In the first movie adaptation of Dune, directed by David Lynch and released in 1984, there’s a bizarre scene in which Baron Harkonnen informs a prisoner that he has been given a poison, and that the only way to procure the antidote is to milk a scrawny looking cat every day. The cat is seen taped to a bulky contraption along with a live rat. We never receive any explanation of 1) why the Baron would do this, 2) the significance of the cat, or 3) why a rat is also attached to the milking device. In fact, we never see the cat or the rat again, and the scene, which doesn’t appear in Frank Herbert’s source novel, is quickly forgotten.
Inexplicable moments like this—of which there are more than a few—are part of why Lynch’s Dune is considered an old-timey failure, a relic of botched studio filmmaking. The newer Dune adaptations, directed by Denis Villeneuve, prove our progress in the craft of blockbuster cinema. Don’t they?
Actually, to me, some moments from the recently released Dune: Part 2 are equally as absurd and random as any from the 1984 version, although in a different way. Take one scene in which a gathering of Bene Gesserit discuss Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. The purpose of the scene is to establish Feyd as a sociopath. The dialogue, though, quickly goes off the rails, as the three women attempt a garish Freudian analysis in which they reveal that Feyd murdered his mother and is therefore “sexually vulnerable” and hungers for the experience of pain.
Whoa. Did this conversation really need to happen? It’s extremely disturbing, and none of the details turn out to be relevant. (Feyd is rarely seen afterward except to participate in a knife fight.) One might assume that it’s backstory lifted clumsily from the book, but no: in the book there’s no mention of Feyd murdering his mother and no mention of his supposed sexual immaturity. The scene was inserted specifically for the movie and for no story-related purpose.
Yet this outrageous scene doesn’t draw our ire, as the cat-milking subplot does. The reason appears to be that Villeneuve’s scene, contrary to Lynch’s, seems serious: it’s dark and harrowing, so, somehow, its ridiculousness isn’t easily noticed. The cat/rat scene, on the other hand, is lighthearted and goofy, and that kind of ridiculousness receives no forgiveness.
Dune: Part 2 is, by design, a very depressing movie. It may be the most depressing blockbuster film I can remember, except for 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, another tale of cynical politics and futile warfare. Its even clearer predecessor, though, is 2009’s Avatar, with which it shares a nearly identical storyline: an outsider joins a skilled tribe of natives, ingratiating himself by subduing indigenous beasts—and, as it were, a fiery bachelorette—and going on to lead the tribe in battle against a militarized opponent. The only significant difference between the two stories is that Dune: Part 2 is palpably uneasy about itself, going as far as to finally conclude that its hero is, in fact, a villain. His triumph has been a scam. Hence “very depressing.”
So, naturally, everyone loves it. Because somewhere along the line, popular audiences stopped liking fun things and started liking bleakness and anguish. They stopped liking when antidotes have to be milked out of cartoonish cats, and they started liking when crushing sexual torment spruces up characters’ backstories, even in a PG-13 rated movie. Nobody smiles in Dune: Part 2, and that’s the way we like it. (Actually, in one early scene a group of girls briefly laughs; this may be what brought it all the way down to 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.)
Thinking about the blockbuster movies of my lifetime, I think I can peg exactly when this change occurred. It was somewhere between 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which ends with merry jigs in the Shire, and 2005’s Batman Begins, which… doesn’t end with any jigs, and after which, it seems, no one plans to do any jigs ever again. But 2003-2005 isn’t quite accurate as a demarcation of the transition period, because movies are released on a lengthy delay from when they begin filming. The Return of the King was actually filmed in 2000, and Batman Begins began production in 2003.
Can anyone think of any major events in American history that occurred between 2000 and 2003 that would have altered our national psychology?
Yes, I believe we’re still living in the post-9/11 cultural era. And since we’re still inside it, we have difficulty appreciating the degree to which that event continues to influence our behaviors and tastes. In my view, that influence has been harmful—on arty cinema, yes, but even more so on blockbusters like Dune: Part 2. These big budget films, after all, are made with the aim of appealing to the entire adult population, so they best reflect the cultural zeitgeist. And judging by our latest versions of Dune, Batman, James Bond, Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Jurassic Park, and even Twilight, our zeitgeist is traumatized. We cast an eye of suspicion on the bright side of life, rejecting its onscreen depictions as frivolities or even straight falsehoods. Meanwhile, we gravitate toward portrayals of emotional suffering, which receive an oft-undeserved stamp of validity from critics and audiences alike.
But rejecting the depiction of pleasure is unnatural and aesthetically damaging. Consider that Dune: Part 2 attempts to emphasize Feyd’s monstrosity by noting (as I’ve said, totally unnecessarily) that he gets pleasure from pain. That may be strange, but hey: at least he gets pleasure from something! That’s more than can be said for the Debbie Downers around him, whose expressions range from “tearful” to “raging” to “resigned to the futility of human existence.” No character in the movie besides Feyd exhibits the fundamental human behavior of aiming to do what they enjoy. That makes Feyd, contrary to Villeneuve’s intent, the film’s most likable character—a “scene stealer,” as major publications have generously put it. Thus, like so many 21st century blockbusters, Dune, by misunderstanding what makes a character relatable, accidentally sets its audience up to root for evil. (After all, if viewers like seeing Zendaya scream in misery for three hours, don’t they get pleasure from pain, too?)
The problem with Dune: Part 2 and similar big budget pictures is that they’re dishonestly dark. At the risk of making the most mockable statement one can make in 2024: life isn’t this bad. Sure, tragedy is part of life, but what about the flip side? What about moments like the jazzy cantina from Star Wars: A New Hope? The community celebration from The Lion King? The silly sex scenes from the early Bond films? Where are—I’ll even go this far—the jigs? Where, in summary, are the things that we like to do, and that we accordingly spend much of our time doing?
It seems we aren’t yet ready to welcome those back to the screen. The trauma continues.
–Jim Andersen