streaming than it was in the cinema.

Dune: Part Two is currently scheduled to hit cinemas on 3 November 2023.

DUNE: PART TWO starts production

Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures have confirmed that production is now underway on Dune: Part Two. The continuation of Dune: Part One will shoot for the next few months and is scheduled to hit cinemas on 17 November 2023.

Denis Villeneuve is back to direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts. The film will see Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides), Zendaya (Chani), Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica), Javier Bardem (Stilgar), Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck), Stellan Skårsgard (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen), Dave Bautista (the Beast Rabban), Charlotte Rampling (Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam) and Stephen McKinley Henderson (Thufir Hawat) return to reprise their roles from the first film. They will be joined by new arrivals Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring and Souheila Yacoub as Shishakli. More castmembers are expected to be announced.

Dune: Part One was released on 22 October 2021 and was a moderate box office success, scoring over $400 million worldwide and an undisclosed further amount in home streaming. The film was seen as a success given the difficult environment of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was critically acclaimed, gaining ten Academy Award nominations and winning six.

Both films adapt Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 science fiction novel Dune. David Lynch previously directed a 1984 movie which had a mixed response, mainly due to the need to compress the entire novel into a single film. SyFy released a mini series based on the novel in 2000, along with a sequel mini-series based on the second and third books in the series in 2003.

Villeneuve has expressed interest in directing a film based on Dune Messiah, the second novel of six in the series. He is also attached to an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's classic SF novel, Rendezvous with Rama, which is expected to be his next project after Dune: Part Two.

Christopher Walken cast as Emperor Shaddam IV in DUNE: PART TWO

Christopher Walken has joined the cast of Dune: Part Two, playing the role of Emperor Shaddam IV.

Walken is a legendary American actor whose film and TV credit list of note is almost too long to comfortably quote. Among his best-known films are Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, King of New York, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Sleepy Hollow, Catch Me If You Can and Hairspray. His TV ("More Cowbell"), stage and even music video performances (particularly Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice") are also legendary.

Shaddam IV of House Corrino is the Emperor of the Known Universe, ruler of the Imperium, although he has to share his power with the Landsraad Council. The rising popularity of Duke Leto Atreides instils paranoia in Shaddam IV, leading him to plot Leto's downfall with the Harkonnens, in contravention of the law.

In the 1984 film version of Dune, Shaddam was played by José Ferrer. In the 2000 mini-series, he was played by Giancarlo Giannini.

Dune: Part Two is due to start shooting in the summer with Denise Villeneuve returning to direct. Florence Pugh was also recently cast in the role of Princess Irulan, Shaddam's daughter.

Update: It's now been confirmed that actor Austin Butler has been cast in the role of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. Butler is best-known for appearing in Switched at Birth, The Carrie Diaries, The Shannara Chronicles and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. His next appearance will be in the biopic Elvis, playing the titular King of Rock and Roll.

DUNE: PART TWO formally greenlit for October 2023 release

Warner Brothers have greenlit the sequel to Denis Villeneuve's film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune.

The film - retitled Dune: Part One in the title card - adapts roughly the first half of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel. Part Two will cover the rest of the novel, focusing on the story of how Paul Atreides wins the trust and support of the Fremen to fight back against the vile Harkonnens and their allies, the Emperor and his Sardaukar terror troops.

Dune: Part One launched in overseas market more than a month ago before hitting the UK, USA and China at the end of last week. Ticket sales were above expectations, with the movie scoring over $223 million in worldwide ticket sales to date, with further income from HBO Max (where at least 1.9 million people watched the film in the United States). Given the scale of the COVID pandemic and how many people are still reluctant to watch films in the cinema, the movie's performance was deemed extremely impressive. The film also scored highly among critics.

Director Denis Villeneuve will return to direct the second part of the story, with the entire cast believed to be returning, or at least those whose characters were not killed off in the first half.

Warner Brothers has set a release date of 20 October 2023 and has agreed with Villeneuve that the film will launch exclusively in cinemas.

Dune: Part One

The year 10,191 of the Imperial Calendar. The power of the interstellar Imperium is based on the spice melange, which extends life, expands consciousness and, through the powers it grants the Navigators of the Spacing Guild, allows for interstellar travel and commerce. The spice is found only on one planet in known space: Arrakis, the desert world also called Dune. After eighty years of brutal occupation by House Harkonnen, the noble Atreides family has been tasked to take possession of Arrakis and mine the spice. Duke Leto Atreides seeks an alliance with the native Fremen to facilitate mining, but he is also aware that the Emperor fears his growing popularity and power. Meanwhile, Leto's son Paul is having unusual dreams and becoming aware that his very birth may have been orchestrated as part of a darker plot...

