Teasing Dune: Building Anticipation for Denis Villeneuve’s Sci-Fi Epic
With the announcement of the highly-anticipated trailer for director Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming sci-fi epic Dune, the Internet has since been flooded with exclusive images, on-set photos, and other tantalising tidbits.
And while we have to wait until September 9th for Warner Bros. to finally release the full trailer for Villeneuve’s Dune, there’s enough here to justify an in-depth look at what’s set to be one of 2020’s biggest blockbusters. (Sorry Christopher Nolan.)
“Fear Is The Mind-Killer”
But first, a primer for the uninitiated: The world of author Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel takes place thousands of years into humanity’s future. Human civilisation is now an interstellar feudal society ruled by several noble houses and overseen by the all-powerful emperor. Dune follows Duke Leto of House Atreides and his son Paul Atreides, as they are forced to relocate their family from the ocean home world of Caladan to the harsh, unforgiving desert sands of Arrakis.
Arrakis — also known by the local moniker ‘Dune’ — is important for one reason: it’s the only place in the universe where the much-coveted spice ‘melange’ exists, the mining of which makes space travel possible and grants its users special mental or ‘mentat’ abilities. Melange is the cornerstone of interstellar trade, commerce, and governance, meaning that whoever controls Arrakis, controls the spice — and the spice must flow.
The events of Dune chronicle House Atreides facing off against stiff opposition from their rivals in House Harkonnen for the control of Arrakis, as well as encountering the indigenous people of Arrakis, the mysterious and formidable Fremen, and coming face-to-face with the massive, deadly Arrakian sandworms, the mythical ‘Shai Hulud’.
The Spice Must Flow
It’s fair to say that film adaptations of Dune have had a fairly checkered history. As detailed in the 2013 American-French documentary film Jodorowsky’s Dune, cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky made an unsuccessful attempt to adapt Herbert’s novel during the mid-1970s. While the prospect of the film hints at a truly wild ride — with surreal, mind-being visual art and the involvement of H. R. Giger, Pink Floyd providing music, along with Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, David Carradine, Mick Jagger, and others — it was sadly never meant to be.
A decade later, director David Lynch would release his version of Dune (1984), which quickly became a notorious box-office failure, receiving negative reviews and resultant studio pressure driving several different cuts and versions of the film. While Lynch’s Dune has since developed a cult following for being emblematic of 80s studio cheese, the idea of reviving the novel as a film adaptation has been cursed ever since.
Much of this has to do with the dense richness of Herbert’s universe, and difficulty in bringing this level of lore to the big screen. Since its initial publication in 1965, Dune would later become part of a full-blown literary franchise comprising five additional novels as part of Herbert’s venerated Dune saga, and (at the time of writing) a further ten novels in Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert, and author Kevin J. Anderson’s extended Dune series.
Suffice to say, there’s a lot of ground to cover, and as Villeneuve told Vanity Fair:
“I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie. The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.”
“What’s In The Box?”
This brings us to Dune and the recently previewed teaser trailer for the film, which has been screening in select theatres ahead of the September US release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (2020).
Now, Warner Bros. are doing their damnedest to copyright strike and remove any and all traces of this teaser from the murky corners of the Internet, so you will find no links to the teaser here. However, that being said, I have been fortunate enough to view the teaser ahead of the full trailer’s release next week, and confirmed its veracity to my own satisfaction. (And if one looks hard enough, they might also be able to do the same for themselves…)
The teaser opens with the ominous ringing of Hans Zimmer’s score. Against a black screen, we hear the voice of Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit order and the Emperor’s trusted Truthsayer.
Opening on a wide shot of an large cavernous room on Caladan, the camera cuts to show us the ‘pain box’ — a small metallic object roughly the size of one’s palm, weathered and rustic from generations of use — before Mohiam quickly flicks out a deadly Gom Jabbar (a needle filled with lethal toxin) and holds it perilously close to the neck of young Paul Atredies (Timothée Chalamet):
“The test is simple: Remove your hand from the box and you die.”
We see Villeneuve’s title card as director as the camera glides over the sprawling desert sands of Arrakis. Then, with a voice of grim determination, Paul asks Mohiam:
“What’s in the box?”
And she responds with:
“Pain.”
Paul then emerges from what appears to be an ornithopter (a light flying vessel used for transport across Arrakis) and steps foot in to the desert. We see shots of Paul’s face in the harsh cross winds, interspersed with Paul holding his hands in the pain box — shaking and staring back in to Mohiam’s fierce gaze.
We jump to shots of Paul’s father, Duke Leto of House Atreides (Oscar Isaac), and then Paul’s Bene Gesserit mother and Leto’s concubine, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). We see the Fremen tribal leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) removing his still-suit face mask. We see Chani (Zendaya), a young Fremen woman and Paul’s love interest, scaling the rock face of Sietch Tabr.
The abominable and grotesque Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) slowly rises from a pool of thick black liquid. We see a sidelong glance of Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), one of Paul’s mentors and the weapons master of House Atreides.
As Paul continues to struggle under the pain of the test, we’re given quick shots of Dr. Wellington Yueh (Chang Chen), Dr. Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), and Glossu “The Beast” Rabban (Dave Bautista), the brutish nephew of Baron Harkonnen, and Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), the sword-master of House Atreides and another of Paul’s mentors.
Then we’re back to silence and the black. Framed with an image of Paul once more, Mohiam ask gently:
“What will you do?”
Here, we see Paul in what appears to be a still-suit being touched and embraced by the Fremen. Zimmer’s score rings triumphantly once more, as the word ‘D U N E’ appears on screen surrounded by an eclipsed sun ring.
The teaser then ends with a quick roll of credits and the prophetic, if not somewhat optimistic, declaration: ‘Only in theatres.’
Spaceships! Spice! Sandworms!
At just over 90 seconds in length, the Dune teaser does a good job of introducing the world of the novel, the unique characters that populate it, and the central tensions at the heart of Herbert and now Villeneuve’s sci-fi narrative.
But of course, it couldn’t show everything. There’s a definitive lack of spaceships and spice and sandworms, and as fans, we rightfully demand more. Enter the world-exclusive Empire magazine covers from their new October issue:
This glorious rendering of the film’s main cast begins to paint an epic portrait for scale and scope of Villeneuve’s Dune. And as for Shai Hulud:
“The sleeper must awaken.”
