Dune is to Science Fiction what J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is to the genre of Fantasy: whether or not it’s fair to say that either are ‘best’ in their respective genres, they inspired many authors by writing in what previously were niche genres and demonstrating that science fiction and fantasy can be serious forms of literature.

Many features of Dune found their way into George Lucas’ Star War series.

Like The Lord of the Rings, many considered Dune to be an ‘unfilmable book’ before special effects (and perhaps the market for science fiction and fantasy) had advanced, yet this didn’t stop film makers from trying to adapt Dune for the large and small screen.

Dune has inspired at least four film adaptations: The first failed attempt occurred in 1973 by Chilean avante garde film maker Alejandro Jodorowsky and seemed doomed from the start, yet the creative work during pre-production is legendary and went on to inspire concepts and artwork in many other films. The failed attempt by Jodorowsky to translate Dune to the silver screen is the subject of the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune.

The second attempt at a Dune film was the 1984 release by David Lynch, although Lynch refused to allow his name to be attached to the theatrical release and it became a cult classic but a critical and box office flop.

In 2000, Sci-Fi Channel premiered a television mini-series of Dune, followed by Children of Dune which were two of the top-rated programs by the network and are considered by some to be the best re-tellings of the novels (despite the horrible costumes–what were they thinking?).

In 2021, Warner Brother will release a big-budget adaptation of Dune in theatres and on HBO Max. Fans of the novel are hopeful that director Denis Villeneuve’s version will avoid the problematic voice-overs and other weaknesses of Lynch’s 1984 adaptation.

When J.R.R. Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings, he inspired many authors to write within the Fantasy genre, and perhaps it was inevitable that some appeared to copy his work while other attempted to break from the mold set by Tolkien’s impact. Tolkien’s work is often criticized for having very few female characters (none are really developed) and an overly simple conflict between the very good and the very evil. Writers like George R.R. Martin, in his Game of Thrones series, could be considered an example of the anti-Tolkien Fantasy writer with far more complex and flawed characters in his works, and without the Christian subtext Tolkien wrote about in his essay, “On Fairy Stories”.

For those familiar with Game of Thrones, it is often compared to Dune as a kind of Dune set in medieval times. This comparison conveys the political complexity where many ‘houses’ vie for control of the seat of power, at a nexus of political and religious influence. George R.R. Martin has stated that historical fiction by Maurice Duron about the War of the Roses is the ‘original game of thrones’, for the sake of understanding ‘what is Dune about’ it can be helpful to compare it to the sprawling epic saga where various ‘houses’ scheme and battle for power.