Dune is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time, having shifted some twenty million copies since its publication in 1965. Frank Herbert's novel is a strange beast for such a perennial bestseller, a cold and remote story of feuding houses, Byzantine politics and prescient visions swirling around a hallucinogenic substance which can shift the course of worlds. It lacks the warmth and heart of, say, The Lord of the Rings or even the comradeship and passions which break up the backstabbing and Machiavellian intrigue of Game of Thrones, but its intelligence and complexity have resonated strongly across the decades.

Denis Villeneuve has created the third version of Dune to hit the screens, following David Lynch's overstuffed 1984 film and John Harrison's painfully under-budgeted 2000 mini-series. Like those directors, he's run into the problem of Dune being too long for a single film and too short to turn into a TV series unless you also adapt adapt the increasingly obtuse and decreasingly popular sequels, which Harrison did with some success in 2003's Children of Dune mini-series. Villeneuve's solution is a gamble: breaking the film into two parts but only being able to shoot the first half, with the second contingent on the first part's success. A curious gamble by both director and the studio when the likes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Matrix sequels show the benefits in time and money of making the different parts in one go.

Dune: Part One (a distinction only found in the movie's title sequence and not on any of the marketing materials) takes advantage of its luxurious running time to build its world of feuding noble houses and a cynical take on the Hero's Journey, where the native Fremen of Arrakis have legends of the coming of a saviour and hero, unaware that they've been deliberately seeded into their culture in past centuries by the conniving Bene Gesserit sisterhood. This cynicism has put off casual audiences in the past even as it excites those bored of yet another retelling of yet another Frodo Skywalker who saves the world, and this film does a good job of balancing the comforting predictability of the story whilst also offering the view that such stories have become stale. Paul's visions grow increasingly apocalyptic as the film continues and he becomes more concerned that the future he is hurtling towards may be a nightmare, but one he is increasingly powerless to avert.

Villeneuve's previous movies, particularly his previous SF masterpieces Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, have stood him in good stead for delivering a film of thunderous visual power, where almost every single frame could be framed and hung on the wall as a work of art. But Dune risks over-indulgence. Villeneuve's past films have been tempered by the need to tell and conclude a story in a reasonable timeframe, whilst Dune is allowed to sprawl. Yes, Zendaya in white silk staring moodily across the desert is a cool image, but we probably could have done with a few less shots of that and maybe a few more moments expanding on characters like Thufir Hawat or Dr. Yueh, who in this film come across as under-developed. A particular delight of Lynch's Dune was Brad Dourif's eloquently batty Piter De Vries, but David Dastmalchian's take on the character is so anonymous he might as well have not even turned up (his sole saving grace being a brief side-quest that gives us a tantalising glimpse of the Imperial prison planet of Salusa Secundus).

The film also takes an odd counter-approach to Lynch's 1984 attempt. Lynch's movie was overstuffed, trying to ram too many characters into its run-time. Villeneuve strips the story almost bare here, with no sign of Emperor Shaddam IV, his daughter Irulan, his confidante Count Fenring, Baron Harkonnen's young nephew and heir apparent Feyd-Rautha, and no voice given to the Spacing Guild. Oddly, Villeneuve's greater run-time across two pictures would have allowed him to include and set up their stories much better, but instead they're MIA altogether and, apart from the Emperor, not even mentioned.

The score is haunting and powerful, even if, as with many Hans Zimmer scores, the sound mix feels off. Several key moments of dialogue are buried under the music and the sheer loudness of the soundtrack is something to behold. In almost forty years of going to the cinema, I've never left one with my ears ringing as much as after this one.

But there is much that Villeneuve does right. The imagery is fantastic and evocative. The actors who are here do career-best work, with Timothée Chalamet overcoming doubts about his casting to convince absolutely as Paul Atreides and Zendaya making the most of limited screen time as Chani. Javier Bardem's chilled-but-lethal vibe as Stilgar is also tremendously entertaining and might be the film's standout performance, and Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautista, Oscar Isaac and Josh Brolin all deliver excellent performances. There is no doubt whatsoever why so many hundreds of thousands of men and women would follow Oscar Isaac's magnificent beard into battle. Jason Momoa also overcomes fears of his bro-dude vibe not being a good fit for Duncan Idaho, with his Duncan becoming a charismatic and sympathetic character.

The vfx are outstanding, given time to breathe and not overwhelm the rest of the picture. The worms are more enigmatic, strange and lethal than prior depictions. The action sequences are, mostly, excellent (save some clumsy fight scenes which may leave the audience wondering if the reputation of the Sardaukar has been a bit oversold), and, finally, a book-accurate depiction of ornithopters will leave many Dune fans with massive smiles on their faces. The CGI kangaroo-mice are cool as hell.

