Frank Herbert’sDuneis one of the most famous and beloved sci-fi fantasy novels of all time. The epic story of Paul Atreides and his fall from and rise to power in the galactic Imperium has firmly established its place in the minds and hearts of generations of fans. The effects and influence ofDuneare unavoidable in the sci-fi space as we know it today. The story takes some inspiration from the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien’sThe Lord of the Rings, andit directly influenced George Lucas’s creation ofStar Wars.
Similarly toThe Lord of the Rings,Dunewas often considered to be a story impossible to adapt to the big screen. In the ‘80s, director David Lynch famously directed a film version ofDunethat was widelyconsidered to be a mixed bag at best. After another adaptation for television in the early 2000s,Dunefinally returned to the big screen in 2021, withArrivalandBlade Runner 2049director Denis Villeneuve at the helm.
This film, starring Timothée Chalamet as Paul, only tackled the first half of the incredibly dense novel, withDune: Part Twoset to conclude the events of the first book later this year. BeforePart Twohits theaters, we wanted to take the opportunity to look back onDune: Part Oneand see how it adapts Herbert’s iconic work. Here are some of the most notable differences between the film and the book:
11The Opening Scene
The 2021 film opens with a narration from the Fremen girl Chani (Zendaya), of whom Paul has frequent visions throughout the story. She explains the general details of her home planet Arrakis, her desert-dwelling people, and the longstanding oppression upon them from House Harkonnen. It then jumps to Paul awakening on the Atreides-controlled planet, Caladan. While the book provides many of these same details through exposition, it actually opens with the famous Gom Jabbar scene, in which Paul’s humanity is tested though use of the “pain box” by the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling).
The scene is one of the most memorable from both the novel and the film, though it’s far from the opening sequence in the movie, as it doesn’t take place until nearly 25 minutes into the runtime.
10The Princess Irulan
While the movie justifiably opens with the narration from Chani, the book makes frequent use of narrational exposition from a different character. Every chapter of the novel opens with an excerpt from a written text by the Princess Irulan, daughter of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. While Irulan, who will beplayed by Florence PughinDune: Part Two, factors into the story more directly in the latter half of the book, the inclusion of these expositional excerpts throughout the whole book make give her a much larger presence in the story.
Dune: Part Onedoes away with this aspect of the book almost entirely, as it instead shifts most of this exposition to Chani’s opening monologue and various conversations between characters and filmbooks studied by Paul. Meanwhile, Irulan doesn’t appear inPart Oneat any point.
9Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen
Another character whose introduction was delayed toDune: Part Twois Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the prideful nephew to Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellen Skarsgård) who serves as a narrative foil of sorts to Paul. While Feyd-Rautha, who will be played by Austin Butler, also plays a more crucial role in the second half of the book, he is present from early on. In the novel, he is introduced alongside his uncle and brother Glossu “Beast” Rabban (Dave Bautista).
Much of the story centered around House Harkonnen is told from the perspective of Feyd-Rautha, which obviously is not the case in the first film. It can be assumed that much of Feyd-Rautha’s story that was omitted fromPart Onewill be included inPart Two.
Related:Denis Villeneuve Confims His Plan For Dune as an Epic Trilogy
8Liet Kynes
The planetologist Liet Kynes is one of the rare characters inDunethat factors almost exclusively into the first half of the book. Played in the film by Sharon Duncan-Brewster, the character’s gender was actually flipped from that of the book. This was a welcome and smart change, though, asDune(like many of the fantasy stories of its time) can be a pretty male-centric story and Kynes’ gender was not crucial to the character’s role. That’s not the only change that was made when bringing Kynes to life in the new film, though. There are several major details about the character’s background and role on Arrakis that were left out of the film, though we won’t spoil them here since they could still factor intoDune: Part Two.
One change that we can talk about is Kynes’ death at the end of the film. In the film, Kynes is wounded by a Sarduakar soldier while calling a sandworm with a thumper, which causes her and her assailants to be consumed by the Shai-Hulud worm. However, the character’s death in the book plays out differently. Kynes is instead captured by the Harkonnens and sentenced to death for his role in helping Paul and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) escape. to keep their hands clean, the Harkonnens abandon Kynes deep in the desert with neither a stillsuit nor any water. As a result, Kynes dies slowly of dehydration, exhaustion and delirium, alone in the desert of his home.
