If you are a true fan of a particular piece of art, then you never have to make an apology for it. Love means never having to say you’re sorry, right?

Whether it’s a certain book, a movie, or whatever, we all possess a guilty pleasure for something that a larger segment of the population either disregards, misunderstands, or looks down on as ephemeral or even low-rent. So it has been with Dune.

Don’t get me wrong. Frank Herbert’s original 1965 novel is a seminal work for the serious sci-fi afficianado. In the fifty-plus years since its publication, the book has received awards and accolades, and even mainstream acceptance as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Some of that wider critical recognition has come with clenched teeth, but science fiction has always had a tough time being taken as serious art (whatever that’s supposed to be).

Dune has earned every bit of praise it has received over the years. Herbert spent five years working on the book. He managed to get it serialized in a magazine, but no book publisher would touch it. Too long, too convoluted, not interesting, dryly written; there were all sorts of excuses. The one publisher brave enough to take on the first printing, Chilton Books, was a company that published auto-repair manuals and had zero experience or market share in fiction.

The first hardcover edition by Chilton Books, 1965.

Dune was the little engine that could of science fiction. It found an audience in hardcore sci-fi fans that slowly but steadily grew over the years. Several sequels followed, and even some earstwhile film adaptations, but despite it all, Dune never garnered the widespread crossover appeal of fantasy franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, or Star Trek.

The big reason for this may be that Dune is heavier than what would normally pass for mass-market sci-fi. Without even going into the full Dune-iverse (I love that term!), just the first book alone is a lot to tackle.

The original Dune is not a breezy read. I tried to crack it when I was a kid, and the book kicked my ass. It wasn’t until I was 20 and hip deep in a poli-sci program at a run-of-the-mill liberal arts college that I finally absorbed and fell in love with it. Please note that it doesn’t take a trip through college studying a major free of career opportunities and smoking good weed to comprehend Dune. I’ve read it a couple times since without all that and still dig it.

Dune has a lot of layers to it. Herbert takes on ecology and environment, religion and faith, politics and palace intrigue, labor and economics, immigration and minority rights. Seriously, this book has it all. I won’t go too far into the details of the plot except to say it involves an attempt to take control of a planet pivotal to the economic and intellectual life of the known universe in the year 10,191.

Dune is an epic saga with a great cast of characters, but it doesn’t contain any of the trappings that easily translate into big screen success. It doesn’t have any cuddly creatures, it has sandworms that are several hundred feet long. It doesn’t have sharp-tongued sidekicks, it has Mentats — human computers with no personality. It doesn’t have exotic locations full of color and beauty, it has a northern desert, a southern desert, and a great wall of rock that separates the two.

It could be Dune’s utter lack of mass-market tropes that have made it such a difficult story to convert to film. Avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to put together an adaptation that would have included the talents of Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, H.R. Giger, Moebius, and Pink Floyd. But that was in the pre-Star Wars days, and no studio would touch it.

H.R. Giger with some of his sketches of Jodorowsky’s ‘Dune.’ Image: Sony Pictures Classics.

David Lynch famously tackled the book in 1984, and despite the film’s generally poor reviews and box office, and Lynch’s own disavowal of the movie, it has managed to earn a cult following over the years. The Sci-Fi Channel, before it became SyFy, adapted Dune as a miniseries in 2000 and did quite well with it. It remains to this day one of their highest rated original programs.

Still, Dune deserves another chance at the big screen, and it looks like it will finally be getting it. Just recently it was announced that Denis Villeneuve will be helming at two-part film adaptation of the original book. He has the blessing of Brian Herbert, Frank’s son and co-author of the ongoing Dune-iverse books, and the support of Legendary Entertainment, the latest film studio to hold the rights to the Dune property.

Villeneuve’s work on ‘Blade Runner 2049’ makes him a prime candidate to reboot ‘Dune.’ Image: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Villeneuve refers to Dune as Star Wars for adults. He’s right. In fact, you can see a lot of Dune in George Lucas’s original 1977 film. Villeneuve is also right when he says that Dune will be a challenge.

Adapting Dune wouldn’t be worthwhile if it wasn’t a challenge. But I am confident that this new version will deliver the goods. First, Villeneuve is a filmmaker with a true appreciation for visual storytelling. I was very skeptical about a Blade Runner reboot from the start, but when I sat down in the theater to see his Blade Runner 2049, I did not want the movie to end. It was amazing on every level. The same can be said for Arrival.

Second, now is the perfect time for the story of Dune to be redone in a new way on the big screen. So many of the original book’s themes are on display in our world right now.

· Ecology and environment — Does man have the right to remake his world today for his own sake and what is his responsibility to future generations?

· Politics — To what extent are we beholden to the leaders we appoint, and when do we have the right to walk away from the system we created?

· Economics — Every system has the exploited and the exploiters. Who gets to decide who benefits?

· Labor — Who should control the means of production? Those who build the system, or those who work it?

For a story written over 50 years ago that takes place thousands of years into the future, Dune could almost be inspired by today’s headlines.

Science fiction has always been a great vehicle for examining the human condition. By removing the overtly controversial and replacing it with the allegorical, sci-fi writers have been able to force us to take a good look at ourselves in a way that inspires critical thinking without our built-in prejudices getting in the way.

Dune has that potential. And Denis Villeneuve should be given whatever budget he needs to make the story come to life in a way that entertains, inspires, and makes us think. The time has come.

I’d like to hear your comments. Send them along. And please be sure to check out my other articles on Medium and at my website. Cheers!