Dune: Prophecy Review: HBO’s Sci-Fi Spinoff Is Too Dense to Take Flight
Dune is one of the most celebrated franchises in all of science fiction, and director Denis Villeneuve breathed new life into it with a pair of big-screen blockbusters: 2021’s Dune and this year’s Dune: Part Two. Now HBO is trying to bring the epic grandeur of those movies to the small screen with a new spinoff, Dune: Prophecy, debuting this Sunday at 9/8c. (I’ve seen the first four episodes.) It certainly looks and feels like Dune — minus the big, spectacular set pieces — and it’s buoyed by a pair of sturdy lead performances. But the end result doesn’t quite live up to the movies. It’s too dense, too cerebral and too eager to copy Game of Thrones’ every move.
A far-off prequel in the vein of House of the Dragon, Dune: Prophecy is set 10,000 years before Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet in the Dune movies) was even born. Emily Watson stars as Valya Harkonnen, who leads the Sisterhood, a council of powerful women known in the movies as the Bene Gesserit. She and her sister Tula (Olivia Williams) run a training academy for young women, developing their skills as Truthsayers, aka human lie detectors who accompany crucial negotiations. When a princess joins the school, Valya sees it as an opportunity to get “a Sister on the throne,” but that ambition draws her into a fierce power struggle that spans planets and generations.
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Dune: Prophecy does get off to a nice head start because all the world-building has been done for them already by the movies, and the sets and costumes are indeed impeccable. We do get stray mentions of spice, Arrakis and Fremen here and there, but the action of Dune: Prophecy is set a world apart from the movies. It’s more talk than action, really, and we end up missing the tense knife battles and sandworm attacks of the films. With most scenes confined to ornate interiors, it can feel claustrophobic at times, making us want to step outside and breathe the desert air.
Even more than Dune, though, showrunner Alison Schapker (Westworld, Altered Carbon) seems to be closely following the Game of Thrones formula for success. There are lots of character names and houses to keep track of — as with Thrones, subtitles are highly recommended here — and the early episodes dutifully serve up shocking twists, harsh bursts of violence and gratuitous sex scenes. (Sexposition is back!) But for all of that to work dramatically, we need to be emotionally invested in the characters first, and for the most part, we’re not. At one point, a character laments that “we are all just pieces on a board, to be played in pursuit of power”… and yeah, it kinda feels like that.
Watson and Williams are the two pillars that hold Prophecy aloft: Both are seasoned actors who have the ability to make this dialogue sing. Watson, in particular, shines here, with Valya putting on a stern face while emotions churn right below the surface. (The End of the F***ing World’s Jessica Barden is a standout, too, as a young Valya in flashbacks.) Mark Strong offers gravitas as the conflicted Emperor, and Vikings alum Travis Fimmel is a wild card as Desmond Hart, a rogue soldier who holds special powers of his own. Other performances are a bit stiff, though, as if all the complicated verbiage drains them of their humanity. Prophecy is a fine enough drama to bridge the gap between seasons of Game of Thrones spinoffs, but compared to the Dune films, it’s lacking… well, a little spice.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Dune: Prophecy boasts stunning visuals and strong performances, but the story falls short of the high bar set by the Dune movies.
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