FILM · 2021 · CANADA
Dune: Part One
170 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
170 Interesting Facts About Dune: Part One
Interesting Facts (38)
- #001
David Lynch, director of the previous Dune (1984), stated that he has "zero interest" in the new movie. He cited that his issues have nothing to do with director Denis Villeneuve but with his own painful memories of making the 1984 version: "Because it was a heartache for me. It was a failure and I didn't have final cut. I've told this story a billion times. It's not the film I wanted to make. I like certain parts of it very much - but it was a total failure for me."
- #002
- #003
Warner Bros. had announced that the movie would be streamed on HBO Max just as it hit the theaters. Director Denis Villeneuve voiced his displeasure, claiming that the studio "might have just killed the film" and that "streaming can produce great content, but not movies of Dune's scope and scale. Warner Bros.' decision means Dune won't have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph. [...] My team and I devoted more than three years of our lives to make it a unique big screen experience. Our movie's image and sound were meticulously designed to be seen in theaters." Villeneuve compared watching the movie on a TV to trying to use a speedboat in a bath tub, and expressed concerns that releasing the film on streaming would kill its box office potential, and thereby the viability of the proposed sequel Dune: Part Two (2024). However, Warner Bros eventually made good on their promise that the sequel would be greenlit as long as the movie was successful, including the number of views on HBO Max.
- #004
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- #006
Denis Villeneuve's plans for Dune: Part One (2021) are quite ambitious, as he hopes to make it the Star Wars he never saw. In an interview, he explained that most of the main ideas of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) came from Dune, so it will be a challenge to tackle this project. Villeneuve even said, "In a way, it's Star Wars for adults." Oscar Isaac, who plays Duke Leto Atreides in the film, played Poe Dameron in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017), and Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), and voiced Poe in Star Wars: Resistance (2018).
- #007
- #008
The entire cast took large pay cuts to work on this film. Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, and Zendaya were paid a grand total of only $8 million. Everyone except Chalamet, Bautista, and Momoa was paid under $1 million.
- #009
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- #016
Josh Brolin and Dave Bautista previously starred together in Avengers: Endgame (2019). Also appearing in that film was William Hurt, who played Leto in Dune (2000).
- #017
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- #020
- #021
The film's first full trailer features a version of Pink Floyd's "Eclipse" written by composer Hans Zimmer. This is a nod to director Alejandro Jodorowsky's proposed 1970s Dune adaptation, for which he wanted the band to write the music. Jodorowsky was not impressed by this homage and called the footage "predictable" from its trailer.
- #022
The score was recorded by Hans Zimmer during the COVID-19 quarantine. Zimmer's team turned his living room into a studio next to his daughter's room. He recalls: "I'll tell everybody she's got PTSD from bagpipes, because it's 5:30 in the morning and I'm still blasting away and the whole house is shaking."
- #023
Sir Roger Deakins was initially chosen as cinematographer because he had worked very successfully with Denis Villeneuve on the previous film Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Scheduling difficulties meant Deakins was unavailable, so Greig Fraser took the reins. Both Deakins and Fraser won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for their work on these successive Villeneuve projects.
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- #026
Contains a major spoiler — show
The French-Icelandic actor Tómas Lemarquis appears in the concept art as a Harkonnen soldier. Lemarquis has a condition known as alopecia universalis, which leaves him completely hairless, a trait shared by all inhabitants of Giedi Prime in this adaptation; Dora Kápolnai-Schvab and Joelle, who play the Baron's servants, have the same condition. Lemarquis appeared in Denis Villeneuve's previous film Blade Runner 2049 (2017) but is not in this film, which led some fans to theorize that he would play Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in the sequel. When the sequel was greenlit, however, this proved false and Austin Butler was cast in the role.
- #027
Although the origins of bagpipes are unclear, ancient bagpipe-like instruments are depicted in Egypt, the Middle East and Rome, and there is documented evidence of their use in medieval Europe (England, Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy). They have been adopted by military forces in the Middle East for more than a century, notably the Jordanian army, which has a magnificent marching pipe band. Given Dune's Arab and Islamic influences, the ceremonial use of bagpipes by the Atreides army is entirely fitting.
- #028
- #029
The chants of the Sardaukar army use a strange vocal technique called "throat singing" or "overtone singing." Its use is documented in traditions around the world (the best-known examples come from Mongolian, Tibetan and Northern European traditions). In the Mediterranean region, one of the best-known singing styles that uses it is "cantu a tenore," native to the Barbagia region of Sardinia.
- #030
Very little is seen of the Guild Navigators, the evolved beings who control space travel using the Spice that drives much of the story. The film does not show what happens during a jump from star to star or planet to planet; the only clue is the long tunnel-like vessels from which smaller ships emerge above planets. In the scene where the Reverend Mother Mohiam comes to Caladan to test Paul, the planet she traveled from can be seen through the tunnel, suggesting the journey somehow happens instantaneously. In Dune lore, it is explained that the Guild can indeed "fold space," meaning departure and arrival points are brought so close together through quantum mechanics that ships can travel without moving at all. The complex calculations required for these journeys can only be performed by the Guild's Spice-enhanced Navigators, which explains why Spice is so vital to interstellar travel and trade and why the Guild holds a monopoly on this means of transport.
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- #033
The entire cast took large pay cuts to work on this film. Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista and Zendaya were paid a total of only 8 million dollars. Everyone except Chalamet, Bautista and Momoa was paid under 1 million dollars.
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- #036
(At around the 49th minute) Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) responds to the report of the Harkonnens' great profits with the quote: "And I shall suck at the abundance of the seas, and the treasure hid in the sand." This is a direct quotation from William Brewster the Elder (1566-1644), a Mayflower passenger and leader of the Plymouth Colony, giving thanks to God for his neighbor's oyster meal during a famine. (Frank Herbert uses a garbled but recognizable version of Brewster's lines in the third Dune novel.) On the Mayflower, Brewster probably knew another of the Pilgrims, John Alden, Brolin's 11th great-grandfather.
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Production Story (70)
- #039
- #040
Both composer Hans Zimmer and director Denis Villeneuve grew up with a deep appreciation of the novel of Dune. When Villeneuve was leaving the country to go film the movie overseas, Zimmer said to Villeneuve "Don't f*** it up." When Villeneuve returned to hand the movie over to Zimmer to score, he returned the same sentiment, "Don't f*** it up." Dune eventually earned 10 Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, and brought home six awards, including Best Music for Zimmer.
- #041
Composer Hans Zimmer is a big fan of the novel Dune, and turned down working with frequent collaborator Sir Christopher Nolan on Tenet (2020) to score this film. For the same reason, although Denis Villeneuve was the top choice to direct the Bond film No Time to Die (2021), he turned down the offer.
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- #043
Hans Zimmer chose the words for the score's lyrics based on how well they sing rather than their meaning. He has said, "The professor of linguistics is probably quietly horrified by what I did. But the point isn't the understanding of the words but that someone is telling you something important."
- #044
Sir Roger Deakins was initially set to be the director of photography, having worked so successfully with Denis Villeneuve on his previous movie Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Scheduling difficulties meant that Deakins was unavailable, so Greig Fraser took up the reins. Both Deakins and Fraser won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for their work on these consecutive Villeneuve projects.