7The Sardaukar
The film’s depiction of the Sardaukar armyused by the Emperor is fairly accurate to the book when it comes to their brutality, skill in combat, and the general aura of fear that surrounds them. One of the few outright changes the film makes is the attire the Sarduakar are dressed in when they invade Arrakis and destroy House Atreides. In the book, they are disguised as Harkonnen soldiers to hide their involvement; the film removes this and has them dressed in traditional Sarduakar uniforms, broadcasting the Emperor’s favor to House Harkonnen openly.
Beyond that, the book goes much further in detailing why they are such a fierce force. As is shown in the film, the Sardaukar hail from the planet Selusa Secundus, which the book describes as having one of the harshest environments in the universe. It is also used as a planetary prison by Shaddam IV. As a result, the Sarduakar have become some of the most hardened and ruthless fighters in the Imperium. They are only rivaled by the Fremen, who have lived in similarly harsh conditions in the deep deserts of Arrakis.
6Paul’s First Encounter with a Worm
The sequence in which Paul first observes the destructive power of the Shai-Hulud on Arrakis makes for one of the best moments in both the film and the book. This is the scene in which Kynes, Paul, and his father Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) travel into the desert to see the spice harvesters at work. After an equipment malfunction prevents the removal of a harvester from the path of a sandworm’s rage, the group helps to evacuate the workers from the machine, they then witness the entire apparatus being swallowed whole by the enormous worm. In the film, Paul is almost taken along with the harvester, as the spice in the air induces a vision while he’s on the ground.
However, in Herbert’s novel, Paul never leaves the safety of his Ornithopter, and so he is never in any real danger from the worm.
5The Dinner Scene
One of the most well-regarded scenes from the original novel comes shortly after the Atreides arrive on Arrakis.The scene in questionfeatures the Duke and his family hosting a dinner for many of the most important figures on the planet at the time. There are Guild bankers, merchants, smugglers, and representatives for the Emperor in attendance, and the result is one of the most tense and eye-opening sequences in the entire book. It is during this scene that much of the political intrigue and strife ofDunecomes into focus and is really put on full display. It shows how there is a lot more to the world and story of the book than just the war between the Atreides and the Harkonnens.
AlthoughDune: Part Onewas already over two-and-a-half hours long (and it only covered the first half of the book), the scene was dropped from the adaptation primarily to save time. As a result, much of the context that was presented in that scene was either shifted elsewhere or removed entirely.
4The Mentats
There are a lot of different kinds of characters presented inDune, but some of the most interesting in the book are the Mentats, who are essentially human supercomputers. The existence of computers and artificial intelligence in theDuneuniverse was banned outright over 10,000 years prior to the events of the book, and as such, humanity evolved and trained certain individuals, Mentats, to possess the mental abilities to fulfill that role.
There are several Mentats featured in both the book and the movie, though their abilities and role in the universe are somewhat downplayed in the film adaptation. Both the Harkonnen advisor Piter De Vries (David Dastmalchian) and the Atreides advisor Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) are Mentats. Both characters have much larger roles in the book, and it’s expected that Thufir Hawat will return inDune: Part Two.
Related:Dune: Part Two: How the Film Will Differ From Its Predecessor
3Suspicions of a Traitor
One of the major twists inDune: Part Oneis the revelation that the Atreides personal doctor, Dr. Yueh (Chang Chen), had betrayed Duke Leto and paved the way for the Harkonnen attack on Arrakis. This reveal comes somewhat out of nowhere in the film, though it is part ofone of the chief subplotsin the early parts of the novel. In the book, Jessica, Leto and his many of his advisors all already suspect there is a traitor in their midst. The Baron Harkonnen wanted to sow seeds of distrust among the ranks of House Atreides, and he even manages to convince Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) and Thufir Hawat that the traitor was the Lady Jessica herself.
Leto never doubts Jessica, but he puts on the front that he believes she is the traitor, solely in an attempt to sniff out the real deception. Halleck and Hawat’s suspicions of Jessica carry into the second half of the book and result in some of the most tense scenes in the novel, so there’s a possibility this plot line could be picked up again in theDunesequel.
2The Meeting of Paul and Chani
Paul’s visions of Chani are a key element of both the book and the film, but the moment the two of them actually meet one another in the film isn’t quite how it plays out in the book. In some ways, the film is very faithful to their meeting from the book. Paul climbs to the top of a cliff for a better vantage point from which he can defend his mother from the Fremen; as tensions diffuse, Chani reveals she was watching him the whole time and would not have permitted him to harm her companions.
From that point on, things are much different, as the Fremen take Paul and Jessica immediately back to their home Sietch Tabr, with Chani placed in charge of watching Paul throughout the journey.