Dune: Part One (****) is a qualified success, delivering an overwhelming cinematic spectacle that taps Frank Herbert's novel and strips away ancillary material that distracts from the core narrative. The atmosphere and tone are sumptuous, and the clearer stakes make the story easier to get a handle on. But secondary characters are under-developed and, in a few cases, not developed at all. The film also doesn't climax, instead just pausing (albeit on a fairly iconic image from the books). A fairer assessment of Villeneuve's project may hinge on its second half being made. In the meantime, Dune: Part One is on general release worldwide and is streaming now on HBO Max in the United States.

Hans Zimmer previews DUNE soundtrack with two tracks

Two tracks from Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for the new Dune movie have been unveiled.

Zimmer is a fan of the original Dune novel and has wanted to work on a film adaptation for years, even foregoing his usual collaboration with Christopher Nolan to work on the movie, and clearly brought his A-game to bear on this project.

Dune will be released in cinemas and on HBO Max (in the United States and several other countries) on 22 October.

Warner Brothers unveils new DUNE trailer

Warner Brothers have dropped the second major trailer for Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic 1965 novel Dune.

The trailer opens with a description of the desert planet Arrakis by Chani (Zendaya), a Fremen girl with distinctive blue-in-blue eyes, one of the native humans. She goes on to explain how her planet is being ravaged by the Harkonnens, who use advanced weapons and airpower to keep the Fremen under their heel whilst they strip-mine the planet of the spice melange, the most valuable substance in the galaxy. We see atrocities being carried out by Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista), the nephew of the Harkonnen Baron. Chani asks what is to become of her world.

On water-rich Caladan, young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), the only heir of House Atreides, welcomes back his house's loyal retainer Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), a skilled warrior. He tells Duncan of dreams he's been having of a girl on Arrakis. Duncan tells him it only matters what happens when they are awake. Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) announces that the Atreides have been asked by the Emperor of the Imperium to take control of Arrakis and bring the planet to order. He proclaims that House Atreides will never ignore a call for justice or help, and declares that they accept. Leto exchanges banter with his military advisor, Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) before the family departs for Arrakis. Gurney warns Paul not to underestimate the Harkonnens, whose capacity for cruelty and betrayal is legendary.

On Arrakis the Atreides settle in, though Doctor Wellington Yueh (Chang Chen) is curious about Paul, whom he thinks "sees too much." The action cuts to Giedi Prime, the Harkonnen homeworld, where Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) declares to his mentat Piter De Vries (David Dastmalchian) that Dune, the colloquial name for Arrakis, belongs to him.

Scenes of battle and war follow as Paul declares that the Atreides are being picked off "one by one." We see both Atreides soldiers and Fremen armed with las-cannons engaging Harkonnen forces. We also see Paul and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) confronting a giant sandworm in the deep desert. Paul and his father share a moment together. We see Dr. Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) in the desert, and Jessica agreeing to protect Paul with her life. We then see Jessica taking a Fremen chieftain, Stilgar (Javier Bardem) captive in battle. There is then a huge clash of Fremen and enemy troops in the desert, where we see that Paul now has the blue-in-blue eyes himself of a native of Arrakis. The trailer ends with Jessica declaring "it's time."

Dune will be released on 22 October in cinemas and on HBO Max.

Confusion over plans to release DUNE to home streaming as well as cinema

Warner Brothers have potentially reignited a disagreement with Legendary Pictures over the release of their upcoming science fiction epic, Dune.

Dune was originally set for release in December 2020, but the COVID19 pandemic made that impossible and the release of the film was rolled back ten months to October 2021. However, Warner Brothers subsequently confirmed their plan to simultaneously release Dune, along with the entirety of their 2021 release slate, on streaming service HBO Max. This resulted in immediate pushback from Legendary, who threatened legal action should Warner Brothers attempt to proceed with that plan.

Nothing more was heard on the matter until yesterday, when Deadline reported that Dune will now debut at the Venice Film Festival in September, followed by a limited run in cinemas ahead of its streaming bow on 1 October. However, Warner Brothers have forcibly pushed back on that today, stating that Dune will hit cinemas and HBO Max on the same day.

The battle over Dune represents a second tussle between Legendary and Warner Brothers. In 2020, the two clashed over release plans for Godzilla vs. Kong. Netflix offered a $250 million deal to get exclusive streaming rights to the movie, which would automatically put the film into profit. However, Warner Brothers apparently vetoed the idea without consulting Legendary and then put the film onto HBO Max without consulting with their production partner. This resulted in far less money for Legendary than the Netflix deal, to the production company's fury.

