Dune: Fear is the Movie Killer.

Upon initially hearing that Hollywood was taking another shot at “Dune” Frank Herbert’s definitive epic with none other than Denis Villanueve I was elated, this even while I still had a very small pocket a reservation based upon my timid disappointment with Blade Runner 2049, and a lack of confidence, better yet ..a fear in Hollywood's desire to do what I felt was needed in order for this story to be told right. What that “necessary” was is that white people in this film be reduced to the background, (and to The Harkonnen especially) and that the main characters be Middle Eastern and North African (MENA ) with Black folk and various POC representing the books several distinctive houses and the Attriedes various house powers. This would leave us to proper focus purely on the ecological, political, and philosophical power rather than the white supremacist quagmire that the book - TV and films especially fell into. It was bad enough in 1984 to watch the erasure of all of Middle Eastern aspects, but to a young mind like mines I won't pretend I was aware of it then, what I was aware of was how jarring it was to watch this tale of even more blue-eyed people that felt like the story of the uprising of a master race.. I was shocked then to the read the book and find it was pretty opposite, and when I became older what was interesting was that Lynch's vision (somewhat like Stanley Kubrick's version of “The Shining” ) not really quite an interpretation of the book and not really its own, and its whiteness sort of turned on itself and fed upon itself and thus left some satisfaction in combination with its age and knowing the time and era. It didn't take away the pain of erasure for me and I’m sure for people of Middle Eastern decent, but it acted as a light balm of sorts. The miniseries which again like “The Shining” sought to make up for the sins of the film, made it more plain how trifling and ridiculous this endeavor was without the proper acknowledgement of the what is right there in the text, the more it stuck to the script the more painfully evident it was that this story told as if the obvious did not exist could easily become a grossly white supremacist text that followed in the vein of the “hearts and minds” infused with “The Hero’s journey” that many stories of the day did. For the uninitiated “Dune” is a story much like Lawrence of Arabia and less like but still close enough Avatar ( that former which is an inspiration, the latter of which was inspired by ). It’s central themes are about centralized power, political and ecological revolution, and freedom. The eventual revolution of the “fremen” folk is vital to the story and so too is the attention placed on their leader and his conscience interrogation of his role, but all iterations of this story were flawed in conception. The white len’s from which they're told is inextricable from its flaws. If you center white people in this story as the power not only in force in the book, but externally to the audience, you not only reinforce the very allure of centralized power Herbert sought to interrogate, but you all but sterilize the story's radical possibilities.

It feels a good time here to state that casting is not the only issue with Dune, so too is the continued trend of robbing this story of any emotional underpinning. There is nothing in the original story to suggest that the emotions of the people involved don’t run deep and over, in fact quite the opposite. Knowing this, the decision for instance to continue the continued omission of any decisive or engaging emotion in Dr. Yueh is startling, especially when you know why he does what he does, and what it means to him. With that context, the casting of actor Chang Chen as a representational win is mooted and spoiled. When you take out the emotive power of what's behind and what motivates his decisions and leave the consequences of them, then you inflict a mortal wound on the power of that representation, because not only does this character now become unmemorable, but you cut a very talented actor off at the knees in a role that inherently contains the kinds of challenges that push an actor to excel and use the parts of his/her/their imagination that would propel he/she/they into our imaginations. This theme will continue throughout this part one of the story as characters of color are placed with with no real motivations or objective seemingly to follow. Isolated to the realm of moving the plot forward, after which they will be killed off, all ( like one who starts a duel ) end up merely cardboard cutouts as stand-ins for a diverse society. The closest any one of color comes to being evocative of emotion is Jason Momoa whose Duncan Idaho runs off with the movie with his only competition being Rebecca Ferguson. The lack of emotion in these characters of color helps to reinforce a framework, that belies where the power lies not only in plot but in actors, a hierarchy of whiteness already invoked by the casting. The whiter you are the more central of a figure you are, the more a central figure the more you are allowed to wield some emotive power (mind you no one is really doing much ). At the top of this hierarchy the two whitest people in the movie Rebecca Ferguson and Timothee Chalamet.. The Madonna and her Christ figure like child, at the bottom Middle Eastern and North African people a sect of whom aren’t even here.

