A superfan explains Dune: Part 2 for newbies.
The biggest movie released so far this year is admittedly a little confusing. Or maybe not confusing, but it sure has a lot of lore.
I’m talking, of course, about Dune: Part Two.
Denis Villeneuve’s second installment adapting Frank Herbert’s 1960s sci-fi series of books enters theaters this week. Given it’s been over two years since the first film, and given the complexity of what’s happening in the Dune universe, I figured some of you might have a few questions.
Like, what’s up with Timothée Chalamet’s psychic boy king? Who are those dour-looking nuns? And what the hell is going on with the giant worms everywhere?
I love sci-fi — catch me any day with a copy of Gideon the Ninth or The Dispossessed — but I’ve never read Dune, so I can’t help you.
Patrick Reis, Vox’s senior politics editor and longtime Dune fan, can. I asked him a few questions for us all.
Light spoilers ahead about the series’ overall narrative arc.
So who’s this Paul Atreides guy that Timothée Chalamet is playing? I’m supposed to like him, right?
At the start of Villeneuve’s previous movie, Paul is the only child of House Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), a Bene Gesseritt (more on them soon).
Paul’s family has been coerced into leaving their home planet to move to Arrakis (also known as Dune), where they’re charged with overseeing the production of spice, the universe’s most precious resource.
At the end of the first film, Paul has hidden away with the Arrakis-native Fremen and allied with them against House Harkonnen — the despots who once again rule Arrakis after murdering Paul’s father and almost everyone he loved. (He also meets Chani (Zendaya), a Fremen who becomes his lover.) Over the course of Dune: Part Two, he makes his way up the Fremen ranks to become a messianic figure.
This leads to a fairly complicated moral arc over the rest of the series.
Right, see, here’s my question: Is he a good a messianic figure … or actually evil? I’m suspicious of this hero worship. And there’s also some weird white savior vibes here, right?
Is he “evil”? No in the short term; sort of yes in the medium term; and then mostly no in the extremely, extremely long term — events occurring decades, centuries, and even millennia later with the help of Paul’s descendants.
Dune Two is set in that short-term “no” part of the saga, where he’s helping the Fremen free themselves from the cruelty of House Harkonnen.
But to the other part of your question — yeah. Dune is fundamentally a white savior story in which the bulk of the agency is exercised by outsiders coming to a nomadic culture.
It’s also a pretty clear allegory to the Middle East: Spice is a rare substance that sustains modern life and facilitates empire-wide commerce and travel, so that’s pretty clearly oil. And so much about the Fremen seems to be designed to evoke desert nomads — and some of the most simplistic stereotypes about Arabs. At its worst, it’s Dances With Worms. All of this should, and in many cases does, make fans uncomfortable.
I think the movie makes some steps in the right direction. Zendaya’s Chani has much more agency in the movie than the book’s Chani does, which puts some of the power back in the hands of the Fremen.
But without basically setting aside a huge chunk of the book’s plot, I’m not sure there’s a way around the white savior trope. Someone tried making a Dune movie without sticking closely to the book, and it’s a hilarious mess.
Who are the Bene Gesserit, and more importantly, why aren’t they in charge?
To the naked eye, the Bene Gesserit look like a bunch of superpowered nuns — although they’re not exactly nuns — as Paul’s mother Lady Jessica is part of the sisterhood.
But let’s back up a bit to understand why they’re so important and what exactly they’re trying to do.
Long before the events of the films, humanity had a purge of all “thinking machines.” And so for centuries (and maybe longer), the main advances in technology have not been better machines, but re-engineering humans themselves.
That’s the big project the Bene Gesserit are working on: breeding the superbeing.
Paul was supposed to be the second-to-last step before that superbeing. Lady Jessica was to have a female — Bene Gesserit can determine their offspring’s gender because of course they can — to mate with the heir to House Harkonnen. But out of love for Oscar Isaac’s Duke Leto (RIP), she granted his wish for a male heir. That brought the superbeing into the universe a generation early, upending the Bene Gesserit plan.
So to get back to your question: The Bene Gesserit seem content to let the men fight the relatively small-stakes conflicts over the imperial throne and control of the spice. But behind the scenes, they are fighting a bigger fight: to produce a superbeing whom they can control.
Unfortunately for them, they only get halfway there — as Paul is certainly not interested in being under anyone’s control.