The company is determined not to let the same happen with Dune. A major tentpole film for the production company, Legendary see Denis Villeneuve's Dune as a film with both big box office appeal (as a widescreen, SF epic with a top-tier cast of modern stars and cutting-edge effects) and a potential awards contender at next year's ceremonies. Dune is also more desperate than most films to make enough profit to justify a sequel: the movie only covers the first half of Frank Herbert's expansive, 500-page novel, with the rest contingent on the film doing well. There are also a further five novels in the canonical Dune sequence (as well as a plethora of prequels and sequels of lesser standing by other writers, which have a risible reputation among fans and critics alike). In the case of Dune, diluting the film's box office take by simultaneously releasing it for home streaming may be disastrous. The director has also voiced his opposition to the move.

The fact that, at least in the UK and US, the entire adult population should be vaccinated against COVID by October makes the argument for a home release less convincing.

Whether Legendary follows through on its threat to use legal action to stop Warner Brothers taking this move, or backs down (perhaps in the face of not wanting to make it so they cannot work together again in the future) remains to be seen.

Dune is currently slated for release, in one format or both, on 1 October 2021.

Modiphius tease new DUNE RPG and artwork for early 2021 release

Modiphius have been teasing their new Dune tabletop roleplaying game with a reveal of some of the artwork and confirming that they will start taking pre-orders next month.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium utilises the 2d20 rule system that Modiphius have used for their Age of Conan, Dishonored and Star Trek RPGs, among others. The base setting is some years before the events of Dune, with the players and Gamesmaster working together to create a new noble House of the Landsraad, which the players can guide through political intrigue as well as representing its interests through agents who have to go on clandestine missions to distant worlds, including Arrakis.

The core Adventures in the Imperium rulebook will be available as a standard game and also a choice of one of three deluxe editions, with a special cover reflecting the sigil of House Atreides, House Corrino or House Harkonnen. There will be two dice sets available for the game, as well as a Gamemaster Screen and a Player's Journal to record adventure notes in. Further expansions to the game are in the planning stages.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is anticipated to be released in early 2021. Modiphius are also currently working on Fallout and Homeworld RPGs using the 2d20 system (the former separate to their Fallout: Wasteland Warfare miniatures range). There are also rumours that Modiphius are planning an Elder Scrolls roleplaying game to accompany their Call to Arms miniatures range.

Dune (1984)

The known universe is ruled by the Emperor of the Imperium, Shaddam IV, who serves with the support of the Great Houses of the Landsraad. The growing popularity of House Atreides and its charismatic duke, Leto, spurs Shaddam to ally with the sworn enemies of the Atreides, the Harkonnens, and lure them into a trap by offering them the planet Arrakis - Dune - as a new fiefdom. Arrakis is the source of the spice melange, the most valuable substance known to exist, essential for the Spacing Guild to undertake FTL travel and for the prescient powers of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. But when the trap is sprung, the young scion of House Atreides, Paul, escapes into the desert with his mother and allies with the native Fremen, whom they start forming into an army.

Dune is science fiction's biggest-selling novel, and one of its most acclaimed. Frank Herbert's book, published in 1965, has become a taproot text of modern SFF, influencing everything from the original Star Wars to A Game of Thrones to The Wheel of Time and more. Unsurprisingly, this has made it a ripe prospect for adaptation to the screen. The first attempt, by director Alejandro Jodorowsky, failed in the 1970s due to budget concerns. A mini-series, released in 2000, was never more than functional. Denis Villeneuve's promising new film version is, at this time of writing, unreleased and its quality remains to be seen.

David Lynch's 1984 film version is the best-known adaptation to date and the most divisive. It's a curious film, made by a hugely talented and respected artist but one that was also made in thrall to commercial concerns that inhibited his creative freedom. It feels very much like the same problem that, a decade later, beset David Fincher's Alien 3. Both films emerge as interesting curiosity pieces, but beset by problems.

On the positive side of things, Lynch's film has incredible atmosphere and tone. The industrial gothic set design is impressive and many of the visual effects stand up, including the model work and the imposing sandworms (plus the still-freaky-as-hell Guild Navigator in the opening scene). The costume design is also sumptuous. Lynch is a painter on film, and there are many fantastically-framed shots. This is a film that does not lack for epic imagery.

The cast is also fantastic. For 1984 its cast was as stacked as the 2020 film's is today. Francesca Annis as Jessica, Jürgen Prochnow as Duke Leto, Max von Sydow as Liet-Kynes, Sean Young as Chani, Dean Stockwell as Dr. Yueh, a pre-Star Trek Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, Freddie Jones as Thufir Hawat, Siân Phillips as Revered Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Brad Dourif as Piter De Vries, José Ferrer as the Emperor, Virginia Madsen as Princess Irulan, Kenneth McMillan as Baron Harkonnen, Linda Hunt as the Shadout Mapes and, of course, Sting as Feyd Rautha. It's a galaxy of stars, most of whom give their all. Particularly good is Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, who despite his relative inexperience at this point gives a solid performance and is able to nail both the lighter, more boyish qualities of Paul at the start of the film as well as his darker, more messianic tendencies which evolve as the story continues.

