SPICE ODYSSEY

"Dune: Part Two."

- JUSTIN CHANG

Having been delayed, amid the recent Hollywood strikes, from its original release date, in the fall of 2023, “Dune: Part Two” is understandably eager to get going. It’s off before we’ve even glimpsed the Warner Bros. logo, whose famous water tower is a helpful reminder to hydrate: we’ve got a long, dust-choked ride ahead. While the screen is black, a heavily distorted voice hisses something that we recognize as words only by the grace of subtitles: “Power over Spice is power over all.” The rare newbie to the Dune-iverse may be confused: is this a story of cumin bondage? But the meaning will be clear enough to readers of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science-fiction colossus or to those who have watched the 2021 adaptation, “Dune: Part One.”

That picture—directed, like this one, by Denis Villeneuve—dropped us into an aggressively beige and brutalist version of Herbert’s cosmos and set in motion a saga of feudal conquest and environmental ruin. At the heart of the plot is the substance known as spice, capable of prolonging life, inducing prophetic visions, and enabling interstellar travel. (It’s good for any kind of trip.) Spice has long triggered fights and conspiracies among those seeking to control supply, because it exists only on Arrakis, a desert planet plagued by giant sandworms.