From leaving Caladan to Paul's Gom Jabbar test and the Jamis knife fight, there are
many scenes in Denis Villeneuve's Dune, that in my opinion stand out as being classic science fiction
sequences. But after 3 watches of the film in IMAX, one scene has stood out the most with its
merging of visual storytelling, thumping sound design and narrative progression and meaning.
The particular scene I'm talking about is the spice harvester one, a sequence that since
reading the book I have anticipated seeing on the big screen. It's a moment of sci-fi grandeur
that makes many sci-fi effects today look pale in comparison and more importantly it communicates
some of the film's crucial aspects. In this video, I'm going to be discussing why the spice harvester
scene in Denis Villeneuve's Dune is a perfect moment for the film and the journey of Paul
Atreides. But before I get into it, if you want to keep up to date on any of my future content
on Dune 2021, then don't forget to support this video by giving it a like rating, subscribing to
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But without further ado, let's dive into the perfect scene from Dune.
The adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune by Denis Villeneuve is a film that is gigantic,
especially with its sweeping desert cinematography and colossal forces on display. But like with his
other films, Blade Runner 2049 primarily in mind, the filmmaker is one of the rare in Hollywood to
capture such a big sense of the intimacy with the story he's adapting, while at the
same time using the mammoth-like sets and locations as essentially references to
his characters. I could do a whole video on scenes like the Gom Jabbar sequence,
the visual use of hands in multiple scenes such as the leaving Caladan one and like I've discussed
already with the ending fight and the bigger meaning of that. But one particular scene which
strongly captures this essence, and probably my favourite at doing so in the film, is the spice
harvester scene. Throughout the film, the desert is used by its practical and metaphorical meaning,
in that it's land that doesn't support the occupying being. They have to adapt and fight to
survive. During the events of the spice harvester moment, Paul Atreides has his first encounter with
spice and the sandworms, who in the film are used a jaws-esque way, where the creature is slowly
unveiled and mentioned throughout the film. And when it comes to the Spice, the substance Paul and
his family have been put in charge of producing, we know of the immense power that lies on the
planet Arrakis, while also recognising why the harsh landscape has taken so many before them.
This scene is a pinnacle one from the book, and when I read it for the first time a few years ago
it really captured my imagination towards how this could be brought to the big screen today.
And seeing that unfold alongside Denis Villeneuve's mastery of it is quite breathtaking.
It was in this moment that I realised that what the filmmaker had said about Dune and its
theatrical capability was completely correct. Many had said that the book was unfilmable but Denis
had said that bringing Dune to the big screen successfully was about capturing the visual memory
of reading the book. Presenting us with a film that through its merging of images and sounds,
captures the feeling of cinema in the most awe-inspiring way possible. And the spice
harvester scene completely demonstrates the film's approach in doing this. When watching this moment
unfold we have to mention the astounding visual mastery that Denis and his team have pulled off.
What was crucial to do in this scene from a visual standpoint was make the audience
feel the scale of the sandworm, the legendary creature that had been teased and discussed
throughout the first act. When it comes to the worms and a lot of elements in the film
everything was designed based on the already pre-sketched concept art, and the worms
themselves were a huge task to pull off. With his artists and production designer, he spent a lot of
time working out the size of the worms, the texture of their skin, and the amount of force
they needed to navigate through the massive amounts of sand. It was a big inspiration
for many creatures and props in science fiction, but it was clear that the director and his team
wanted to construct something that felt original, and enormously terrifying for the big screen,
especially in IMAX. The final look that they decided on and also revealed in the harvester
sequence was quite prehistoric. The sandworm is full of scales and strikes you with its jaws,
moving almost like a sea creature under the surface of the sand.
When creating the worm digitally, producing their texture, animation and applying it to the frame,
what we ultimately get in this scene is a sense of the key defining element that Paul Atreides
and many other characters deal with in the film. We see them having to react
and eventually adapt to the world of Arrakis, and in this scene, the jolting
presence of the sandworm. The whole film is mostly Paul adapting to the planet
and this fully comes into focus after the final knife fight at the end. But leading up to that
it's the very human moments of survival and a growing understanding that make the spice
harvester scene become that much more important. It's not just special effects and visual genius,
it's a pure moment of character evolution as he is thrust into contact
with the sandworms and spice. But alongside the visual meaning of this work, it is
crucial to acknowledge creating the essence of realism through practical filming
and especially the musical evolution on display with Hans Zimmer's fantastic score.
Starting with the filming, Villeneuve explained how this scene included aspects from
two locations, matching them up to make it all fit together seamlessly. The ground shots that we
see in the film were shot in Jordan, a location that fit the bill for the cleanest sand dunes with
the right height, but they would also work with the areas that were filmed in another location.
And that other footage was the filming that took place in the air as the characters in
the ornithopter scout one of the harvesters. This behind the scenes image shows how they brought in
vehicles and artillery to function as part of the harvester, and they did the same with helicopters,
using their movement as bases to what would become the ornithopter.
