A prequel series to Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epics, Dune: Prophecy also positions itself as a Game Of Thrones successor – and highlights the differences between film and TV.
Earlier this year, director Denis Villeneuve sparked a small ripple of controversy when he remarked that “movies have been corrupted by television.”
Cinema, he added, is about a “strong image” rather than dialogue. Ironically, as those words were published, the cameras were still unrolling on Dune: Prophecy, a prequel series which takes its visual tonal cue from Villeneuve’s Dune movies. (At one stage, Villeneuve was going to direct, before scheduling conflicts intervened.)
Having watched the first two episodes ahead of the show’s premiere later this month, it’s fascinating to see how it highlights not only the blurred line between TV and film when it comes to scope and production values, but also how vastly different the two mediums can still be. One may have corrupted the other, but movies and TV shows are still markedly different creatures.
Loosely based on Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson’s novel Sisterhood Of Dune, Prophecy is set some 10,000 years before the events of Villeneuve’s film saga. A handsomely-mounted prologue sets the scene, which is such an expansive one that we’ll only lay it out in the broadest possible strokes here. Humans have colonised other planets; computers are outlawed; a substance called the Spice Melange, found on the planet Arrakis, is the fuel that powers a galaxy-spanning empire.
While the whole network of noble houses is overseen by the Emperor Corrino (Mark Strong), the levers of power are secretly operated by the Bene Gesserit, or Sisterhood – a hermetic, matriarchal order which specialises in figuring out when someone’s lying. That supernatural skill – among others in its possession – puts the Sisterhood in high demand among the nobility, who remain blissfully unaware that the order is quietly manipulating them all.
Dune: Prophecy’s intrigue essentially runs on two tracks. There’s the vaguely Hogwarts-like Sisterhood School on the desolate planet Wallach IX, where young trainee sisters whisper in an echoing library as their Mother Superior, Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) glares at them imperiously from her quarters on the floor above. Valya and Reverend Mother Tula (Olivia Williams) have designs on installing a member of their own order as the Imperium’s first female ruler – all the better to ensure their ongoing survival.
Over on Salusa Secundus, the home planet of the House Corrino, Mark Strong’s Emperor is in a spot of bother. The spice mining operation on Arrakis is being disrupted by insurgents, and Emperor Corrino is so desperate for additional firepower that he’s on the cusp of marrying off his daughter, Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) to a nine year-old boy in order to secure some extra military hardware. As the day of the wedding draws close, however, the Sisterhood begins to sense that something ominous is about to happen – a feeling reinforced by the arrival of a soldier named Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel, a champion non-blinker), whose motivations are worryingly unclear.
This, at any rate, is a spoiler-free overview of a story that, even in the two episodes we’ve seen so far, introduces a bewildering array of plot threads and characters. (So many characters that IMDb doesn’t currently list them all, in fact.)
Showrunner and co-writer Alison Schapker keeps the plates spinning, though, and Prophecy is seldom dull; if anything, it’s notable how quickly the show rattles through its scenes in the first episode. Some of the production design and cinematography is wonderful to look at, but there’s a sense that it’s been edited down to the knuckle in order to keep each instalment to around an hour. There’s a kaleidoscopic overhead shot of young Bene Gesserit kneeling in prayer, for example, that flashes by almost before we’ve had a chance to drink it in.
The camera lingers rather longer on Prophecy’s more sordid moments, however, whether it’s an agonising death or the wobbling bosom of a princess in the throes of passion. In this regard, the series is clearly channelling Game Of Thrones’ spirit, both in its attention-grabbing nudity and violence and its complex story of scheming and betrayal. Just about everyone in Prophecy, it seems, has a hidden agenda or an axe to grind. Whether they’re established actors like Emily Watson, Olivia Williams or Mark Strong, or a younger set of performers like Jade Anouka or Chris Mason, the cast clearly relishes these murky roles.
While Dune: Prophecy appears to have designs on capturing the same audience that tuned in to Game Of Thrones for eight seasons, it retains some of the distinctive flavour Villeneuve brought to his movies. He and his collaborators’ taste for raw concrete structures and baroque tailoring is present and correct here, and it’s a look that sets it apart from a rival space opera like Star Wars – which is probably just as well, since recent Disney+ series The Acolyte, whether coincidentally or not, was also partly about an order of space witches.
One thing that both the Dune movies and Game Of Thrones had were expansive battle sequences – something that you won’t find much of in Prophecy’s first two episodes. Instead, there’s dialogue, and lots of it – some bellowed angrily across an imperial court, some shouted above banging music in a kitsch nightclub, some hissed furtively in dimly-lit chambers. We see several characters, such as Boussnina’s Princess Ynez, honing their combat skills, though, so it’s possible there’ll be less conversation and more action later in the six-episode run.
For now, Dune: Prophecy is quintessentially modern telly: expensive-looking, verbose, but with a smattering of sex and violence to keep viewers from looking down at their smartphones. It can’t match the movies in terms of detail or sheer visual power, but it’s a well-acted extension of their already huge canvas. Whether you agree with Villeneuve’s “movies have been corrupted by television” argument or not, Dune has arguably translated to TV well, and brought more of a hint of Villeneuve’s refined sensibility (though not his economy of dialogue) with it.
One character’s off-hand remark manages to sum up the growing Dune film and TV franchise as a whole, in fact: “If you like barren landscapes and minimalism, you’ll be very happy.”
Dune: Prophecy will premiere on HBO on the 17th November 2024.