Okay, but most importantly, talk to me about these giant worms. They’re pretty important to the plot — and super cool to look at — but they don’t seem to make sense.
We learned in the first film that the Fremen and desert dwellers seem to know how to avoid getting eaten by the worms, so … just what are the worms feeding on to get so big? And, more importantly, what do they have to do with this all-powerful and precious spice?
Reading between the lines, I think they actually feed on something in the desert sand, rather than on the creatures of it. Rather than the apex predator of the ecosystem, they’re better likened to, you know, our regular old earthworms here on Earth. They tunnel through the desert and enrich it — possibly even by aiding in the production of spice.
So I think they’re being territorial, rather than predatory, when they swallow spice harvesting machines or Harkonnen corpses or anything else that doesn’t adequately disguise its movements when walking across the sands. I would be happy to discuss sandworm ecology with you for approximately 10 more hours, but I’ve probably said enough here. Enjoy the film!
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Reckless speeding is epidemic in the US. This simple technology could save tens of thousands of lives.
Speeding plays a role in over 12,000 US car fatalities per year, around a third of the national total. But an emergent technology could dramatically reduce that death toll, if not eliminate it entirely.
The auto industry has done little to address speeding, and it may be worsening the problem. Although the highest speed limit anywhere in the US is 85 mph (on Texas State Highway 130), most new cars can easily reach triple digits. Speedometers often rise all the way to 155 mph, and even safety-conscious Volvo lets drivers reach 112 mph (those behind the wheel of a Tesla Model S Plaid can top 200 mph).
Sure, a driver passing a semitruck on an interstate might need to briefly break the posted limit. But it’s hard to imagine a scenario where hitting 100 mph on a public road is anything short of reckless. Pedestrians are in particular danger; according to a 2011 study by the American Automobile Association, their average risk of death is 10 percent if struck by a car going 23 mph, but 50 percent at 42 mph and 75 percent at 50 mph.
Being surrounded by multiple tons of metal affords car occupants some protection, but they are hardly invulnerable. Many of the most catastrophic car crashes involve extreme acceleration, such as one in January in which a driver reached 124 mph on a 45 mph North Carolina highway before flipping the car and killing a University of North Carolina undergraduate.
In 2022, a woman flew through a Los Angeles intersection at 130 mph, more than triple the 35-mph speed limit, before striking multiple vehicles and killing five people, including a pregnant woman and her 11-month-old son.
At a national level, Americans are far more likely to die in crashes than those living in other rich countries; even comparably spacious and car-clogged Canada has a per capita crash death rate that is 60 percent lower than its southern neighbor.
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Steve Story/Getty Images
Happily, a common-sense solution is available. A technology known as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) can make it difficult or impossible for drivers to drastically exceed the posted limit. Over the last few months, a bevy of federal, state, and local officials have called for ISA adoption on all new cars, or at least on those driven by public employees or those with a history of reckless driving.
From New York City to California, speed-limiting technology is having a moment.
The European Union will require speed limiters in new cars. Could the US do the same?
It’s been a long time coming. Rudimentary speed limiters have been available for over a century; in 1923, Cincinnati residents voted on a road safety proposal that would have mechanically restricted any car within city limits to 25 mph. That referendum was defeated, and the idea of constraining car speed subsequently faded from popular view.
But the recent emergence of ISA has thrust it back into policy conversations. Initially conceived of in France 40 years ago, modern ISA systems can be divided into two categories, both of which use GPS and digital maps to ascertain the speed limit on the roadway where a car is traveling.
“Active” ISA systems completely prevent further acceleration after the vehicle hits a given speed ceiling, such as five miles over the posted limit. “Passive” ISA is more permissive, relying on sounds, vibrations, or accelerator resistance to compel the driver to slow down (a determined driver can ignore those warnings and keep speeding up).
Both versions of ISA offer something rare and enticing: a straightforward technological fix for a major source of roadway carnage.
In 2022, the European Union adopted a rule requiring all new cars to be outfitted with passive ISA, starting this July. That was a watershed moment for ISA adoption — and it raised eyebrows across the Atlantic.
