Everything You Need To Know About The Dune Movies Before Watching Dune: Prophecy

The Bene Gesserit is a Mother School on the planet Wallach IX that trains women in a number of almost superhuman skillsets like hyper-perceptiveness and even the ability to manipulate others with their voices. Successful graduates go on to become Truthsayers for powerful families and Houses throughout the galaxy while those who show special promise are referred to as Reverend Mothers. They also try to enlist the would-be wives of emperors and other royalty in their school in order to increase their reach and power.

Beyond generally being the witches of the Dune universe, the Bene Gesserit’s larger goals is to bring about the birth of a super-being called the Kwisatz Haderach through thousands of years of genetic research and carefully arranged marriages. This ultimately ends up being Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in the movies. His mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) is a member of the Bene Gesserit and the Mother Superior of that era is the one who puts his hand in the “fear is the mind killer” box.

While Bene Gesserit Mothers have all sorts of abilities, like reading people’s physiology to determine if they’re telling the truth, the more powerful ones have access to “the Voice,” a magical modulation of their vocal cords in a special way that forces the listener to do exactly what they say. It’s not really important how Reverend Mothers are able to do it, just that they can.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility, and using the Voice too much would clearly bring all of their finely crafted long term plans crumbling down. Men aren’t supposed to know how to use the voice but Paul’s mother teaches him and he uses it to great and pivotal effect multiple times in the movies.

In Dune’s universe, all economic activity revolves around a chemical substance called Spice. Otherwise known as “Melange,” people can use it to get high and then do complex navigation computations to pilot ships through space. No spice, no space travel, which is why it’s always at the center of every major power dispute in Dune.

If Spice were plentiful, it would simplify things. Instead, Spice can only be harvested from the poop of massive alien worms on a giant desert planet called Arrakis. Much geopolitical turmoil ensues as rival powers negotiate and fight with one another over the Spice trade. Melange doubles as status symbol for rich families and a psychedelic that can help the Bene Gesserit and others tap into the more mystical side of Dune’s universe.

Since Spice can only be found on Arrakis, the desert planet is constantly in a state of turmoil. Dune’s political empire, the Corrino Imperium, relies on individual houses to harvest spice from the planet’s surface, but the threat of worms and attacks by the indigenous Fremen mean the honor also comes with a lot of costs. Whoever is supposed to be in charge of the planet gets a ton of spice but is also constantly getting attacked and killed.

This makes Arrakis a consistent pain point in Dune’s delicate political order. In the movies, the planet becomes a staging ground for Paul Atreides rebellion against the Imperium and his messianic journey to terraform it into a paradise that would destroy all spice in the process. At the start of Dune: Prophecy, as in the start of the movies, the big question is how to get the military resources together to subdue Arrakis.

In Villeneuve’s movies, House Harkonnen is portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron, Dave Bautista’s Rabban, and Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha. They are all bald, pale, and sociopathically ruthless. Arrakis has been theirs to rules and harvest for generations, leading to a giant scandal when the emperor takes the planet away and gives it to House Atreides, Harkonnen’s sworn enemies.

The Harkonnen reside on Giedi Prime, a not particularly beautiful planet made more grim by all of the over-industrialization and colosseums. While the Baron and his brood got rich from all the spice, it wasn’t always thus for House Harkonnen. The events that kick-off Dune: Prophecy left it very much in exile by the other powerful houses over its betrayal in the Matrix-like rebellion against “thinking machines” called the Butlerian Jihad. It’s basically the catalyst for everything else that happens in Dune.

House Atreides is everything House Harkonnen’s not: noble, popular, and good-looking. Residing on the watery planet of Caladan, House Atreides’ is largely considered to rule benevolently and peacefully. It’s also in good standing with many of the other powerful houses, leaving it in an uniquely advantageous and precarious place vis-a-vis the rest of the balance of power in Dune.

Despite prospering for generations, the first Dune movie sees House Atreides all but wiped out at the hands of the Harkonnen as part of a wider betrayal by the Imperium. While Paul’s journey begins in the ashes of House Atreides, during the era Dune: Prophecy takes place in it is very much still burgeoning power center among the rest of the Houses.

In addition to Dune’s iconic sand worms, Arrakis is also home to the Fremen, a desert civilization with a complex religious history that’s in a forever war against whichever great House happens to be occupying the planet at the time. In addition to using guerrilla warfare to sabatoge Spice operations, the Fremen can also ride worms and partake in experiments with worm piss and other byproducts that do all kinds of weird stuff but are also life-threateningly toxic to most people.

In addition to the Great Houses, which have their own Congress-like entity called the Landsraad, and the Corrino Imperium, which is ruled by a single emperor, Dune’s other major player is the Spacing Guild, a trade organization and navigation school that provides the pilots for interstellar travel. With complex computers outlawed following the Butlerian Jihad, ships rely on Spice-snorting pilots to calculate complex trajectories and get massive, faster-than-light fleets where they need to be. Though only mentioned in passing in the Dune movies, like when Paul threatens to cut off the entire Spice trade, it’s an important countervailing force to the rest of Dune’s political players.