“LISAN AL GAIB! LISAN AL GAIB!”
In the chapel this past Inauguration day, students chanted loudly as Brad Voyles took up his weapon to engage in ritual combat against Derek Halverson to earn the office of president.
Voyles saluted with his blade: “May thy knife chip and shatter” before the attack—
Timothee Chalamet stars in Dune Part 2 as Paul Atreides. Photo via Vox.com
Wait. These are not scenes from the long awaited Inauguration, but rather, blockbuster cinematic masterpiece “Dune: Part 2,” directed and produced by Denis Villeneuve. Hopefully there will be no spoilers in this article, but here is your warning if you care about that!
Starting with the stats: This sequel in the “Dune” series (released on Friday, March 1) had an impressive opening in the box office, surpassing $82.5 million on its opening week (beating out “Oppenheimer,” which was around $82.4 million). The film is currently closing in on $500 million globally. Audience ratings on Google indicate an audience rating of 4.6/5 stars with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%.
This movie was enjoyable for a number of reasons: The cinematography was epic, with vast and awe-inspiring visuals and powerful storytelling. The score (by Hans Zimmer) perfectly contributes to the film's pathos and setting. With a star-studded cast and fascinating interpretation of Frank Herbert's epic space series, it is both daunting and alluring in its content and flow.
As mentioned above, this depiction of “Dune” is based on a book series with 28 installments. With this background, I was quaking in my boots at the thought of trying to comprehend the film series. What I thought was a “Star Wars” dupe is in fact a deeper and vastly different expression of space fiction. Regardless of the daunting number of books behind the films, it is much more accessible for a beginning “Dune” fan than I anticipated. Yes, there is a host of background details and extraneous information you can dive into within the series, but you can absolutely start with the first Villeneuve directed “Dune” and understand the story.
While it was at times slow (at two hours and 46 minutes), “Dune: Part 2” captures a wide range of thematic elements. As mentioned before, there are sweeping landscapes of a foreign world to explore. The characters are refreshingly complex. The producers utilize some really cool filming techniques (like infrared cameras) to create fascinating visuals. The world building is unique—from the spaceships to the sandworms, this film shook up many of the space movie cliches I am used to.
“Dune” as a whole (in my opinion) does not have a clear antagonist or protagonist, leaving much to consider in the way of philosophy. It explores topics of morality, religion and power. In the two films, the main characters, especially Paul Atreides, have visions of the future, one that arrives rapidly in Part 2. The viewer is left to contemplate these dreams, wondering if they are as powerful as they seem, or just spice induced hallucinations. Thus “Dune: Part 2” is a deep exploration of worlds, philosophies and people in general. It asks who we are, and what makes our actions right.