Every Hot Person In Hollywood Is Starring In ‘Dune 2’ … So Why Isn’t There Any Sex on Arrakis?

Dune: Part Two just became the biggest hit movie of 2024 in a matter of days, and no wonder: It’s a major achievement in the fields of visual effects, production design, and sci-fi spectacle on a convincingly massive scale. And just look at the cast! Director Denis Villeneuve has assembled a group that includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Léa Seydoux, Josh Brolin, and Anya Taylor-Joy. Have you ever seen a sci-fi movie with an ensemble so talented, so hot, and so utterly and maddeningly lacking in any kind of sexual chemistry? Seriously, how can a movie this cool have so little in the way of sex and nudity — especially when the movie’s viral popcorn bucket is practically begging for a romp in the proverbial hay?

It can’t be that the stars aren’t up for it. Timothée Chalamet spends much of the movie mooning over Zendaya, who he kisses maybe twice while they wear fatigues; his most famous previous on-screen crush involved him doing unspeakable things to a peach in Call Me By Your Name. Florence Pugh brought some genuine heat to Oppenheimer, of all things, and spends most of this movie in a chainmail, which the movie somehow manages to make less sexy than it sounds. Rebecca Ferguson has been one of the only star of the past decade to maybe approach coaxing a romantic expression out of Tom Cruise; no such impossible mission awaits her here. For examples of Léa Seydoux being sexy, see every movie she’s ever appeared in except this one, where she’s mostly dressed in a Sith-style cloak (well, maybe also this one, but not because of anything the movie does about it). Austin Butler shook his hips so convincingly in Elvis that the frenzy surrounding his version of Presley became eminently believable. Here, his villain Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen looks a bit like an indoor-kid version of a War Boy from Mad Max: Fury Road, whose desires seem vaguely animalistic in many ways, but not one in particular. Recall, too, that Sting’s version of this character in David Lynch’s Dune was oiled-up and outfitted in a ceremonial Speedo.

But this isn’t all about advocating for movie-star flesh. The whole vibe of Dune 2 is unmistakably unkinky. There’s very little exhibited lust in the film, whether for power or bodies or spice; plot machinations are carried out with utmost seriousness, but a short supply of passion, with occasional moments of grotesquerie pushing against the general sense of reserve. This was arguably even more of a problem in the desert-dry first chapter. Here, at least Chalamet gets some mileage out of his awkward longings, with his Paul asking Chani (Zendaya) and her Fremen pals what they’re laughing at like he’s cruising self-consciously through a high school cafeteria. (Maybe that’s why Paul and Chani eventually come across like they’re going steady, not deeply committed to each other.) And sure, there’s a scene where Léa Seydoux seduces Austin Butler to secure his character’s seed – which the movie high-tails out of as quickly as possible, lest it accidentally reveal something substantial about what (if anything) actually turns these characters on. Both of them are defined by what they do with their bodies; to not explore (or even particularly hint at) how this affects their pleasures or pains or entwining of the two amounts to a kind of malpractice.

I understand that this is not the prevailing sentiment about Dune 2. The prevailing sentiment appears to be that it is a masterpiece, and to dissent is to invite explanations from Dune Nation. Almost every time I’ve said anything even remotely negative about either of Villeneuve’s Dune movies online, even when actually talking about another movie entirely, someone has gotten in touch with me, eager to explain why I am incorrect, usually because of something that happened in the books. (That said, props to anyone who so far has responded to my complaints about the lack of sex in Dune with the explanation that on Arrakis, no one can afford to spare the moisture.) Indeed, I’ve been told that the novel of Dune, like the movie, keeps sexual goings-on largely out of view. This allows Villeneuve’s weirdly sexless sensibility to pass itself off as fidelity to literature, rather than a franchise-friendly decision to ride that PG-13 line where slaughter is more acceptable than lust.

Villeneuve is the holy figure at the center of Dune worship; Perhaps unsatisfied with Christopher Nolan’s pivot away from science fiction, fanboys have found their new messiah in the form of history’s least horny French-Canadian. I quite like most of Villeneuve’s films – including Dune: Part Two, despite its stolid lack of desert heat. His first sci-fi movie, Arrival, is a lovely meditation on language, grief, and memory. Blade Runner 2049 complements some of the original film’s limitations with unlikely grace. It also has actual sexual feelings, like in the scene where Joi (Ana de Armas), holographic romantic companion for K (Ryan Gosling), recruits a prostitute so she can overlay her image and simulate sex with her partner. This virtual threesome – maybe a two-and-a-halfsome? – is more melancholic than steamy, but it at least acknowledges that sex and sexuality aren’t just means of reproduction.

That Blade Runner 2049 scene feels instructive; in the Dune movies, it often seems as if Villeneuve is standing around like Gosling – observing others semi-convincingly going through the motions of human behavior. And while I don’t mean to insult the legions of Dune faithful, it does make a certain amount of sense that some more literal-minded genre fans prefer an approach that could be so easily translated to a series of charts explaining motivations, loyalties, and lore; it’s like a next-step reader for graduates of Marvel’s whole sex-avoidant universe. The lack of sexuality in Dune is just part of what makes the series feel, even in the shadow of its impressively massive and entertaining production, a little too easy. There’s not much messy spontaneity at work here, because everything must proceed as it’s written – which could be why the more serious stuff the movie is supposed to be prioritizing over sex (colonialism; messianic impulses; the way fundamentalism can contribute to oppression) doesn’t fully come to life. Zendaya does what she can to convey hurt and disappointment on her face, or righteous fury with her body – a noble effort that belies the deep bench of talent Villeneuve has called upon to, by and large, not emote, at least not with the heedless abandon you might associate with something more sexually charged.

The use of romance, sex, or just sexuality in sci-fi doesn’t have to be explicit, or even particularly sophisticated. It can be as corny as Padme and Anakin kissing just before they’re carted out to their seeming doom in a deadly arena, or as subtextual as the trans allegory scannable from Alita: Battle Angel. Those movies risk silliness; they are not as correct as Dune: Part Two, not as immaculately arranged. They’re also more alive with the possibilities of science fiction. By comparison, the handsomeness of Dune feels like a polite, dutiful, chemistry-free date.  

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.