Review: Authoritarianism Backfires in the Latest Dune Installment

In Max's Dune: Prophecy, even the power to predict others' actions can't tame the chaos of free will.

If you're looking to watch another dispatch from the perilous sand-covered planet Arrakis, you won't find it in the Max series Dune: Prophecy. This visit to the Dune universe takes place 10,000 years before Paul Atreides' birth and bears little resemblance to the world portrayed in Denis Villeneuve's Dune films.

Dune: Prophecy follows Valya and Tula Harkonnen, two sisters at the helm of the mysterious, increasingly powerful all-female Bene Gesserit order. The series, both aesthetically and tonally, comes off like Game of Thrones in space, with plenty of palace intrigue, fur cloaks, and random violence.

Watching the Harkonnen sisters getting their way through force—including straight-up murder—offers a case study in the pitfalls of authoritarianism. While the Bene Gesserit assures its members that it influences the Imperium for good, its attempts to bend other people to its designs continually backfire. Bene Gesserit strategies are based on the ability to see through lies and predict others' actions, but even it can't tame the inherent chaos of free will.