The World-Spirit on Wormback: What is Dune About?

Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) has now been adapted into three movies and a TV miniseries, which makes it even more remarkable that there does not appear to be much of a consensus about what it’s actually about. Interpretations abound, as do arguments. Some see it a straightforward Hero’s Journey, others as a fascistic white savior narrative, and still others as a deconstruction and critique of the former. Frank Herbert said it was about how much he hated John F. Kennedy. Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 and 2024 adaptations lean heavily into the interpretation of Paul Atreides as a False Messiah who betrays the Femen’s hopes and dreams. Part of the problem is that none of these are unjustified readings of the text; Dune is a long, dense novel that often treats its subjects with a deep ambiguity. That said, now I’m going to tell you what the right answer is.

Debates over whether Paul Atreides is a “hero” or “villain” have flourished on the internet since Villeneuve’s adaptations thrust the franchise back into the zeitgeist. But in truth, this misses the point. At its heart, Dune is a book about the the rise and fall of Empires, the crushing weight of destiny, and the unstoppable course of historical narrative. Paul is neither good nor evil, he is the embodiment of a historical principle, (with apologies to Hegel), the world-spirit on wormback, concentrated at a single point, reaching out over the Universe to master it.

Stories Need Endings

_{Gravity Falls S2, E21 “Weirdmageddon 4: Somewhere in the Woods”}

Over the last year, one of the perennial topics of Discourse in entertainment news has been the faltering fortunes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and whether or not we’re entering “superhero fatigue”. For a last decade-and-half, the MCU has been one of the foundation stones of the franchise-based entertainment model that seems to have triumphed everywhere, much to the lament of many auteurs. Since 2008’s Iron Man, it has grossed an estimated $32.2 billion, and executives at Disney and Marvel Studios have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Attempts to duplicate this runaway success have proliferated; with seemingly every studio trying to find its own Cinematic Universe in its back catalogue of intellectual property. We’ve seen a new Harry Potter franchise (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), two new major Lord of the Rings series (The Hobbit Trilogy and The Rings of Power), a massive flood of Star Wars content, and whatever the hell is going on with DC these days.

But since 2019’s blockbuster hit Avengers: Endgame, the MCU seems to have been struggling to find its footing. Are audiences finally weary of endless CGI spectaculars, featuring familiar characters? Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know something else, and I think it explains the ennui that many feel about the contemporary entertainment landscape.

If stories are going to work, they need to end.

Evaluating Avatar

For a long time I used to joke that I was America’s “last Avatar defender”. The movie occupied a strange sort of space in our pop cultural landscape. In an era defined by massive, inescapable, unending franchises, Avatar was released in 2009, made $2.9 billion, became the highest-grossing film of all time, and then……kind of vanished? Despite its popularity, it didn’t seem to leave much impact, and within a few years it had receded to the status of a weird joke. Sure, James Cameron claimed to be working on sequels, but I always assumed that he’d either gone completely insane or it was all an elaborate money-laundering scheme. And yet, I was wrong. We were all wrong! Thirteen years after the first movie, Cameron premiered his monumental follow-up, Avatar: The Way of Water, a movie that nobody seemed to ask for and want. Of course, it has also gone on make $1.5 billion, because you can’t beat Cameron apparently.

Now, as I said, I was the last person in this country to admit that I’d seen and enjoyed Avatar and had mostly positive feelings about it, so of course I…….eventually got around to seeing The Way of Water several weeks after it came out because I needed a movie to go to with a friend. It was fine! I enjoyed it! But it didn’t blow me away or capture my imagination the way the its predecessor did. However, it did inspire me to go back and rewatch the original movie, to see if it held up. Comparing the two proved to be a surprisingly interesting exercise, in terms of exploring both why Avatar worked so well as a film, and why The Way of Water falls short in so many ways.

