Dune Prophecy: Season 1 – Adults Only
SPOILER ALERT
Dune.
You may have caught on from the reviews I’ve written so far of the Denis Villeneuve films and Frank Herbert’s original novels, but I have been continually drawn into the massive universe that sprawled across several planets, including Caladan, Arrakis, Salusa Secundus, and the vast reaches of space. Dune completely won me over, not only for its mystical worldbuilding across the galaxy, but also for its philosophical overtones, rich writing, compelling characterizations, and distinct sense of ecology.
However, it felt like I might have only touched the tip of the iceberg. In Frank Herbert’s lifetime, he wrote a whopping six novels under the Dune series: the first three (which I had read), which are Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune, and the following three, which are God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. He originally planned to pen a seventh volume for the series, but unfortunately passed away before he could begin. After his notes were found and gathered by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, they used their own ingenuity as novelists to bring Brian’s father’s vision to fruition, resulting in two books split from the original manuscript: Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune. From then on, they continued to build on the legacy of Dune with a barrage of prequel novels that expanded the universe even further and highlighted the backstories of designated characters and places. For example, one novel focuses on Caladan, and another on Arrakis’ origins. One prequel novel that stood out was Sisterhood of Dune, which explored the origins of the fabled Bene Gesserit.
That was the original title of the TV show I’m about to look over before it ultimately went by Dune: Prophecy.
Because I was already fascinated by the Bene Gesserit’s workings through Lady Jessica Atreides, I was intrigued to see how the cult of practitioners came to be. But as for what I’ve seen in this show, if what Brian Herbert added to his father’s work was anything to go by, there may have been far more complicated matters in which the Bene Gesserit unleashed their true might into the universe, which, in some way, tied directly into the political mechanisms that complemented the intergalactic essence of Dune.
So what’s the story?
The series centered on a young woman named Valya Harkonnen. That’s right. Valya Harkonnen, long-distant ancestor of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, was the show’s main star. And after being mistreated over and over again by her peers, especially after the death of her and Tula’s brother Griffin, Valya saw to it that she exercised her capabilities as part of the Sisterhood by any means necessary. She was even compelled to prove her worth after deciding to take over for the late Mother Supreme, Raquella Berto-Anirul, who entrusted her to carry on the Sisterhood as she was instructed. However, this immediately led to a butting of heads between Valya and Raquella’s granddaughter, Reverend Mother Dorotea, to the point where Valya ultimately used her Voice on her and had her slit her own throat, the likes of which were one of the first indicators of what this show could do as an HBO show. I’ll elaborate on that soon.
From then on, Valya maintained her hold as the Mother Supreme of the Sisterhood through her own methods, continuing to harness her students’ mental stability, physical capabilities, and heightened focus as they honed their abilities into magnificent use.
Meanwhile, the show jumped to other parts of the universe, most notably the Empire’s home planet, Salusa Secundus. But it wasn’t just a peek inside the regime’s dilemmas, because what they would witness there would only highlight how far-reaching the Sisterhood’s influence was across the universe. The Sisterhood decided to send some of its own members into other sectors of the universe, infiltrating whatever positions they could find to gather further intel on the regime and maintain their hold on power. Among the volunteers were several Truthsayers, including Reverend Mother Kasha Jinjo, who was assigned to the Padishah Emperor, Javicco Corrino. However, the alliance began to shake to its core when a visitor named Desmond Hart came into town; he claimed to be from Arrakis and warned the Emperor and his peers about what could be found there, as well as what he saw that could spell disaster for others.
The mysteries surrounding his preachings only intensified when his powers killed two people at once: the young Prince Pruwet, who had just married Emperor Corrino’s daughter, Princess Ynez, and, of course, Kasha. Empress Natalya, seeing his potential via the ruthless exertions of his power, decided to lure him closer to the Golden Lion Throne so she could have him exercise his power and, by extension, let her maintain her hold on the throne, if not talk some sense into Emperor Corrino.
But to Valya Harkonnen and the rest of the Sisterhood, because of Kasha’s murder, Valya decided to head to Salusa Secundus to resolve the matter, entrusting her sister, Tula, to take things over in her absence. One of Valya’s requests to her while she was gone was to give special treatment to one of their students, a young girl named Lila Cho Grace Na-Berto Anirul, whose studious nature, perception, capabilities of her power, and, most of all, relations to Raquella as her great-great-granddaughter determined her worth in the Sisterhood and could mold her into someone greater and more advantageous under the right circumstances. So Valya asked Tula to take Lila under her wing and give her special treatment, unaware of the unforeseen consequences to come.