- #045
- #046
The score was recorded by Hans Zimmer during COVID-19 lockdown. Zimmer's team turned his sitting room into a studio next to his daughter's room. He recalls, "She will tell everybody that she suffers from bagpipe PTSD, because it's 5:30 in the morning and I'm still blasting away and the whole house is shaking."
- #047
According to Denis Villeneuve, most (but not all) of the main cast were his top choices. Zendaya was ultimately cast as Chani from the auditions, after she was judged to have the best character chemistry with Timothée Chalamet. Chang Chen got the role of Dr. Yueh by chance after an encounter with Villeneuve at the 2018 Cannes film festival. Josh Brolin eventually got the part of Gurney after Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull suggested he meet Villeneuve while pitching a project of his own to the company. According to fight coordinator Roger Yuan, Brolin's daughter had just been born when he arrived at Yuan's place to train for his fight scenes in the movie, and he almost dropped out of the film: "He was this close to sending an email to Denis saying, 'I can't do this film, I can't do it, I can't do it!' [laughs]." Fortunately, Brolin persevered, and Yuan praised him for his perfectionism.
- #048
Denis Villeneuve has a background in biology, having studied science at Cégep de Trois-Rivières in Quebec, and he wanted to make the sandworms "look as realistic as possible." According to Variety, "He and production designer Patrice Vermette studied various animal species to determine how the worms' skin would withstand the harsh desert environment."
- #049
Of this new adaptation, Dune (1984) producer Raffaella De Laurentiis said: "You really can't put that book in a two-hour movie. The thing they were smart about on this new one is that they did two movies." Her co-producer and father Dino De Laurentiis also admitted that he should never have relented to the studio's request to cut back the 1984 version to two hours, claiming that David Lynch's original 3-hr version was "fantastic", but after cutting out an hour, "it was not the same movie. We destroy[ed the movie in the editing room]."
- #050
In an interview with Empire Magazine, director Denis Villeneuve described the year-long process that went into designing the massive sandworms, the most iconic creatures of the Dune saga: "We talked about every little detail that would make such a beast possible, from the texture of the skin, to the way the mouth opens, to the system to eat its food in the sand. It was a year of work to design and to find the perfect shape that looked prehistoric enough." The sound designers devised special sounds for the creatures, such as a rattling sound for when the creature is holding still, figuring that this is from the baleen bristles in the mouth ticking against each other. At one point, the worm makes a deep guttural thumping sound, which they figured is the "sandworm language", and the reason why the creatures respond so fiercely to mechanical thumpers.
- #051
- #052
The additional vocalist on the musical score is Lisa Gerrard, best known as part of the Australian music duo Dead Can Dance, and for her earlier collaboration with Dune composer Hans Zimmer on Gladiator (2000). She recorded her part in a wardrobe closet during the COVID-19 lockdown. Zimmer recalls a photo she sent him showing her recording. He enjoyed the irony of "the sound meant to echo through the desert and bounce off mountains was recorded in a Brooklyn clothes closet".
- #053
Denis Villeneuve confirmed in a Vanity Fair article that his adaptation of Dune would be split into two films to ensure that the original story would be "preserved and not cut into a million pieces." However, contrary to the common practice of filming several installments back to back, only the first movie (which roughly covers the first half of the source novel) was greenlit and produced, with an optional sequel depending on how well the first film performed. A sequel was greenlit on the Tuesday after the film opened. According to production designer Patrice Vermette, the movie was originally supposed to end later in the story, but during pre-production, these final scenes were shifted to the sequel, meaning that some of the preparation for Dune: Part Two (2024) had already been done.
- #054
Denis Villeneuve confirmed in a Vanity Fair article that his adaptation of Dune will be split into two films in order to ensure that the original story would be "preserved and not cut into a million pieces." However, contrary to the common practice of filming several installments back to back, only the first movie (which roughly covers the first half of the source novel) was greenlit and produced, with an optional sequel depending on how well the first film performed. A sequel was greenlit on the Tuesday after the film opened. According to production designer Patrice Vermette, the movie was originally supposed to end later in the story, but during pre-production, these final scenes were shifted to the sequel, meaning that some of the preparation for Dune: Part Two (2024) had already been done.
- #055
Denis Villeneuve previously directed Blade Runner 2049 (2017) for producer Sir Ridley Scott. That film was a sequel to Scott's Blade Runner (1982). Scott was planning to direct an adaptation of Dune in the early 1980s, but the sudden death of his brother and the long pre-production time made him decide to do Blade Runner instead. Scott's previous film Alien (1979) was written by Dan O'Bannon and designed by H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, and Ron Cobb - all of whom had met each other in the early 1970s while working on Alejandro Jodorowsky's failed Dune adaptation, and brought much of their design works from that project to Alien.
- #056
- #057
This will be the third screen adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic science fiction novel of the same name, after David Lynch's Dune (1984) and the SyFy miniseries Dune (2000). An early attempt by director Alejandro Jodorowsky in the early 1970s failed to materialize due to prohibitive costs.
- #058
- #059
Denis Villeneuve said that adapting Dune was a lifelong ambition. He expressed his interest in the project in September 2016, saying that "a longstanding dream of mine is to adapt Dune, but it's a long process to get the rights, and I don't think I will succeed". Villeneuve said that he felt he was not ready to direct a Dune movie until he had completed projects like Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and that with his background in science fiction films, "Dune is my world." Brian Herbert, son of Frank Herbert and author of later books in the Dune series, confirmed that Villeneuve would be directing the project in February 2017.
- #060
The plot of the full 155 minutes of this movie is told in 98 of the 137 minutes of the original Dune (1984), and in 104 of the 270 minutes (3 episodes of 90 mins each one) of the mini-series Dune (2000) (all of the first episode and 14 minutes of the second episode). Altogether, Denis Villeneuve's two Dune movies run for 321 mins, more than the double of David Lynch's adaptation.
- #061
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Jenna Ortega revealed she auditioned for a role, she said, "I think I auditioned for Dune when I was about 15." She added that she was a big fan of the franchise and was "really exciting" because Denis Villeneuve "is one of my favorite filmmakers." Ortega admitted that although there weren't a kind of details available at the time, she's pretty sure she and Zendaya were up for the same role. "I think it was Chani. I think it was Zendaya's, but they weren't saying that. Everything was very secret," she said.
- #062
Contains a major spoiler — show
Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is last mentioned during the Harkonnen attack on Arrakeen but not seen afterwards, and his fate is kept open at the end of the movie. In the novel, Hawat is captured alive during the Harkonnen raid on the Atreides forces, and subsequently forced to serve as mentat to the Harkonnen. However, after learning that he has been unknowingly helping the Harkonnen fight Paul Atreides, he takes his own life. There were similar plans for the character in this movie adaptation, so director Denis Villeneuve purposely had kept McKinley Henderson's part in this film small, as Hawat was to become more prominent in Dune: Part Two (2024). However, much to Villeneuve's regret, Henderson's entire performance in Part Two eventually ended up on the cutting room floor when he chose to focus on other subplots, and Hawat's role started to feel superfluous. With no explicit on-screen resolution to his fate, it is thus implied that Hawat perished during the Harkonnen attack.
- #063
Contains a major spoiler — show
Originally, the movie was scripted to continue for a while after Paul and Jessica Atreides join the Fremen, with them helping the Fremen ambush a Harkonnen patrol. However, it was decided during post-production to shift these scenes to the sequel Dune: Part Two (2024) instead.