The lack of MENA representation in a film so deeply mired in the culture aesthetically and philosophically of that region is APPROPRIATION . Yet even more disturbing than its absence maybe the lack of conversation around the absence. This is not some minor infraction, it does a major disservice to any of the work we do as critics to watch an entire group like this be shutout of a film damn near buried in their culture, and collectively shrug it off in favor of what I can’t even say. I cannot say this loudly enough this is a continuation of a tradition in Hollywood and those of us who spectate , where protection becomes more important than correction, and that particular aspect is why we continue to see so much of the same thing constantly recycled in front of our faces. When frequently the framing around a story like “David Lean’s” Lawrence of Arabia seeks to deflate, to buffer against as if already prepared for the legit criticisms about the lens from which that story is told in favor of protecting a legacy which is or has never been in question, It stands to reason that it's fictional cousin could get away with propping up that exact same story and then erasing the people at the center of the conflict and it’s foundational religion. Before you hit me with “this is not a real story or a real people” keep in mind that I know that and that nonetheless the story is based and steeped in unquestionably the history and culture of a very real people. Worse still its arguable Dune does not improve upon any of LOA’s problems and falls short in certain aspects that Lawrence thrived in. It's a regression to me to go from Omar Sharif to Javier Bardem, (who is Stilgar if not a version of Sherif Ali ) to lose that voice of the people who would act as at least somewhat of an insight into the mind of the oppressed if not merely by the conjuring of his own ancestry, even while he is a character written from a white perspective. It’s a regression to make a movie that riffs on this material some 50 or 60 years later so engorged in revolution and the power of a people in story and not give that power over to the people who are it’s inspiration. How great might an actor like Payman Maadi ( A Separation, About Elly ) have been in a role like Stilgar, or even as Leto? How great an asset might an actress like Narges Rashidi (Under the Shadow) be to play the role of Paul’s mother? How interesting would it have been to introduce the audience to a newcomer from the region as Paul? How great might it have been to see Shoreh Aghdashloo ( House of Sand and Fog, The Expanse ) as the Reverend Mother of the Bene- Gessserit. This kind of casting that would've put MENA actors at the forefront, keeping the array of actors of Black African, and Asian descent, and leaving the Harkonnen's and the emperor as white? The story of Dune would become the knotted complex tapestry of oppression and idolatry rather than a hobbled poorly disguised tale of a white benevolence. Far more correct, far more insightful, far more poignant and from the only proper lens. Now it would get to perform as the allegory for the world we live in, in a way that acknowledges and loves on the books inherent radicalism and we'd get a powerful look at the interrogation of saviors free from the interference of white supremacy as an authority. Done any other way including the way that I have just witnessed it twice now, It dilutes the story, waters it down to some extent, whitewashes it and in combination with the movie's lack of almost any emotional power and range it ghosts the movies intentional brutality making it a candy coated shell. If you go back and watch “The Lord of the Rings” maybe the only competitor to the legacy of Dune as Sci fi/Fantasy literature and see the way that movie steeps itself in emotional power while doing all of the same things that this movie does well whether it be cinematography, or world-building or providing a rousing score with skilled actors, you cannot say with a serious face or conviction that this is not the way any blockbuster film should be. Even Nolan's Batman’s for all their brutalist male dominated, dreariness contained more emotion. The lack of it drains the film of any of the power it's natural scope and vastness seeks to give the audience. Dune is a good movie but it's not a great one. It appeals to us deeply on the aesthetic levels, its structures, its environment its sounds, costume design, creatures, Those things appeal to our mind and to some extent to our imagination but to our hearts and to its own cause it is an utter failure, and a lack of imagination. We don't need white meditations that circle around their own guilt with the havoc that they've brought on the world without ever really facing that in a meaningful and stern faced way. I don't care if Paul acknowledges what his people and others have done to ravage Javier Bardem's people ( feel free to laugh) If the next thing we know we're going to watch him kill a Warrior of African descent in order to make a sign of his ascent. Especially when that Warrior’s skill is made a mockery of in order to show the level of elite that a young Paul is. It's disheartening to see a black woman be cast in a role that feels like something of an awakening only to watch her be sacrificed again for the ascension of this white man in story or not, If we must be sacrificed let it be for a cause that rings true to our own and to one that looks like us, or exist somewhere within the spectrum of oppression that we live in. It bothers me to watch Thufir Hawat ( played by the great Stephen McKinley) be yelled at in a way that is supposed to show an underbed of beloved devotion but fsils because the relationship like most isn't properly set up..it makes him look like a beloved Caddy rather than a powerful asset in again both his regard as a character and actor. Dune had an opportunity to use its powerful invocative aesthetics to enforce and empower the radical ideas of change and revolution in the book and for change in Hollywood, By providing people of color and black people with the epic with which to see themselves through and in, instead of that oasis it remained in that dry barren desert of white supremacy and appropriation only this tike offered in a “Lite” version, leaving that story once again to be told unfaithfully, and without trust in its power regardless of whom the face of it is. All it had to to do is let go and be brave enough to believe in the power of that that has already been demonstrated by Shang Chi, and Black Panther, and Crazy Rich Asians and double down on it, but alas fear ( and on this case a true lack of imagination ) is the mind killer.