Postcolonial theory in Dune

The 1984 movie version of the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert is one of the most ridiculous and entertaining films I have seen, in some weird way. The movie is filled to the brim with just generally weird stuff but one of the central conflicts in the story does definitely has some postcolonial aspects to it. The story is set in the future and revolves around a battle for the planet Arrakis, due to it being the only place in the universe that “the spice” can be mined From. The spice is shrouded in somewhat of an air of mystery but it allows users to gain some form of psychic ability as well as being used to ‘fold space in on itself’ which is used for space travel. The spice is being warred over by two great houses: Atreides and Harkonen. The native population of Arrakis are called the Fremen and are lost in this conflict. Many Fremen are caught up in the service of either house. The Fremen are also referred to as “backwards savages” and their culture is generally seen as ‘inferior’ by most other groups in the story. There are also examples of Fremen being forced to work on the mining rigs that collect the spice. These are incredibly dangerous working conditions as colossal worms are attracted to the noise they create and can destroy them easily. The Fremen’s land is being taken and abused so that the houses may have the resource they want so badly. Although not 100% analogous this situation reminds me of what Tyson writes about colonial exploitation on page 413 “Unfortunately, it is often the case that local peoples are denied access to their ancestral forests, jungles, and pasturelands to make way for paying tourists”. The Fremen culture has been severely disrupted simply due to greed and exposure to global(universal?) society. Tyson also notes that “there is big money to be made in this game, and the major players are too powerful to be bound by any rules of fair play” (412). The houses Atreides and Harkonen are too large and apathetic to the Fremen to care about them, no matter how they would say it would benefit their ‘inferior culture’. These houses can be read as analogous to real-world corporations who enter a country with the facade of “‘developing’ poor regions by modernizing them”(Tyson 412) all while basically just doing anything they can to the land and through the people to gain a profit. This all changes when Paul Atreides(the son of the head of house Atreides) becomes involved. Basically Paul is your standard “chosen one” however not of his own culture. Paul is part of a Fremen prophecy. This is shown in the infamous scene in which a Fremen loudly thinks “He shall know your ways, as if born to them. I see this as almost a kind of reverse or anti mimicry, Paul conforms to Fremen culture by choice, and in doing so allows some of the oppressed Fremen to end aspects their own mimicry to the dominating cultures. The Fremen and Atreides culture’s end up intertwining, and the Fremen’s society becomes forever marked by the events that happen on Arrakis.