- #064
- #065
Dune (1984) producer Raffaella De Laurentiis said of this new adaptation: "You really can't put this book into a two-hour film. The smart thing they did with this new adaptation was to make two films." Her father and co-producer Dino De Laurentiis also admitted that he should never have yielded to the studio's demand to cut the 1984 version to two hours, claiming that David Lynch's original 3-hour version was "fantastic," but that after an hour of cuts "it was not the same movie. We destroy[ed the movie in the editing room]."
- #066
In a Vanity Fair article, Denis Villeneuve confirmed that the Dune adaptation would be split into two films to ensure the original story was "preserved and not cut into a million pieces." However, unlike the common practice of shooting several parts back to back, only the first film (covering roughly the first half of the source novel) was greenlit, with an optional sequel to be made depending on how well the first film performed. The sequel was greenlit after the film's release on Tuesday. According to production designer Patrice Vermette, the film was initially supposed to end later in the story, but during pre-production those final scenes were shifted to the sequel, meaning some of the preparations for Dune: Part Two (2024) had already been made.
- #067
David Lynch, the director of the previous Dune (1984) film, had stated that he had "zero interest" in the new film. He said his issues had nothing to do with director Denis Villeneuve, but were related to the painful memories of making the 1984 version: "Because it was a heartache for me. It was a failure and I didn't have final cut. I've told this story a billion times. It's not the film I wanted to make. I liked certain parts of it — but for me it was a total failure."
- #068
Adapting Dune for the screen had been Denis Villeneuve's lifelong dream ever since he learned about David Lynch's cult classic Dune (1984) from Fantastic Films and Starlog magazines and read Frank Herbert's novel at around the age of twelve. He wanted to make a faithful adaptation and waited until he had made the science fiction films Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) first so that he could have enough experience in the genre before starting work on this film. In fact, scenes in his previous films were heavily influenced by his interpretations of scenes in the novel.
- #069
The scenes on Caladan, the ocean world, were shot in Stadlandet, Norway. Most of the desert scenes on the desert world of Arrakis were shot in the Middle East, in Jordan and Abu Dhabi. Director Denis Villeneuve had previously shot some parts of Incendies (2010) in Jordan and thought that if he ever got the chance to make a Dune adaptation, the desert landscapes and striking rock formations would be perfect for depicting Arrakis's alien world.
- #070
Donald Mowat initially considered creating special lenses for the blue-eyed Fremen characters. However, VFX supervisor Paul Lambert and the Visual FX department managed to add the Fremen's iconic blue eyes digitally during post-production. Mowat explained: "At first we made a few practical lenses for Zendaya and then I thought, 'Who am I kidding? We're in the Middle East! There are sandstorms, heat and dust. It's going to be a disaster!'"
- #071
In an interview with Empire Magazine, director Denis Villeneuve described the year-long process of designing the giant sandworms, the most iconic creatures of the Dune saga: "We talked about every little detail that would make such a monster possible, from the texture of the skin to the opening of its mouth to the system by which it eats its food in the sand. It took a year to design and find the perfect shape that looked prehistoric enough." Sound designers created special sounds for the creatures, such as the clicking sound the creature makes when it is motionless; they thought this was caused by the baleen hairs in its mouth rubbing against each other. At one point the worm emits a deep rumbling sound from its throat; they thought this was "sandworm language" and the reason the creatures react so violently to mechanical rumbling.
- #072
Both composer Hans Zimmer and director Denis Villeneuve grew up with a deep admiration for the Dune novel. While Villeneuve left the country to shoot the film abroad, Zimmer told Villeneuve, "Don't f*** it up." When Villeneuve returned to hand the film over to Zimmer to score, he expressed the same sentiment himself: "Don't f*** it up." Dune ultimately earned 10 Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and brought home six awards, including Best Music for Zimmer.
- #073
The film's first full trailer features a version of Pink Floyd's "Eclipse" written by composer Hans Zimmer. This is a nod to the Dune adaptation that director Alejandro Jodorowsky proposed in the 1970s and for which he wanted the band to write the music. Jodorowsky was not impressed by this tribute and called the footage "predictable" from its trailer.
- #074
Although the name is not mentioned in the film, the Great Houses originally come from Earth, which explains the use of Latin terms (such as 'Bene Gesserit', meaning "well done", and the name Gaius), the Dutch word 'Landsraad' and the Dutch name 'De Vries'. The roots of House Atreides, despite their living on the planet Caladan, lie in Greece on Earth, where the Minotaur, the bull creature of Minoan civilization, is strongly associated. This may explain Atreides' use of bull imagery and the implication that Paul's grandfather died in a bullfight. In the expanded universe, an ancient Atreides ancestor had traced his lineage back to the Greek King Atreus, a character named in the Greek Iliad. He adopted the surname 'Atreides', which literally means 'son of Atreus'.
- #075
The score's music was recorded by Hans Zimmer during the COVID-19 quarantine. Zimmer's team converted the living room into a studio next to his daughter's room. He recalls: "I'm going to tell everyone they have bagpipe PTSD, because it's 5:30 in the morning and I'm still in full blast and the whole house is shaking."
- #076
The film has a distinct Arab theme, in keeping with author Frank Herbert's use of Islamic culture as an influence in his story. However, "Kwisatz Haderach" is a term of Hebrew Kabbalistic origin and means "shortening of the way." It is said that the ancient rabbis could use it to cover great distances in a very short time.
- #077
- #078
The bagpiper who plays a ceremonial piece during Atreides' arrival on Arrakis is played by the film's composer and passionate fan of the novel, Hans Zimmer. However, the first bagpipe sound in the scene is actually played by British-Scottish musician Guthrie Govan, who toured with Zimmer in music concerts and imitates the sound of the bagpipes using a guitar.
- #079
Stephen Collins, who plays the Harkonnen soldier who suggests throwing Paul out of the ornithopter, is deaf. This is a nod to the novel, in which it is explained that the Harkonnens specifically chose a deaf soldier to supervise the capture of Paul and Jessica so that they would not be affected by Paul and Jessica's use of the Voice.
- #080
Fight coordinator Roger Yuan based House Atreides' fighting style on the Filipino martial arts of kali and escrima; the Atreides, having shorter swords, use precise fighting techniques particularly suited to their own weapons. Yuan based House Harkonnen's fighting style on ancient Mongol fighting styles from the era of Genghis Khan, with movements that are effective but not very precise or stylized, possessing an animalistic and sadistic quality, to make them appear barbaric. According to Yuan, the Sardaukar in this adaptation are inspired by two different warrior cultures: the samurai of feudal Japan and the úlfhéðnar guards of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair (Viking Berserkers); the samurai influence is the Sardaukar's fighting style, and they are also an elite military caste; the úlfhéðnar influence is the Sardaukar, a fanatical warrior cult that practiced blood sacrifice and anointing with blood before battle.
