November 19 2024, 08:15 Dune: Prophecy is here – and so are the reviews – but does the TV adaptation of the space-opera franchise hold up to its cinematic cousins?
The show, which adapts the controversial prequel novel Sisterhood of Dune, by original author Frank Herbert’s son, Brian, aired in the US on Sunday (17 November).
The limited-series show is set more than 10,000 years before the events of the films and follows the origins of the Bene Gesserit, a sisterhood of influential sorcerers whose goal is to create the Kwisatz Haderach.
Starring Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Mark Strong and Travis Fimmel, the series focuses on two sisters of the Harkonnen bloodline, Valya and Tula, who vow to establish a Bene Gesserit sect on their home world.
Much like the book, the series has, so far, received lukewarm reviews from critics and viewers alike, with a score hovering around 70 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Variety critic Alison Herman, who noted that the show was “already in the works before Dune: Part One was even in theatres” said that the first episodes handled the ups and downs of adapting a franchise as huge as this “capably.”
However, it “palpably lacks the magic touch of cinematographer Greig Fraser,” who was involved in the films, as well as the “star power of Timothée Chalamet”, she added.
“But [Dune: Prophecy] exerts an advantage on the fronts television is already suited to, like bringing the many political factions of the sprawling Imperium to life.”
The Verge’s Charles Pulliam-Moore called the show a “slow and cerebral meditation on the power of patience” but warned that its tendency to pivot away from the core Dune texts might be “turn-offs for franchise purists”.
One particular grievance circulating online is the design of the Thinking Machines, an entity of artificial intelligences and living beings which enslaved humanity but were destroyed in the Butlerian Jihad.
Thinking machines from HBO's DUNE: Prophecy series. pic.twitter.com/1eytriZAim
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