Dune, Islam, Arab Nationalism and Star Wars
About a decade ago, late one night while browsing the internet, I came across a blog post (on a now defunct site) about Hollywood films which could not be made after the events of September 11, 2001. Anyway, the first movie in that short list was ‘Fight Club” which had a strong anti-consumerist message and one final scene in which the protagonist rigs up and blows up a bunch of skyscrapers in the downtown of some American city. The second movie in that list was ‘Starship Troopers’ which pokes fun at American style propaganda and the elite desire to get involved in expensive, endless and un-winnable wars in arid areas. It was also prescient about how the government would blame one unexpected and spectacular “terrorist” strike on some barely known group living far away and how they would then use that event to justify a massive and unwinnable war in an arid part of the world.
The third movie in that list was ‘Dune’, more specifically- an accurate adaptation of the first book in that series. By then, there had already been one movie adaptation in 1984 – that movie was quite campy and not even close to exploring the overarching themes of the source material. It did become a cult classic over the years and contains that humorous scene of Patrick Stewart, before he became famous, charging into battle with a sword in one hand and a puppy in another. But that is beside the point. While one could find many, and often conflicting interpretations, for the central theme in Dune- there are some basic aspects of the story which cannot be ignored. Firstly, religion and culture of the Fremen on the desert planet Arrakis is very similar to Islamic tribes and cultures in the Middle East. Now add the fact that they are depicted as a poor but proud and warlike people who are engaged in armed resistance against foreign powers who want to mine ‘Spice’ on their planet while paying the Fremen almost nothing in return. Also, the evil and greedy colonizers are depicted as vaguely European with some local collaborators.
It is, therefore, fair to say that the background story of ‘Dune’ is an good analogy for the exploitative extraction of oil and gas by Western powers in the Middle-East with the help of some local collaborators. Notably, neither the 1984 movie adaptation nor the SciFi channel mini-series from early 2000s, gets into that aspect of the story. It is also doubtful if such a movie would have ever been green-lighted for production, given the rather close connection of Hollywood with the American MIC. It took two failed and very expensive occupations of the Middle-East (Iraq and Afghanistan) for the American audience to give up the illusion of being able to project military power in that region. It is therefore not surprising that previous movie adaptations of ‘Dune’ have the look of an acid trip from the 1980s or some low budget TV productions while glossing over all that very relevant subtext. The 2024 movie adaptation, in contrast, does a much better job of being faithful to the main themes of the source material.
We can finally stop pretending that the Fremen are something other that Muslim Arabs in the Middle-East or that Arrakis is some place other than the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. Denis Villeneuve does a pretty good of highlighting this underlying subtext to the audience in a multitude of ways from how actors look, landscape, architecture, traditional dress etc. The similarities between how the Harkonnen use aerial military power to attempt subjugating the Fremen has more than a passing similarity to scenes of war from the Middle-East, which we have all seen since the early 2000s. The scenes of Fremen fighting back also have more than a passing similarity to how the Taliban fought back in Afghanistan, Iraqi militias in Iraq.. and Hamas and Hezbollah are doing right now. Given that Frank Herbert wrote the first Dune book in the mid 1960s, it is likely that he was also aware of the conflicts caused by rise of Arab nationalism in Middle-East during the 1950s and 1960s. The 2024 adaptation, therefore, gets it fairly right, even if the result is still a bit anemic to maintain appeal for a western audience.
The first book of the ‘Dune’ series is also influenced by events which occurred in the Middle-East towards the end of WW1 during the first instance of widespread Arab nationalism in the modern era. In fact, some would say that the first book in the series is basically ‘Lawrence of Arabia in Space’. The very famous film of that name came out in 1962, while the first book in ‘Dune’ series was published in 1965. To summarize, while this book series clearly has multiple influences, it is clearly based in the Middle East, Islam and Arab nationalism. I should mention that the next part of the current movie series will have to deal with the unavoidable topic of Paul’s Jihad.. I mean ‘Holy War’. We will see how Denis Villeneuve deals with this issue, because there is no way to direct a film around this defining event in the story. Let us now move to a somewhat different topic- namely, how much the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy and prequels owe to the ‘Dune’ series. It is not a secret that George Lucas stole many ideas for his movie storyline from ‘Dune’ series, and the similarities are unusually strong and deep.
Arrakis (Dune) and Tatooine (Star Wars) are both desert planets playing a central role in both stories. Arrakis has two moons while Tatooine has two suns. The centers of galactic power in both series have vaguely similar names, House Corrino on the planet Kaitain in Dune and Coruscant in Star Wars. The imperial elite troops in Dune are the Sardaukar who are raised on a prison planet, just like the Storm Troopers in Star Wars. The Bene Gesserit order in Dune have trained their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain almost superhuman powers and abilities that seem magical to others not unlike the Jedi order in Star Wars. Curiously, both are an independent center of political power in both series. While Paul Atreides, unlike Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) does have a proper family, both were born with physical and other capabilities that are borderline superhuman.
Paul destroys the old empire and unleashes a galactic Jihad which kills billions, while Anakin destroys the old Republic and starts a number of wars which also kill a lot of people. Both end up having fraternal twins (Leto II and Ghanima in Dune, Luke and Leia in Star Wars) with a woman (Chani in Dune and princess Amidala in Star Wars) who become disillusioned with them and die during childbirth. Also, Paul’s sister is named Alia. In both cases, the sons (Leto II and Luke) have to fix the problems created by their fathers, even though the later were prophesied to the “chosen ones”. There are other similarities between the two stories, but this is enough for now. To summarize, the character of Paul Atreides is a much better written and realistic (if darker) version of Anakin Skywalker and the Dune trilogy will likely be better remembered than the Star Wars prequel trilogy released on early 2000s- especially because the story telling in the former is much better than the later.
What do you think? Comments?