Later that year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a groundbreaking pilot program in which ISA would be retrofitted into several dozen city-owned vehicles. The preliminary results are encouraging, showing a 36 percent reduction in hard braking (often used as a proxy for unsafe driving). Adams has spoken about potentially expanding the pilot across tens of thousands of vehicles within the city’s fleet, a move that could amplify safety benefits because cars with ISA also compel drivers behind them to obey the speed limit.
The next big move came last October, when the National Transportation Safety Board released its investigation into a particularly gruesome 2022 crash in North Las Vegas, in which the driver of a Dodge Challenger blasted through a red light at 103 mph (speed limit: 35 mph), striking a minivan and killing himself and eight other people. For the first time, NTSB officially recommended that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the vehicle safety division of the federal Department of Transportation, require all new cars sold in the US to contain ISA.
Although the NTSB lacks the power to enforce its recommendation, it left an impression on California State Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat. In January, Wiener unveiled a bill that would set a deadline of 2027 for all new cars sold in the Golden State to contain an active version of ISA, set to 10 mph over the speed limit (a to-be-defined override would be available in emergencies). Wiener told me that even if his bill doesn’t pass, he hopes that it inspires elected leaders elsewhere to pick up the ISA baton and run with it.
A few weeks later, the District of Columbia City Council unanimously passed a street safety bill that included a new pilot program to install ISA in the vehicles of drivers who “commit serious speeding crimes,” according to Council member Charles Allen. That approach could prevent habitually reckless drivers from further endangering everyone else on the street. (For example, the man who caused the 2022 crash in North Las Vegas already had three prior speeding convictions.)
Momentum behind ISA is clearly growing.
Speed limiting is commonsense policy — but it’ll be an uphill climb
NHTSA has shown no signs of requiring ISA at the federal level but provided a statement that it was “initiating new research this year” into the technology, without offering further detail.
Why the lack of urgency, despite US crash deaths being up 27 percent from a decade ago? ISA elicits fierce resistance from carmakers (whose marketing ads often feature their vehicles zooming through streets with a tiny disclaimer that they were filmed with stunt drivers on a closed course). The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an auto industry lobbying association, responded to the California ISA bill by questioning the technology’s reliability.
Some car owners, too, may be wary, imagining scenarios where ISA prevents them from rushing to the hospital. Such occurrences are rare, and when they do happen, an untrained driver blasting past speed limits puts everyone in a dangerous situation. Every ISA proposal I have seen exempts emergency vehicles while permitting regular drivers to go a few mph over the posted limit.
Inevitably, there will be visceral opposition from those who view speed-limiting technology as an attack on “freedom,” even though breaking the posted limit is, by definition, already illegal. “Forget your constitutional rights, those can be damned, even your movement controlled,” fulminated Fox News host Laura Ingraham last November, after the NTSB endorsed ISA. (Several decades ago, the introduction of seat belt laws sparked a similar response.)
But ISA supporters have logic on their side. It is nonsensical that shared e-scooters weighing a few dozen pounds are widely throttled at 15 mph or less, while cars that are 100 times heavier and able to travel 10 times faster have no such mechanical restrictions. The status quo is even more outrageous at a time when the US is mired in an ongoing road safety crisis, including a 40-year high in pedestrian deaths.
With each new ISA bill and pilot program, the Overton window widens, and a federal requirement becomes a little more conceivable. For the sake of everyone on the road — including those who walk, bike, or ride transit as well as those inside a car — let’s hope that day arrives soon.
The competing narratives about a deadly aid distribution in Gaza, explained.
More than 100 Palestinians were killed and more than 250 were wounded in Gaza City early Thursday morning as they tried to access desperately needed aid. Eyewitness accounts point to Israeli troops opening fire on the crowd, though Israeli statements blame a stampede for the casualties.
Food, clean water, and other basic goods are nearly impossible to come by throughout Gaza due to ongoing Israeli military operations and the extreme destruction the past four months of war have wrought. Overall, humanitarian aid to Gaza has been extremely limited not only because of the difficult on-the-ground logistics and danger in delivering assistance, but also because Israel has heavily restricted aid from entering the enclave.
This is just the latest high-profile incident in which civilians and civilian institutions in Gaza have been killed in large numbers during the war in Gaza; ambulances, hospitals, schools, and other facilities run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have all been attacked in Gaza over the four months of the war, further endangering Palestinian lives already at risk not just due to bombardment, but now also starvation and disease.
