Ever since that first reading, Villeneuve was eager to adapt Herbert’s mythic sci-fi for cinema; but such efforts have proven challenging. Herbert’s expansive imagination doesn’t lend itself to straightforward adaptation.
The story, which focuses on the planet Arrakis (aka Dune) and the sought-after narcotic it produces, features multiple political houses vying for power, indigenous Fremen fighting for their home, the pseudo-religious Bene Gesserit, and, wrapped up in all of this, the young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), whose fate is inextricably linked to that of Arrakis.
Yet for all this complexity, Villeneuve’s latest effort to unravel Herbert’s story is a success, thanks to a rigorous faithfulness to the source material, a methodical pace (half the story is saved for another film), and a world brought to life with filmmaking tech unavailable to prior essayers.
Indeed, Dune‘s VFX are favored to win at the 2022 Academy Awards. When watching the film’s cathedral-like starships, operatic battles, and gigantic worms churning through spice-tinted sand, it’s easy to see why.
Read on to discover how the team achieved such effects—and how cineSync played its part.