Warning: the following contains SPOILERS for Dune.
2021's Dune attributes Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica’s martial arts abilities to the Bene Gesserit Way, but the movie omits a key detail the original novel reveals about the sisterhood and prana-bindu training. While Dune has received mostly positive reviews, the movie wasn’t able to fully flesh out the first half of the 1965 Frank Herbert book. One of the most crucial elements omitted from the movie is the Bene Gesserit sisterhood’s Prana-bindu training.
Prana-bindu is an important concept because it is the key reason why Lady Jessica was able to subdue Fremen leader Stilgar in hand-to-hand combat. It’s also why Paul doesn’t go completely insane after experiencing harrowing visions about the coming jihad, and how he survives the Reverend Mother’s test with the Gom Jabbar. In short, prana-bindu training is the main driver in how Paul becomes worthy of his destiny in Dune 2. Dune’s prana-bindu training, at its core, teaches supreme control of one’s nerves and muscles.
In the books, prana-bindu is a mind-body discipline taught to every acolyte, adept and Reverend Mother in the sisterhood, forming the very foundations of the Bene Gesserit Way. Prana-bindu training is also needed to survive the dangerous effects of Dune’s spice or melange in its rawest form, the Water of Life – the bile of a young sandworm. Sisters of the Bene Gesserit become Reverend Mothers by ingesting and converting the Water of Life into an awareness spectrum narcotic that expands their consciousness – a task that without prana-bindu control, results in a painful death. Moreover, Prana-bindu training is also the basis for the Weirding Way, an advanced system of close-quarters combat developed by the Bene Gesserit, and then later used by the Fremen to fight for Paul in the second half of the novel. In short, Paul’s path to becoming the Kwisatz Haderach and Jessica becoming the Fremen’s Reverend Mother are dependent on how both have mastered prana-bindu training.
The concept of prana-bindu is just one of the key elements from the book that are missing from Dune 2021’s story and world. This is unfortunate because, although the Bene Gesserit Way explains why Paul and Jessica can fight so well, prana-bindu is what contextualizes their fighting style as a product of a futuristic mind-body discipline that allows its practitioners to command supernatural speed through supreme nerve and muscle control. It’s details like this that make Herbert’s beloved sci-fi masterpiece such an engaging saga.
Dune 2 will tackle the second half of the Dune novel, and this part of the saga includes Paul and Jessica teaching the Fremen the Weirding Way, which entails prana-bindu training. For now, it remains to be seen whether or not director Denis Villeneuve will choose to adapt prana-bindu and other key missing book details in the sequel. Audiences will need to wait until October 20, 2023, to see if Dune 2 can indeed improve the original movie.
