Cup of (Spice) Tea

It’s science-fiction anathema to say so, but I’m not a huge fan of Dune. Oh, I can certainly appreciate the book. I reread it again a couple months ago and my opinion on it hasn’t changed too much from the first time — it’s a great and compelling story set against a vast and imaginative world that sixty years later somehow still feels wonderfully idiosyncratic. It’s also still not quite my cup of tea for reasons that I can’t quite put my finger on. Like, as much as I can appreciate it empirically, it’s not going to be something I put in my favorite science fiction stories.

I felt much the same when I saw Dune: Part One in theaters. The movie was epic, huge, and a very faithful adaption of the book, capturing everything from its sweeping scope to its white savior narrative. It didn’t turn me into a huge Dune fan, but it was the impetus for my recent reread of the book.

When Dune: Part Two came out I dutifully saw it in IMAX, because the movie looked gorgeous and that’s the sort of movie I wanna see in IMAX. On paper, I knew what to expect — I’d just reread the book not too long ago, after all, and it’d been a couple weeks since the movie came out and I’d seen the glowing reviews.

The hype was real: Dune: Part Two is incredible. 

Start to finish, it’s a damn masterpiece. It’s beautifully shot, incredibly put together, and all the imagination and vastness of Frank Herbert’s world is fleshed out and on full display. And unlike Part One, it takes a few liberties with the story that, though not quite absolving it of its orientalism and the whole white savior thing, does complicate things enough to enrich the narrative. Part Two is a movie so assured of itself, so dedicated to a crystal clear vision that its flaws, though definitely able to be critiqued, can almost be ignored.

And yet, I’m still not a huge Dune fan.

I think the movies are terrific, and the second might be better than the book (heresy, I know). And yet, the story still isn’t quite my cup of tea. There’s something to it that holds it from being among my favorite science fiction stories. I suppose there is the divide between something being really good and someone really liking something. I think that’s part of the fun, and part of why we can have a discussion about which Final Fantasy is the best (probably VII) and which one’s the favorite (VIII, no question). Is Dune: Part Two one of the best movies of the last few years? Absolutely. Is it one of my favorites? Probably not, but that’s okay.