The film does have several key weaknesses. The most notable is pacing. Because the Dune universe is strange and dense, Lynch makes the key decision to spend the first half-hour of the film engaged in laborious exposition. This is completely at odds with his later films and TV shows, where any kind of exposition or context is often missing altogether, and one wonders if his experience with this film made him leery of making the same mistake again. It takes the film 25 minutes just to reach the first scene from the actual novel, all spent in setting up concepts like the Emperor, the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild and the mentats. On top of that we get an introductory speech by Princess Irulan (who otherwise has just one line of dialogue in the entire film) further expanding on the spice melange and the importance of Arrakis. I can't help but feel that maybe Frank Herbert had the right idea starting the action more in media res and explaining things as he went along.

This slow start to the film is something it never really recovers from. Lynch expands a lot of time on the Atreides arrival on Arrakis, the first meeting with Dr. Kynes, the first encounter with a sandworm and so on, so that it takes ninety minutes to get Paul and Jessica to their first meeting with the Fremen. From that point to the end of the movie is just forty-five minutes, so Dune backs in a colossal amount of exposition, characters and action into the same amount of time as a network TV procedural. It's mind-bogglingly rushed, and likely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the book (and even book readers may find themselves bemused from time to time).

Later three-hour cuts of the film - done without David Lynch's approval, and he withdrew his name from them - tried to solve some of these problems by increasing the run time and introducing more exposition, voiceovers and title cards, as well as reinserting some cut scenes, but these don't really help overcome the fundamental pacing problems and may exacerbate them (viewers' mileage will vary, though).

This problem is annoying because there is much here to enjoy. Dune is visually powerful and weirdly interesting, with a stellar cast and excellent location filming in a real desert (a key weakness of the 2000 mini-series is that it had no location filming at all), as well as a great score. But the pacing makes the first half of the film too slow and the second half far too rushed, and too many key concepts from the book are explored only in a half-arsed kind of way. Lynch seems reluctant to remove extraneous book material that doesn't impact on the film, which is why we end up with a pointless Duncan Idaho (who, from a film-only perspective, feels redundant as a character) and the Shadout Mapes, who shows up to offer a warning that everyone already knows about and could have been cut with little loss.

The biggest problem - certainly the one Frank Herbert objected to the most - is the ending, which undercuts the thematic point of the novel and renders the story as an unironic run-through of the Hero's Journey, with Paul as the white saviour/chosen one figure who is going to right wrongs and deliver peace and justice. The novel, and much moreso its sequels, is about the danger of the myth of the "superman" and giving absolute power into the hands of a "hero," with no concern about how it might corrupt him. In this sense, the film fails to deliver the story from the novel, which is more of a warning than a celebration.

If you're already familiar with the Frank Herbert novel, David Lynch's Dune (***) is an interesting interpretation of the book and features much that's impressive. However, the film fails to honour the themes and ideas from the novel (and the ending undercuts them), it is paced poorly and is a little too scared to remove elements from the book that don't work on screen. The film in is an honourable, watchable and interesting failure, but a failure none the less. It is available now in the UK and USA.

First full-length DUNE trailer released

After a great deal of build-up, the first full-length trailer for Denis Villeneuve's take on Frank Herbert's Dune is here.

The trailer was preceded by a presentation led by Stephen Cobert in which he talked to the main cast and director Denis Villeneuve.

The trailer itself, set to a version of Pink Floyd's "Eclipse", opens with Paul (Timothée Chalamet) discussing his prescient visions of Chani (Zendaya) and a great crusade that will burn across the galaxy. Paul discusses his fears with the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (Chalotte Rampling), who forces him to endure a test of pain. We see Paul sparring with knives and personal shields with Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), whilst the Reverend Mother chides him that he will inherit too much power and he must learn how to rule others as well as himself, something his ancestors never learned. Paul notes that his father Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) rules an entire planet (Caladan), but he is losing it in favour of a richer one (Arrakis, known as Dune). The Reverend Mother warns that he will lose that world as well, as Arrakis is a deathtrap. We see the confrontation between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, involving characters such as the Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), Stilgar (Javier Bardem), the Beast Rabban (David Bautista) and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). The trailer ends with Paul and his mother, Jessica, confronting one of the great sandworms of Arrakis.

Dune is currently scheduled - pandemic permitting - to hit cinemas globally on 18 December this year.

New DUNE film gets yet another teaser for its trailer

The first full-length trailer for Denis Villeneuve's new film version of Dune drops tomorrow. Having already given us a taste of the trailer (via a cinema-only teaser airing alongside Tenet), they've now given us a second teaser for the trailer in the form of Paul Atreidets (Timothee Chalamet) voicing the infamous Litany Against Fear.

