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Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Dune.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune brings the story Star Wars comparisons full circle, and in particular it shows how Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was a missed opportunity to tell a brilliant story. Frank Herbert’s seminal 1965 novel, Dune, has helped shape science fiction ever since, and nowhere is that more evident than in Star Wars. George Lucas loved to put his influences on the screen – a sprinkle of Akira Kurosawa here, a pinch of Flash Gordon there – and Dune was one of the biggest.
The list of everything Star Wars took from Dune encompasses all of Lucas’ original trilogy: the sand covered wasteland of Tatooine is a clear riff on Arrakis, « Spice » is featured prominently in both worlds, each has a mysterious Emperor operating in the shadows, pulling the strings yet remaining unseen and unnamed to begin with, the Jedi Order is similar to the Bene Gesserit, and Star Wars even has not one but two nods to Dune‘s giant sandworms (the exogorth, or space slug, from The Empire Strikes Back, and the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi).
Of course, Dune itself isn’t a wholly original text, and a core reason that it and Star Wars are similar is that each draws on the idea of the hero’s journey and a Chosen One prophecy. Luke Skywalker can easily be seen as a variation on Paul Atreides but, as far as the idea of the monomyth goes, the better and more interesting parallel is that between Paul and Anakin Skywalker. To that end, Villeneuve’s 2021 movie Dune perfectly highlights not only those similarities, but just how good Lucas’ prequel trilogy, starting with The Phantom Menace, could have been.
Dune Shows The Phantom Menace’s Problem Wasn’t Intergalactic Trading
From the first paragraph of the opening crawl, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace promised to be very different kind of Star Wars movie. In the original trilogy, the now-iconic yellow text that greets audiences offers promises of civil war, dark times, and vile gangsters; in The Phantom Menace, viewers are told about the « taxation of trade routes. » Any way that’s looked it, it isn’t as tantalizing a tease for the story ahead, and the notion of intergalactic trade has long since been a stick to beat George Lucas’ first Star Wars prequel with. In a sense, that’s fair, but like with most of the prequels’ problems the issue is in terms of execution, not idea.
Lucas’ intent with trade routes was to spark into his larger examination of the Galactic Senate, and explore how corrupt institutions gain and retain power, which feeds into many of The Phantom Menace‘s political scenes and ideals – Padmé Amidala’s line in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith that liberty dies « with thunderous applause, » is rooted in the story Lucas started in Episode I, and it’s true to real-life that this is how such corporations or political parties operate and, indeed, how wars can begin. Such ideas are pertinent and interesting, but The Phantom Menace never makes them feel as such: instead, it is weighed down by them, struggling to find the right balance of them in the story, and hamstrung by leaden performances and terrible dialog.
In contrast, Dune takes on similar ideas and themes. The taxation of trade routes is replaced by mining of the spice melange on Arrakis, but the core principle remains the same: a secret power operating in the shadows, pulling strings and making everyone cheer the puppet show before it’s too late to realize anything is amiss. Dune‘s Emperor, like in Star Wars, isn’t shown, but his presence is felt nonetheless. The main conflict brews between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, a bloody, bitter rivalry that gives Dune some of its biggest thrills and most incredible action set-pieces, but there’s also much greater strength in its political elements. Dune doesn’t always foreground these – the focus instead kept on Paul’s hero journey – but the machinations of the various factions in Dune are much more enthralling here, and better blended into Paul’s story rather than feeling more disparate.
In part that’s simply because the filmmaking is a level above that in The Phantom Menace – a stronger script, better performances, neater editing. But Dune also approaches these elements more like Game of Thrones than The Phantom Menace: in HBO’s show, the scheming, the conversations in the dark rooms, and the power plays were what made the series great long before dragons were taking to the sky. Dune has something similar, with fascinating characters bouncing off one another, a sense of real urgency to the political maneuvering, and intrigue that is, well, actually intriguing. The Phantom Menace‘s story had all of these in place, but was never able to fully utilize them as Lucas’ strengths as a worldbuilder were outweighed by his shortcomings as a screenwriter. Dune expertly mixes its politics, and uses them to make some similar points as The Phantom Menace with regards to corruption, power, and greed, but strikes a much greater balance that makes those elements work individually and perfectly fit the larger whole.
Paul Atreides vs Anakin Skywalker: How To Tell A Subversive Chosen One Story
Since Star Wars first released in 1977, comparisons have been drawn between Paul Atreides and Luke Skywalker, with both following broadstrokes of the monomyth, each taking on their call to adventure and greatly developing their mystical powers (the Voice for the former, the Force for the latter). It’s a reasonable comparison, but a more accurate similarity to Paul found in Star Wars is Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy – and it’s in Paul’s story in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune that shows how those movies could have better depicted Anakin’s rise and fall and his position as the Chosen One.
Much like Dune and Star Wars quite broadly, there are some clear similarities between Paul and Anakin: both are at the center of messianic prophecies held by religion-like sects, both are taken from the home and have to deal with the struggle of that transition and growing up more generally, each one’s relationship with their mother is key to their arc, both will have vague visions of the future that are open to interpretation, and will help lead them down darker paths, and their experiences and journeys will even lead to both changing eye color. It remains to be seen just well Dune sequels, should they happen, will complete Paul’s arc, but even in Part One it’s already shaping up to do a better job than Star Wars, laying similar groundwork to what’s done across The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, but again with much greater execution.
