I do not assume it is an understatement to say that Dune: Half Two rocked my world. Due to its wonderful sandworms, Austin Butler’s freaky Feyd-Rautha, and a lot extra, it shortly grew to become one in all my favourite movies of the 12 months.
However simply since you love one thing doesn’t suggest you’ll be able to’t have an issue with it, and boy, did I’ve an issue with how Dune: Half Two dealt with one scene specifically: Girl Jessica’s (Rebecca Ferguson) Spice Agony.
What is the Spice Agony ritual?
The Spice Agony is a Bene Gesserit ritual the place a Sister takes a few of the Water of Life, a spice-rich poison derived from child sandworms. Due to years of coaching, a Sister can rework the poison inside her physique and render it innocent. In return, she unlocks her genetic reminiscence, which means the reminiscences and knowledge of all her ancestors, and turns into a Reverend Mom. Failure means dying.
Jessica takes the Water of Life with a view to exchange the Fremen’s dying Reverend Mom. Nonetheless, since she’s pregnant, the Water of Life additionally transforms her unborn daughter Alia Atreides (Anya Taylor-Pleasure), successfully giving her a Reverend Mom-level of consciousness and energy within the womb.
That is all supremely unusual stuff, delivered to life in Frank Herbert’s Dune with a surreal scene the place Girl Jessica communicates with the Fremen’s Reverend Mom Ramallo inside their “mutual mind’s eye.” You’ll be able to really feel the deep connection between the 2 Bene Gesserit, the phobia about what this implies for Alia, and the overwhelming barrage of knowledge Ramallo offers Jessica.
Mashable High Tales
Rebecca Ferguson in “Dune: Part Two.”
Credit score: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Photos
However in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Half Two, this pivotal sequence is given brief shrift. Jessica writhes round in agony, we see the colourful blue Water of Life flowing by her physique (and round her fetus), then the Reverend Mom cries out in worry about her being pregnant. There isn’t any sense of the reminiscence facet of all of it, nor can we get any of the fascinating interiority of the scene within the novel. Understandably, there are various issues Dune: Half Two needed to change throughout the adaptation course of. But dulling such an interesting scene yields underwhelming outcomes, to the purpose that the sequence virtually looks like an afterthought.
Dune: Prophecy‘s portrayal of Spice Agony is terrifying — and nice.
Enter Dune: Prophecy, HBO’s prequel sequence concerning the early days of the Bene Gesserit order. Within the present’s second episode, younger acolyte Sister Lila (Chloe Lea) goes by the Spice Agony within the hopes of gleaning info from her ancestors that might assist the Sisters face down sure smash. The circumstances of her Agony are far completely different from Jessica’s, but the scenes are nonetheless in dialog with one another, on condition that they each painting completely different variations of the identical ritual. And truthfully? Dune: Prophecy‘s take comes out on prime.
As Lila begins the Agony, we see pictures of the Water of Life swirling along with her blood, a visible straight out of Villeneuve’s movie. However after that, we delve into one thing stranger and scarier. Lila winds up in an unlimited cavern filled with faceless Sisters — an ideal bodily illustration of Lila’s ancestral reminiscence. There, she meets her grandmother, Sister Dorotea (Camilla Beeput), who offers her cryptic messages concerning the oncoming reckoning. She additionally imparts the reminiscence of her dying to Lila, exhibiting her how younger Valya Harkonnen (Jessica Barden) murdered her with the Voice. Right here, we see the reminiscences of Lila’s ancestors pouring into her, just like Jessica’s expertise receiving Ramallo’s reminiscences in Herbert’s Dune.
Dune: Prophecy takes the Agony one step farther, emphasizing the horror of the method. The Sisters within the cave do not transfer naturally. Some shamble in the direction of Lila. Others crawl alongside the ceiling and down the partitions. They encompass and assault her, falling on her physique like zombies devouring a corpse. It is an amazing sequence, each for Lila and the viewers, and it captures the do-or-die panic of the Agony in a way more visceral sense than Dune: Half Two.
Dune: Half Two additionally has the added aspect of Alia’s presence, and she or he shortly turns into the main focus of the scene. However in shifting that focus virtually solely to her, we lose a few of Jessica’s journey. The Agony is an enormous second in her story, however her bodily and psychological expertise falls to the wayside. With Dune: Prophecy, you stick with Lila all the time, experiencing this taxing, lethal, and unusual trial alongside her each step of the best way. That immersion pushes Dune: Prophecy‘s Agony to the highest, righting one in all Dune: Half Two‘s (few) wrongs.
Dune: Prophecy is now streaming on Max. New episodes premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
