Dune: Desert Power

Dune, a 2021 movie directed by Denis Villeneuve, is the story of the young son of a powerful duke and a powerful sorceress more than 8,000 years in the future, and his adventures in and around the desert planet Arrakis. Though the film is over 2 hours long, in my opinion it was definitely worth watching. I was blown away by the story and I left the movie feeling inspired to become a hero in my own life, just like the main character. I felt something close to the joy of a child who came out of a superhero movie acting like the Hulk and fighting his siblings! I was especially impressed by the soundtrack and the graphics. 

The movie takes place about 8,000 years from now in a universe where there are advanced space civilizations with very advanced technology and many, many worlds. Dune stars Timotheé Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the heir to the throne of the House Atreides, which is basically a very powerful nation in space which controls multiple planets. Paul has strange dreams and special abilities – I won’t say more for fear of spoilers – that his mother, who has the same powers, helps him to hone and control. 

There are other houses, but the main opponent and “bad guy” of the movie is the House Harkonnen, which is a race of cruel, brutal, extremely wealthy humanlike beings with a very powerful military. All the Houses are under the control of the emperor of the universe. 

There’s not a lot of background information given about the history of the universe except the stuff you need to know, which I think is a good quality. Otherwise, it’s easy to get tangled up in the plot. 

The premise of the movie is that the emperor commanded House Harkonnen to leave the planet Arrakis, which is a large desert planet and a depository of Spice, an extremely valuable substance necessary for space travel. He then commanded House Atreides to take the Harkonnen’s place – all for an unknown reason. The Atreides accepted and their leaders, including Paul (the main character) relocated to Arrakis to begin expanding their power there. As the plot progresses we start to learn more about the emperor’s motivation, the tension between the Atreides and the Harkonnens, and the special relationship between Paul and Arrakis’ native people, called the Fremen. 

The special effects of the movie are stunning. It was fun for me to watch gargantuan spacecrafts, dragonfly-like helicopters, and sleek fighter crafts fly throughout outer space and enormous planets. Enormous desert worms also play a part, which were exciting, and it goes without saying that the combat scenes were riveting also. Despite the sci-fi objects the special effects team created, it was easy to believe that they were, or could be, real. One might call them, then, unbelievably real. 

One of the indispensable parts of the movie was the music. Power is a theme throughout the movie, and the music is definitely powerful. In fact, one of the lines of the movie, “Desert Power”, said by Paul Atreides’ father, sums up the music perfectly. The music portrays the wild uncontrolled, dangerous nature of the desert, in powerful ways. I feel like I could just listen to the music and be transported to the world of Dune without even watching the movie. 

In conclusion, if you are interested in watching an intense and certainly unique sci-fi fantasy movie, Dune is the movie for you.

Dune is available to watch on HBO Max and in theaters.