(BTW: SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING)

Andor and the Art of Building a Universe

So. Wow. I mean, Wow. I don’t think anyone expected Andor to be even good at all, never mind some of the best TV I’ve ever seen, but here we are. Somehow, they took the origin story for a character who got killed in a Star Wars spinoff movie from seven years ago and spun it into a gripping, compelling story about why people join revolutions, or don’t, and what it takes for them succeed. I’m honestly flabbergasted. This is so much better than it had any right to be.

Full disclosure, I’ve basically been checked out of Star Wars for the last few years. I saw The Force Awakens, enjoyed it, I saw Rogue One, enjoyed it, saw the first season of The Mandalorian, enjoyed it a lot, but none of it made me interested in seeing any more. Maybe the other two Sequels are better than I’ve heard, I don’t know. I have thus far been unable to muster up the energy to watch a movie about Palpatine coming back from the dead. I liked The Mandalorian so much because it was new and fresh, staking out a new direction in the Star Wars universe……and then S2 turned into another excuse for cameos and backdoor pilots and I lost interest. It feels like Star Wars has become the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, an endless cycle of references and cameos and endless circling around the same characters and ideas. So, as you can imagine, I could not have cared less about the idea of revisiting the Death Star for the one thousandth time.

This isn’t that. Andor uses its titular character not just as an excuse to remind you of things you’ve already seen, but as a lens for building and exploring the big questions of what it means to rebel, not just the platitudes, but how you go about doing it, and what it costs. It asks and answers the question: “What does it take to make someone willing to die for a cause?” There’s so much to unpack here, but we’re going to focus in on one particular aspect, a topic near and dear to my heart: the art of world-building in a shared fictional universe.

Compare & Contrast: Gul Dukat and G’Kar

_{Ambassador G’Kar and Gul Dukat}

As a character, G’Kar can best be explained as the answer to the question: “What would Gul Dukat be like if he were as complex and nuanced as he thinks he is?”

Let’s unpack that a little.

Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were both science fiction television shows that aired during the 1990s. Both had similar premises–focusing on a space station that became the hub of interstellar diplomacy and intrigue. Both were really, really, really good shows. Because they were on at the same time, there were a friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) rivalry between their fans, with various accusations of plagiarism or imitation being thrown around. And, truth be told, there are a lot of similarities, though it’s not clear to me which way the inspiration ran. And one of the major similarities is between the characters of Gul Dukat (DS9) and G’Kar (B5). Both men are powerful figures within their respective nations–the Cardassian Union, for Dukat, and the Narn Regime, for G’Kar–who eventually rise to become leader of their people. Both are sort of weird lizard-aliens. Both are from aggressive, expansionist military-dominated states, seeking to challenge the status quo represented by our human protagonists. Both are clever, devious, tricky, and charming. Gul Dukat is the principal villain of Deep Space Nine, and G’Kar is, well that’s a little more complicated, but he is certainly presented as the main antagonist at first. But for all their similarities, their characters end up evolving in very different ways over the course of their respective shows, and help illustrate why both are such enduring classics of the genre.

Dune Fulfills its Destiny

A few days ago I went to see Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film Dune and WTF HOW WAS THIS AS GOOD AS EVERYBODY SAID IT WOULD BE HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE. Ahem. Anyways, I really enjoyed it! I’ve been a fan of Dune, the book, for many years, but I wasn’t particularly interested in this version when I first heard about it. Dune wasn’t a book that seemed to cry out for a adaptation, and my assumption was that it would be impossible to do the story justice. I was wrong. Dune blew me away, it’s a spectacularly entertaining movie that almost perfectly captures everything that I love about the book. It’s the movie I didn’t know I needed until I saw it, and if the sequel(s) maintain this level of quality it’s going to be one of the all-time great SciFi/Fantasy series. It’s been days, and I still have multiple scenes running through my head on repeat. So, let’s talk about about how and why it’s so great:

