The resurgence of Dune in the cultural lexicon has been awesome to see in recent years, thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s (so far) two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. For a longtime fan, who has longed for an adaptation that doesn’t come off as watered down or cheesy, it was refreshing to see something that effectively captured the bleak tone of the book and stayed mostly faithful.
Buy Dune: Prophecy: The Complete First Season 4K UHDBut, with all things successful, once something becomes a hit, the studios that hold the rights then try to milk all they can out of what is now a cash cow. Just look at what Disney has done with Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It gets to a point where fatigue sets in, and what was once novel becomes tedious and boring. With Dune: Prophecy, it feels like we’ve already reached that with the Dune franchise.
Dune: Prophecy is based on the Great Schools of Dune trilogy, starting with Sisterhood of Dune. Anything that is set in the prequel world was not written by Frank Herbert, but by his son Brian and well-known science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson. To explore a side of the Dune franchise that hasn’t quite been explored in movie or television form is an interesting approach and one that could work. But Prophecy takes on a lot and doesn’t work as a whole.
The series starts off 10,000 years prior to the Paul Atredies timeline and focuses on the origins of the Sisterhood – later known as the Bene Gesserit. Emily Watson and Olivia Williams respectively play Valya and Tula Harkonnen, and there’s a brief jump 30 years into the future where Valya becomes Mother Superior of this timeline. We get some interesting backstory about the war between the Harkonnen and Atredies families, as well as the introduction of other families such as the Corrino – led by Emperor Javicco (Mark Strong). There is a lot to follow in each episode, most of which run for one hour or slightly more and the sixth episode clocking in at 80 minutes. But there comes a point very early on, when we get introduced to so many characters with which we have some slight familiarity and so many others that are new to the Dune cinematic universe that it becomes hard to keep track of each individual story.
Most of the series is heavy in exposition and bogs down any kind of intriguing and philosophical approach that Villeneuve captured so well in his two films. Certain characters that become hard to latch onto are killed off early on, and the emotional weight that should come with their deaths is met with more of a shrug.
Watson and Williams work well together as the Harkonnen sisters, and Travis Fimmel of Vikings fame comes in looking like a descendant of Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho character but is someone named Desmond Hart. He’s got a backstory that gets revealed later on that, again, doesn’t quite carry the same surprise that the show makes it out to be.
Maybe it’s the fact that HBO is riding high on the success of Game of Thrones and its prequel, House of the Dragon, that makes Dune: Prophecy almost feel too similar to that series in terms of look and feel. The costume design and visuals are expertly crafted, but – despite its TV-MA rating – it still feels too rote and watered down.
The 4K UHD set of the complete first season comes with 90 minutes worth of bonus features, including a featurette called Building Worlds, in which the cast and crew are interviewed about bringing the multiple worlds of Dune to life. In addition, there are also five Behind the Veil featurettes that explore different aspects of the series and how it all got brought together for this one show.
Villeneuve’s touch is certainly missing from Dune: Prophecy, which could be why the show feels like almost every other HBO science fiction or fantasy show. Narratively and creatively speaking, it doesn’t set itself too far apart from what has already been done on the network and the result, so far, is rather bland. I’m surprised HBO renewed it for a second season, after such a lackluster first season. But, maybe, this renewal will give the creators some time to improve on where they missed the mark.
