What you need to know before you watch the premiere

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Warner Bros., Attila Szvacsek/HBO

Just like Princess Jasmin trapped in Jafar’s giant hourglass, drowning in sand, we are back in the world of Dune again. HBO’s latest big-budget IP gamble Dune: Prophecy premieres on November 17, taking over for its last big-budget IP gamble The penguin and fulfills similar prequel responsibilities as this summer’s big-budget IP gamble House of the Dragon. Dragons, Birds, Worms: Is HBO’s premier Sunday night slot going for something “we bought a zoo”?

Set more than 10,000 years before the events of Denis Villeneuve Dune and Dune: Part Two (together an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal 1965 novel), Dune: Prophecy focuses on the beginnings of the sisterhood eventually known as the Bene Gesserit. The Space Witch Order ostensibly provides trusted advisors to the ruling Emperor of the Corrino Empire and his Imperium’s aristocratic Great Houses, such as House Atreides and House Harkonnen, but secretly harbors long-standing plans for who can and should rule. The six-part series, based on the 2012 novel Sisterhood of Dune by Frank’s son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, explains and contextualizes the Bene Gesserit decisions that led to Paul Atreides’ rise to power in Dune film. Emily Watson stars as Valya Harkonnen, the venerable mother who has led the sisterhood for 30-some years, shaping it to fulfill her vision of subtle manipulation: Via elaborate matchmaking schemes among the powerful elite, she hopes that in may ultimately breed an emperor who remains under their control. (That’s the plan Duneyet; Valya’s motives are a bit more grim Dune: Prophecy.) But as she works to gain more authority in the Empire, she is threatened by a mysterious figure from the desert planet of Arrakis, Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), who has powers she does not understand and could endanger the sisterhood.

It’s a close world! There is unique terminology, complex history and lots of knowledge, and it can be difficult to delve into Dune: Prophecy with no prior knowledge of Herbert’s works or the sprawling franchise he created. If you don’t have the over five hours required to watch Dune and Dune: Part Two or however long it would take you to read Herbert’s novels before Sunday night, your prayers to Shai-Hulud have been answered. Here are five things to remember before Dune: Prophecy premieres.

Herbert’s Dune was basically an allegory for the American and British wars for oil, with spice traded in for oil and gasoline. Spice looks like a shimmering burnt-orange dust, smells like cinnamon, and is a natural resource produced only on Arrakis. Constant exposure turns the original Fremen’s eyes blue, and on Arrakis the substance is used for everyday food, goods and explosives. However, throughout the universe, spice has become a signifier of wealth and prosperity, and is most prized for its use as a substance by the Spacing Guild; it allows Guild Navigators to gain a kind of foreknowledge that helps them chart journeys through space. In a universe where everyone moves between planets all the time, the demand for spice is huge. Whoever controls Arrakis and the planet’s spice mining operation automatically becomes one of the richest and most envied families in the Empire, and also the target of the Fremen, who have been trying to rid their planet of its occupiers for generations.

This is how spice shapes the economic tensions and power dynamics of this world. But here’s a fun tidbit: The Fremen have a ceremony involving the Water of Life — sandworm bile that becomes a narcotic because the creatures live in spice-infused sand — where the members of a society share the poison and engage in an orgy. As Paul’s lover Chani explains, “When the tribe shares the water, we are together—all of us. We…share.” We never got a spice orgy (or a proper sex scene, really) in any of them Dune movie, but maybe Dune: Prophecy will be brave enough to deliver one. This is HBO after all!

When Dune begins, House Harkonnen, a clan of sadists, has controlled Arrakis for years, an arrangement that signals their closeness to the Imperium’s Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV (played in Dune: Part Two by Christopher Walken). As Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck says in Villeneuve’s first film: “For 80 years Arrakis belonged to House Harkonnen. … Can you imagine the wealth? … They’re not human, they’re brutal.” The implication is that some degree of House Harkonnen’s violence and freakishness (Baron Harkonnen’s monstrously large body; their “pets” resembling human spiders) derives from the wealth they have stored for generations. House Atreides, from which the film’s protagonist Paul (Timothee Chalamet) originates, has a righteousness and goodness that, in contrast to the Harkonnen’s brutality, makes the two families enemies.

