What even is the movie dune about except ripping off Arab/Muslim culture?

If it doesn’t have jinn I’m not gonna watch it

Hey that's not fair it also rips off a lot of Islamic theology.

It's a science fiction political epic that has a lot of mysticism and is broadly about a chosen one reconnecting with the deeper meaning of it all to beat the bad guys what killed his family.

It has a number of themes... the bigger ones are:

[b]1. Beware of Charismatic leaders / Messiah figures[/b][b]:[/b]

[quote][i]The mistakes (of leaders) are amplified by the numbers who follow them without question. Charismatic leaders tend to build up followings, power structures and these power structures tend to be taken over by people who are corruptible. I don’t think that the old saw about ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is accurate: I think power attracts the corruptible. [...] I wrote the Dune Saga because [b]I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label, ‘may be dangerous to your health'.[/b][/i]

- Frank Herbert, [i]Forword to Dune[/i][/quote]

[quote][i]I conceived of a long novel, the whole trilogy as one book about the messianic convulsions that periodically overtake us. Demagogues, fanatics, con-game artists, the innocent and the not-so-innocent bystanders-all were to have a part in the drama. This grows from my theory that superheroes are disastrous for humankind. Even if we find a real hero (whatever-or whoever-that may be), eventually fallible mortals take over the power structure that always comes into being around such a leader. Personal observation has convinced me that in the power area of politics/economics and in their logical consequence, war, people tend to give over every decision-making capacity to any leader who can wrap himself in the myth fabric of the society. Hitler did it. Churchill did it. Franklin Roosevelt did it. Stalin did it. Mussolini did it.

This, then, was one of my themes for Dune: [b]Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero's facade you will find a human being who makes human mistakes. Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero.[/b] And sometimes you run into another problem. [b]It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced-in a word, insane.[/b] That was the beginning. [b]Heroes are painful, superheroes are a catastrophe.[/b] The mistakes of superheroes involve too many of us in disaster.[/i]

- F. Herbert, [i]Dune Genesis[/i][/quote]

It delves into a lot of political themes. But the main thing is still that leaders are human beings and they make mistakes. All of Herberts characters in the first book fuck up royally. There are no heroes in Dune. But the masses are still easily swayed and follow charismatic leaders and even create cults of personality around them and follow their newfound gods in a religious fashion. It gets even more intresting, if religious narratives already excist that some person tries to take advatage of when grasping for power. And because of the immense time that goes over all 6 novels [i](like 4th novel is set 3000 years after the events of Dune)[/i], you can see the consequences play out over time.


[b]2. Ecology[/b]

[quote][i][b]The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system![/b] A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. [b]That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.[/b][/i]

- Frank Herbert, [i]Forword to Dune[/i][/quote]

[quote][i][b]It is the systems themselves that I see as dangerous.[/b] Systematic is a deadly word. Systems originate with human creators, with people who employ them. Systems take over and grind on and on. They are like a flood tide that picks up everything in its path.[/i]

- F. Herbert, [i]Dune Genesis[/i][/quote]

Not only for nature... as Arrakis goes through several changes. But also on a societal level. This links against to the consequences of leadership, but also to the consesquences of myth making and religious narratives.



... after those two, Herbert also talks about: human emotions, determinism, free will, religion, fanaticsm, humans relationship to technology, ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=124xCHfVUk4

worms and drugs!!

In the second book, they even refer to the war carried out by Paul as a Jihad.

Arrakis is definitely an analogy for the middle east, with the Fremen being Arabs. It's narrative is definitely Orientalist with western eyes observing strange and 'primitive' people. Tbf, the Fremen are depicted as good guys and a couple even have character arcs. However, it features the trope of the 'white saviour,' and does it big time.

Game of Thrones does absolutely all the same things. Just fyi.

I haven't seen the second Dune movie yet but I will. I'm prepared to be slightly disappointed because I'd the reviews and the comments here.

It is on some level commentary about The West's dependency on oil. With Spice being oil.

I’ve only seen the “popcorn bucket”

it’s also about stealing over 2.5hrs of my life

Frank Herbert did international use elements of stories from the Middle East, Africa, and Islam.
Studios have decided to scale back those theme considerably for the movies.

I've no idea. I've only seen a billboard about the second one

They making terrorist movies.

Never seen it, never will