Whereas Dune: Prophecy is a (very unfastened) literary adaptation, the HBO collection in the end defines itself by its ties to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films. In and of itself, that’s no huge deal. 2024 has seen a now-standard flurry of exhibits launched underneath the Star Wars, DC, and Marvel labels (to call only a few) — all of them spinoffs, prequels, sequels, or reboots of franchises that originated on movie. Hell, DC Studios relaunched its cinematic universe with a streaming joint!
But Dune: Prophecy is innately completely different to those different small-screen offshoots of big-screen blockbusters, as a result of, not like them, its cinema roots are baked into its very DNA. And now that the mud (or ought to that be spice?) has settled on Dune: Prophecy season 1, it’s painfully clear that making an attempt to shrink Dune’s inherently filmic nature — its sheer “bigness” — is a job not even the Lisan al Gaib himself might accomplish.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Dune: Prophecy season 1.]
At this level, longtime Dune devotees are in all probability crying foul. “What in regards to the two miniseries, Frank Herbert’s Dune and Frank Herbert’s Kids of Dune, that aired on Syfy within the 2000s?” these followers ask. “Weren’t these profitable?” And certainly they have been, each critically and commercially; these Dune diversifications rank amongst Syfy’s most-watched unique productions to today. However right here’s the factor: These productions have been constructed from the bottom up for the small display screen. Positive, they aspired to cinematic sensibilities, however there’s no mistaking their made-for-TV origins. The performing is uneven, the scripts are intentionally paced and exposition-heavy, and most of all, the spectacle is hemmed in by a primary cable finances.
In that sense, Dune: Prophecy is arguably a lot nearer to cinema than these earlier efforts. Definitely, the HBO collection’ visible results, costumes, and units are light-years forward of something Syfy mustered. The performances are extra constant, too; the divide between Hollywood veterans and TV regulars is much less pronounced. And showrunner Alison Schapker and her group observe the Nice Faculties of Dune trilogy’s storyline far much less slavishly than the Syfy diversifications’ blow-by-blow method to their supply textual content, Frank Herbert’s first three novels. Even so, Dune: Prophecy season 1 is a claustrophobic, small-scale affair. Valya Harkonnen and her allies and enemies wheel and deal primarily within the backrooms and corridors of the universe. The one main motion set-piece we get, a flashback to the Butlerian Jihad, is a handful of photographs in the course of the prologue. Even the thematic meat of the piece — supposedly a deep dive into energy, reality, and programs of management — is dealt with perfunctorily, as if solely there to jazz up a comparatively inconsequential narrative. All of it feels so contained; it appears like TV.
Distinction this with Villeneuve’s Dune: Half One and Half Two. Right here we have now two of the largest films to ever film. The solid is uniformly wonderful. The storytelling (notably in Half Two) strikes at a brisk clip and retains the expository dialogue to a minimal. The manufacturing values are precisely what you’d anticipate from a mixed price ticket north of $350 million. The scope is mythic. The themes, protecting every little thing from the perils of superhero-type leaders to free will versus determinism, are painted in vivid, operatic strokes. Watching these movies — particularly in outsized IMAX format — goes past mere immersion and verges on a spiritual expertise. It’s a imaginative and prescient of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi universe that’s defiantly geared towards the theatrical expertise in an age of smartphones and streaming platforms. “Frankly, to observe Dune on a tv, one of the simplest ways I can evaluate it’s to drive a speedboat in your bathtub,” Villeneuve advised Whole Movie in 2021. “For me, it’s ridiculous. It’s a film that’s made as a tribute for the massive display screen expertise.”
Photograph: Attila Szvacsek/HBO
Picture: Warner Bros.
Briefly? The Dune franchise underneath Villeneuve is incompatible with TV — which could clarify why the Canadian filmmaker bailed on Dune: Prophecy earlier than cameras rolled. (For what it’s value, the official motive is that Villeneuve bowed out to concentrate on Dune: Half Two’s sequel, Dune Messiah). The gulf between movie and tv — even status tv — is just too nice. Not that Dune: Prophecy season 1 does itself many favors. To Schapker’s credit score, Prophecy leans into the strengths of TV as a medium, rightly recognizing that immediately mapping a cinematic blueprint onto six hour-long installments is inconceivable. However the way in which that is rolled out is so low-stakes (and at occasions, cheap-feeling) that it diminishes Dune’s world, relatively than increasing it.
Take the Desmond Hart plot thread. This thriller field lastly will get (partly) opened in episode 6, however what’s inside — ocular nerve implants and shadowy Bene Gesserit haters — is oddly pedestrian. There’s not one of the mental and emotional oomph of Dune: Half One and Half Two protagonist Paul Atreides giving the inexperienced mild to galactic genocide for the better good. It’s extra akin to a plot-centric season finale reveal you’d anticipate from, say, Brokers of SHIELD or Fringe. No shade on both present; it’s simply that nobody would mistake both for a cinema-grade epic. Equally, episode 5’s procedural parts involving Tula Harkonnen, Raquella/Lila, and a generic “science lab” set are the sorts of scenes that might occur off display screen in Villeneuve’s movies, and with good motive; CSI: Wallach IX is decidedly much less compelling than the hovering grandeur of Paul’s subversive hero’s journey. And let’s not neglect season 1’s wider, dual-timeline narrative, which makes an already busy story even busier (and slower) — all whereas filling in gaps within the Dune mythos that arguably functioned higher left unexplained.
These shortcomings can be sufficient to curdle most exhibits. However foist them onto the Dune universe and so they change into twice as evident. As a result of they don’t merely tarnish the franchise’s model — they cut back its outsized ambitions. The place Dune: Half One and Half Two paid off a cosmos-wide, multi-millennia grasp plan, Prophecy’s first season gave us sub-Sport of Thrones intrigue and a vaguely outlined risk to the Sisterhood’s future (successfully a moot level, due to the flicks), most of it enjoying out in the identical confined locales. Schapker and co. fuss over the how and the why of all of it, failing to understand that the extra granular Dune: Prophecy turns into, the additional away from Villeneuve’s (and Herbert’s) huge concepts — so basic to this brainy sci-fi saga — it will get. For all its spaceships, Shai-Hulud cameos, and funky footwear, Dune: Prophecy simply doesn’t really feel like Dune.
Once more, the percentages of that taking place — of any TV present sitting comfortably alongside Dune: Half One and Half Two — have been all the time stacked towards HBO. Even when Dune: Prophecy season 1 had nailed each facet of its execution, even when it had been certainly one of one of the best exhibits of the yr, it nonetheless wouldn’t have been a film. Because of this, the parents behind Prophecy have been all the time going to should cut back its big-screen counterparts’ cinematic essence to provide one thing extra TV-friendly. However that’s the issue: Shrinking Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is like making an attempt to protect a snowflake on the desert world that lends the franchise its identify — doomed from the beginning.