Meanwhile, beneath the Golden Lion Throne, a rebel fleet operated, meeting in a large bar simply called the Spice Bar, which they used to transport illegal goods such as Arrakeen spices and weaponry. One of the most notable participants in this rebellion was the Imperial swordmaster Kieran Atreides, who had an affinity with Emperor Corrino’s daughter, Princess Ynez, and attempted to orchestrate the next act against the Emperor so they could steer the Imperial regime in their favor, and that of Arrakis, 10,000 years before Paul Atreides would do so.
What would the Sisterhood’s fate be once Desmond and his powers were revealed? What further conflicts would this affair spark? What would Lila be capable of that Valya and Tula would not have seen coming? What would this mean for the rest of the Sisterhood? And would Emperor Corrino and his forces catch on to the mysterious forces soon enough to act before any further catastrophes struck them down?
Admittedly, as soon as I noticed Dune: Prophecy was going to premiere on HBO, I knew it would have content far more adult and potentially R-rated than what we’ve seen in Dennis Villeneuve’s films.
For instance, as I said, there were plenty of instances of gore throughout the show, most of which show more grisly and nauseatingly detailed shots of wounds, gashes, and trails of blood. On top of that, there were also a few instances of sex throughout the show, including several shots of topless women.
Originally, I thought that was a little too exploitative since this was the world of Dune we’re talking about. But at the same time, it’s easy for me to forget that the first time I had experience with naked women in the Dune universe was with Alia Atreides in Dune Messiah, when she took a bath and practiced fighting in the buff before Paul caught her. So, I can’t act like this was completely out of line within the Dune universe. Likely, anything explored about the past events of Dune, long before we reach the time of Paul Atreides, wouldn’t have deterred exploration of things far more adult than we would be acquainted with from Dune as Frank Herbert wrote it.
Much like The Penguin with The Batman and It: Welcome to Derry with the It movies, this show took one of the most popular film franchises and explored even darker corners of the franchise, which I personally respect HBO for achieving. For the past few years, the network has greenlit shows that explore the most popular franchises and expand them in the most engaging, adult ways possible, as it did with The Penguin for The Batman and It: Welcome to Derry for the It movies. And I don’t mean adult as in emphasizing adult content like language, sex, blood, violence, drugs, that sort of thing; I mean using the shows as a platform to explore each franchise and showcase its darker, more mature corners. Even Lanterns did a good job of that for the DC Universe James Gunn introduced after he got the ball rolling with his own take on Superman.
Adult content notwithstanding, I was also impressed by how the show moved several characters into key positions as they worked their way forward against their opponents, in ways that sparked intrigue across the board.
It actually reminded me a great deal of Game of Thrones. That show was also excellent at showing the different tactics each character used to work their way against their foes for the Iron Throne. But one of my biggest problems with the show was how it painted some of the characters in such a pitch-black light, such as Joffrey Baratheon, Walder Frey, and Ramsay Bolton, that it only made the experience feel more tasteless to me. It didn’t help that it all happened when everyone in Westeros had bigger fish to fry, which made the battles for the Iron Throne look petty.
With Dune: Prophecy, however, all the characters involved in the show, including the alleged bad guy, Desmond Hart, had different shades of gray and motivations that made them more compelling. No character felt too alienating or too sympathetic; in one way or another, they all expressed a range of motivations that made them more complex.
Speaking of which, let’s start with the characters.
The star of the show, Valya Harkonnen, was the most compelling case. She started with a rough family background and worked her way up with her sister, Tula, hoping to arrange something far better for them both. While both sisters did manage to ultimately work their way up and find refuge with the Sisterhood, their means and methods to do so would only test their relationship with each other as well as their potential as individual human beings worthy of serving the Sisterhood. Valya demonstrated that to the nth degree with her calculated demands and ice-cold disposition. Even if she didn’t look like a righteous leader, her motivations and methods for making sure everything went according to plan only made me more compelled to see how she would move about and set things in motion for herself, Tula, and the Sisterhood.
