Dune Is Star Wars For Tool Fans

Was George Lucas heavily influenced by Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 novel Dune in writing Star Wars? Information technology'due south i of the not bad debates in picture fandom.

And while Lucas never explicitly acknowledged it — at least co-ordinate to our cognition and research — fans and scholars have little doubt that Star Wars owes its very being to Herbert's intergalactic yarn set in a afar future about a young man who leads a desert globe'southward warriors in an uprise against the galactic emperor.

Herbert himself reportedly cited 37 similarities between Star Wars — which launched in 1977 with A New Promise — and his source textile, and they've been widely tracked over the years.

The novel Dune did eventually get its ain adaptation, David Lynch's imperfect merely even so dear have starring Kyle MacLachlan that was released in 1984 and grossed $xxx million (or roughly one-twenty-fifth of A New Promise's $775 million haul).

This weekend, though, marks the arrival of Denis Villeneuve'southward Dune, the Inflow and Blade Runner 2049'southward masterful, tense and visually stunning $165 million adaptation of Herbert's novel (the first half, anyway) starring Timothée Chalamet equally hero Paul Atreides and featuring a star-studded supporting cast that includes Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem.

Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet in 'Dune' (Warner Bros.) — Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet in *Dune.* (Photo: Warner Bros.)

And the cycle of inspiration continues, with Villeneuve once promising his film would be akin to "Star Wars for adults," a peg that'south rang true for early viewers.

"I was born with Star Wars," the Quebec native Villeneuve, 54, tells Yahoo Amusement in a new interview (watch above). "Meaning Star Wars was the first movie that I asked my parents to get and see in the theater. I was similar ix or 10 years former when it came out in 1977. I was the target audience and Star Wars changed my life. I'thousand here probably, because of Star Wars. Yous know it'due south like I was traumatized… in a great way. I was floored.

"And I call back that Dune related in some way to that spirit of someone who wants to take sci-fi seriously… Star Wars was deeply inspired by Dune… And so us making Dune 40-something years after, it's like nosotros are in a earth where the space opera has been occupied past the Empire. And so information technology's a claiming to define our identity knowing there'southward that big gigantic brute that is Star Wars that is there living outside. It was a challenge."

Subsequently Lynch'south Dune underwhelmed in the '80s, Herbert's source cloth would often be chosen unfilmable. For Villeneuve though — who's cartoon wide acclamation and fifty-fifty early fizz for Dune (probable/hopefully the first of two parts) — information technology was all about summoning his early on experiences with the volume.

"The challenge was to aqueduct the teenager that I was that read the book in the '80s," he says. "Like an archeologist, to get back in time and bring back the epitome that came into my mind when I was reading the book… I tried to go back to that spirit every bit much equally possible."

Dune is at present playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max .

Picket the trailer:

— Video produced past Anne Lilburn and edited by John Santo