All very impressive, with what appears to be Hans Zimmer's score crashing over the title card. But I think we're ready for the main trailer tomorrow, and the film itself which (pandemic permitting) will drop on 18 December.

DUNE trailer to be released on 9 September

A new Dune teaser attached to screenings of Tenet has confirmed that the first full trailer for the film will be released on 9 September.

The teaser - because trailers for trailers remain a thing - depicts the sequence from early in the story where the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) forces Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) to undergo a test using a pain box and her Gom Jabbar (a poison-coated needle). There are establishing shots of the vast deserts of Arrakis, a glimpse of an ornithopter (with actually beating wings!) and shots of key characters Duke Let Atreides (Oscar Issac), Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Stilgar (Javier Bardem), Chani (Zendaya), Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), Dr. Wellington Yueh (Chang Cheng), Dr. Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), the Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) and Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa).

For some reason, the teaser has not been officially released online yet. The full trailer, hopefully, will be next week.

Dune is currently scheduled to open in cinemas worldwide on 18 December.

First image of a sandworm released from the new DUNE movie

Thanks to Empire Magazine, we have the first image of a sandworm from Denis Villeneuve's new Dune film.

It's not the clearest of images but it depicts the gaping maw of one of sandworms of Arrakis, the vast creatures of the desert which are used by the Fremen as steeds and weapons of war.

Empire has two other images from the movie that they've used for magazine covers. The "Atreides" cover features Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson).

The "Arrakis" cover features Chani (Zendaya), Stilgar (Javier Bardem), Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) and Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa).

Fans are eagerly awaiting the first trailer for the film, which has already been seen in the wild, attached to some Canadian theatrical screenings of Tenet. Based on some leaked information, it sounds like the trailer will be released online on 9 September, although some are speculating this may be moved up as images and even sneakily-filmed copies of the trailer threaten to proliferate in the next week or so.

Dune is currently scheduled for release on 18 December this year, pandemic permitting.

DUNE trailer to arrive this month

SF fans have been eagerly awaiting their first proper look at director Denis Villeneuve's next film, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's sprawling SF epic Dune. Now star Timothée Chalamet, who plays Paul Atreides in the film, has indicated that we should get a trailer before the end of the month.

A number of publicity images from the movie were released back in April, leading to speculation that a trailer was imminent. However, the trailer seems to have been delayed as the studio considered the chances of them actually hitting their planned 18 December release date considering the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

It now appears they are happier with the likelihood of the film going ahead as planned. It should be noted that releasing a trailer in late August, just three and a half months ahead of the film's release, is awfully short notice for a film of this scale, leading some industry watchers to speculate if this will hurt the film's box office prospects. There is also speculation that the movie might move early to VOD services, like Bill & Ted Face the Music and Mulan, although it's bee noted that Dune's immense budget and the requirement to make the money back makes this less likely.

The Music of the Book

It has been standard for decades for films and TV shows to have soundtrack albums released. In the last twenty years or so this has extended to video games as well.

A less-tapped market is book soundtracks, although this seems self-evident: films, TV shows and video games have soundtracks as a matter of course, books do not. That makes the official (or semi-official, or even copyright-infringing) book soundtrack something a rarity in the field. But not completely unknown. Here's a few examples.

I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project (1977)

British rock band The Alan Parsons Project conceived of a soundtrack album based on Isaac Asimov's Robots series of science fiction novels and short story collections, particularly the first book, I, Robot, in the mid-1970s. Bandmember Eric Woolfson was particularly enthusiastic for the project and contacted Asimov himself, hoping to make it an official record. Asimov was keen on the idea, but noted that he had sold the media rights to a studio who was planning a big-budget feature film (which ultimately would not be released until 2004, with the most tenuous of connections to Asimov's book), so it could not be an official project but he gave his blessings for a "spiritual tribute" to the book.

For these reasons, the title was adjusted to I Robot (what a copyright difference a comma makes) and specific references to Asimov's universe and characters were omitted, with more general themes related to robots and artificial intelligence instead referenced.

The record did extremely well on release, perhaps helped by being released just days after the film Star Wars, which had re-awoken a hunger for science fiction material in the United States (and, later, in the UK).

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Bob Johnson and Peter Knight (1977)

Founded in 1969, Steeleye Span are one of Britain's most successful folk rock bands, still touring today. In the 1970s, bandmembers Bob Johnson and Peter Knight hit on the idea of adapting the classic fantasy novel The King of Elfland's Daughter for music.

Released in 1924, Lord Dunsany's novel has been cited as one of the taproot texts of modern fantasy, featuring political intrigue, war and adventuring in a well-realised secondary world, all more than a decade before J.R.R. Tolkien released The Hobbit. More obscure today, it was much better-known in the 1970s.