Valya’s biological sister, Tula, felt like the tag-along who had her sister Valya’s best interests at heart, but acknowledged that she was close to having her limits on what the right thing would be to do, not just for herself or for Valya, but also for the sake of the Sisterhood. She felt a more personal obligation as a biological sister than Valya did, which conflicted with her duties to the Sisterhood and her allegiance to Valya. Of course, when her past motivations were revealed, it became clear that she and Valya held a deep grudge against the Atreides for their brother Griffin’s death. As we saw in a flashback, she was willing to do anything for her sister’s sake, even if her motivations as a biological sister began to conflict with her priorities as a member of the Sisterhood.
Emperor Corrino was clearly not the kind of Padishah Emperor I had in mind to take the Golden Lion Throne in this show. Whenever I thought of the Padishah Emperor, like Shaddam IV, I pictured them as high-ranking but also unscrupulous leaders with their own ideas about what would be best for the universe. But Emperor Corrino seemed to try to exercise his position on the Golden Lion Throne with a clear head and a steady sense of authority, even as unknowable forces cropped up around him, including forces unleashed by Desmond Hart. So, after being initially unaware of his motivations in this show, what he had to confront in this show surprisingly painted him in a borderline sympathetic light because of how he tried to wrap his head around all the forces that challenged him while also doing his absolute best to maintain his position on the throne when other factors could determine otherwise.
Princess Ynez was a far more compelling case, for she did everything it took to make Emperor Corrino, Empress Natalya, and especially her brother Constantine, proud. But while it’s easy enough for me to understand her conflicts as the Princess, she was also part of the Sisterhood. That’s what I meant about the Sisterhood’s strategies; they’d send some of their own sisters to infiltrate different parts of the universe, especially within the Imperial regime. Princess Ynez was one such example. She tried to maintain her position in reality while also reporting back to the Sisterhood on the goings-on that would cue their next move. Sometimes, her lineage between her Imperial title and her role in the Sisterhood can be quite confusing. But at one point, she relayed her background and how she ended up joining the Sisterhood, which made her more sympathetic, especially when she recounted it in response to the murder of Pruwet.
This question would be easier to answer with Mikaela, a Fremen warrior who worked in the underground chambers of the Salusa Secundus and ran the Spice Bar. She joined the rebellion fleet whose main member was Imperial swordmaster Kieran Atreides, for whom Princess Ynez had an affinity. Having seen all the horrors that she’d witnessed back on her home planet on Arrakis, she tried to keep her head held high as she remained reasonable with Kieran about certain circumstances he ought to be mindful of and what the smart move would be for them to take, either for the rebellion or, in Michaela’s case, for the Sisterhood.
As for Kieran Atreides himself, he may not have had much personality outside his role in the rebellion and his drive to overthrow the Imperial regime, but his motivations, along with his position as an Atreides, kept him intriguing. It also painted him in a fascinating light, knowing that his motivations would plant the seeds that’d grow into the attempts of his future descendant, Paul Atreides, who would be more successful in his attempts to settle into the Golden Lion Throne in the name of the Atreides family and the planet Arrakis.
Each member of the Sisterhood had different, engaging personality traits. But while it’s easy to tell which one was which, only a select few stood out to me.
The first one is Sister Jen. When I first saw her, she went on a long and alarming story about how she was sold into slavery and ultimately found her own parents and slit them in their sleep before saying, ‘Ha! Just kidding.’ From then on, she was portrayed in a more compelling light because, for all her jokes, there was more of a no-nonsense demeanor to her that made me intrigued to see how she would take some of the unknowable forces sprouting forth around her, especially, among other things, the shared visions and dreams that she and her sisters began to have. I found her the most compelling of the sisters for that reason, especially since she had the most questions about what went on in the Sisterhood and why they did what they did when they knew there were other problems to worry about.
Sister Lila was beyond fascinating. I remember her as a studious sister, with her own techniques and ways of mastering the Sisterhood’s methods. However, her capabilities and the fact that she was still so young and used to the ways of the Sisterhood only heightened just what traumas and hurdles she had to go through if she was to prove herself as a true member of the Sisterhood. And by the time that she was given the Poison Rossak drug, which I’ll admit I initially thought was the precursor to the Water of Life, only then would it set her off onto a different course than she, we as the audience, or even Valya Harkonnen, would have seen coming.
