Dune: Prophecy review: a lifeless spin-off of a great sci-fi franchise

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Dune: Prophecy is that it doesn’t want to be like Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part One or Part Two. It, instead, seems far more interested in following in the footsteps of another high-profile HBO genre series, Game of Thrones. The new show, a spinoff set 10,000 years before the events of both Frank Herbert’s original Dune novel and Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation of it, lacks many of its franchise’s key and most well-known elements. Unlike Herbert’s original creation, its story is not a commentary on the dangers of the Chosen One trope often found in sci-fi and fantasy plots, and it largely avoids visiting Dune‘s most iconic location, the desert planet of Arrakis.

That’s because Dune: Prophecy is less concerned with matters of messiahs and spice and more with exploring the feudal terrain of Herbert’s interstellar future. It is a drama comprised of royal infighting, behind-the-scenes machinations, decades-old cross-family rivalries, and political assassinations. In Dune, the tangled political web of the Known Universe (or the Imperium, as it’s often referred to in Prophecy) is an engine to drive forward Paul Atreides’ ascension from a thoughtful prince to a reckless, vengeful messiah. It is the table on which Herbert’s story is served. But in Dune: Prophecy, it’s the whole meal, and the series is the lesser for it.

Developed for television by Diane Ademu-John and Alison Schapker (Altered Carbon), Dune: Prophecy is loosely inspired by the Great Schools of Dune book trilogy penned in the early and mid-2010s by Kevin J. Anderson and Frank Herbert’s son, Brian. It follows two sisters, Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams), as they try to use their minds and political cunning to not only strengthen the growing hold their fabled sisterhood of Truthsayers/royal advisers known as the Bene Gesserit has over the Imperium, but also guarantee the sect’s continued influence through its secret, carefully overseen breeding program.

Just when it seems like they are on the verge of achieving their greatest political victory to date, though, Valya and Tula meet resistance in the form of Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), an enigmatic soldier with a terrifying power and a zealous, if justified distrust of the Bene Gesserit and its many sisters. A war of political moves quickly commences between Desmond and Valya over who gets to stand by the side of the Imperium’s Emperor, Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong) and, therefore, play the biggest role in shaping the universe’s future. Their rivalry inevitably catches the attention of those around them, including Javicco’s headstrong wife, Natalya (Jodhi May, and their daughter, Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), whose blind commitment to the Bene Gesserit Valya is desperate to protect.

While Valya and Desmond’s political war wages on, Tula is forced to oversee the continued instruction of the Bene Gesserit’s young acolytes at a time when the organization is being viewed — from both outside and within its fortress’ walls — more skeptically than ever. Before long, Tula finds herself fighting to keep buried the Bene Gesserit’s biggest secrets, nearly all of which are revealed to viewers in Dune: Prophecy‘s clunky prologue. This thread has the potential to generate compelling drama and intrigue, and the same is true of many of Dune: Prophecy‘s storylines. The series’ characters are, however, too loosely sketched to warrant the kind of emotional investment that Dune: Prophecy‘s political conflicts demand.

To watch Dune: Prophecy‘s first four episodes is to watch Emily Watson and Olivia Williams try with all their might to elevate material that never seems worthy of them or HBO. Watson is soft-spoken and yet cutting as Valya, but Dune: Prophecy never fills out her motivations and simply expects viewers to find her vague desire for more power and control fascinating enough. It makes a similarly critical mistake with Williams’ Tula, whose biggest desires and decisions are often explained in awkward exposition dumps because Dune: Prophecy has little time for actual character development. Even Fimmel, who tries to fill in the hollow shell of Desmond Hart with an idiosyncratic performance that brings Prophecy slightly closer to matching the lovable weirdness of Frank Herbert’s original Dune novels, is left grasping air while playing a character whose devotion to Strong’s Javicco and distrust of the Bene Gesserit are never explained.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films work because of how thoroughly they immerse viewers in Paul Atreides’ troubled, pained emotions. Every fiery set piece Villeneuve stages connects back to his protagonist’s personal battles with guilt, fear, temptation, and rage. Look at how much work Game of Thrones put in across its first six seasons to develop its characters and encourage viewers’ investment in them. That HBO series makes sure that even early moments like young Bran Stark getting pushed out of a window land with maximum emotional impact. Dune: Prophecy tries to deliver moments of a similar caliber in its early episodes, but its most brutal twists all involve characters whom the audience is given little-to-no reason to care about, and that robs them of whatever weight they’re supposed to have.

Dune: Prophecy was never going to match the sheer cinematic grandeur of their Villeneuve-directed sister films. It had to find another way to hook viewers into its world, and creating a story where countless characters vie for power in an empire where control is constantly shifting seems on paper to be as surefire a way of ensuring that outcome as any other. But Dune: Prophecy gets lost in its own intricate web of lore early, and it never finds its way out. Its characters suffer as a result, and its drama is largely rendered lifeless and dull.

The series inspires neither the wide-eyed awe of Villeneuve’s Dune films, nor the fist-clenching rage and tear-inducing heartbreak of Game of Thrones. Like many of its characters, it lacks a strong and compelling identity. It feels bland and generic, and those are two things that no show set in the same strange sci-fi universe as Herbert’s Dune should be.

Dune: Prophecy premieres Sunday, November 17 on HBO and Max. Digital Trends was given early access to its first four installments.