Johnson and Knight worked on the album after leaving Steeleye Span, and combined original music with spoken word excerpts from the novel with a full voice cast. Sir Christopher Lee - inevitably a strong fan of the book - was cast as the King of Elfland and also the narrator.

The album was released in 1978 but did not attract a strong critical reception.

Spotify link.

Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne (1978)

In the early 1970s, Jeff Wayne was best-known as David Essex's producer and arranger, but he felt his composing output had declined and he was no longer as creatively satisfied as he had been earlier in his career. His first project had been composing a score for his father Jerry Wayne's West End musical version of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1966), which had gotten him the gig working with Essex. He had also written advertising jingles and soundtracks.

Wayne disclosed his creative frustration to his father and they decided on a more elaborate version of the success they'd already had with A Tale of Two Cities. They read a number of well-known novels to find an appropriate story and they both felt that H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1897) was suitable. Wayne was inspired to expand the project into a full-on rock opera, and commissioned his stepmother Doreen to write a script whilst he worked on the score. Both were completed in early 1976, with recording sessions beginning that May. Wayne asked Essex to help and he readily agreed.

Wayne composed a completely original score with one exception: the "Forever Autumn" section kept reminding him of a Lego commercial he'd scored, which had turned into a very unexpected hit single in Japan. He re-contextualised the song for the opera. Otherwise all of the music was new. Wayne also realised he needed a strong voice for the narrator. He wrote a letter to Richard Burton, care of the theatre in New York where he was working, and was shocked to get a phone call from Burton's manager heartily approving of the idea and inviting him to fly to the States to record the narration. Burton, not always known to be the most diplomatic actor about the material he worked with, enjoyed the process and complimented Wayne on his dialogue. One possible problem was that Burton refused to have the music playing as he spoke, as he felt it was a distraction, so had to work with Wayne and David Essex on fitting the dialogue into the right spaces by instinct, which he nailed on repeated takes.

With the record complete, Wayne's publishers were baffled and nearly refused to release it, only relenting when Wayne produced a special cut of the album with the songs cut down to traditional single lengths. This allowed them to release two singles - "Forever Autumn" and "The Eve of the War" - to promote the record. CBS UK then got behind the project in a big way.

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was released in June 1978 and was a surprise hit. To date it has sold more than 15 million copies, making it easily the biggest-selling record on this list, and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in live tours and media sales.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.



"The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" by Leonard Nimoy (1968)

No.

The Songs of Distant Earth by Mike Oldfield (1994)

Mike Oldfield had shot to fame in the early 1970s with his classic Tubular Bells, but had struggled to produce a direct follow-up due to an increasingly sour relationship with Virgin Records. In 1991 he signed with Warner Music, who gave him complete creative freedom and he felt able to rework his original album into Tubular Bells II.

Oldfield discussed his next project with the record label chairman, Rob Dickins, a science fiction fan who was arguably one of the most influential and important figures in British music at the time. Dickins threw up some ideas, including for an album based on Arthur C. Clarke's 1984 novel The Songs of Distant Earth. Oldfield was familiar with Clarke's work but responded more to the title, which he considered evocative, than the novel itself, which he felt was "not one of his best."

Nevertheless, Oldfield flew to Sri Lanka to discuss the project with Clarke and found that Clarke was a fan of his work on the soundtrack to The Killing Fields. Clarke responded well to Oldfield's suggestions and gave Oldfield the creative freedom to open up the book and do some things differently. Oldfield found the recording process taxing, as he felt that his familiar instruments weren't "science fictiony" enough, so he relied more on keyboards and electronic music. At one point, he was so frustrated that he sat down and based out a theme in a few minutes in an absolute rage, and was later astonished that this worked as a process.

Also during recording, Oldfield played the adventure game Myst and was so impressed by it that he included a Myst-like series of puzzles on an enhanced CD-ROM version of the album.

The album was released in 1994 to a middling critical reception, although Clarke gave it his seal of approval.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

From the Discworld by Dave Greenslade (1994)

From the Discworld - slightly oddly officially called Terry Pratchett's From the Discworld, which may be creatively accurate but not physically - is a soundtrack album assembled by prog rocker Dave Greenslade and released in 1994. It was an official release created with the full approval of Sir Terry Pratchett.

Greenslade was a member for twenty years of British prog rock band Colosseum before embarking on an eclectic solo career that incorporated transmedia art projects (such as the epicly-titled Pentateuch of the Cosmogony). In the 1980s he switched to soundtracks, producing the music for BBC series including A Very Peculiar Practice, Kinsey, Tales of the Unexpected, Wipe Out, Bird of Prey and Gangsters.

