Took me three rewatches to notice the book detail they hid in the background

I was watching the new Dune movie for the third time and finally spotted the little Sardaukar banner that was mentioned in the book but never highlighted on screen. Has anyone else caught a tiny Easter egg from the source material that took way too many viewings to find?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_john15d ago

Hold on a second, that Sardaukar banner detail is actually from the first book's appendix, not the main storyline itself. Most folks miss it because it's tucked into the back material rather than the regular chapters. Still a cool find though, I had to have someone point it out to me.

wadebailey14d ago

I gotta push back on that a little. You're saying it's just tucked away in the appendix, but that appendix is still part of the book, right? Herbert put it there on purpose for a reason. If someone misses it because they skip the back pages, that's on them, not on the material being obscure. In my experience, a lot of the worldbuilding in Dune is hidden in those appendixes, the glossary, even the opening quotes before each chapter. Take the whole Mentat backstory or the Butlerian Jihad stuff - that's all appendix material too, and it's pretty central to understanding why computers are banned. Calling it "not part of the main storyline" feels like saying the index isn't part of the book because you don't usually read it front to back.