When I started this blog, I thought I would be writing about a variety of movies, a few Hollywood headlines, and a ton of Star Wars. I have done that, but something I once thought I’d write a simple review about has become much more.
The Dune franchise has suddenly become culturally relevant in every way imaginable. It arrived in 1965 with the book Dune written by Frank Herbert and it’s mostly been downhill for everything related to it other than the books. The first book currently occupies the 6th spot on Amazon’s best seller list, with the first trilogy is at number 13 and the second book at number 19.
The first of the new Dune movies came out in 2021 with Dune: Part 1 and Part 2 came out earlier this year. There has been absolutely nothing but praise for this movie and I had lots of praises for it as well. It had phenomenal acting, cinematography, music, and it did well as an adaptation. However, I think things might’ve gotten out of hand.
The praise started with award winning director Christopher Nolan comparing Dune: Part 2 to The Empire Strikes Back. Huge praise from an even bigger director. IMAX screens are now sold out weeks in advance even though we’re approaching the third weekend of the movie being out. Everyone has seemingly jumped on the bandwagon.
From this, it might sound like I am a hater who doesn’t like the Dune movies, but that’s not true. I’ve seen Dune: Part 1 four times and Part 2 three times, and I’ve read the first two books in the series. It is a very unique science fiction series in the fact that the person that we’re rooting for is not a good guy. Paul, who is the main character, ends up starting a holy war and killing tons of people. The only other person we really see do that is Anakin Skywalker after he turns to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader.
I think where a lot of my frustration in this comes in is when people refuse to acknowledge recency bias. Recency bias is when people favor recent events, over previous ones. In this case, it is causing people to claim that Dune is the greatest science fiction franchise out there. Again, both of the new movies are very good, but in my mind, it’s been overhyped a little bit. People have become somewhat annoying talking about Dune and they don’t seem to know that it’s just a fictional franchise.
People have also said that recency bias does not apply to the Dune franchise because it has been out since 1965. To argue that point I’ll just say that it never reached that status, or popularity that Star Wars, or Jurassic Park did until the previous 3 years with the release of the movies.
Full honesty on my part here, I am a huge Star Wars fan so I do have quite a bit of bias towards the franchise. When people say that George Lucas stole from Dune it really gets on my nerves. There are a lot of similarities: a big desert planet, Arrakis and Tatooine, some sort of chosen one or messiah; Luke Skywalker and Paul Atreides, the Tusken Raiders and the Fremen. However, there is a difference between stealing and being inspired by something.
Lucas got inspiration from Dune but also from Japanese samurai films, westerns, and especially World War 2. All of these and more come together to create what we know as Star Wars. These two franchises can coexist with each other and I think it’s pivotal that they do.
Now more than ever, Star Wars is struggling, and maybe a little competition is what’s needed. I truly hope that it can rise to the occasion and become great again, but that can’t come to hinder the Dune franchise either. Both need each other at this point, and I feel that both can prosper while trying to be the best in science fiction.
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