Harkonnen’s iron grip on Arrakis makes Corrino’s decision to take the planet and give it to House Atreides a surprise – until we find out he did this to get House Harkonnen to start a war against House Atreides. The Emperor’s plan to eliminate all of House Atreides, whom he considers a threat to his rule due to their morality and popularity, backfires when Paul, his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and his unborn sister Alia survive the Harkonnen ambush on Arrakis , adapting to living in the desert, and finally getting revenge against both the Emperor and House Harkonnen. (Important detail: Lady Jessica was born a Harkonnen, causing a schism between her and Paul when he finds out in Dune: Part Two.) The families have hated each other for a long time, and they are locked in a kind of death spiral that casts a long shadow over the whole Dune franchise. Since Dune: Prophecy features characters from Houses Harkonnen and Atreides, expect more of that feud here.

We’ve never heard the word “jihad” in Villeneuve’s film, which means we probably never will Dune: Prophecyeither; the series will likely rename this historic moment. But the Muslim context of this word, especially how it defines a just war, was important to Herbert as he conceived the Butlerian Jihad, a “crusade against computers, thinking machines and conscious robots” led by the last free human beings in order. to reverse the slavery of their species. As explained in Dune‘s Terminology of the Imperium (a glossary that appeared at the end of the first novel), the Butlerian Jihad took place more than 10,000 years before the events of Dune (it fits right in Dune: Prophecy timeline) and lasted nearly 100 years. The humans ultimately prevail in the conflict they also call the Great Rebellion and outlaw these machines, creating various orders to take their place. The human computer Mentats, capable of high-level calculation and strategy, are assigned to each house, while Guild Navigators use spice to determine paths through space.

Villeneuve’s film hasn’t really delved into the rebellion and how it transformed the Empire and its people, but what’s most important to understand from the novel is the guiding law established after the end of the Butlerian jihad: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” The citizens of the Empire would really prefer not to have one Matrix-similar situation on their hands again. Who can blame them?

There is a real disconnect between the faith-based world of Herbert’s book, which regularly discusses the characters’ adherence to futuristic versions of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and agnosticism, and Villeneuve’s film, which almost completely excluded religion from the story. (In particular, elements of Islam or Middle Eastern culture or language, which are everywhere in Herbert’s novel as integral world-building elements, barely appear in Dune and Dune: Part Two.) Herbert’s book has an entire “Religion of Dune” appendix explaining the significance of space travel, with lines like “Immediately, space gave a different flavor and meaning to creation ideas. That difference is seen even in the highest religious achievements of the period. Throughout the religion the sense of the sacred was touched by anarchy from the outer darkness,” and an explanation of what the Orange Catholic Bible text, a collection of human religions created after the Butlerian jihad as a way of protecting a core aspect of human experience, intended for its followers.Conversely Dune and Dune: Part Two has some generic shots of brown people wailing incomprehensibly in a temple – a pale comparison to the source material.

But Dune: Prophecy takes place at a fascinating time for religious faith, as the Bene Gesserit play a role in shaping how humanity’s rejection of thinking machines and artificial intelligence will affect culture for years to come. Are they a religious order with inherently harmless motives, or just a group of women who train and learn together? IN DuneBene Gesserit has many critics who criticize that distinction, including Paul. Even if Dune: Prophecy dispelling Herbert’s idea that the women’s “symbolism, organization and internal teaching methods were almost entirely religious”, their rituals – such as using the aforementioned Water of Life for the Spice Agony ceremony, linking their consciousness with their ancestors in the order – have a sense of grandiosity and procedure that will still feel spiritual on screen. (Also remember that the Fremen believe in Shai-Hulud as a sandworm embodiment of their god or “Maker”, which the Bene Gesserit may not fully understand because the Fremen belief system approaches the world in a very different way than their own. It becomes a problem when Valya and Desmond, a Fremen, meet Dune: Prophecy.)

These Space Witches run a gigantic, generation-long breeding program to guide all the Great Houses and eventually put the perfect person, or Kwisatz Haderach, on the throne of the Imperium and under their control. This supreme being – a person who can see into the past like the Bene Gesserit and also the future, perform all the special mathematical and technical calculations of a Mentat, and travel through space as a Guild Navigator – will be born as a result of their matchmaking; by assigning members of the sisterhood to advise various Great Houses, the Bene Gesserit arrange marriages between families and amplify their influence. Once the Kwisatz Haderach is born, the Sisterhood will control that person when they come to the throne. Paul Atreides (who is believed to be that figure) ultimately puts an end to their plans by denying their influence, but 10,000 years ago these icons were just getting started with their Punnett squares and plans to help life find a way . A very specific, Bene Gesserit approved way.