- #081
(About 23 minutes in) Paul Atreides and Dr. Yueh (Timothée Chalamet and Chang Chen) have a silent conversation in a mysterious language before Paul's meeting with the Reverend Mother Mohiam. The language is actually Mandarin Chinese. Very few ancient Earth languages are mentioned or implied in Frank Herbert's Dune novels, and apart from the name Yueh, Chinese is not one of them. Having Chalamet speak in Mandarin (with coaching from the Taiwanese-born Chen) to demonstrate Paul's multilingualism was director Denis Villeneuve's idea. Chen later noticed Chalamet's "perfect pronunciation" while shooting the scene.
- #082
An additional vocalist on the musical score is Lisa Gerrard, known as part of the Australian musical duo Dead Can Dance and for her previous collaboration with Dune composer Hans Zimmer on Gladiator (2000). During the COVID-19 quarantine, she recorded her part in a wardrobe closet. Zimmer recalls a photo she sent him showing her recording. He enjoyed the irony that "the sound meant to echo through the desert and bounce off mountains was recorded in a Brooklyn clothes closet".
- #083
The 'Mentats', including Atreides' Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and the Harkonnens' Piter De Vries (David Dastmalchian), are essentially 'human supercomputers' recognizable by the black mark on their lower lip. In author Frank Herbert's Dune universe, after the tyrannical "thinking machines" (complex computers and artificial intelligence) dominated and enslaved humanity for nearly 900 years, all advanced technology was banned 10,000 years before the film, until humanity defeated them over the course of a century in an event called the 'Butlerian Jihad'. Such machines were subsequently banned in the Imperium by a special decree ("Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."), and only simple logic circuits, sensors, robots and data storage and display devices based on new principles were permitted. This explains the abundance of low technology in the film, such as old-fashioned analog screens as well as "conventional" projectors for defense; all complex tasks are performed by mentats, and only the Spacing Guild's Spice-enhanced Navigators possess the complex information that makes space travel possible. Other examples include the seemingly impossible failure of an advanced beam weapon (or "laser gun") to hit Duncan Idaho's ornithopter, or Paul's inability to fly his ornithopter in a storm (~1 hour 26 minutes in); these stem from the lack of advanced targeting and navigation systems. The first scene may also be a nod to the fact that hitting an energy shield with a laser can cause a spontaneous subatomic reaction that usually destroys both the target and the laser weapon (and therefore its user). Laser weapons are therefore better suited to launching debris at low-flying aircraft.
- #084
- #085
Denis Villeneuve's plans for Dune: Part One (2021) are quite ambitious, as he hopes to make it the Star Wars he never saw. In an interview, he explained that many of the main ideas of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) came from Dune, so tackling this project would be difficult. Villeneuve even said of Oscar Isaac, who plays Duke Leto Atreides in the film, "In a way, it's Star Wars for adults." He noted that Isaac played Poe Dameron in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) and Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), and voiced Poe in Star Wars: Resistance (2018).
- #086
Over two thousand visual effects shots were created for the film. In these shots, a color keying process that visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert called "sandscreen" was used; instead of using green-based backgrounds, the visual effects team used brown-colored backgrounds that matched the desert footage for the backgrounds. The resulting shots look more natural than other color keys. The sandworms were created with computer-generated imagery inspired by whales whose mouths are filled with baleen, which Lambert described as "prehistoric" in their original design, and which follow the underwater movements of whales. Although they considered using rigged explosives to capture the movement of sandworms breaking the surface in the desert, this would not have been practical in the Middle East, and instead they used Houdini software to make the sand mimic the movement of water. Villeneuve did not want the sound associated with these practical effects to sound like a studio production, and sound designers Mark A. Mangini and Theo Green used a "fake documentary realism" approach to capture natural sounds and process them for use in the film; for example, recording the sounds of shifting sands in Death Valley using a hydrophone.
- #087
- #088
Hans Zimmer chose the lyrics of the score's songs based on words that sing well, rather than their meaning. "The linguistics professor has probably been quietly horrified by what I did. But it's not about understanding the words, it's about someone telling you something important," he said.
- #089
According to Denis Villeneuve, most (though not all) of the main cast in the lead roles were his best choices. Zendaya was cast as Chani after it was decided she had the best character chemistry with Timothée Chalamet. Chang Chen took on the role of Dr. Yueh by chance after meeting Villeneuve at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Josh Brolin ultimately got the role of Gurney after Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull was advised to meet with Villeneuve while pitching his own project to the company. According to fight coordinator Roger Yuan, Brolin's daughter was a newborn when she came to Yuan's house to train for the film's fight scenes, and he nearly dropped out of the film: "He came so close to sending Denis an email saying 'I can't do this movie, I can't, I can't, I can't!' [laughs]." Fortunately Brolin persevered, and Yuan praised him for his perfectionism.
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From the beginning, Donald Mowat and director Denis Villeneuve knew that realizing the character of Baron Harkonnen would be a major undertaking, because the Baron was the story's antagonist and the ruler of House Harkonnen. Villeneuve began the conversation by explaining that he drew inspiration from 'pale alopecia' for the design. Mowat strove to achieve the look through practical makeup and prosthetics. "I was thinking of Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). Something eccentric and exaggerated. He [Villeneuve] really responded to that." After the initial concept and design discussions with Villeneuve, Mowat knew exactly who he needed to collaborate with on The Baron. "I went to my old friends Love Larson and Eva Von Bahr because we had met several years earlier on a film with Stellan Skarsgård in Sweden." While discussing the Baron's size, Mowat and Larson initially thought less could be more. But the producers kept coming back to them, wanting the character to be bigger. Eventually they realized they had to make some kind of fat suit. The next question was: 'Would this be a costumed fat suit or a makeup fat suit?' Mowat said: "Our costume designers Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan felt that he (Baron Harkonnen) would probably take his clothes off. So we knew this would be more the makeup department's wheelhouse. I thought we should see Love and her shop shape and sew the costume in Sweden. Then, while preparing and shooting the film, we could watch it every week and give a progress report." Mowat gave Love Larson, Eva Von Bahr and their team 16 weeks to prepare. "It was a huge undertaking; sculpture, detailing and a makeup test." On shooting days, five people applied the prosthetics and suit. The application time was about 4 hours when Stellan Skarsgard was dressed, and 6 hours when the character was naked. "There are seven silicone pieces for the face, in addition to the bald cap and eyebrow covers. Everything is integrated and their work is sensational," explained Mowat. Stellan Skarsgard loved every stage of the process, and Mowat praised his enthusiasm: "Stellan is really interested in makeup. He has been in many incredible films with great makeup artists, hair stylists and designers. He has a great eye and is very eager. He is the kind of man that when I set up the life cast for a day, I said, 'You know this will take 7 or 8 hours.' Stellan doesn't want to take a break for lunch. We also know other people who need to take a phone call or spend personal time every 20 minutes. According to Villeneuve, there were some more complicated scenes involving Skarsgard being submerged in a bathtub filled with a black muddy liquid intended to be a 'healing mud bath.' Mowat discovered that the oiliness of the mud bath substance on the film set loosened the prosthetics. "With the buoyancy of the clothes, things became a bit more complicated as well. Larson and Bahr's team spent an entire Saturday and Sunday reconstructing the things that would keep him safe. And this was the only time we used a stunt performer instead of Stellan for safety reasons, because he was really being dragged."
