Gargantuan, majestic, awe-inspiring: critics have run out of adjectives to describe the new sci-fi blockbuster that inexorably rumbles through space to our screens.

And that’s totally fitting, because Dune is all about epic vastness: a huge intergalactic empire with monstrous spaceships, sandworms as big as ocean liners, and a sprawling storyline across a series of novels. spanning tens of thousands of years.

It’s no surprise that for decades powerful filmmakers have looked at the best-selling novel in sci-fi history and despaired.

American writer Frank Herbert’s original 1965 tome confused the best efforts of filmmakers from Ridley Scott to David Lynch, whose cinematic visions – with vast budgets and lavish casts such as Sting, Mick Jagger and even Salvador Dali – failed to do so he left the launch pad or imploded horribly in space.

Dune was considered “infilmable” – but that’s what people have said about Lord of the Rings, who went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest money spinners of all time.

Now, it looks like the modern wonders of CGI (computer generated images) have finally made Dune ‘doable’.

A spectacular big-budget new film starring millennial pin-up Timothée Chalamet and directed by Oscar-nominated Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is due out in the UK next month.

The film, which is said to have cost £ 120million, also stars Charlotte Rampling as the reverend mother of an order of mystical nuns, young American beauty Zendaya (who prefers not to use her last name, Coleman), Josh Brolin, Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Mission Impossible star Rebecca Ferguson.

Villeneuve has already made two clever and successful sci-fi films, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Now he has tried to solve the density of Dune (the book is around 500 pages) by dividing it into two films.

Based on the stunned verdict of many who saw the first installment last week at the Venice International Film Festival, it appears he finally achieved what many in Hollywood thought was impossible – although a few critics have complained. that lovely visuals come at the expense of captivating terrain.

It’s certainly true that Dune makes even the complex world of Lord of the Rings simplistic.

It takes place about 20,000 years in the future, when noble families rule the planets as part of a feudal empire. At the beginning of the story, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) was sent to conquer a desert planet.

Arrakis is inhospitable and inhabited by a people called the Fremen – as well as huge, terrifying sands that swallow big mining machines for breakfast.

While Arrakis sounds like the ultimate dead-end publication, it is mostly the only source of the Universe’s “spice” – a mind-altering and body-altering drug that makes travel in the Universe. possible space.

From treacherous desert sands, say the characters of Dune, “the spice must flow”: and it was always intended that there be a parallel to our own planet’s historical dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Moreover, according to the ancient Fremen prophecy, a leader will one day arrive, free them from their barren planet and lead them to glory. Could this savior be the teenage son of Duke Leto, Paul Atréides (Chalamet)?

Surprisingly, for a book that many people have never heard of, Dune has sold 20 million copies and is consistently cited as the most beloved sci-fi book of all time. Yet unlike devotees of The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars, die-hard Dune fans don’t show up in costumes at the Dune mega-conventions throwing out Dune catchphrases.

One of the reasons for its popularity could be that it is not very “science fiction” at all. It may be set in the distant future, but there are no robots or even computers in Dune. The story is more mystical than technological: a world where the characters still sometimes fight with swords and daggers, and speak in an almost Shakespearean language.

This welcome technophobia, coupled with the novel’s strong philosophical tone, was quite intentional, as Herbert was fascinated by Zen Buddhism.

A new big-budget show starring millennial pin-up Timothée Chalamet and directed by Oscar-nominated Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is due out in the UK next month

Inspiration for Dune came in 1957 when Herbert, then a reporter in Washington state, was sent to write about the immense sand dunes of neighboring Oregon. He was astonished by their grandeur and wrote to his literary agent saying that shifting dunes could “swallow up whole towns, lakes, rivers, highways”.

Herbert was also influenced by TE Lawrence “of Arabia”, the messianic officer in the British army who led the Arab revolt against the Turks in World War I.

And he took inspiration from Middle Eastern oil policy and the emerging environmentalist movement in America in the 1960s. As for “the spice” – also called Melange in the book – Herbert took inspiration from his fascination. for psychedelic mushrooms that expand consciousness.

However, he was most influenced – a bit too much, say critics who have not accused him of plagiarism – by an obscure 1960 history book, The Sabers Of Paradise, by British writer Lesley Blanch, on a 19th century conflict in the Caucasus. between Imperial Russia and the Muslims.

Herbert spent six years working on his novel and, like JRR Tolkien, struggled to find a publisher once it was finished.

“It is just possible that we are making the mistake of the decade,” said the one who turned it down. The manuscript was eventually taken over by a company known for publishing auto repair manuals.

It wasn’t an immediate bestseller, but word-of-mouth praise and ever-increasing sales eventually allowed Herbert to give up journalism and devote himself to writing five equally lengthy sequels. between 1969 and 1985, the year before his death.

Too much sand?

Herbert’s son Brian certainly never thought so, as he and sci-fi writer Kevin Anderson have since produced 15 more Dune prequels and sequels.

The film featured the striking images of Lynch, but it was a soft, kitschy mess, and practically incomprehensible to anyone who hadn’t read the book.

In 1973, the film rights were purchased by a group of French directors on behalf of the avant-garde writer and director Alejandro Jodorowsky.

He had wildly ambitious ideas for Dune – music by Pink Floyd and a cast that included Salvador Dali (in his first movie role), Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson and Mick Jagger.

But the project was crushed by its own greatness. Jodorowsky’s script was so expansive (“It was the size of a phone book,” Frank Herbert remembers), the film should have been 14 hours long.

Meanwhile, Dali agreed to play Emperor of Dune only if Jodorowsky paid him $ 100,000 an hour (around £ 450,000 today), while Welles only signed when he was insured. that his favorite chef would be on hand to cook for him.

Unsurprisingly, the film had to be scrapped when no studio was willing to fund it to the director’s specifications. Film mogul Dino De Laurentiis then took the reins, buying the rights to the film in 1979. He first turned to British director Ridley Scott, who had just enjoyed huge success with Alien.

Scott had considered his Dune to be in the Star Wars mold – but instead gave up to direct 1982’s Blade Runner.

De Laurentiis therefore recruited David Lynch, another acclaimed but slightly more offbeat director, to film Dune. His attempt was at least published in 1984 – although many wish it hadn’t been. In a particularly puzzling cast, British pop singer Sting was cast to play the villain, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, wearing a comedic fly.

The film featured the striking images of Lynch, but it was a soft, kitschy mess, and practically incomprehensible to anyone who hadn’t read the book.

It had cost $ 45 million – a huge sum at the time – but failed. Critics savaged him, and Lynch later disowned the film.

It failed to deter others: a 2000 TV miniseries won two Emmy Awards – and in 2007 a group of Spanish college students released a four-minute trailer for a fan-made version. . However, the trailer was removed from YouTube at the request of the Frank Herbert estate, and the film was never released.

Paramount Pictures then spent several years trying to get a new feature film Dune off the ground, but again to no avail.

Finally, in 2016, Chinese-owned Hollywood studio Legendary bought the rights and announced a deal with Villeneuve (also with plans for a Dune spinoff TV series). Villeneuve said he was determined that as many people as possible would watch it on the big screen rather than at home.

So, this last Dune, the catchy story of a messiah leading his tribe to the promised land, could it be the film that will finally bring us back to the cinema?