1. One of the things that made Dune so difficult to adapt is that it’s a very dialogue-heavy book, and one in which a lot of the drama comes from us knowing the character’s thoughts. It’s very interior; there are lots of long conversations about events and plans and backstories and verbal sparring matches where characters are thinking through the implications of everything as they talk. One of the my favorite examples of this is when Jessica first meets the Fremen housekeeper of their palace on Arrakis, who believes that she may be here to fulfill a Prophecy, and Jessica has to figure out the proper ritual responses and phrases on the fly without revealing that she’s just guessing. Villeneuve doesn’t even try and adapt this. Instead, he replaces a lot of verbal exposition with visual exposition, using sweeping panoramas and vistas that communicate so much about the world to the audience. Early scenes on Caladan feature endless, loving shots of the ocean that seamlessly transition into desert vistas once we arrive on Arrakis. One aspect in particular I want to draw attention to is the use of ceremony. The movie adds three of these, the formal signing-over of Arrakis to House Atreides, the arrival of the House on Arrakis, and the Sardaukar swearing allegiance to the Padishah Emperor. None of these scenes are in the book, but they all help to illustrate its world. We are in an Imperium that is already ten thousand years old, decadent, stagnant, a society obsessed with protocol and hierarchy and tradition, a world in which even civil war has become ritualized and rule-bound. These scenes show us that in a way that a dozen conversations can’t, and they also demonstrate to us the scale and the scope of this world, this Imperium that rules the Known Universe. There’s really no attempt to imitate the style of the novel, instead they translate the content. It’s a really brilliant use of the language of film to capture the spirit of the book.

The Definitive Ranking of Star Trek Movies

The Star Trek franchise has been around since 1966, and has now given birth to six live-action TV series, thirteen movies, two animated spin-offs, and Almighty God alone knows how many tie-in novels, video games, and other assorted materials. There’s a lot of Star Trek! Some of it very is good, some of it is very bad, and some of it defies categorization. Today we’re going to be looking at the movie side of the franchise, which, in true Star Trek fashion, runs the gamut from “amazing” to “unwatchable”. We’ll count down the movies from best to worst, discussing along the way positives, negatives, and what it is that makes a good Star Trek movie anyways.

1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Folks, it’s the whale one. It says a lot about Star Trek as a franchise that the movies where the main characters have to go back in time and save the humpback whales from extinction is widely regarded as one of the best entries, but it’s absolutely true. This movie is amazing. The Voyage Home distills down the essential essence of Star Trek better than maybe anything else. It’s a silly movie with a ridiculous premise that is nevertheless treated completely seriously. It’s incredibly earnest while still being hilarious. Ever since the beginning, Star Trek has been absurd and over-the-top, while never (or at least ideally never) toppling over the brink into self-parody or satire. It’s utopian and idealistic, and has to balance that with still telling compelling stories. Home does all this, and it’s also just a really good movie. Leonard Nimoy’s an excellent director, and unlike a lot of Star Trek, all of the characters get moments to shine. Chekov wandering 1980s San Francisco desperately trying to get someone to show where the naval base is honestly a franchise high-point for me. This movie is so weird and it’s amazing to me that they let it get made and I love it so much.

This is a Wrongness

When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you”, he was talking about the 2019 film Cats. I have stared into the abyss of meaning that is Cats and it has stared back into me and now only the most advanced of scientific instruments can determine where Cats ends and the tattered remnants of my soul begin. This movie has broken my spirit, it has lodged into my brain and begun devouring it, in a manner not unlike Third-Stage syphilis. When this movie came out, the consensus was that it was an unholy abomination, a genuinely disturbing trip into the uncanny valley. This is correct! Cats is the best argument I’ve ever seen against the existence of a loving God. Let’s talk about it: 