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Dave Bautista plays Baron's nephew Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, also known as 'The Beast'. Mowat preferred old-style theatrical painted makeup for the Beast. The only prosthetic applied was the eyebrow coverings by Roland Blancaflor at RBFX Studio. Mowat explains the matter as follows: "It was a classic makeup. I had to tattoo his hands and neck and then do a simple makeup. I used three or four colors of very traditional greasepaint. He (Bautista) came to the game very late and I did a test and Denis Villeneuve loved it. Dave really became one of our favorites. He only shot for six or seven days but I loved having Dave, it was my second or third time working with him." Ultimately, Mowat went far beyond just making the Harkonnen characters pale. He approached the makeup concept as creating different species. "You have to be a storyteller. Sometimes you're like the old days; you have a few paint pencils, a makeup box and a few pansticks, so you have to learn how to use them. You don't always have the privilege of being on something where you have money and Photoshop and a lot of resources. And I really love working that way."
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Due to the schedule, the makeup department had no chance to do a makeup test in advance for the Fremen character Chani, played by Zendaya, so Donald Mowat and his team designed her look the night before shooting. "It was simple and subtle, but still had to be thought through, you know with the little tattoos and things like that."
- #100
James Cameron criticized the Academy Awards for not nominating Denis Villeneuve for Best Director for both Dune films: "Denis Villeneuve made these two magnificent Dune films and apparently these films make themselves, since he wasn't even recognized as a director by the Directors Guild. Okay, like, you can play the award game or you can play the game I like to play, which is making films that people actually go to. Sorry!"
- #101
Another iconic character is the sadistic Mentat Piter de Vries, who serves the Baron. Donald Mowat had previously worked with David Dastmalchian and considered him an old friend. During initial discussions, Dastmalchian was ready to shave his head for the role, but a last-minute consideration caused some uncertainty. "One day he called me and said: 'Don, I've been given a task. And I don't know what to do. I can't cut my hair. I have to do this.' He trusted me and I said we needed to talk to Denis." They discussed the situation with Denis Villeneuve and decided that this look could be achieved with a bald cap. Mowat then called Stephen Prouty at Fusion FX in Los Angeles. "I sent [David] twice and he made a custom silicone cap for us. Steve also very kindly did a test for us in Los Angeles months before David came to Budapest to work." When we got to the film set, Rocky Faulkner applied the cap.
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(At around the 49th minute) Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) responds to the report about the Harkonnens' great profits with the quote: "And I shall suck at the abundance of the seas, and the treasure hid in the sand." This is a direct quotation from William Brewster the Elder (1566-1644), a Mayflower passenger and leader of the Plymouth Colony, thanking God for his neighbor's oyster meal during a famine. (In the third Dune novel, Frank Herbert uses a garbled but recognizable version of Brewster's lines.) On the Mayflower, Brewster likely knew another of the Pilgrims, John Alden, Brolin's 11th great-grandfather.
- #104
Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is last mentioned during the Harkonnen attack on Arrakeen but is not seen afterward, and his fate remains open at the end of the film. In the novel, Hawat is captured alive during the Harkonnen raid on the Atreides forces and is then forced to serve the Harkonnens as a mentat. However, after learning that he unknowingly helped the Harkonnens fight Paul Atreides, he takes his own life. Similar plans existed for the character in this film adaptation, so director Denis Villeneuve deliberately kept McKinley Henderson's role in this film small, since Hawat was to become more prominent in Dune: Part Two (2024). However, much to Villeneuve's dismay, all of Henderson's performance in Part Two ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor when he chose to focus on other subplots, and Hawat's role began to seem unnecessary. With no clear resolution to his fate on screen, it is implied that Hawat died during the Harkonnen attack.
- #105
Dune (1984) producer Raffaella De Laurentiis said of this new adaptation: "You really can't put this book into a two-hour film. What they were smart about in this new adaptation was that they made two films." Co-producer and her father Dino De Laurentiis also claimed that David Lynch's original 3-hour version was "fantastic," but that after an hour of cuts "it was not the same movie. We destroy[ed the movie in the editing room]." He admitted that he should never have yielded to the studio's demand to reduce the 1984 version to two hours.
- #106
The city of Arrakeen had already been created during pre-production by the special effects department as a detailed computer-generated 3D model. This was done so that director Denis Villeneuve could take virtual walks through the city using a tablet and decide which shots of the city he wanted to film.
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Denis Villeneuve has a background in biology, having studied science at Cégep de Trois-Rivières in Quebec, and wanted to make the sandworms "look as realistic as possible." According to Variety, "He and production designer Patrice Vermette studied various animal species to determine how worm skin would withstand the harsh desert environment."
Behind the Scenes (24)
- #109
Another iconic character is Piter de Vries, the sadistic Mentat who serves the Baron. Donald Mowat had previously worked with David Dastmalchian and considered him an old friend. During initial discussions, Dastmalchian was prepared to shave his head for the role, but a last-minute consideration caused some uncertainty. "He called me one day and said, 'Don, I've just been cast in something. And I don't know what to do. I just can't cut my hair. I've got to do this thing.' So he confided in me, and I said we have to talk to Denis." They discussed the situation with Denis Villeneuve and determined the look could be achieved with a bald cap. Mowat then called Stephen Prouty of Fusion FX in LA. "I sent [David] over twice and he did a custom silicone cap for us. Steve also very graciously did a test for us in LA months before David was scheduled to come to Budapest to work." Once on set, Rocky Faulkner applied the cap.
- #110
Denis Villeneuve wanted Stellan Skarsgård to play Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, because even though he describes Skarsgård as a very nice man, he also admitted to being somewhat scared by the actor. Villeneuve saw the Baron as a "rhino in human form", but didn't want to resort to CGI, so Skarsgård had to spend seven hours a day applying makeup for his role as the Baron.
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Donald Mowat initially considered creating custom lenses for the blue-eyed Fremen characters. However, VFX supervisor Paul Lambert and the Visual FX department ended up digitally adding the Fremen's iconic blue eyes during post-production. Mowat explained, "we did a couple of practical lenses at first for Zendaya and then I thought, 'who am I kidding? We're in the Middle East! There are sand storms, heat, and dust. It will be a disaster!'"
- #114
Due to scheduling, the makeup department didn't have a chance to do a makeup test for the Fremen character Chani, played by Zendaya, ahead of time, so Donald Mowat and his team designed her look the night before shooting. "It was simple and subtle, but still had to be thought through, you know with the little tattoos and things like that."
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In contrast to the prosthetic heavy characters, for Paul and Lady Jessica of House Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson, Donald Mowat kept the design clean and polished. "With Timmy and Rebecca, the makeup and hair for them is subtle. It evolves, but there is a lot more to it because they work every single day. So the continuity of their makeup and hair is so important."
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The character of Stilgar, played by Javier Bardem, exhibits very fine and organic scarring along his cheekbones to signify a history of violence. It's an elegant concept that Donald Mowat enjoyed creating with Bardem. "It's a new makeup for him. He's never really had that, and I had a great time working with him. It was a fantastic experience. He's a superb actor and a genuinely nice person."