There were also huge wind machines being used on set to thrust the sand at the actors in the scene,
meaning that the filming of Dune's production is a brilliant combination of work on the actual
landscape and above the ground, with a focus on mainly the actors and not stunt doubles. Getting
the right cast and crew together is of course only one element of making this work though.
Excruciatingly, they had to make sure that things such as the colour of the sky and the movement of
wind fit these different types of shots from both locations. They were able to get this right with a
lot of hard work, achieving the white dreamlike skies and force of wind that made the filming
successful despite the numerous challenges they had to overcome. It was all about producing
an unbelievable cinematic experience and while there was little dialogue in a scene like this,
everything has a big sense of purpose, which we immediately notice once the spice hits Paul for
the first time and he starts to get a much greater sense of his visions. A sequence such as the spice
harvester one is a Rubik's cube to bring to the big screen, with technically complex elements to
pull off, but it's all worth it as one that relies on showcasing everything important about the film
through a moment of pure cinema. When it comes to the filming of this very cinematic scene,
the director had explained that it's one of his proudest moments while shooting this first film.
He said that he wishes he could show Frank Herbert what he had done with the famous words
and it's one which perfectly communicates the feelings of Paul who steps out in the desert for
the first time, having those feelings of illusion. It's a desert that he has seen before and a place
that he also feels comfortable with. The scene is further Paul's first experience breathing in the
spice, which not only heightens his own sense of the visions but also sets him on a path for
clarity, where he sees a version of his future in a more striking way than ever before. This is only
heightened by the genius use of editing in a following scene where we go back to that moment
to see the visions Paul actually had while he was on the sand. And after Paul manages to escape
and the sandworms swallow the spice harvester, the audience finally sees one of these beasts
for the first time, demonstrating how the film is of a size like no other.
It's the perfect example of combining scope with the intimate experience of science fiction.
But the other factor behind creating this balanced imagining of the famous sequence comes
through Hans Zimmer's score and how he's able to communicate the messages and feelings of this
scene through sound. The Youtuber Thomas Flight did a wonderful video discussing Hans Zimmer's
approach to sound and how 3 particular moments, including the spice harvester sequence, echo
this using reoccurring notes for each of the characters in different scenes to communicate the
evolution of that person. I'll link that video in the description and I'd recommend watching it to
get a greater sense of how Zimmer's score elevated the visual images such as with the spice harvester
one. But when Paul's theme is used in this moment, there is no distortion and you hear the emotion in
every note played. It's more at ease and less like the pounding version we hear of this music during
say the leaving Caladan scene. And it's more of a transition into the version we hear at the very
end of the film which is more of a combination between Paul's theme and the Fremen music.
Like Thomas mentioned in his video, this is to communicate that Paul has now arrived and become
familiar with his new home in the deep desert. His character is evolving and emotionally reacting to
seeing the sandworm for the first time and being quite obviously affected by the spice that has
been blown all over him. The music essentially changes throughout the film to communicate the
feelings of Paul at a given moment. It is as much a storytelling device as the images
and dialogue are and the harvester scene is one right in the middle of the film that makes that
clearer to the audience alongside just showing us the immense power that a moment like this
can bring to the big screen. It's worldbuilding sounds that reflect the world onscreen, and this
was the dream for Denis. To make this film feel like it had fully placed you on another planet,
making the audience attempt to adapt to the world just as Paul and Lady Jessica have to.
It does so by not using every line of dialogue from the book, but instead,
translating them to 'show' us the spiritual notions rather than 'tell' us. That's what cinema
and especially adaptations can do so effectively when they're done right and the spice harvester
scene is really cinema at its most boldest and at the same time, cinema that is refined.
But that was my video discussing my favourite scene from Denis Villeneuve's Dune. It's one
which like I said, perfectly communicates the transitioning of Paul's journey as a character
and one which at the same time gives us all the visual grandeur and sonic audio that the film
pushes throughout its 2 and a half hour runtime. It's moments in science fiction like this which
can do all the right things at once within a particular story and not just one or the other.
Balancing a character's journey and reactionary feelings in a scene while heavily focussing on
a moment of action is a hard thing to write as a scriptwriter because you've got to communicate all
these elements through lines of action scripting. There's not too much dialogue yet it gives us all
of the messages that were discussed before, doing so in such a seamless way. I think this scene will
go down as a classic one in sci-fi filmmaking and it only builds my excitement towards how Denis and
his team will capture the sandworms in Dune Part 2, where there will be a lot more footage of them
and in particular, we'll see even more of their full scale. It's probably my favourite sci-fi
scene that marriages visuals, audio and meaning since the docking scene in Interstellar back in
2014 and I can only imagine how they will go about filming sequences like the water of life scene in
Part 2. We'll have to see, but what do you think towards the spice harvester scene in Dune and do
you agree that this is one of the standout moments from Denis Villeneuve's adaptation. Let me know
your thoughts down below in the comments section alongside your favourite scenes from the film.
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