The First Dune Trailer Finally Dropped

Hi, everyone. I’m a fake geek. I’ve never read Dune. As I understand it (read: as I know from Wikipedia), Dune is a 1965 science fiction novel from the mind of Frank Herbert. It’s the first installment in an entire saga, and from second-hand knowledge, I know that it has incredible, complex worldbuilding. It has worms too, apparently.

I also know that the internet has been buzzing with excitement since the movie adaptation was announced. Okay, the most recent adaptation. To my understanding, there’s been television shows, a previous movie, and previous attempts at movies prior to this incarnation. Rumors started a-swirlin’ that Denis Villeneuve would be directing in around December 2016 before being confirmed in January 2017, and that got a good amount of coal heaped into the steam engine of the hype train.

This isn’t, of course, without good reason. Villeneuve has quite the directing pedigree, including the absolutely fantastic Sci-Fi films Arrival (2016) and the more so-so (but visually gorgeous) Blade Runner 2049 (2017). He also directed one of my personal favorite films of all time, Sicario, in 2015. Do I need to mention Sicario? Nope. Just wanted to name drop how much I love that movie.

The newest iteration of Dune has an overwhelmingly star-studded cast: Timothée Chalamet, who is everyone’s darling for… some reason. Oscar Isaac, who is also everyone’s darling, but deserves that title. (Sorry, Timothée!) Zendaya Coleman, who is perfect. Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgard, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem… look, go to IMDB if you want the full list. There’s a lot of famous people in this cast.

At the time of writing, September 9th, 2020, the trailer dropped. No, not the “Dune 2020 Official First Look” video which released 4 months ago. The Dune Official Trailer released via Warner Bros’ official YouTube channel. Of course, the publishing date on this is liable to be a little after the fact, but nobody wants hot takes from fake nerds popping up on their timeline already.

Nobody asked for my thoughts, but I’m giving them. First up: his name is PAUL? The protagonist of the new iconic science fiction movie that everyone’s been waiting for is named Paul?! We’re supposed to let a man, who’s looked twelve forever (sorry again, Timothée), become the um… leader? And his name is – I cannot stress this enough – Paul?

At least, that’s what I think is going to happen. “You must learn to rule others,” says a mysterious voice presumably addressing Paul. I really don’t know how much I love the idea of a whole world being handed over to Timothée Chalamet, but he had some pretty awesome future fashion, so at least he’ll look cool while he does something unspeakable to a peach.

Okay, here I stopped writing to watch the trailer again because I understood absolutely nothing the first time around. Paul is the son of the leader of a planet. The dad in question is Oscar Isaac, I think, and we all kind of deserve Oscar Isaac as a bearded science fiction space dad. Side note: I love watching Isaac move through various science fiction spaces. He thrives in every one. What a good actor.

Paul is going to kiss Zendaya at some point, who was sporting some very fantastic desert armor that she looked fantastically, astronomically cool in. Actually, the sense of scope and “astronomically cool” permeated this entire trailer. There are epic battle sequences, a touch of comedy (Jason Momoa lifting up Chalamet’s entire tiny body), a great soundtrack, spaceships, huge armies, dark skies, political intrigue (I think!), and a giant freakin’ worm, which seems very important to people on the internet, for some reason!

That’s the trailer. Everyone is incredibly pretty, everything is incredibly aesthetically appealing, and I have no concept whatsoever of what’s actually going on. It all goes a bit downhill if you spend too much time thinking about how much sand would get in everyone’s pants, but you know, win some, lose some.

Honestly, please don’t take the tone of this article too much to heart if you love Dune, or Timothée Chalamet, or any of the things I’ve made fun of in this article, including giant worms or the name Paul. It’s actually fun, for me, being on the outside. I have no idea what the big deal is, but if it’s safe in the world by then, I’ll be heading to the cinemas in December 2020 with everybody else to find out. I think that trailer meant a lot more to people waiting for a Dune adaptation than it did to me and sometimes that’s just how marketing works. Not everyone is the target audience.