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More than two thousand visual effect shots were created for the film. These shots used a chroma key process that visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert called "sandscreen"; instead of using green-based backgrounds, the visual effects team used brown-colored ones that matched the establishing desert shots intended for backgrounds. The resulting shots appear more natural than with other chroma keys. The sandworms were created through computer-generated imagery, with an original design considered "prehistoric" by Lambert, inspired by whales with a mouth filled with baleen and following the underwater movements of whales. While they had considered using rigged explosives to capture the motion of the sandworms breaking the surface in the desert, this would have been impractical in the Middle East, and instead used Houdini software to have sand mimic the motion of water. Villeneuve did not want the sound associated with these special effects to sound as a studio production, and sound designers Mark A. Mangini and Theo Green used a "fake documentary realism" approach to capture natural sounds and manipulate them for use in the film, such as recording the sounds of shifting sands in Death Valley using hydrophones.
- #119
The city of Arrakeen was already created as an elaborate computer-generated 3D model by the special effects department during pre-production. This was done so that director Denis Villeneuve could make virtual walks through the city using a tablet, and could decide on what shots he wanted to have of the city.
- #120
The scenes on the ocean world of Caladan were shot in Stadlandet, Norway. Much of the desert scenes on the desert world of Arrakis were shot in the Middle East, in Jordan and Abu Dhabi. Director Denis Villeneuve had previously shot parts of Incendies (2010) in Jordan, and always felt that its desert vistas and striking rock formations would be perfect in portraying the alien world of Arrakis if he ever got the chance to make a Dune adaptation.
- #121
Dave Bautista plays Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, the Baron's nephew, also known as 'Beast'. For Beast, Mowat went for an old-school theatrical painted makeup. The only prosthetics used were brow covers from Roland Blancaflor at RBFX Studio. Mowat explains, "It was a classic makeup. I had to do tattoo cover on his hands and neck, followed by a basic makeup. I used three or four colors of very traditional grease makeup. He [Bautista] arrived very late in the game, and I did one test, and Denis Villeneuve kind of loved it. Dave became one of our favorites really. He only shot six or seven days, but I loved having Dave; it was my second or third time working with him." Ultimately, Mowat went far beyond simply making the Harkonnen characters pale. He took the makeup concept closer to creating different species. "You have to be a storyteller. Sometimes you're down to the way it used to be, where you have a couple of crayons, a makeup box and a couple of pansticks, so you've got to learn how to use them. You don't always have the privilege of being on something where you have the money and the photoshopping, and you've got lots of resources. That's very much how I like to work."
- #122
Fight coordinator Roger Yuan based the fighting style of House Atreides on the Filipino martial arts of kali and escrima; since they have shorter swords, the Atreides use precise fighting techniques that work specifically for their weapons. To make House Harkonnen seem barbaric, Yuan based their fighting style on ancient Mongolian fighting styles from the Genghis Khan era, which have a bestial and sadistic quality, with movements that are efficient but not very precise or stylized. According to Yuan, the Sardaukar in this adaptation are inspired by two different warrior cultures: the samurai of feudal Japan, and the úlfhéðnar guard (Viking Berserkers) of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair; the samurai-influence being the Sardaukar's fighting style and them also being an elite military caste, while the úlfhéðnar-influence is the Sardaukar as a fanatical warrior cult practicing blood sacrifice and blood anointment before battle.
- #123
The bagpipe player, playing a ceremonial piece at the Atreides' arrival on Arrakis, is played by Hans Zimmer, the movie's composer and avid fan of the novel. However, the initial bagpipe sound during the scene is actually played by Guthrie Govan, an English-Scottish musician who tours with Zimmer on his musical concerts, who imitated the sound of a bagpipe using a guitar.
- #124
From the start, Donald Mowat and director Denis Villeneuve knew that realizing the character of Baron Harkonnen was going to be a mighty task, as the Baron is the antagonist of the story and ruler of the House of Harkonnen. Villeneuve started the conversation by describing his inspiration of 'pale alopecia' for the design. Mowat pushed for the look to be achieved with practical makeup and prosthetics. "I was thinking Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). Something eccentric and over the top. He [Villeneuve] really responded to it." After the initial concept and design discussions with Villeneuve, Mowat knew exactly who to bring on to collaborate with on The Baron. "I went to my old friends, Love Larson and Eva Von Bahr, because we met on a film with Stellan Skarsgård in Sweden some years ago." When discussing the Baron's size, Mowat and Larson felt at first that less might be more. But the filmmakers kept coming back to them, asking for the character to be bigger. They eventually realized they would need to make some kind of a fat suit. The next question became, 'Is this going to be a costume fat suit or a makeup fat suit?' Mowat said, "Our costume designers, Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan, felt he [Baron Harkonnen] would probably have his clothes off. So we knew this was going to be more in the makeup department's wheelhouse. I thought, let's look at having Love and his shop sculpt and build the suit in Sweden. Then we can monitor and give a progress report each week while we're prepping and shooting the film." Mowat gave Love Larson, Eva Von Bahr and their team 16 weeks to prep. "It was an enormous undertaking- the sculpting, detailing, and one makeup test." On shooting days, five people applied the prosthetics and suit. Application time was about 4 hours when Stellan Skarsgard was wearing clothes and 6 hours when the character was naked. "There are seven silicone pieces for the face in addition to the bald cap and brow covers. Everything is integrated and their work is sensational," Mowat explained. Stellan Skarsgard loved every part of the process, and Mowat spoke highly of his enthusiasm "Stellan's really into makeup. He's been in lots of incredible films with great makeup artists, hair stylists, and designers. He's got a great eye, and he is very enthusiastic. He's the kind of guy that when I set up the life casting for one day, I said, 'You know it's going to be 7 or 8 hours.' Stellan wouldn't want to break for lunch. We know other people who every 20 minutes need to be on the phone or have personal time. He's very committed and extremely enthusiastic." Some more complicated scenes involved Skarsgard being submerged in a bathtub of black muddy liquid which was meant to be a 'healing mud bath', according to Villeneuve. Mowat discovered that the oiliness of the mud bath substance on set was releasing the prosthetics. "It became a little bit more complicated with the suits' buoyancy as well. Larson and Bahr's team spent a whole Saturday and Sunday reconfiguring things to keep him under the oil. And that's the only time we used the stunt double instead of Stellan for safety, because he does get pulled."
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(at around 23 mins) At around 23 minutes, Paul Atreides and Dr. Yueh (Timothée Chalamet and Chang Chen) have a hushed conversation in a mysterious language before Paul's meeting with the Reverend Mother Mohiam. The language is actually Mandarin Chinese. Very few old Earth languages are mentioned or hinted at in Frank Herbert's Dune novels, and Chinese is not one of them, aside from the Yueh name. It was director Denis Villeneuve's idea to have Chalamet speak Mandarin (with coaching from Chen, a native of Taiwan) to illustrate Paul's broad multilingualism. Chen later noted Chalamet's "perfect pronunciation" in doing the scene.
- #126
The Sardaukar army's chants feature a peculiar vocal technique called "throat singing" or "overtone singing". Its use is attested in traditions from all over the world (with the best known examples coming from Mongolian, Tibetan and Northern European traditions). In the Mediterranean area, one of the best known singing styles to employ it is "cantu a tenore", unique to the Barbagia region of Sardinia.