Timothée Chalamet is a much more accomplished performer than either Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen, which certainly works in Dune‘s favor, but, despite the criticism (and unwarranted abuse) they received, neither was the real problem with the failures of the prequels. It’s arguable that Lucas started Anakin’s story too early: a shift for the prequels may be to shift at least some of Anakin’s Attack of the Clones story into The Phantom Menace, and certainly have him be older, which would help a key problem with The Phantom Menace that Dune avoids: this is supposed to be the Chosen One’s story, yet he’s oddly absent and lacking in agency.
Anakin is something of a bystander in The Phantom Menace, and feels oddly shoehorned into some of its bigger events; it’s only in the later movies that he takes a more central role and it truly gets into the meat of his arc; the story and his age mean that elements the franchise will lean on, such as Anakin’s romance with Padmé and brother-like friendship with Obi-Wan Kenobi, aren’t developed enough in Episode I. In contrast, Dune is very much Paul’s journey. It’s an honor he may share with his mother, Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica, but Paul’s arc and where it’s headed feels somewhat clear, if not fully defined. He’s an interesting character in his own right, who is able to show moments of real heroism, display his incredible gifts, and most importantly make his own choices. He may be on some pre-determined path of destiny, but Dune seems to give Paul at some control over that, which makes his decisions even more impactful, an area The Phantom Menace is lacking in. That Lady Jessica is is so prominent is another real strength for Dune: for Anakin, being torn from Shmi is a factor in his story, but she is a passenger in it, and viewers don’t get to see enough of their relationship. In contrast, Jessica is perhaps Dune’s strongest character, and her presence in Paul’s life is a complicating factor that pushes him, challenges him, and deepens his story.
All of this leads into one key (and often overlooked) difference between Dune and the original Star Wars trilogy. Whereas the latter is a more tradition hero’s journey, even if Luke is tested and tempted by the dark side, Dune is a subversion of it. At best, Paul Atreides is an anti-hero, and eventually he’ll become more like a villain; Dune 2021 understands perfectly well that Paul isn’t a hero. His arc is far more complex and layered, flipping the notion of the Chosen One as he goes down his path to becoming the Kwisatz Haderach; notably, to rise to this point, he has to commit a murder, to enhance his impressive but dangerous gifts, to become a leader is to open himself up to corruptive and corrosive influences. It manages to both borrow from the monomyth, yet also underscores the fallibility of heroes and dangers of investing too heavily in them.
This means Dune is much more like the Star Wars prequels, which are about Anakin Skywalker, believed to be the Chosen One who’ll destroy the Sith, becoming Darth Vader, one of the most powerful dark side users in history. That should be an incredible story, and had The Phantom Menace been more like Paul’s in Dune, then it would have better set up Anakin’s dark side turn, establishing the key relationships, his powers, what he’ll be tempted more, and his own feelings and personality much more to allow viewers to truly understand the character, rather than simply being shown the story. What’s so great about Dune‘s subversion is that, at the end of Part One at least, Paul is on a dark path, but still the hero audiences have to root for, moving the story much beyond a binary good or evil, whereas once Anakin shifts it loses some of that sense (in part as it’s already known where he ends up). Anakin’s arc is muddled, poorly written, and in the later Star Wars prequel movies feels somewhat rushed, but Dune shows how brilliant it could be with the right starting point, actually telling the grand tragedy Lucas clearly intended but failed to pull off.
Why Dune Succeeded Where The Phantom Menace Failed
It’s clear to see that what makes Dune so good are elements that could have made Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace brilliant, but it’s also worth considering, these differences aside, just why one works when the other doesn’t, despite their similarities. After all, George Lucas is an incredible filmmaker, responsible for bringing to life one of the greatest sagas in cinema history. Whether or not Denis Villeneuve is better than him is a matter of debate, with both showing mastery of their craft at different points of their careers, but what matters most is their approach to these stories. Villeneuve has a reverence for Dune and a real understanding of the source (Lucas obviously had the latter, but whether he still retained the former by the time of the prequels is more questionable), and obviously having the books to work from is a major plus point itself, but he also made it a collaborative effort.
It’s easy to think of Dune as his vision, but the script was co-written with two others (Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth). That was something that helped make the original Star Wars trilogy great: Lucas working with Lawrence Kasden on the screenplays, Ivan Kershner as director on The Empire Strikes Back (which is a much more assured movie in that department), and Marcia Lucas as an editor with much greater input to tie everything together and refine the rougher edges, whereas for the prequels Lucas relied more heavily on his own singular vision, with seemingly no one to challenge him. Had people perhaps pushed him a little more, and he been more concerned with storytelling and character development than his world and CGI, then The Phantom Menace could have been a much stronger movie (as again, it has some great ideas in there). Sadly, that wasn’t to be, but Villeneuve’s Dune will more than suffice.
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