I consider Desmond Hart the most fascinating character in the whole series. Even though he came into the Imperial Court as a stranger, his convictions about what he witnessed back in Arrakis and the powers lent unto him after witnessing the fabled Shai-Hulud only made him look like he knew something that neither the Empire nor the Sisterhood did. And by the time he expressed his otherwise unruly and unsavory acts upon others, such as what he had done to Prince Pruwet and Mother Kala, the exercising of his power within the regime as appointed by Empress Natalya would only highlight just where his position lay in terms of whose side he was on. The longer he went on with his convictions, the more he was about to make moves against those he considered his likeliest enemies, while doing so on behalf of his likeliest allies. It would get to a point where the more I looked at him, the more I wanted to get to know more about him, where he came from, and why he would do what he did. He was that mysterious.
What also made Desmond so intriguing was that all the visions that he shared with other people and the powers that he inflicted onto others, which looked like they were burning themselves alive from the inside, were brought about by what he saw out of the Shai-Hulud back in Arrakis. He even claimed that one of the Shai-Hulud swallowed him whole, only for him to come out unscathed and more enlightened. On top of that, all the sisters in the Sisterhood also felt the visions he saw. That also heightened the mystery as to not only where Desmond’s heart lay in the Empire’s trust, but also in correspondence with the Sisterhood.
In true HBO fashion, one of the biggest highlights of the show revolved around the acting. Many of the actors conveyed their characters with genuine intrigue; no matter who played whom, they brought the dignity needed to keep me intrigued by every one of them, despite what their standing may imply about their characterizations and personalities.
Emily Watson maintained a firm hold and ice-cold disposition as Valya Harkonnen, even though she moved little and showed little emotion. What made up for it was her sheer sense of calculation. It was as if she, as the Sisterhood’s Mother Superior, did her best to make sure everything went according to plan, especially through the actions of the sisters she sent into different parts of the Empire and the universe to extend their reach. And when things started to go sideways for her, that’s when she began to show a little bit of consternation as to whether that little sidetrack would only be a nuisance not worth losing sleep over, or if that could change the whole trajectory of what she planned to initiate for the sake of the Sisterhood.
Her most effective and emotional acting as this character came when Valya confronted her uncle, Evgeny, who disowned her as a harmful sorceress after she perfected her skills. As she finally put him in his place, for all the wrongs that he and the rest of her family did to her, if not also to Tula, Watson unleashed through Valya what felt like years of repressed rage as Valya ultimately got even with her uncle for what she considered utter mistreatment by her family.
But while Valya was all about maintaining power, her sister, Tula, embodied the more sisterly bonds that were considerably more paramount. Even though it’s clear that Tula loved Valya, she clearly felt uncertain about how to obey Valya’s commands. This came through most effectively in Olivia Williams’ expressions and modulations. She projected the same position and power as Watson through Valya, but she also clearly showed the conflict between the two, highlighting how far Valya had gone and how far Tula thought they might have gone because of her demands. You could tell that for every task she wanted to do to set the Sisterhood on the right course, she also felt uncertain, which made her wary of the consequences and what they could do to what she already shared with Valya.
The younger actresses who played younger versions of Valya and Tula deserve some credit, too. They all expressed more emotion through their characters than the adult actresses did, which made sense given their comparative youth. But each still highlighted how far each character was willing to go to do what they thought was right.
With Emma Canning, she conveyed a clearer-headed and committed essence to Tula, like she knew exactly why she and Valya struggled the way they did and wanted to prove her worth as Valya’s sister even before they entered the Sisterhood, before certain things came about that would test her drive and overall commitment.
But the most effective of the two was Jessica Barden as Valya.
When you look at Valya’s background, you can understand exactly where she came from and why she was compelled to prove her worth when the odds were stacked against her, especially by the time she and Tula entered the Sisterhood. But while she did so with more emotion compared to Emily Watson, she also conveyed a surprising fierceness that would only have highlighted how far Valya would willingly go to stay on top of other people, whether for herself or for her sister, and how that would plant the seeds for her eventual rise as the Mother Supreme in the Sisterhood.