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The makeup department for the film needed a strong designer. Enter Canadian makeup artist and department head Donald Mowat. Mowat's career spans more than three decades and he is best known for working on films such as The Fighter (2010), 8 Mile (2002), Sicario (2015), Nightcrawler (2014), Prisoners (2013), Nocturnal Animals (2016), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Mowat and Denis Villeneuve first worked together on Prisoners in 2013, followed by Sicario and Blade Runner 2049. As he tells SWSCA, "This is my fourth film with [Denis]. I think we have a really remarkable professional relationship. He wanted me to take this job running makeup, prosthetics, and hair as well. There's something fluid and easy if you have a person who deals with the makeup looks and the hair designs, like a costume designer or production designer. Denis was happy to try this. So I was active as a makeup artist and as a hair designer."
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More than two thousand visual effects shots were created for the film. These shots used a color-keying process that visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert called "sandscreen"; instead of using green-based backgrounds, the visual effects team used brown-colored backgrounds that matched the desert footage for the backgrounds. The resulting shots look more natural than other color keys. The sandworms were created with computer-generated imagery using an original design Lambert deemed "prehistoric," inspired by whales whose mouths are filled with baleen and following the underwater movements of whales. Although they considered using rigged explosives to capture the movement of sandworms breaking the surface in the desert, this would not have been practical in the Middle East, so they instead used Houdini software to make the sand mimic the movement of water. Villeneuve did not want the sound associated with these particular effects to sound like a studio production, and sound designers Mark A. Mangini and Theo Green used a "fake documentary realism" approach to capture natural sounds and process them for use in the film, for example recording the sounds of shifting sands in Death Valley using a hydrophone.
Characters & Cast (6)
- #133
The 'Mentats', including the Atreides' Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and the Harkonnen's Piter De Vries (David Dastmalchian), are basically 'human supercomputers', recognizable by the black mark on their lower lip. In author Frank Herbert's Dune universe, all advanced technology was banned over 10,000 years prior to the film, after tyrannical "thinking machines" (complex computers and artificial intelligence) had dominated and enslaved mankind for almost 900 years, until humanity defeated them over the course of a century in an event called the 'Butlerian Jihad'. Afterward, such machines were outlawed in the Imperium by a special commandment ("Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."), and only simple logic circuits, sensors, robotics, and data storage-and-display devices based on new principles were allowed. This explains the abundance of low technology in the film, like "conventional" searchlights for defense, as well as old-fashioned analog displays; all complex tasks are done by mentats, and only Spice-enhanced Navigators of the Spacing Guild possess the complex knowledge to enable space travel. Other examples include the seemingly improbable failure of an advanced beam weapon (or "lasgun") to hit Duncan Idaho's ornithopter or Paul's inability to fly his ornithopter through a storm (at ~1h 26 mins); these are due to a lack of advanced targeting and navigation systems. The first scene could also be a reference to the fact that hitting an energy shield with a laser can cause a spontaneous subatomic reaction that often destroys both the target and the lasgun (and by extension, its user). Lasguns are, therefore, better suited for blasting up debris into low-flying aircraft.
- #134
Contains a major spoiler — show
French-Icelandic actor Tómas Lemarquis appears prominently in concept art as a Harkonnen soldier. Lemarquis has a condition known as alopecia universalis, which renders him completely hairless, a feature of all inhabitants of Giedi Prime in this adaptation. Dora Kápolnai-Schvab and Joelle, who play the Baron's servants, have the same condition. Lemarquis appeared in Denis Villeneuve's previous film Blade Runner 2049 (2017) but not in this one. Because of this, some fans had theorized that Lemarquis would play the character of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in an eventual sequel. However, this was proven false when the sequel was greenlit, and Austin Butler was cast in the role.
- #135
Composer Hans Zimmer, a huge fan of the Dune novel, turned down working with Sir Christopher Nolan — with whom he had frequently collaborated, including on Tenet (2020) — in order to score this film. For the same reason, Denis Villeneuve declined an offer to direct the Bond film No Time to Die (2021), despite being the first choice for the job.
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Denis Villeneuve wanted Stellan Skarsgård to play Baron Vladimir Harkonnen because, although he described Skarsgård as a very good man, he admitted he was also a little afraid of the actor. Villeneuve saw the Baron as a "rhino in human form" but did not want to resort to CGI, so Skarsgård had to spend seven hours a day in makeup for the role of the Baron.
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Dave Bautista plays the Baron's nephew Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, also known as 'the Beast.' For the Beast, Mowat opted for old-fashioned theatrical painted makeup. The only prosthetics applied were the eyebrow covers by Roland Blancaflor at RBFX Studio. Mowat explained: "It was a classic makeup. I had to tattoo his hands and neck and then do a simple makeup. I used three or four colors of very traditional greasepaint. He (Bautista) came to the production very late and I did a test and Denis Villeneuve loved it. Dave really became one of our favorites. He only shot for six or seven days, but I loved having Dave; it was my second or third time working with him." Ultimately, Mowat went far beyond simply making the Harkonnen characters pale. He approached the makeup concept as creating different species. "You have to be a storyteller. Sometimes you're like the old days; you have a few paint pencils, a makeup box and a few pansticks, so you have to learn how to use them. You don't always have the privilege of being on something with money and Photoshop and a lot of resources. And I really love working that way."
- #138
Another iconic character is the sadistic Mentat Piter de Vries, who serves the Baron. Donald Mowat had previously worked with David Dastmalchian and considered him an old friend. During early discussions, Dastmalchian was ready to shave his head for the role, but a last-minute consideration created some uncertainty. "One day he called me and said: 'Don, I've been given a task. And I don't know what to do. I can't cut my hair. I have to do this.' He trusted me and I said we needed to talk to Denis." They discussed the situation with Denis Villeneuve and decided the look could be achieved with a bald cap. Mowat then called Stephen Prouty at Fusion FX in Los Angeles. "I sent [David] twice and he made a custom silicone cap for us. Steve also very kindly did a test for us in Los Angeles months before David came to Budapest to work." When we got to the film set, Rocky Faulkner applied the cap.
Easter Eggs & References (19)
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Stephen Collins, who plays the Harkonnen soldier who suggests throwing Paul out of the ornithopter, is deaf. This is a nod to the novel, where it's explained that the Harkonnens specifically chose a deaf soldier to oversee Paul and Jessica's capture so that he wouldn't be affected by Paul and Jessica's use of the Voice.
- #141
Many pieces of Atreides furniture portray a bull. Leto's father, Paulus, fought bulls to impress his people, as his namesake grandson Paul points out, which is portrayed in the novel 'Dune: House Atreides'. Paulus was also assassinated when his wife Helena arranged for the bull to be drugged. The lettering on Paulus's grave is Greek, since House Atreides is itself of Greek ancestry: in the 'Prelude to Dune' trilogy, it is stated that House Atreides traced its ancestry back to the ancient House of Atreus, including King Agamemnon. Paul's middle name, Orestes, also pays homage to this. In the 'Legends of Dune' trilogy, it is revealed that a meek warlord took the name Agamemnon and gave his only son, Vorian, the surname Atreides (which means 'sons of Atreus').
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The first full trailer for the film features a version of Pink Floyd's "Eclipse" by composer Hans Zimmer. This is a nod to director Alejandro Jodorowsky's proposed adaptation of Dune in the 1970s, for which he wanted the band to write the score. Jodorowsky wasn't impressed by the homage, and called the footage from the trailer "predictable".
