Dune Beats Lord of the Rings In the Most Important Way

Before you sick the Fremen on me, I should address the sandworm in the room. Just who am I to say whether it was Dune or Lord of the Rings that tells a better story those with no knowledge of the books can enjoy?

Simple: I’m a guy who watched Lord of the Rings decades ago without having read the books first and, more recently, watched Dune without knowing anything about this franchise except the famous “spice must flow” quote.

Therefore, when I saw both Dune and Lord of the Rings, I was unable to rate them as literary adaptations simply because I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of reading the books.

Going in dry (and boy, it doesn’t get dryer than Arrakis), I had to evaluate these movies on two criteria: whether they told a good story and whether (almost as important in these genre epics) how easily a new fan could understand all the world-building and foreshadowing.

By these admittedly very specific criteria, Dune is better than Lord of the Rings, and it’s not even close. This is especially true if we compare Dune to the Extended Edition of the LOTR films, which all diehard Tolkien fans love to declare as the only way to enjoy these fantasy films.

Basically, for fans who didn’t know Tom Bombadil’s name before checking these films out, there are countless moments that amount to inside baseball (or, since Gandalf and elves, dwarves, and orcs are involved, maybe that should be fantasy baseball).

For example, Lord of the Rings is a franchise where the second movie (like the book) is called The Two Towers, yet most casual moviegoers have no idea what the titular towers are because the films don’t make that clear.

The climax of Return of the King involves a vengeful ghost army, but the movie doesn’t really answer the obvious question of why Aragorn didn’t compel them to keep fighting, especially when they can seemingly destroy any number of enemy soldiers and forces in mere moments.

Speaking of the last film, casual audiences are still wondering why loving Aragorn will make Arwen die and why the Eagles didn’t just take the Hobbits to Mount Doom.

Before you get started, we know that all of the questions above are answered pretty thoroughly if you read through all of the Lord of the Ring books and appendices.

But this is where the two modern Dune movies shine. Simply put, these movies do a better job of balancing adapting the book and world-building, all while not confusing new fans when it comes to what they are seeing onscreen.

Unlike the Lord of the Rings films, Dune trusts you to figure out what you are seeing without inserting various scenes that only make sense to those with dogeared copies of the original novel.

Go back and watch the scene where Oscar Isaac’s character receives special orders from the Emperor: in this early scene, we establish the existence of the Emperor, and contextualize Isaac’s character in the hierarchy.

Later, the scene explaining what a Stillsuit was could have been deadly boring, but the director expertly blends in character moments, background info about the Fremen, and hints about the special abilities that Timothee Chalamet’s character enjoys.

In other words, Dune does an almost perfect job of blending exposition with interesting scenes, and almost everything that is introduced or hinted at earlier in the film gets a solid payoff later.

Compare that to Lord of the Rings, a movie practically designed to send new fans running to Wikipedia (or at least, their friend with all the replica swords) to answer the new questions they have after every scene.

With the new Dune films, Denis Villeneuve understands that not only the spice but the plot must flow and keeps everything moving with the relentless pace of his world-building, letting cool scenes and compelling characters speak for themselves.

As for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, we’re still wading through stupid fan debates about whether Balrogs have wings and why the Nazgûl didn’t just run around as invisible wraiths.

The books might answer the questions, but casual fans shouldn’t have to do homework just to fully understand a film.

Sorry, Jackson: in comparison to the more organic and intuitive world-building of Dune, this is one category in which “you shall not pass!”