Giant worms, stern nuns and Timothée Chalamet: the world of Dune, briefly explained

It is true that the most important film released so far this year is a bit confusing. Or maybe it’s not confusing, but it sure has a lot of history.

I’m talking, of course, about Dune: part two.

Denis Villeneuve’s second installment adapting Frank Herbert’s 1960s science fiction book series hits theaters this week. Given that more than two years have passed since the first film and given the complexity of what is happening in the Dune universe, I thought some of you might have some questions.

What’s up with Timothée Chalamet’s psychic boy king? Who are those stern looking nuns? And what the fuck is going on with the giant worms everywhere?

I love science fiction; catch me any day with a copy of Gideon the ninth either The dispossessed – but I have never read Dune, so I can’t help you.

Patrick Reis, senior political editor at Vox and veteran Dune fan, can. Patrick and Alex Abad-Santos, Vox senior correspondent and self-styled Dune Newbie, I dug into the new movie here. Below is a portion of their conversation, with additional questions from me, for today’s edition of the newsletter. — Caroline Houck, Senior News Editor

Mild spoilers ahead for the overall narrative arc of the series.

So who is this Paul Atreides played by Timothée Chalamet? I’m supposed to like it, right?

At the beginning of Villeneuve’s previous film, Paul is the only son of House Atreides, the son of Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), a Bene Gesserit (more on them soon).

Paul’s family has been forced to leave their home planet to move to Arrakis (also known as Dune), where they are tasked with overseeing the production of spices, the most precious resource in the universe.

At the end of the first film, Paul has gone into hiding with the native Fremen of Arrakis and allied with them against House Harkonnen, the despots who once again rule Arrakis after murdering Paul’s father and almost everyone he loved. (He also meets Chani (Zendaya), a Fremen who becomes his lover.) Dune: Part TwoHe rises through the Fremen ranks to become a messianic figure.

This leads to a pretty complicated moral arc over the rest of the series.

Well, look, here’s my question: Is he a good messianic figure… or really evil? I’m suspicious of this hero worship. And there are also some weird white savior vibes here, right?

Is it “evil”? Not in the short term; more or less yes in the medium term; and then mostly not in an extremely, extremely long time frame: events that occur decades, centuries, even millennia later with the help of Paul’s descendants.

dune two is set in that part of the short-term “no” saga, where he helps the Fremen free themselves from the cruelty of House Harkonnen.

But to the other part of your question, yes. Dune is fundamentally a white savior story in which most agency is exercised by outsiders arriving in a nomadic culture.

It’s also a pretty clear allegory for the Middle East: spices are a rare substance that sustains modern life and facilitates trade and travel across the empire, so it’s clearly oil. And much of the Fremen seems designed to evoke desert nomads and some of the more simplistic stereotypes about Arabs. In the worst case, it is Dances with worms. All of this should make fans uncomfortable, and in many cases it does.

I think the movie takes some steps in the right direction. Zendaya’s Chani has much more agency in the film than Chani in the book, which puts some of the power back into the hands of the Fremen.

But without leaving out basically a big chunk of the book’s plot, I’m not sure there’s a way around the white savior trope. Someone tried to make a Dune movie without sticking to the book, and it’s a hilarious mess.

Who are the Bene Gesserit and, more importantly, why aren’t they in charge?

At first glance, the Bene Gesserit seem like a group of nuns with superpowers (although they’re not exactly nuns), as Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, is part of the sisterhood.

But let’s back up a bit to understand why they are so important and what exactly they are trying to do.

Long before the events of the films, humanity had a purge of all “thinking machines.” And so, for centuries (and perhaps longer), the main technological advances have not been better machines, but the reengineering of humans themselves.

That is the great project the Bene Gesserit are working on: raising the superbeing.

Paul was supposed to be the penultimate step before that superbeing. Lady Jessica was going to have a female (Bene Gesserit can determine the gender of her offspring because of course they can) to mate with the heir of House Harkonnen. But out of love for Oscar Isaac’s Duke Leto (RIP), she granted her wish for a male heir. That brought the superbeing into the universe a generation earlier, upsetting the Bene Gesserit plan.

So, back to your question: the Bene Gesserit seem content to let men fight in relatively small conflicts for the imperial throne and control of the spice. But behind the scenes, they’re fighting a bigger fight: producing a superbeing they can control.

Unfortunately for them, they only get halfway there, as Paul certainly isn’t interested in being under anyone’s control.

Okay, but the most important thing is that you tell me about these giant worms. They’re pretty important to the plot, and very interesting to watch, but they don’t seem to make sense.

In the first movie we learned that Fremen and desert dwellers seem to know how to avoid being eaten by worms, so… what do worms feed on to grow so big? And, more importantly, what do they have to do with this almighty and precious spice?

Reading between the lines, I think they actually feed on something in the desert sand, rather than their creatures. Instead of being the top predator in the ecosystem, they are best compared to our old earthworms here on Earth. They tunnel through the desert and enrich it, possibly even aiding in the production of spices.

So I think they are being territorial, rather than predatory, when they swallow spice-collecting machines or Harkonnen corpses or anything else that doesn’t adequately disguise their movements when walking through the sand. I’d love to talk to you about sandworm ecology for about 10 more hours, but I’ve probably said enough here. Enjoy the movie!

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