Denis Villeneuve, director of Dune, recently opened up about the influence that the Star Wars franchise has had over his latest sci-fi epic. Dune itself is an adaptation of Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi novel of the same name – one that highly influenced a young George Lucas when he was beginning to pen the first drafts of the first Star Wars film in the 1970s. Although the original novel influenced the Star Wars galaxy to a great extent, Villeneuve ironically had to contend with the legacy of Lucas' space opera franchise while developing his own take on the Dune mythos.
From the start of Dune's development, Villeneuve has been transparent about the challenges of working in the shadow of Star Wars' inescapable cinematic legacy. Those ignorant of Dune's influence on Star Wars could mistakenly see the former as being a retread of the latter, especially given the focus on intergalactic politics, desert settings, and mystical magic-wielders present in both. As such, Villenueve has had to both work within that legacy of Star Wars while still forging his own path with a modernized take on Herbert's novel. The director outright described his film as "Star Wars for adults" before the first scripts were even completed.
In a recent interview with The Playlist, Villenueve provided insight into just how much he allowed Star Wars to influence his own film. He specifically points to 1980's The Empire Strikes Back as his biggest influence, saying that there was something in the film's "darkness, in the way it was approaching the psychological path of Luke Skywalker," that he gravitated towards. Unfortunately, Villeneuve admits that he feels that later films in the franchise "lost that elegance," which is something he wanted to recapture while developing his own film. Read the director's full comments below:
There’s something about “The Empire Strikes Back,” the darkness of it, the tragic elements of it, the way I was feeling in that precise moment about “Star Wars”—there was something really serious about it that I deeply loved. Science fiction is serious stuff for me; it’s something that I love when it considers life and existence serious. [...] When people are taking sci-fi seriously, it’s so powerful. So, there was something in “The Empire Strikes Back,” in its darkness, in the way it was approaching the psychological path of Luke Skywalker. And I just feel like they lost that after. They lost that elegance. And that was maybe something that I was referring to when I said, “Oh, I wish “Dune” was— in a way, my idea was to back to that [early ‘Star Wars’] spirit.
Given the immense popularity of Empire, it's unsurprising that it would have the greatest influence on Villenueve's film. Dune itself is quite dark on its own narratively, and so Empire would logically be the best place to pull inspiration from – especially considering that the upcoming film is only part 1 in a planned 2-part adaptation of Herbert's first novel. With that in mind, Dune will likely contain a cliffhanger leading into part 2 just as Empire did as well.
Dune will finally be available to view worldwide this week after a much anticipated wait and countless delays. Given the work that Villenueve has invested into both respecting and departing from Star Wars' legacy, general audiences will surely be able to see his film as more than a simple remix of Star Wars ideas and imagery. If nothing else, the film will hopefully inspire more members of the general audience to learn about Dune's original influence on Star Wars so many decades ago.
Source: The Playlist