![]() ![]() In part that's simply because the filmmaking is a level above that in The Phantom Menace - a stronger script, better performances, neater editing. Related: Dune: All Of Paul's Dreams & Visions Explained (Future Teases & Real Meaning) Dune doesn't always foreground these - the focus instead kept on Paul's hero journey - but the machinations of the various factions in Dune are much more enthralling here, and better blended into Paul's story rather than feeling more disparate. The main conflict brews between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, a bloody, bitter rivalry that gives Dune some of its biggest thrills and most incredible action set-pieces, but there's also much greater strength in its political elements. ![]() Dune's Emperor, like in Star Wars, isn't shown, but his presence is felt nonetheless. The taxation of trade routes is replaced by mining of the spice melange on Arrakis, but the core principle remains the same: a secret power operating in the shadows, pulling strings and making everyone cheer the puppet show before it's too late to realize anything is amiss. ![]() In contrast, Dune takes on similar ideas and themes. Such ideas are pertinent and interesting, but The Phantom Menace never makes them feel as such: instead, it is weighed down by them, struggling to find the right balance of them in the story, and hamstrung by leaden performances and terrible dialog. Lucas' intent with trade routes was to spark into his larger examination of the Galactic Senate, and explore how corrupt institutions gain and retain power, which feeds into many of The Phantom Menace's political scenes and ideals - Padmé Amidala's line in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith that liberty dies "with thunderous applause," is rooted in the story Lucas started in Episode I, and it's true to real-life that this is how such corporations or political parties operate and, indeed, how wars can begin. In a sense, that's fair, but like with most of the prequels' problems the issue is in terms of execution, not idea. In the original trilogy, the now-iconic yellow text that greets audiences offers promises of civil war, dark times, and vile gangsters in The Phantom Menace, viewers are told about the "taxation of trade routes." Any way that's looked it, it isn't as tantalizing a tease for the story ahead, and the notion of intergalactic trade has long since been a stick to beat George Lucas' first Star Wars prequel with. To that end, Villeneuve's 2021 movie Dune perfectly highlights not only those similarities, but just how good Lucas' prequel trilogy, starting with The Phantom Menace, could have been.įrom the first paragraph of the opening crawl, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace promised to be very different kind of Star Wars movie. ![]() Luke Skywalker can easily be seen as a variation on Paul Atreides but, as far as the idea of the monomyth goes, the better and more interesting parallel is that between Paul and Anakin Skywalker. Of course, Dune itself isn't a wholly original text, and a core reason that it and Star Wars are similar is that each draws on the idea of the hero's journey and a Chosen One prophecy. Related: Dune Movie's Biggest Unanswered Questions Explained The list of everything Star Wars took from Dune encompasses all of Lucas' original trilogy: the sand covered wasteland of Tatooine is a clear riff on Arrakis, "Spice" is featured prominently in both worlds, each has a mysterious Emperor operating in the shadows, pulling the strings yet remaining unseen and unnamed to begin with, the Jedi Order is similar to the Bene Gesserit, and Star Wars even has not one but two nods to Dune's giant sandworms (the exogorth, or space slug, from The Empire Strikes Back, and the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi). ![]()
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