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.
Denne historien er fra March 11, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra March 11, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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MING HAN ONG
Thadeus had never offered to take Johnny Mac out for a meal before. This is new, Johnny Mac says, grinning. For twenty-five years, Johnny Mac worked as a tenant-rights lawyer. He is a fount of varied and surprising knowledge.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON'S CHOSEN PEOPLE
What a long-unpublished novel reveals about her magnificent obsession.
FEAR AND LOATHING
Are all our arguments really over who's harmed?
ODD JOBS
\"Severance,\" on Apple TV+.
ON A MISSION FROM GOD
Inside the movement to redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools.
MAKE HIM LAUGH
How Lorne Michaels's sensibility governs \"Saturday Night Live.\"
TABULA RASA
“Bleb” is worth eight points in Scrabble. Thought you might like to know. I have known the word since Wednesday, June 11, 1958, when I learned it from a company physician at Time Incorporated, in Rockefeller Center. He said I should have been hospitalized four days ago, but there was nothing much to do about it now, go back to work.
WELCOME TO OUR FIRST/FINAL BOOK CLUB!
Thank you, everyone, for coming to our first/final book-club meeting. Apologies for how long it's taken us to settle on a date, but in between work, kids, and the pretense of joining adult recreational sports leagues, it seems that we all have incredibly busy schedules.
THE POISON MACHINE
The talk-show host Yinon Magal's hard-line tactics.
MEAN TIME
“Hard Truths.”
