The mighty Shai-Hulud: exploring the majesty of the sandworms of ‘Dune’
In addition to looking cool as they spectacularly burst from the sands of Arrakis to anchor an epic action sequence or give rise to a concerningly sexual popcorn bucket that looks far too much like a butthole for many people’s tastes, the sandworms of Dune serve a very particular story function.
While it might be a stretch to call them ‘characters’ in the truest sense of the word, seeing as none of them are given names, they’re pivotal to the world Frank Herbert created. Denis Villeneuve brought them to life across his two-part sci-fi extravaganza in a truly unforgettable way.
The sandworms can only be found on Arrakis, with the native Fremen culture revering them as Shai-Hulud, who worship them as agents of a higher power. Every action they take is a divine form of intervention, which, as Part Two makes abundantly clear, extends to using them as modes of transport and/or weapons of mass destruction to help incite an interplanetary holy war.
It was always integral for the filmmaker to tease what the sandworms were capable of in Part One before holding back on revealing their true intentions for the sequel. “In Part One, they are a threat, an invisible threat,” he said to Mashable. “You hear about them, but you barely see them. A sandworm will always try to protect itself from the surface. It’s a very shy creature. I love the idea that it’s trying to be as invisible as possible, even if it’s a huge being.”
The importance of the sandworms extends far beyond their size and ferocity, placing them at the centre of an eternal power struggle. Whoever controls the production of spice gains an enormous advantage in the cosmos. Still, the Fremen’s ability to harness the sandworms for their own gain has made Arrakis an infamously difficult planet to conquer for anyone else, to the extent they represent the perils of rampant colonisation.
If anybody wants to take over Arrakis, they’ve got much more than the Fremen to contend with, but their unique relationship with the sandworms creates something of a co-dependency. By extension, when Javier Bardem’s Stilgar becomes increasingly convinced that Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides is the messiah, a key rite of passage involves the outsider proving he’s capable of riding one of them without being turned into dinner.
Spice holds the key to the universe’s commerce, with sandworm larvae producing the coveted psychoactive substance. It widens minds, imbues certain people with heightened abilities, and powers interstellar travel. It also can’t be artificially manufactured, making the sandworms the key to the entire intergalactic economy. Unfortunately for anyone but the Fremen and Paul, they’re not ones to sit down at the table for negotiations to pore over the contractual small print.
On the other hand, if every single sandworm were exterminated, then there would be no more spice and technically no more war. Sure, it would force the best and brightest minds in the universe to come up with a new way of transporting themselves from planet to planet, but that just underlines how integral the creatures are to every single thing that happens in Dune. If they weren’t there, then the story has nowhere to go and nothing to tell, but the battle for spice has been raging constantly with the sandworms, the unwitting fulcrum for everything that happens on every other planet.
Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica also gets let into the secret of the Water of Life, the severe hallucinogen that’s revealed to be a supremely concentrated version of spice plucked directly from a sandworm’s juicy innards. It establishes her as the Reverend Mother. Paul’s survival after imbibing it convinces the majority of Fremen of his messianic abilities, and that all happens by drawing it from a baby version as part of a mysterious ceremony only a chosen few are ever allowed to participate in.
Dune and its follow-up might feature an array of the finest on-camera talents Hollywood has to offer. Still, in terms of who serves the single most important role in the story from the first frame of Part One to the closing shot of Part Two, none of the top-tier thespians involved can hold a candle to the humble sandworm.
