10 Small Details You Missed In Dune

A look at some of the most interesting things that the movie glossed over for runtime!

Dune Mentat
Warner Bros.

The Dune series, created by Frank Herbert, has one of the most detailed, and at times confusing universes ever thought of in science fiction. That's the reason why so many people thought a movie adaptation could never work.

The 1980's Dune by David Lynch seemed to confirm this as, although it was a fun visual spectacle and definitely got the aesthetic right, huge parts of the plot were removed and the story was dumbed down into a basic hero narrative.

However, with the new Dune movie by Denis Villeneuve being split into two parts, many fans were optimistic that the extended run time would give the audience more time to get to know the world and the types of people who live in it.

Still though, with dozens of words like mentat, Sardaukar, Bene Gesserit, and spice melange being thrown around every five seconds, it can be hard for someone who doesn't already know the backstory to keep track of all of it, so today let's take a look at ten of the biggest details in the new Dune movie that you may have missed!

10. The Lack Of Computers (The Butlerian Jihad)

Dune Mentat
Warner Bros.

Although much truer to the book series than David Lynch's Dune, the new movie still does leave out certain important details, mostly dealing with the backstory of how human society became structured the way it is.

Watching Dune, you may notice that something seems very different from your average sci-fi blockbuster. One of the biggest reasons is that in Dune, all computers (thinking machines) are banned. This is because thousands of years before the events of the movie, humanity lived in a world dominated by computers. Artificial intelligence had surpassed human intelligence and humans had become obsolete. Out of fear of being replaced, humanity rose up against the computers and destroyed them all in what became known as the Butlerian Jihad.

After the machines were all destroyed, all computers, even the most simple calculators were banned by the new empire. Only machines which did not use digital computations were allowed, such as basic engines and mechanical systems. Humanity realized that a computer is merely an artificial brain and, as the Orange Catholic Bible (created after the jihad) states, "thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind," both out of fear of being destroyed and being replaced.

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Marcia Fry is a writer for WhatCulture and an amateur filmmaker.