My Desert. My Arrakis. My Dune.

aka, why I saw Dune 2 in theaters six times

I became obsessed with Dune on accident when I was spending my 35th birthday alone in a hotel room. This was by design: it was my first birthday sober and the idea of inviting friends out to some alcohol-free group activity and resisting the urge to drink all night sounded anxiety-producing instead of what a birthday should be – fun. I’d only stopped drinking one month before and I didn’t trust myself to make it past January (my birthday month), but I was determined to try anyway.

I decided to “treat myself” and get a room for just one night in a swanky hotel in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. After trudging through a wintry mix of rain, sleet and snow to get one cupcake, taking a long bath, and posting tons of pictures on my Instagram story to prove to everyone that I was indeed “treating myself” and having an amazing time, I realized something: I was bored. This birthday was fucking boring.

Defeated and out of ideas on how to distract myself from the nagging urge to do what I normally did whenever I was in a hotel room alone for the last 14 years (order a bottle of sparkling wine to my room and drink all of it), I flopped onto the bed and turned on the TV. None of the movies available appealed to me, so I chose Dune: Part One at random, knowing nothing of the books or backstory, let alone the intricately detailed World with its own languages and terms. All I knew was that I thought Timothee Chalamet was a really good actor (and, you know, hot) and that Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival was one of my favorite films.

From minute one, I was hooked. Enthralled! What I thought was going to be another version of Star Wars (a franchise I’ve never cared much about, sorry no offense) turned out to be a dark and beautiful sci-fi about a young boy witch in space who would grow up to be the next space Messiah, thanks to his conniving space witch stage mom. I think with all the space witchery (two things I love separately but now together!) and themes of trying to control and foresee one’s destiny spoke to me at this particular time. Looking back, I still feel like it was fated that I watched Dune on that exact night.

This one hotel room viewing led to multiple rewatches (thank God for Max, or the artist formerly known as HBO Max) and later finishing the 658-page book written by Frank Herbert in 1965. It was also around this time that I started foreseeing my own future: after 17 years in Chicago, I was moving to Los Angeles – a move I’d been wanting for several years. So, after journaling, “if a job opens up at my current company in LA, I will take it,” and that job opening up exactly 2 weeks later to the day… I decided it was a Sign, another instance of Fate.

A selfie of me seeing Dune: Part One in a movie theater for the first time (well, this is the bathroom of said movie theater, but you get it.)

I finished the encyclopedia-sized Dune book on my one-way flight to Los Angeles in May 2022. I made room for it in my carryon as I moved 1,741 miles away: my entire life packed into two large suitcases, a big tote bag and one backpack. I started to see parallels between my move from Chicago to LA and the Atreides family’s move from Caladan to Arrakis: both moves from one wet paradise to an arid desert. Though I can see the stretch in metaphors now – Chicago, though an amazing city, is rarely “a paradise” and LA is not a full-on “desert,” but stay with me here – I know I needed that semi-forced parallel then to get myself across the country.

I thought about one particular quote from the book often – “And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life—we went soft, we lost our edge.”– thinking constantly about how I’d gotten into a comfortable but stagnant rut in Chicago, and how I felt like I was finally catapulting myself out of it.

“We came from Caladan—a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind—we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life—we went soft, we lost our edge.”

– From “Muad’Dib: Conversations” by The Princess Irulan

When Dune: Part Two was released this year, I had a new comfort watch and an affordable way to indulge it with my monthly AMC Stubs pass (editor’s note: this post is not sponsored by AMC or AMC Stubs). The first time I saw Part Two, I was in shock – the franchise was now larger than life, and I needed to process it. That’s why I saw it a second time that same weekend. The third time, I saw it with a friend who had been meaning to see it. The fourth time, I wanted to see it in the largest IMAX screen available near me, but the fire alarm went off midway through. Which led to the fifth time.

By the sixth watch, I realized it was my last. I became so sad and overwhelmed by a daunting sense of vague nostalgia that I couldn’t concentrate on the movie. I wondered why that was, annoyed that my last Dune 2 viewing in theaters was marred by my silly little human emotions.

I understand now that the entire Dune World had come to represent my own personal journey, this current transitional phase in my life. While exciting and necessary in so many ways, it has also been hard, sad and lonely. Revisiting my obsession with Dune subconsciously forced me to face that 2022 bridge from drunk-and-unhappy-Me in Chicago to sober-and-healing-Me in LA. Those old but relentless emotions were washing over me again with every viewing, the waves lapping with more force each time.

I think that’s probably why I went to the theater alone five out of the six times: it was my desert to cross, and mine alone.

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