The metaphors for Arrakis representing the Middle East, the Fremen as Arabs, and spice being oil are clear. Much of the Fremen language is derived from Arabic; some are straightforwardly Arabic words and expressions, including “Djinn” (supernatural and often nefarious spirits), “Mahdi” (the rightly guided one), and “Lisan al Gaib” (the voice from the outer world). Herbert’s text used the term “jihad” for the Fremen’s uprising, but in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation—for what one assumes to be the now pejorative nature of the term—this becomes “holy war.” 

Since its inception, Dune has faced accusations of “Orientalism” a term popularized by the  Palestinian academic Edward Said, who defined it as “a practice which constructs images of the Orient or the East directed toward those in the West. Representations of the East as exotic, feminine, weak, and vulnerable reflect and define how the West views itself as rational, masculine, and powerful.” In the present, Villeneuve’s film has faced further criticism for a lack of MENA inclusion in the cast, and the ethics around drawing from a culture without showcasing its members’ talents. A debate further stoked by actress Anya Taylor Joy arriving at its premiere in an approximation of a white Abaya.

But to exactly transpose the Arrakis onto the Arabian Peninsula misses out on some of the rich complexity that influenced the Fremen. As he was writing, Herbert was influenced by both the opportunities and limitations of ecological science, researching attempts to turn the sandy deserts in Oregon into grasslands. He looked to the “advanced” Western approach and found it lacking, saying, “We tend to think that we can overcome nature by mathematical means; we accumulate enough data and we subdue it.” But in fact, the way to understand is to look to those whose culture had already been shaped by their surroundings. “You can’t just stop with the people who are living in this type of environment: you have to go on to how the environment works on the people and how they work on their environment.”

You can see the distinction clearly in Dune Part Two compared to Dune Part One. In the first, we see how the colonial forces deal with the sandworms. Mining every bit of spice they can as the giant worms tunnel towards them to consume the machines, the miners fly out of harm’s way only at the last moment so as to maximize the resources they leach from the landscape. But in Part Two, what remains of House Atreides has come to live in allyship with the sandworms, paying them due respect and gleefully riding them across the desert’s planes. 

This is still a harsh world, however, one made all the worse by its cruel occupation. And Paul is under no illusions, fearing for his unborn sister being born into “a world beyond cruelty.”

The Fascist-coded Harkonnens, who in Part Two are tasked by the Emperor with mining the spice, are represented as sadistic, sallow-skinned ubermensch encased in black latex that hold Nuremberg-style rallies and have no such curiosity or respect when it comes to the Fremen. What Villeneuve puts on screen—draining the color out of their planet, blackening their teeth, and having the Fremen explain that their bodies are so filled with chemicals that the water it emits is toxic—speaks to how fascism poisons both people and landscapes.

Glossu Rabban Harkonnen (Dave Bautista) spends the film restored to his position as Fremen’s colonial ruler, and dehumanizes them at every turn. Even when they defeat him in battle, he sees them as lesser saying, “Rats, we’re losing men to rats.” This has devastating past and present relevancy as we’re witnessing with Israel’s state-sanctioned violence on the people of Gaza today. In the distance of Villeneuve’s future—as well as in our own lifetime—we have still not broken the cycle that sees violent occupations and genocides enacted on communities that are intentionally framed as being sub-human. 

Though Herbert had lived through the Second World War and the horrors of Vietnam, the dehumanization and occupation he reflected in his books have not abated in the nearly 60 years since Dune’s publication. Many of the warnings he gave the world were not heeded, and in Villeneuve’s epic films, they echo through to a future generation; like Paul, Chani, and Irulan can see that the path forward doesn’t need to leave broken people and barren landscapes in its wake. Irulan, for instance, rejects her father’s desire to massacre his way to remain on the throne and have the dirty work done by the “psychopath” Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler). Chani rejects the religious zealotry of those around her, content to sacrifice themselves in service of a white savior. And Paul splits from the ambitions of his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), to manipulate the masses into subjugation. When she claims that in positioning her son as the Fremen’s messiah, “we gave them something to hope for.” Paul rejects this means to an end philosophy and hisses back, “That is not hope.”

Paul Atreides’s path in Dune Part Two is an ascent to power that is not afforded to him just by controlling the spice. He turns to the Fremen, and does not impose technology or the culture of his European-coded home planet, Caladan, upon them. He learns from them, adopting their customs, names, and beliefs, and humbles himself before their greater understanding of their homeworld. In a film filled with psychic poisons, clone warriors, and prophetic fetuses, this is perhaps the most fantastical element of all. That those who are in power could sanctify the beliefs and lands of those they have colonized and have control over—rather than using them to fortify their own authority.

Inheriting the Earth in its current state is perhaps the cruellest act those of the 1960s forced on their grandchildren’s generation. And like Paul, the battle to restore the world to its innate potential is a battle of David and Goliath, a battle for our very existence steeped in thousands of years of injustice and exploitation. To look upon the world of Arrakis—or indeed outside our own windows—and absorb just how much the world needs to change is an overwhelming prospect. It’s only in acknowledging the world’s true cruelty that Paul, or any of us, can find the strength to transform it. In his words, “Our resources are limited. Fear is all we have.”