One of my friends saw Dune Part I a while ago and didn’t like it. I asked why, and it turns out that it might be because they don’t know the books. I mean, I did suspect that the film is a bit… insider only… but I never appreciated how much. I created the following for my friend, and I am sharing it just in case it could be useful for someone else, too. Spoiler alert.
Setting
Year is 10191. Galaxy is ruled by feudal lords, dukes, barons and such. There is an emperor and then, usually, a planet is given to one feudal lord to rule it and live off it.
There is a super important substance called spice (or melange). Spice gives you the ability to see future (it also causes addiction very quickly, and it makes your eyes turn all blue – a somewhat important detail). Spice is essential for space travels, the space ship navigators cannot work without it (they need to see a little bit into future to avoid collisions and such).
Spice is only produced on one planet, Arrakis. Arrakis is nicknamed Dune, because it is a desert planet where water is incredibly rare (and thus expensive). Spice is “mined” (collected from the sand on Arrakis), but it is not very clear where does it come from.
The three most important power-holding entities in the universe are i) the emperor and the aristocracy, ii) the space navigator guild (in control of space travels) and iii) organization called Bene Gesserit. Bene Gesserit is a women-only sisterhood which has a very complicated plan to spread its power and secretly influence the galaxy. They also take the spice, but for a different reason: in these women, spice awakens their genetic memory, which means that they remember the life of their mother, grandmother etc. Bene Gesserit know that if a man takes the spice the way they do, he dies. They have a breeding programme where they match aristocratic kids and their own people together to produce a man code-named Kwisatz Haderach. This man is supposed to be able to take spice the way the sisters do, see future, and be a superhero of a sort. This breeding programme has been going on for generations and Bene Gesserit thinks they are very close: one more generation and they will have their Kwisatz Haderach, and because they will control him, they will be able to rule the galaxy through him (or something like that).
Story
Duke Atreides moves to Arrakis because he’s given the planet as his fief. He moves there with his family: his son Paul and his Bene Gesserit concubine Jessica. Paul is 15 and is a very exceptional boy.
Soon after his arrival, Paul distinguishes himself as a hero. The Arrakis natives, the Fremen, have legends about a boy from other world who will arrive one day, know their ways and be their messiah. Part of this legend / prophecy is designed by the Bene Gesserit, planted in case any sister needs protection in the future (it’s complicated but it makes sense in the book). Paul, when he is taken to the desert for the first time, saves some people, and, more importantly, he impresses the Fremen by knowing how to wear their traditional attire. This attire is called stillsuit and it’s like a one-man recycler: it collects all the moisture from your breath, sweat, pee, poo etc. and recycles it into a drinking water. This is necessary, because Arrakis is so dry; no water anywhere.
Next, duke Atreides is assassinated and Paul and Jessica are dropped in the desert to die. However, someone helps them and gives them stillsuits, and they survive long enough to be found and rescued by the Fremen. The Fremen first consider just killing them and distilling all the water from their bodies (Fremen do things like that routinely), but Jessica invokes the messiah legend (planted by Bene Gesserit ages ago) and they survive. Paul then proves himself to be a valuable member of the community. He also finds the love of his life, a Fremen girl named Chani.
Paul lives among the Fremen for two years. During that time, he learns all the things about desert, and gains their trust. One thing he discovers is that the Fremen have a long-arching plan of their own: they collect water in huge underground tanks and want to transform the planet ecology so that they could live like normal people (and not in caves, wearing stillsuits all the time). He also discovers that i) spice is produced by sandworms, iconic and huuuge Arrakis creatures, and ii) water is toxic for sandworms – so the Fremen plan to make Arrakis green would mean sandworm extinction, and that would mean end of spice and therefore end of galaxy.
Paul has a lot of visions of future, and the future is grim, interplanetary war and death of billions as the ultimate result of Paul’s revenge for killing of his father (duke Leto). He struggles with guilt, but he goes ahead anyway, threatening everyone with killing the sandworms = destroying all the spice. In the final stand-off, the emperor gives in and lets Paul marry his daughter and become the next emperor. Paul also sees the villain killed (the man responsible for the death of his father, a man named baron Harkonnen).
It is also revealed that Jessica was supposed to only bear girls with duke Atreides. This is due to the Bene Gesserit breeding programme: they had a plan that Atreides daughter will marry & have kids with Harkonnen heir and the offspring will be Kwisatz Haderach (i.e., the man the sisters wanted to use to rule the galaxy). However, Jessica fell in love with duke Atreides, and because he wanted a son, she gave birth to a son. And surprise, this son (Paul) is the Kwisatz Haderach, who appeared a generation earlier than anyone expected and yes, he did rule the galaxy – but on his own terms, without Bene Gesserit.