The first part of Dune is finally here, and along with it comes the confirmation that Dune Part Two will actually happen. If you’ve read the book, then you already know what the plot of that movie will be, but director Denis Villeneuve is promising a lot more than a great story in the next movie, he’s promising spectacle.
In an interview with IMDb, which took place prior to the confirmation that Dune Part Two was actually confirmed the director was asked what fans should expect in a sequel were it to happen. Denis Villeneuve says the next movie would be “pure fun” because the heavy lifting of the world building had all been done in part one, freeing the sequel to really cut loose. According to Villeneuve...
A big spectacle. Right now, the truth is that part one was there to create, to design, to build the foundation to this world. If ever such a thing as part two occurs, if I ever have the chance to do it, it’s going to be pure fun. Now the world is there, I don’t have to explain almost nothing. It’s just pure cinematic joy after this, so I hope I will have the chance to do it. In a strange way, Dune Part 1 is the appetizer, Dune Part 2 is the real meal.
Dune has frequently been seen as a science fiction property that was difficult to adapt for the screen and a big part of the reason for that was the world building that needed to happen. Frank Herbert’s novel is dense with politics, with different families and factions who are competing for power. Multiple groups have their own religious beliefs which factor into the story. And there are just so many characters.
It’s necessary that all this get explained so the audience knows what’s going on, but nobody loves massive info dumps of explanatory dialogue. Getting all the necessary information across to the audience while still making the movie fun and exciting is a potentially tough balancing act.
The first Dune movie needed to do all the world building in order for its story to work, but now, that’s all been done. Dune Part Two isn’t a sequel in the traditional sense. It’s the back half of a single story, so there’s an expectation that when you watch it you will have seen the first movie. Since the sequel won’t need to worry about all that work, it can just tell its story, in the biggest way possible.
Fans of Dune are certainly going to be looking forward to the next movie anyway, and maybe even the one after that, but knowing that Denis Villeneuve is looking to take an approach like this to it, there’s a lot for any movie fan to be excited about. The spectacle of it all is the reason that Dune has been a popular choice for adaptation despite the difficulty in doing so. Now we only have to wait two years to see it.