I’m not gonna lie, there were times when I looked at Mark Strong as if he reminded me a bit too much of Patrick Stewart. But what he conveyed as Javicco Corinno helped highlight what he tried to accomplish as Padishah Emperor, while also showing how much came from his role as Emperor and how much came from personal obligations and convictions. Whenever unknowable forces confronted him, whether it was Desmond Hart’s actions or the supposed infidelity that occurred among his family, it put him at a crossroads as to how he should take it all in and what methods he should practice if he were to prove himself worthy as a Padishah Emperor and a family man.
Jodhi May may not have had much written about her, but what she lent to Empress Natalya was enough to highlight the schemes she had in mind, especially those she thought would guarantee her position within the Empire and on the Golden Lion Throne. For every moment where she stood by and expressed her regality in her own fashion, there were also times when she showed a more subtle sense of cunning beneath her facade, like she, too, was calculating what methods needed to be used to maintain both her position on the throne as well as that of her family. This, of course, led to some falling-outs between her and Emperor Corrino over how to resolve the unknowable forces without causing further issues.
Travis Fimmel, I swear, felt like the most distinguished actor of them all, for he emulated Desmond Hart’s supposed propheticism with such extravagance and showiness that it’s hard for me to tell whether he did it for show or really meant what he said. His manner of expression conveyed what he had truly seen with his own eyes as he unleashed the more harmful powers he could use. Given Desmond’s conflicting mannerisms, the actor used unpredictable methods to highlight his mysterious nature. His mannerisms made me want to know more about him and his background, even when his motivations felt murky at best.
And while I admire all the actresses who played the young, budding students of the Sisterhood, let’s talk about two whom I consider the biggest highlights.
One, of course, was Faoileann Cunningham, who played Sister Jen. At first, she seemed generally standard, but the longer she went on, the more conviction she expressed. Even though she seemed like the odd duck because of her supposed background and how she expressed herself, the turmoil surrounding the Sisterhood pushed her to unleash an inner curiosity and a more driven sense of rebellion, making her the savviest and most rebellious of all the sisters.
But if there’s one other actress who I thought was just as stupendous as Travis Fimmel, I’d pick Chloe Lea as Lila.
She conveyed her with a sheer savviness that let her pick up on what went on, as well as enough innocence to highlight her youth despite her intelligence and capabilities within the realms of the Sisterhood. I looked at her like she honed the same essence with her character that Zendaya infused with Shani in the Denis Villeneuve films.
Even though Lila feared what the Sisterhood’s powers could bring, she still went through with it like a pro and endured the agony she expected. At first, it seemed she didn’t make it and couldn’t master her powers over the forces of the Poison Rossak drug. But thanks to a tub full of what looked like Melange, Tula kept her sustained long enough to maintain her health and come back as a fully reemerged, yet vulnerable and unpredictable, force. Since Lila was subjected to the Rossak drug, it heightened her essences and allowed her to either revolt against or communicate with her ancestors, two of whom inhibited her body.
One was Mother Supreme Raquella, who was mindful of the differing conflicts between Talya and Dorotea while also exercising her capabilities as she pieced together what was needed to set the Sisterhood on the right path. The other mother Lilah communicated with was Dorotea, who picked up on how the Sisterhood functioned under Valya Harkonnen’s leadership and innately expressed an utmost rage as she demonstrated what went wrong in the Sisterhood and why Valya was not to be trusted.
Lila manifested the personalities and mannerisms of both Mothers, and Chloe Lea demonstrated both personalities most effortlessly through Lila’s character. She was so in tune with Lila’s ancestors’ mannerisms that I could tell I was looking not at Lila, but at her ancestors as they expressed their outward reach through Lila as their vessel.
That reminded me a great deal of what Leto and Ghanima Atreides tried to do to get in touch with Paul and Chani Atreides, and what Alia did with Vladimir Harkonnen by mistake in Children of Dune. Seeing Lila do what she tried to do not only to make it through and prove her worth as a member of the Sisterhood, but also to be subject to the mannerisms and convictions of her foremothers, highlighted all that Lila had to put up with and the versatility that the actress could convey.
