Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Dune.

Denis Villeneuve's Dune is a great cinematic achievement and, for all the comparisons to Star Wars, what it truly feels like is the next Lord of the Rings. Frank Herbert's 1965 novel was considered unfilmable due to its sheer density, and for a long time that seemed to be the case: David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune was a failure, the TV miniseries has largely been forgotten, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's efforts quite literally proved the point. That makes Villeneuve's Dune something of a miracle, not only making it to screen, but with the end product being rather stunning, expertly mining the source material (or at least half of it) and adapting it for the big screen and his own vision.

It would've been easy for Dune to go very wrong - Villeneuve's previous movie, the more divisive box office flop Blade Runner 2049, shows it was far from a sure thing, and a similar misfire wouldn't have been surprising - and yet Dune is already a success, with a strong box office performance, popularity on HBO Max, mostly positive reviews, and most importantly a sequel being greenlit by Legendary and Warner Bros. 2021's Dune is officially only Part One, and it needs the follow-ups - not only Dune 2, but quite possibly a whole trilogy - to feel complete.

Related: Everything Star Wars Took From Dune

A trilogy of Dune movies would cement its comparisons to Star Wars: after George Lucas' franchise borrowed heavily from Herbert's book, Villeneuve's movie repays some of that with its visual language and storytelling; there would be no Star Wars without Dune, but there'd also be no Dune 2021 without Star Wars. And yet, even more so, in its craft, worldbuilding, and what it leaves audiences with (and wanting), Dune is the new Lord of the Rings.

Dune Is The New Lord Of The Rings: An Epic Cinematic Saga

Paul and Lady Jessica in the desert in Dune

The ending of Dune 2021 says it's only the beginning, and that's true in a sense beyond the on-screen journey of Paul Atreides. Indeed, the end of Dune conjures up an incredible feeling that this is the beginning of the next epic cinematic saga; that viewers have stepped into such a rich, detailed world with a story that can span the next several years and help dominate the blockbuster landscape. While movie franchises have become increasingly the norm in the past couple of decades, the scale of Dune, combined with its sense of wonder and the need to see what comes next, means it offers up a feeling that is closest to coming out of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001. That is, a remarkable achievement in its own right, but just the first step on a huge adventure that blends storytelling and filmmaking in perfect harmony.

At the end of Fellowship of the Ring, there's a sense of satisfaction for what's just been witnessed, but it sets up a desire to see what comes next, to once again be so immersed in a cinematic saga. Because Lord of the Rings was a guaranteed trilogy, then it could tell its story in that way. It still something of a traditional three-act structure, but it's all part of a much bigger three movie structure; Frodo's journey doesn't get a conclusion in the end, but instead setup for what's to come - it more fully defines his goal and sets him on the right path, which is an important kind of climax in its own right. Paul's story does something similar: one criticism of Dune is that it doesn't have an ending, but that isn't entire accurate.

Dune does eschew the kind of rigidity that has defined many blockbusters of the past decade or so, with no third act cleanup or giant battle in the sky, but it does offer a switch - the "death" of Paul Atreides, setting him upon the journey of the Kwisatz Haderach - that rounds out one part and serves as a denouement to that specific journey, while leading to bigger things to come. It's an ending and setup that makes the story and world feel so much bigger and enticing than this one movie, turning it into something much grander in scope. That's something few franchise movies since Lord of the Rings have achieved, but Dune absolutely does it and then some.

Related: Dune 2021 Finally Understands That Paul's Not The Hero

Dune Recalls What Made Lord Of The Rings So Special

House Atreides and their entourage arrive on Arrakis in Dune

Like Dune, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings books were long considered unfilmable, until Peter Jackson made his epic trilogy. Filmed back-to-back-to-back, Lord of the Rings is a monumental feat of filmmaking, with the craft in every department creating one of the most indelible worlds in cinema history. Given the success of those movies - almost $3 billion at the box office, more Oscars than any other movie trilogy - it's a little surprising that more movies never copied the blueprint. Sure, plenty of pretenders to being the new Lord of the Rings came along in terms of genre and scale, but in movie terms none really took the same approach to how these movies were made.

In part, that's because what Jackson and his team did, the amount of work they put in and how they created that universe, was so difficult (and couldn't even be replicated with The Hobbit movies). But it also shows how franchise filmmaking went for the slightly quicker, easier route - the Harry Potter or MCU model, which is impressive in its own right but can feel a little more templated or homogenous, is the norm for crowd-pleasing studio blockbusters that win enough critical acclaim too. Dune feels like a rare exception.

Like Lord of the Rings before it, Dune is jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring because of how it is so meticulously crafted, and yet its story so good that you're carried along by it rather than seeing the mechanics of it on screen. Dune and Dune 2 didn't shoot back-to-back, but it nonetheless feels like Villeneuve took that same kind of approach in how detailed he was, how prepared he was to film it, and how he did whatever necessary - whether practical or CGI, in a studio or on location - to wonderfully create this universe, which plays out in the finished product.

In the sand-covered planet of Arrakis or watching the sandworms attack or spaceships fly, there's an almost realistic, documentary-like nature to Dune. It is not merely worldbuilding or storytelling, but entwining both and enshrining each inside the other, which is what helped make Jackson's Middle-earth feel so fleshed-out and lived-in. Dune's world, is, like those films, so fully formed, so uncompromising, and so astonishing in its craft, its approach to genre, and its sense of scale, and if the sequel(s) can replicate that quality, then it truly will be the new Lord of the Rings.

Next: Dune Shows How The Phantom Menace Could Have Been Brilliant

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