A Dune TV Show
Dune Prophecy is an interesting tale, both from an actual storytelling lens and the timeline of its production. Prophecy was actually greenlit before the Denis Villeneuve movies were even released, although I believe the first Dune movie had already entered production. This means there was a LOT of faith in the movies being a success and also that the TV show would be good enough to hold fans over until Dune Messiah was adapted to the big screen.
Another interesting aspect of the production was the fact that the show changed directors multiple times… You can tell from watching. Frankly this didn’t stop parts of the show from being very successful, and as a whole I think people liked this show. It’s just that most people didn’t REALLY LIKE it. That is to say that although Prophecy is a fun watch, there are some parts of the show that feel really clunky and offbrand.
The show is clearly going for the Denis Villeneuve aesthetic and even this feels a little bit disingenuous. The timeline for this show is that it takes place 10,000 years before the events of the Dune movie, but the clothes and technology seem very similar, which actually makes the show feel sort of odd and almost too familiar. I wish the directors had taken a more unique direction instead of worrying about isolating the audience by changing too much from the movies. It is in the past after all so they had a lot of wiggle room in terms of lore.
Speaking of lore, the last piece of context I want to give before getting into my review is about the lore used as a base for this movie. It is based on the Brian Herbert Novels… If you are a Dune fan already you might know these books are infamously bad. I have nothing against Brian as a person and frankly he has done a great job maintaining the legacy of his fathers IP, but I still feel like his take on Dune prequel lore is kinda meh at best and simply bad at its worst. The show itself isn’t directly based off of a specific storyline, but it does borrow main characters and the iconic royal bloodlines from the Dune universe. I think this departure from Brian’s material was actually one of the best choices the show made and despite its many flaws there are some diamonds in the rough that make me excited for a potential second season.
What I Liked...
Dune Prophecy shines when the Harkonen sisters are on screen. Tula Harkonen is by far my favorite sister and Valya is not much far behind. The flashback scenes are especially potent and make the characters feel more flushed out than the rest of the cast. The actor who plays the Emperor Of The Known Universe does a great job as well. The emperor is calculating yet anxious and clearly too quick to serve the interests of others. Overall the capitol politics were at their peak when they involved the emperor. The plotline with his old Bene Gesserit concubine was really dramatic and overall his arc was great.
It is cool to see a show that isn’t afraid to break from the source material a bit and really just be its own thing. This is the case with the Harkonen sisters and the Sisterhood as a whole. Although some big plot details are kept the same there is a lot of creative liberty taken and most of it turned out really good. I like how much the show was able to tease things like the God Emperor indirectly and at times it really felt like the directors cared about servicing fans of the larger book series rather than just people who enjoyed the recent Hollywood blockbusters.
What I Didn't Like...
As much as I enjoyed waiting each week for the next episode of Dune Prophecy, I will not lie that the show had quite a few flaws. To be charitable, these are my subjective opinions and they might not be shared by everyone, but I think one of them is an objective issue as well. The objective issue was the changes in directors altering the quality of the show. Frankly the show feels like it is trying to juggle too many plot lines which all feel as if they are trying to showcase different visions of the show.
Some of the supporting characters, especially the ones in the palace, feel so bland. The prince and princess are important to the plot but they don’t get enough development early on to give the audience a real reason to care about them. Then, when “big” moments happen towards the end of the show they feel quite bland. This sort of ties back into my issue surrounding the fact there are too many plotlines. I think the show could have spent more time with just the sisters and truly made the show about them instead of trying to include so many characters. This show is not Game Of Thrones and I feel like it sort of fell into the trap of trying to have that sort of vibe where it followed a bunch of different characters simultaneously.