Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two cherry-pick from the best of the previous attempts at Dune adaptations. This includes Giger-esque creature and location designs evocative of the ultimately-scrapped project of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and some structural, visual, and pacing choices from the David Lynch version. It also borrows the more in-depth and longer, truer-to-the-text attempt made by the miniseries, as well as some of the miniseries' more lush costume designs, though dialed back for a bit less in the "funny hats" department.
Dune: Part One:
- There are several bits that are meaningful if you've read the books, but are not necessary to understand the story.
- The painting and bull's head being boxed up as the Atreides leave Caladan. In the book, when they first arrive on Arrakis, a major scene has Jessica supervising the uncrating of those two items, and ruminating on the painting (a portrait of the Old Duke, Leto's father) and the bull's head belonging to the bull that killed him. In the movie, the horns of the bull are noticeably darkened, in the book, Shadout Mapes offers to clean the head to get the dirt off the horns, and Jessica has to explain that it's not dirt, but the Old Duke's blood.
- When escaping from Arrakeen city by ornithopter, Idaho is targeted by a lasgun on the Harkonnen assault ship. The beam cuts through entire neighborhoods of the city as it tries to incinerate the deftly maneuvering craft. In the book, Duncan fools a group of Harkonnen aircraft into shooting a shield at full power, causing a catastrophic interaction between the two resulting in a sizable mushroom cloud and destruction of many Harkonnen forces. Duncan's 'thopter in the film is explicitly shielded.
- Leto being woken up and intrigued by a light in the distant mountains just before he is betrayed and shot, and the attack begins is likely a nod to the book where such a light is suspected to be Harkonnen agents communicating with infiltrators in Arrakeen city.
- This is the first adaptation to include the Draw Sword, Draw Blood aspect of unfixed crysknives.
- Paul tells Gurney to "give us a song" before his training exercise, in reference to Gurney's penchant for singing in the novel, which he doesn't show in the movie itself. Gurney does briefly sing in Dune Part Two, though.
- Possibly unintentional, but the mystical hand signs performed by the Sardaukar throat singer (hand extended, palm turned up and down) are identical to those from the Bene Gesserit training Jessica gives Farad'n in Children of Dune.
- Although Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune was never done, this film gives it a couple winks.
- In Jodorowsky's unmade notes, the Baron survives Yueh's poisoning by turning up his anti-gravity devices, floating up to the chamber's soft ceiling and breaking it with his head to breathe, from which he can ask for a gas mask before going back down. This version keeps the same basic move, although in this case the Baron cannot break out of the chamber and simply stays near the ceiling to keep himself as far from the poison as possible.
- The portrayal of Giedi Prime—with the organic, dark curves of its cityscape and the bizarre six-legged black creature seen as a pet in the Harkonnens' throne room—evokes H. R. Giger's work, perhaps alluding to how he created concept art for Jodorowsky's attempt at an adaptation. The Harkonnen palace building's outline resembles Vladimir himself, a design note in Giger's concept. This is doubled-down on in Part II, where the Harkonnens in general are associated with very obviously Giger-esque architecture. Subtler Giger-influenced design appears throughout both films.
- The film's trailer prominently features Pink Floyd's "Eclipse," nodding back to Jodorowsky's plan to have them and Magma score his version of Dune (with Pink Floyd representing House Atreides and Magma representing House Harkonnen).
- The film features aesthetic elements that were introduced in the 1984 adaptation.
- The Baron again undergoes bizarre baths, although this time he either takes massive saunas or submerges himself completely rather than placing himself under a thin shower. He also floats akin to the 1984 version and this is what saves him from the poison gas, which was copied by the 2000 miniseries, whereas he didn't actually float in the book (his anti-gravity suspensors carried most of his weight so that he could walk easily). He's also much less fat here than described in the novelnote , resembling again his slimmer portrayal from the 1984 version.
- The Sardaukar are again hidden under full pressure suits (although not as voluminous as the 1984 version), whereas in the book they wore Harkonnonen-issued military uniforms and helmetsnote .
- Rabban and the Harkonnen soldiers are clad in dark, bulky armor, while the Atreides workers wear black uniforms with high collars and kepi-like caps, both of them imitating their homologues from 1984. Similarly, Rabban is again portrayed as a physically imposing brute, Thufir is again pictured as heavyset, weird-looking of face and wearing a nice coat, and Piter de Vries is again a lanky, cold aide in a long robe. Even the Baron's medical assistants are shown to have some odd, surgical-looking features, echoing the surgically-modified weirdos the 1984 Baron had in his entourage.
