The world of Dune is a wild world. Every day you have psychic sisterhoods poking your neck, giant feisty worms and Javier Bardem spitting on your floor – and I haven’t even started on the really weird stuff yet. Capturing the tone and flavor of this eccentric setting isn’t easy, and while I’m not opposed to getting a long monologue from Virginia Madsen, the right audio direction can better lay the groundwork for a sci-fi epic. And music has always played an important role in the various adaptations of Frank Herbert’s Dune universe in films, TV and games.
David Lynch’s 1984 soundtrack Dune The adaptation features a stirring orchestral soundtrack by Toto. There was also a special appearance from Brian Eno, who recorded the more moody and haunting stuff. Dune is the only soundtrack Toto ever worked on, and how they got involved with the film is a much longer story that you can read more about in A Masterpiece in Disorder (David Lynch’s Dune – An Oral History).
The soundtrack for the 1984 film is just as epic as Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for the 2021 film, but takes a different approach. At the time, the work of James Horner and John Williams dominated science fiction at the box office, and provided the theme for the original Dune film takes a similarly bombastic approach, but avoids some of the more uplifting melodies (an explicit request from Lynch).
Much like the atmosphere of the film itself, the score for the original is much groovier than the later adaptations, with a heavy reliance on synths punctuated by guitar riffs. The main title suite sounds like a rock opera version of ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, while the theme for Baron Harkonnen is immediately reminiscent of Mike Oldfield’s haunting ‘Tubular Bells’. However, if you just need the CliffsNotes, the score is best summed up by the sci-fi rock ballad “Take My Hand,” which plays over the film’s closing credits and moves through the main parts of the film in less than three minutes score is running.
While Zimmer’s score for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films is certainly a drastic departure from Lynch’s film, you can still hear echoes of the ’84 soundtrack in it. In particular, the song “Stillsuits” is a direct homage to the opening bars of the original film’s main title. The score doesn’t deviate wildly from Zimmer’s work on countless other blockbusters, but makes more of an effort to feel unique.
I’m a pretty big fan of Hans Zimmer, and while much of his work is guilty of sounding a bit samey, I would dispute his score for the 2021 film. Dune: part one is among his best work. Zimmer’s identity is still very much present Dunefeaturing aggressive instrumentation and percussion, but the score places a greater emphasis on vocals and unconventional instruments that when layered together sound otherworldly.
The figure for Dune: part one is best described as very dry and very old, thanks to the deliberate use of woodwinds and hollow percussion to convey not only Dune’s arid environment, but also its enigmatic atmosphere. Those words often sound like something bad, but here it really works. The deep, heavy rhythms of songs like “Armada” and “Leaving Caladan” are most reminiscent of Zimmer’s previous work. However, it’s on songs like “Sanctuary” and “Ripples in the Sand” where those feelings of mystery and wonder really manifest.
The soundtracks for the Dune video games are a whole different breed of sandworms, but it’s important to discuss them because not only do they hold a crucial place in video game history, but they’ve also been handled by some of the most prolific composers in gaming -industry.
1992 Dune 2: The building of a dynasty, from the now defunct Westwood Studios, is perhaps the best-known game based on the Dune franchise, and is often cited as the game that popularized the real-time strategy genre. The soundtracks for Dune 2 and the 1998 remake Dune 2000 were handled by Frank Klepacki, who was also responsible for scoring every entry in the legendary Command & Conquer franchise.
Klepacki’s work on Dune 2 was intended to emulate the soundtrack of Cryo Interactive’s original Dune adventure game. And while solid, the soundtrack certainly hits the technical limitations of producing music for a game with a file size of less than 5MB. However, when Klepacki revisited the classical score, he had the freedom to not only create a higher fidelity version of his original. Dune 2 soundtrack, but inject them with homages to Toto’s work on the ’84 Dune movie. This is most apparent when listening to the Dune 2000 track “Rise of Harkonnen”, a remastered version of Dune 2‘Rulers of Arrakis’, with an opening that is an effective tribute to Toto’s Baron Harkonnen theme.
The most recent Dune game title, Dune: Spice Wars, featured a soundtrack composed by Jesper Kyd, whose credits include work on franchises like Hitman, Assassin’s Creed, and Borderlands, to name a few. Although Kyd hasn’t mentioned any specific inspirations for him Spice Wars soundtrack, the score reflects the style of the game, borrowing concepts and themes from the existing franchise without sounding derivative. The two hours of music feature ambient, dream-like songs that reflect Brian Eno’s work on ’84 Dune film, while also featuring rhythmic synth beats that will be familiar to fans of the classic Westwood titles.
by Frank Herbert Dune was originally published in 1965, and it is remarkable that almost sixty years later – and across the spectrum of adaptations – each composition manages to evoke similar feelings in audiences. Whether it’s the appropriately epic work of Toto, the more primal version produced by Hans Zimmer, or the great video game soundtracks, Dune has inspired a wealth of composers and musicians to bring a cohesive sense of identity to the strange and enigmatic universe of Frank Herbert.