Denis Villeneuve Knows How to Dismount a Sandworm, and He’s Not Telling

There’s a lot of sandworms in Dune: Part Two. We even get to learn a lot about how to start riding them, thanks to an extended sequence where Paul is trained in mounting the massive creatures. But getting off of one? Only one man currently knows that beyond Arrakis, and he’s keeping it very secret.

Villeneuve apparently gets a lot of questions about dismounting sandworms, which he described as a “crazy Uber system” during a recent interview with Indiewire. But all that questioning has lead him to figure out the logistics of it all… and then keep it to himself, for now. “I knew how. I found a way,” the director teased. “It was not dramatically necessary in Part Two to see someone get out of the worm, but I know how to do it. And I can’t wait to put that on screen.”

Villeneuve is right about the dramatic necessity of it all—Paul training in the ways of the Fremen he’s come to bond with in Part Two is the important aspect of seeing how the sandworms get mounted, but jumping off one is something we don’t necessarily need to see. It feels like a very weird detail to worry about in a world with poisoned psychic babies and an equal mix of nuclear warfare and religious fundamentalism, when you could simply be satisfied watching giant sandworms munch on reams of people like Sardaukar-shaped kibble. But then again, it’s not surprising that the man who knows the answer to all that minutiae, teasingly so, is also the one who has extended, poop-centric thoughts about the reusable thumper devices the Fremen use to lure sandworms in the first place.

We’ll just have to wait and see what makes Sandworm Dismounting dramaturgically necessary in Dune: Messiah, whenever Warner Bros. confirms its inevitable existence after Part Two’s big box office splash this past weekend. It’ll be a while though, considering Villeneuve has made it clear he wants to take his time preparing for his third and final Dune movie. Maybe it’s the sandworm dismounting that needs the most attention?

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