- Giedi Prime being an industrial landscape with random machinery brings again to mind this film, where some of Giger's work for Jodorowsky was retained.
- Much like the first movie and the miniseries, Guild Heighliners are once again immense cylinders with no obviously visible means of propulsion.
- In the aftermath of Duke Leto's Taking You with Me gambit in the Arrakeen palace banquet hall, the Harkonnen troops who enter the hall are sporting chemical warfare suits that look almost exactly like the Sardaukar combat uniforms in David Lynch's 1984 film adaption of Dune.
- The spice is always depicted as orange in color like in the 1984 movie, despite many contradictory descriptions existing in the books (blue, brown, violet, orange).
- The stillsuits split the difference between the 2000 miniseries and the '84 film, notably with the addition of a mask and a cowl, which were absent from David Lynch's version. Though like in the Lynch version, the stillsuits are black and look more like multi-layered, adjustable, bulky garments that could serve a high-tech function like water reclamation.
- The film even borrows from some of the Dune video games.
- Ornithopters look like giant mechanical dragonflies, like in the 1992 Dune video game.
- A spice refinery and spice silos are shown. Those have been popularized by the RTS game Dune II that was (very loosely) based on the book.
- The spice harvesters are boxy, flat vehicles that move on multiple treads, like those in the intro scene of Dune II.
- The Harkonnen soldiers' looks, up to their baldness, are based on those in Emperor: Battle for Dune.
Dune: Part Two:
- The first track on the soundtrack album, which is used over the introductory sequence in which we are introduced to Princess Irulan, is titled "Beginnings Are Such Delicate Times
". This is a nod to Irulan's famous opening line in the 1984 film, which was itself paraphrased from the opening line of the novel, written by Irulan herself: "A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct." It's also ironic, because of course, Irulan only turns up at the beginning of the second part, and is therefore not involved with the plot until about two and a half hours in. - The discussion Paul and Chani have about imagining the Sea of Sand as a sea of water is a Mythology Gag to Paul's prescient dreams of Chani before meeting her in person, where in the book - but left out of Part One - she keeps asking him about "the waters of his homeworld" (Caladan, that is).
- After the gladiator match, Feyd snarls that he should kill Vladimir for forcing him to fight an undrugged Atreides soldier, but never follows through on his threat. In the books, Feyd attempted to assassinate Vladimir in order to claim the barony.
- After Paul uses The Voice on the Reverend Mother, she mutters "abomination." This is what she calls Alia, who remains in Jessica's womb in this adaptation, in the equivalent scene in the book.
- The bit where Paul walks up to the Baron and says "Hello, Grandfather" is a reference to one of his visions in the first novel - one that explicitly sickens him as part of a future path he refuses to walk down, and thus it's instead Alia who kills the Baron and calls him grandfather.
- Baron Harkkonen's death takes some inspiration from Rabban's death in the 1984 film, with the Emperor pulling a You Have Failed Me on him after he arrives on Arrakis. Though whereas in the 1984 film he did this by beheading Rabban, here he has one of his guards destroy the Baron's life support system, leaving him on the verge of death, with Paul later finishing him off after the Fremen take the Emperor's ship.
- Irulan has some bizarre costumes, frequently with elaborate headgear reminiscent of the costume designs of the miniseries (sometimes known as the "funny hats version" for some of the truly outlandish headwear some of the characters sported). In particular, late in the film Irulan wears a headress the completely covers her head except for her face, with sharp geometric angles to expose only the bare minimum of that, making her difficult to recognize. At the climax, she wears something like a chainmail dress with a head covering and a mask made of strips of metal.
- Irulan's expanded role in Part II mirrors her expanded role in the miniseries, with a few crucial differences. One of the common criticisms of her in the miniseries is that her story is investigating the conspiracy to destroy House Atreides, which is covered in sufficient detail elsewhere that Irulan's scenes become explaining things to the audience they already know. Here, Irulan's scenes are similar, but are given more dramatic weight as they generally inform the audience of things they don't already know, either details of the plans the characters on Arrakis have no way of knowing or showing the reactions of Paul's opponents piecing things together and how they might deal with the situation. Another complaint about Irulan's character in the miniseries is giving her too much Adaptational Heroism, making some of her actions in later books seem out-of-character. While Irulan is not made unlikeable here, she's colder and more calculating, leaving it open if she'll be Paul's ally, enemy, or whichever best suits her at the time.