Looking at the consequences this way, however, I wondered how Valya would’ve expected Lila’s blood relations to Raquella to solve all their problems when it was just as likely that Lila could’ve gotten in touch with Dorotea, with whom she held a huge grudge? Although that detail felt inconsistently established, my gut told me that Valya was so confident Lila would contact Raquella that she didn’t consider what would happen if she engaged with the last person she wanted Lila to engage with.
As I’ve said about For All Mankind and Star City, many additional factors went into Dune: Prophecy, and what made it compelling was what the characters did in each episode, as well as what the actors added. It’s about what the actors bring to the characters and, because of that, what the characters bring to the story and the show as a whole.
But in the case of Dune: Prophecy, many other aspects were working in the show’s favor.
For starters, let’s talk about the set designs.
Whether it’s on Wallach IX, where the Sisterhood’s Mother School was, on Salusa Secundus, or even on Lankiveil, Valya’s icy home planet, each location was conveyed with enough distinctness for me to get a general idea of what their capabilities as separate planets were like, even though they looked like different cities on the same planet. But the set designers knew how to establish each locale with the spatial detail needed to show how they stood apart.
Even the Spice Bar underneath the Golden Lion Throne? Never mind that it looked like your everyday bar. It’s no cantina from Tatooine, but it still had just enough sci-fi exotica to intrigue me about what went on there, especially the ongoing rebellion.
In ‘Sisterhood Above All’, when I first saw Tula and her lover, Orry Atreides, riding a horse through forests, I couldn’t tell whether that was Earth or the Dune equivalent of Alderaan from Star Wars. But it turned out to be Caladan, the planet the Atreides would live on for millennia before moving to Arrakis as a political tactic. Because Caladan was said to be so rich and fertile, and not just in water, it was a different step sideways I didn’t expect to see explored of Caladan, the side that was lush and green.
Originally, I was about to ask whether the designs would be remotely like what we had seen of them in Dennis Villeneuve’s movies. But while that would normally be a genuine concern for thematic consistency between the movies and the TV shows or their expansions, let’s not forget this show would take place over 10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides. It not only helped the locales stand on their own two feet within the confines of Dune: Prophecy as an HBO show, but it also reminded us how so much could change in the 10,000 years that would pass before Paul Atreides’ birth and reign. So, I have to give personal props to the set designers for making them so exotic and culturally distinct.
In true Dune fashion – in a manner of speaking – let’s not forget the show’s costume design throughout the show. Many of the costumes worn by the actors throughout the show all embodied a distinctness that established their sense of culture, religion, ideology, and belonging, some more so than others.
The Sisterhood’s outfits conveyed a more graceful, regal, but also monotone sense of clothing that established their acolyte instincts. The outfits worn by the Imperial Court, or even the Landsraad, carried the expected customs of anyone in a royal position, but didn’t show enough differences between cultures for me to tell the planetary representatives apart, similar to how we can tell the country representatives in the United Nations apart.
My personal favorite is Princess Ynez’s wedding dress, with the red veils and drapery and the diamond veil over her face. It reminded me a great deal of what Jessica Atreides wore in Dune: Part One, and it looked smashing on her, too.
While everyone else’s outfits were all varied, such as the more downgraded aspects of Desmond’s clothing, they still conveyed a most unique identity to each character sporting them.
And the visual effects… what can I say?
If there’s one benefit Dune: Prophecy had from being produced by HBO, it was the budget to heighten the overall visuals behind its sci-fi elements. It worked to the nth degree with the dragons in Game of Thrones, and it was close enough with the spaceships and, especially, in the very few times we’ve seen them this season, the Shai-Hulud.
The visuals applied to the spaceships conveyed enough futurism for me to understand what kind of spaceships they were, who they belonged to, and how they could remain functional and possible across the multiple millennia that would pass into the future.
Every time the visuals were applied to the Shai-Hulud, they emphasized the magnificence, terror, and awe-inducing might this creature would unleash once one was within its presence, just like in Villeneuve’s films. I could feel its long-standing inhabitation on Arrakis. I could feel the creature’s size, even at its most titanic. And I could tell what a fabled presence it had throughout Arrakis, long before I felt it all over again when Paul and Jessica Atreides witnessed it and Arrakis for themselves.
I also have to give props to the music.
If you remember me talking about Hans Zimmer’s music in the Dune movies, I remember being completely blown away by the rhythmic drum work and haunting choral work that infused the story of Dune. It highlighted not only the exotica of the planets traversed across the universe, but also the size and scope of the journeys that Paul Atreides, his family, and friends were about to embark on.