1. In some respects, the visual effects of Cats can be said to be quite effective, in that director Tom Hooper seems to have set out to create disturbing amalgamations of cat and human, and has succeeded in that task. Christ Almighty, the cats of Cats are so weird. Instead of attempting to create CGI felines, the movie sets out to coat it’s cast in a strange veneer of quasi-cat-features, using “digital fur technology”. The result is nightmarish, a parade of creatures that are too catlike to register as fully human but with too many human features to come across as animal. At best, they look absurd. At worst, they are genuinely upsetting. They fall fully into the uncanny valley. They just don’t look right. They’re covered in fur, and have tails, but they also have human fingers and toes. They have cat ears, but human noses and lips. When they look into the camera, I felt like they were staring into my soul. They’re like some figment of Germanic mythology, some creatures that lurks into the Black Forest and devours children who don’t eat their vegetables. Have I made it clear yet that I do not like these things? The problems with Cats are many and deep, but the choice to have the entire drama acted out by unholy abominations really rendered every other decision pointless.
2. There’s no polite way to say this so I’ll just get right down to the point: this movie is way too horny for it’s own good. The cats are human enough that the fact that they don’t wear clothes makes them come across as naked. The fact that a few of them wear clothes just makes this worse. There may not be visible genitalia, but there are dozens of cat-creatures flashing their crotches while dancing. It’s just wrong, and it honestly feels dirty. I….assume….this is a purposeful decision, because it’s not just the nakedness; many of the dances are weirdly erotic, despite not really fitting with the songs or the “plot”. There is at least one elaborate dance sequence that I can only describe as a “silent orgy”. Taylor Swift has cat-boobs! Is this because cats are associated with sexiness? Because the movie’s not really “sexy”, there’s no romantic arcs or love stories or anything. Just a lot of naked cats dancing in the streets of London, making obscene gestures. There’s a time and a place for horniness. But I really did not want to spend any time thinking about the sex lives of these human-cat-monstrosities, and Cats forces you to do so.      

Saruman Should Have Won: An Analysis of Rohirrim Cavalry Tactics in the War of the Ring

Charge!

It is undoubtedly one of the most dramatic moments in the Lord of the Rings movies. The Battle of Helm’s Deep has been raging all night, and the beleaguered Rohirrim under King Théoden are hard-pressed. Saruman’s Uruk-hai have breached the Deeping Wall, forcing the defenders to fall back to the citadel of the Hornburg. As the creatures of darkness batter down the doors, Théoden and Aragorn lead their few remaining soldiers on a forlorn hope, charging out the front gates on a sally, determined to die well in battle. But just as the Uruk-hai surround them and all hope seems lost, Gandolf appears on a hill to the East, accompanied by Éomer and several thousand horsemen. They charge down a steep hill, driving straight through the Uruk-hai pike phalanx and shattering Saruman’s army, routing the survivors and sending them fleeing into the forest of Hurons, where the trees devour them. It is a great victory, won at the last moment, and Rohan is saved from slavery. It is also one of the most ridiculous, preposterous, ahistorical displays of knightly propaganda I have ever had the misfortune to witness.

A Strategic Analysis of Federation Defense Policy Immediately Prior to the Dominion War

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PLANNING                                                                                         STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS                                                                                                                     SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED EARTH                                                                                                         09.19.2378

/// DISTRIBUTE: GENERAL DISTRIBUTION TO ALL FLAG RANKS ///                                          /// CLASSIFICATION: SIGMA-3 ///

BACKGROUND:

After several years of fragmentary intelligence reports, first contact between the United Federation of Planets and the Dominion was made in 2370 when Dominion military personnel launched an unprovoked attack on Starfleet assets in the Gamma Quadrant, destroying several outposts and the starship USS Odyssey. This initial clash was followed by a Dominion ‘Covert Offensive’ against the Federation and other Alpha Quadrant powers. Based on contemporary intelligence reports and postwar interrogation of captured Dominion leadership, we can now state with confidence that Dominion changeling operatives (please see APPENDIX B for details) were responsible for the destruction of the Cardassian Obsidian Order in 2371, the outbreak of the Klingon-Cardassian and Klingon-Federation Wars in 2372, and the bombing of the Antwerp Conference in 2372. In 2373, elements of the Cardassian military led by Gul Dukat carried out a coup d’etat against the existing Cardassian government and joined the Dominion, leading to the establishment of a significant Dominion military presence within the Alpha Quadrant. Within a year, open hostilities had begun.