In the span of five months, this conflict has killed 30,000 Palestinians and injured tens of thousands more; as already-scarce resources dwindle, those numbers are likely to increase exponentially unless there is a sustained ceasefire.
How were so many people killed and wounded?
Hundreds of people in Gaza City awaited the arrival of the aid convoy — some lining up Wednesday to get the canned goods and flour from aid trucks in the besieged city. People throughout Gaza are in extreme need, but the north, where Gaza City sits, faces particularly serious and pressing shortages of the most basic goods; an aid convoy that arrived earlier this week was reportedly the first in a month.
What happened to the people waiting for aid is a matter of debate. In an emailed statement, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged an incident in Gaza City, saying only that ”Gazan residents surrounded the trucks, and looted the supplies being delivered. During the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured as a result of pushing and trampling. The incident is under review.”
However, the IDF’s on-the-record statement contained no acknowledgment of the claim that Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd, nor of casualty reports. That contrasts with accounts from Gaza health authority officials and multiple eyewitnesses of Israeli troops firing into the crowd as people tried to get to the food on the trucks.
Around 100 people with gunshot wounds were treated at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, the New York Times reported. The hospital also received the bodies of 12 people who had been shot and killed. More than 150 patients, many with shooting injuries, were being treated at al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, as Dr. Mohammed Salha, the hospital’s acting director, told the Associated Press.
A later press conference by Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesperson, mentioned that the IDF fired warning shots but blamed casualties on people trampling each other as they tried to get access to food and supplies. He denied that there was an Israeli strike on the convoy of 38 trucks.
One Palestinian eyewitness, Kamel Abu Nahel, told the Associated Press that Israeli troops fired initial shots which scattered the crowd. After the shooting stopped and people returned, Abu Nahel said, troops opened fire again. He was shot in the leg and is being treated at Shifa hospital.
The information landscape in Gaza is extremely challenging. Foreign reporters have not been able to enter the area during the ongoing operations since October 7, and details of exactly what happened are still coming to light.
But what we do know is that Israel has repeatedly attacked, blocked, and destroyed humanitarian infrastructure and access throughout the war.
How desperate is the situation in northern Gaza?
Northern Gaza is where the IDF began its initial ground invasion in October; Israel targeted Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold. Though much of the population has been displaced to southern Gaza, there are still thousands of civilians in the area, and they have not had adequate aid distribution in around two months, Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, told Vox.
“The biggest obstacle has simply been that the Israeli government has, for the most part, denied aid groups access to that part of the territory,” he told Vox.
The UN organization that is usually in charge of distributing aid to Palestine, UNRWA, cannot operate in the area for safety reasons. And aid workers have said they’ve found trying to work with Israel to get aid into Gaza all but impossible.
After a UNRWA and World Food Program aid convoy “coordinated with the Israelis,” according to Konyndyk, it was fired upon by Israeli troops. “There’s no confidence amongst professional humanitarians that they can actually have safe access into the north and that they won’t be targeted.”
Israel has also accused UNRWA of being in league with Hamas, and that accusation led many countries, including the US, to pause financial contributions to the organization. Aid distribution is challenging and requires significant coordination; without that, it’s easy for a situation in which people are starving and under significant duress to spiral out of control and turn violent.
Such infrastructure once existed in Gaza — via UNRWA and with the cooperation of Hamas civilian police — but that has been devastated by Israeli assaults and, in the case of UNRWA, an effort to undermine the organization.
“The best way to get humanitarian aid into Gaza is to stop the fighting,” Brian Finucane, senior adviser in the US policy program at the International Crisis Group, told Vox in an interview. “Based on reports today, in recent weeks, the breakdown of any sort of order in Gaza is even complicating that further and that Israel itself is contributing [to] that in no small part, including by targeting the police inside Gaza.”
Hagari said during the press conference that a private contractor was coordinating the aid distribution, although he did not name the contractor. Vox reached out to the IDF and to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) for more information but did not receive a response by press time.
As part of potential ceasefire negotiations, the US is pushing for increased humanitarian access in Gaza, but so far has not backed up that rhetoric with meaningful action like pausing the flow of weapons to Israel or proposing a ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council. So despite the concerted efforts of diplomats and humanitarian workers, Finucane said, “They don’t have much to work with if the US bottom line is unconditional support for this catastrophic conflict.”