Pratchett was a fan of Greenslade's music and Greenslade was a fan of Pratchett's books, and when they met in 1984 they became fast friends. Eight years later, Greenslade was moved to ask to produce music based on Pratchett's Discworld books and Pratchett agreed. Despite not having a huge amount of musical knowledge, Pratchett also made helpful suggestions, such as "This bit should sound like the opening of the Tory Party Conference," and "Can this bit sound grander? Can we add three more full organs?" Greenslade was also committed to making a soundtrack album, not an album of the songs from the books, so alas "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All" did not make the cut. "A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob on the End" did make it in, because it had to, but Pratchett and Greenslade did reluctantly take a knife to an extended reprise that sadly made the subtle and delicate subtext a bit too obvious (or possibly it was a bit too long, but whatever).

The most ambitious track on the album was "Small Gods," which attempted to distil the entire novel (arguably Pratcett's finest and thematically richest) into five minutes. The song is especially notable for guest keyboards from a young Rhianna Pratchett.

The soundtrack was released in 1994 and did not set the charts on fire, although it did have a very long tail. A sequel soundtrack was discussed but never made it into the studio.

Additional Discworld music was produced by Mark Bandola and Rob Lord for the first two Discworld video games - Discworld (1995) and Discworld II: Missing, Presumed...? (1996) - whilst Paul Weir took over composing duties for Discworld Noir (1999). Paul Francis and David Hughes composed the music for Sky One's three Discworld TV serials: Hogfather (2007), The Colour of Magic (2008) and Going Postal (2010).

Spotify link.

A Soundtrack for The Wheel of Time by Robert Berry (2001)

The Wheel of Time got its own custom soundtrack album in 2001, although this was an outgrowth of an earlier project. In 1999 Legend Entertainment released the Wheel of Time video game, a well-made but somewhat incongruous first-person shooter based on Robert Jordan's fantasy series. Robert Berry and Leif Sorbye collaborated on music for the game and considered releasing it as a stand-alone album, but did not have enough material.

Robert Berry reconceived the project as a soundtrack based directly on the books and repurposed themes from the games and created new music for the project.

Berry had an impressive pedigree. As a guitarist, bassist, vocalist and producer he'd been active on the music scene since the 1970s, working with Hush, Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer and several other bands. He'd also worked on soundtracks and as a session player.

Unlike Pratchett, Jordan did not get involved in the creation of the Wheel of Time soundtrack album and had no contact with the composer.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

Geidi Primes by Grimes (2010)

Canadian singer-songwriter Claire Boucher - better known as Grimes - released her debut album in 2010. It was a concept album based on Frank Herbert's novel Dune, with the title being a (misspelt) reference to the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime. Track titles drew inspiration from the book: "Caladan," "Sardaukar Levenbrech," "Zoal, Face Dancer," "Feyd Rautha Dark Heart," and "Shadout Mapes."

Grimes, at the time unknown, released the record in a low key manner, assuming it would disappear without a trace. Instead, it helped propel her towards superstardom, making her later regret some of the most obscure song title choices.

In 2019 Grimes' career came full circle with a return to SF ideas in her fifth studio album, Miss Anthropocene, including songs that will feature in the forthcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077 (due for release in September this year).

Kaladin by The Black Piper (2017)

Kaladin is a soundtrack album based on Brandon Sanderson's novel The Way of Kings (2010), the first in his Stormlight Archive series. The album was created by The Black Piper, a soundtrack collective led by Michael Banhmiller, a veteran of the movie soundtrack industry where he worked on films such as The Jungle Book, Independence Day: Resurgence, The BFG, La La Land and Jason Bourne. Eleven composers eventually ended up working on the project.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

There are quite a few others out there, from individual songs to full albums to entire subgenres (the Tolkien-inspired music scene could certainly fill an entire article by itself).

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DUNE wraps shooting, SISTERHOOD spin-off shows gets writing team

Principle photography of Denis Villeneuve's new adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune has wrapped.

Denis Villeneuve (right) on location in Jordan during the production of Dune.

The movie was filmed on soundstages in Budapest, Hungary and on location in the Jordanian desert. Now the long process of editing and post-production begins. The new film will only adapt the first half or so of the first Dune novel, and the second part will only be greenlit if the movie is a success

Dune will hit cinemas on 20 November 2020.

Meanwhile, the unasked-for Dune TV series, The Sisterhood, has gotten a writing and showrunning team. Dana Calvo (Good Girls Revolt) and Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, allegedly a very good script before Damon Lindelof got his hands on it) will be the main showrunners and writers, with Jordan Harper (Hightown), Sarah Carbiener (You're the Worst, Rick & Morty), Erica Rosbe (Homecoming, Rick & Morty), and Minhal Baig (Hala) also working as writers. Reza Aslan, a non-fiction writer and producer on shows including The Leftovers, is also working on the project.

The Sisterhood is one of the first original shows greenlit for HBO Max, WarnerMedia's new streaming service.