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(at around 49 mins) At around 49 minutes, Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) responds to the report of the Harkonnens' huge profits with a quote: "And I shall suck at the abundance of the seas, and the treasure hid in the sand." This is a direct quote of Elder William Brewster (1566-1644), passenger on the Mayflower and a leader of the Plymouth Colony, when he gave thanks to the Lord for a neighbor's meal of clams during a famine. In his third Dune novel, Frank Herbert employs a scrambled, but recognizable, version of Brewster's verse. Aboard the Mayflower, Brewster probably would have known another of the Pilgrims, John Alden - an 11th great-grandfather of Brolin.
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Another connection with the failed Alejandro Jodorowsky version is the appearance of Charlotte Rampling. Jodorowsky wanted her to play Lady Jessica Atreides, but she didn't like his screenplay, objecting primarily to one proposed sequence involving thousands of extras simultaneously relieving their bowels. She appears in this version as the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam.
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Many pieces of Atreides furniture portray a bull. Leto's father, Paulus, fought bulls to impress his people as his namesake grandson Paul points out, which is portrayed in the novel 'Dune: House Atreides'. Paulus was also assassinated when his wife Helena arranged for the bull to be drugged. The lettering on Paulus's grave is Greek, since House Atreides is itself of Greek ancestry: in the 'Prelude to Dune' trilogy, it is stated that House Atreides traced its ancestry back to the ancient House of Atreus, including King Agamemnon. Paul's middle name, Orestes, also pays homage to this. In the 'Legends of Dune' trilogy, it is revealed that a meek warlord took the name Agamemnon, and gave his only son, Vorian, the surname Atreides (which means 'sons of Atreus').
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Stephen Collins, who plays the Harkonnen soldier who suggests throwing Paul out of the ornithopter, is deaf. This is a nod to the novel, in which it is explained that the Harkonnens specifically chose a deaf soldier to oversee the capture of Paul and Jessica so that they would not be affected by Paul and Jessica's use of the Voice.
Deeper Meaning (11)
- #158
This film sports a distinctly Arabic theme, in keeping with author Frank Herbert having used Islamic culture as an influence for his story. However, "Kwisatz Haderach" is a Hebrew term from kabbalah, and means "shortening of the way." It is said that the rabbis of old could use it to travel great distances in minuscule amounts of time.
- #159
Although bagpipes are of uncertain origin, there are depictions of ancient bagpipe-like instruments from Egypt, the Middle East and Rome and documented evidence of its use in medieval Europe (England, Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy). They have been adopted by military forces in the Middle East for over a century - the Jordanian army having a particularly spectacular marching pipe band. And so, with the Arabic and Islamic influences of Dune, it is wholly appropriate that bagpipes should be used by the Atreides military for ceremonial purposes.
- #160
Very little is seen of the Guild Navigators, the evolved beings that control space travel utilizing the Spice that drives much of the story. The film does not show what happens in the jump from star to star or planet to planet, the only hint being the long tunnel-like crafts that smaller ships emerge from above planets. In the scene where Reverend Mother Mohiam arrives on Caladan to test Paul, the planet she travels from can be seen through the tunnel, suggesting that the journey is somehow taking place instantaneously. In Dune lore, it is indeed explained that the Guild can "fold space", meaning that the point of departure and destination are being brought very close together through quantum mechanics, so that ships can make the trip without moving at all. The complex calculations necessary for these trips can only be done by Spice-enhanced Navigators of the Guild, explaining why Spice is so vital for interstellar travel and trade, and why the Guild has the monopoly on this means of transportation.
- #161
The matador imagery is reinforced by the Bull Fighting (Matador) Sculpture (created by Luke Massassi) found in the Atreides' home on Caladan, homeworld of House Atreides, and which appears twice in the movie. The sculpture represents the constant battle between House Harkonnen and House Atreides over the planet Arrakis and its spice: the Bull is House Harkonnen, the matador is House Atreides, and the cape represents the planet Arrakis, known as Dune.
- #162
Although not mentioned in the movie, the Great Houses originally come from Earth, explaining the use of Latin terms (such as 'Bene Gesserit', meaning 'well done', and the name Gaius), the Dutch word 'Landsraad', and the Dutch name 'De Vries'. Although they live on planet Caladan, the Atreides family has their roots in Earth's Greece, where the Minoan civilization was strongly associated with the bull-creature Minotaurus. This may explain the Atreides' use of bull imagery and the implication that Paul's grandfather died in a bullfight. In the extended universe, an ancient Atreides ancestor had traced his lineage back to the Greek King Atreus, a character mentioned in the Greek Iliad. He adopted the surname 'Atreides', which literally means 'son of Atreus'.
- #163
Adapting Dune for the big screen has been a lifelong dream of Denis Villeneuve, ever since he learned about David Lynch's cult classic Dune (1984) from the magazines Fantastic Films and Starlog, and read Frank Herbert's novel when he was around twelve years old. He wanted to make a faithful adaptation, so he waited until he'd done the science-fiction films Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) first so that he would have sufficient experience in the genre before starting work on this film. In fact, scenes from his prior films are strongly influenced by his interpretations of scenes from the novel.
- #164
The flying vehicles are called "ornithopters", from the Greek words 'ornis' meaning 'bird' and 'pteron', 'wing'. However, these machines are shaped (and their wings move) like dragonflies, so they should be called "anisopters", from 'anisoptera' (dragonflies' scientific name), with 'anisos' meaning 'unequal'.
- #165
The film has a pronounced Arab theme, in keeping with author Frank Herbert's use of Islamic culture as an influence in his story. However, "Kwisatz Haderach" is a term of Hebrew Kabbalistic origin and means "shortening of the way." The ancient rabbis were said to be able to use it to cover great distances in a very short time.
- #166
- #167
The character Stilgar, played by Javier Bardem, displays very fine, organic scars along his cheekbones symbolizing a history of violence. It was an elegant concept that Donald Mowat enjoyed creating with Bardem. "It's a new makeup for him. He'd never experienced it, and I had a great time working with him. It was a wonderful experience. He's a perfect actor and a really good person."
- #168
The matador imagery is reinforced by the Bullfight (Matador) Statue (created by Luke Massassi), which stands in the Atreides home on Caladan, the Atreides House's homeworld, and appears twice in the film. The statue represents the ongoing war between House Harkonnen and House Atreides over the planet Arrakis and the spice: the bull is House Harkonnen, the matador is House Atreides, and the cape represents the planet Arrakis, known as Dune.
Career & Awards (2)
- #169
James Cameron criticized the Academy Awards for not nominating Denis Villeneuve for Best Director for either of the Dune films, "Denis Villeneuve made these two magnificent Dune films and apparently these films make themselves because he wasn't considered as a director, not even by the Director's Guild. Like okay, you can play the awards game or you can play the game I like to play and that's to make movies people actually go to. Sorry!"
- #170
Both composer Hans Zimmer and director Denis Villeneuve grew up with a deep admiration for the Dune novel. As Villeneuve left the country to shoot the film abroad, Zimmer told him, "Don't f*** it up." When Villeneuve returned to hand the film over to Zimmer to score, he expressed the same sentiment: "Don't f*** it up." Dune ultimately earned 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and brought home six awards, including Best Original Score for Zimmer.
Related pages
- Sting — Dune: Part One comes up in the facts on that page
- Everything Everywhere All at Once — Dune: Part One comes up in the facts on that page
- Léa Seydoux — Dune: Part One comes up in the facts on that page
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
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