However, while the music Volker Bertelmann composed for Dune: Prophecy didn’t come close to Zimmer’s level, it still helped heighten the scope and the universe’s magnificence. It just carried less urgency and epic scope than what Hans Zimmer mastered for Dune.
It’s like what Ludwig Göransson achieved with The Mandalorian. His music with Star Wars was most distinct from what John Williams composed for the films under the Star Wars name. But it fit the specific corner explored through The Mandalorian, and that gave it its unique identity.
In a perfect world, maybe HBO could have ponied up a bit extra and had Hans Zimmer compose the series, as he did for the Denis Villeneuve movies. But for what Volker Bertelmann brought to the show, his music added enough scale and emotion to come in second place behind Hans Zimmer’s in capturing the overall essence of Dune.
But the most fascinating part of the whole show was its political intrigue.
That would be a given, since HBO also produced this show, but it worked because the political momentum grew more prominent starting with Dune: Messiah. The longer the characters engaged in political squabbles over what the right thing should be to do, the more intrigue that would arouse, and the more conflicts that would encourage between different characters who either knew better than to strive for the Empire or had different ideas as to what they thought was good for the Empire.
That said, because I haven’t read any of Brian Herbert or Kevin J. Anderson’s Dune books, I can’t say exactly how faithful the series is so far to the original books, or even to Frank Herbert’s overall vision. But from what I could gather from all of the characters who did their thing in the series, what they had done would determine not only their place in the universe, but would also have intentionally or unintentionally set in place the foundations that would later thrust themselves to the forefront 10,000 years down the line as Paul Atreides would venture into Arrakis.
Another engaging focal point of the political debacles is the Empire’s reliance on machinery. The first few minutes of the show demonstrated that it took place not too long after the end of the machines, where an Atreides was heralded as the one to bring about the end of the thinking machines while the Harkonnens, who could have done so but decided not to do so, were on the receiving end of shame and mockery.
In one such instance, after Princess Ynez was on the verge of marrying Prince Pruwet, it turned out he had held on to a toy that was a sentient machine, the likes of which were far more detailed and hi-tech than, say, Otin the Cybermander in Iwájú.
As we would later see in the show, Valya and Tula had their own methods of using the proper mechanisms to provide what the Sisterhood could afford: an artificial intelligence program called Anirul. With it, they could perform DNA recognition and life support, such as what Tula arranged for Lila and, serendipitously, her search in Desmond Hart’s family history.
So, even though the machinery ended, those who relied on it expected it to help them in their pursuits, much like how we rely on AI for the same reason. In their case, however, they treated it like it was forbidden technology, not too different from how people relied on alcoholic beverages during the Prohibition era. That made for an intriguing test of human boundaries and morale when it came to reliance on technology.
Many people may have conflicting opinions on the show, and given how ingeniously the section of Dune that centered on Paul Atreides was told, that’s understandable. But for what the show had going for it in its first season, it introduced enough engaging elements for me to want to know more about how the Sisterhood came to be and what methods they practiced that would mold them into what we know as the Bene Gesserit. All the different mechanisms and exercises put in place on the Empire’s end were engaging too, for that would tell me exactly how much of a stronghold they tried to express and how much of that would either be successful or, at the very least, set in motion what we would recognize in Frank Herbert’s novels and Dennis Villeneuve’s movies.
The acting was all multifaceted. The characters were incredibly varied, which made them all the more engaging. The set designs felt purely Dune while still feeling distinct. The music came close to capturing what made the Dune movies a hit. What it established in its heyday for Dune made for a most engaging peek into the franchise’s past essence. And what it introduced would only add a fruitfully engaging amount to its lore.
I understand that the likelihood of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s embellishments upon what his father established may be subject to controversy and immense debate. Regardless, because Brian Herbert was one of the producers of the show, just as he produced the Denis Villeneuve movies, I can clearly tell that he knew what the right step would be to take in expanding the world of Dune and embellishing it with extra details that would only help contextualize it in the long run.
You don’t need to enjoy your Melange to understand and appreciate the show’s role in setting the stage for one of the most prestigious sci-fi franchises of all time.
My Rating
A high B+
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