Volvox

Why Are Zendaya’S Eyes Blue In Dune?

• Pieter Maas
• 16.01.2023
• 0
• 24

In Dune, however, blue is not a skin tone, it is an eye color – not for aliens, but for humans. Specifically, it is meant to visualize and symbolize the Fremen, and anyone who is either addicted to spice or has been around it long enough for their eyes to change.

What is the point of Zendaya in Dune?

Who Is Chani? – Chani: Zendaya’s role explained Chani, played by Zendaya is a member of the Fremen, the indigenous people of Arrakis. It is the only source of the spice melange in the Dune universe. In Dune, she acts as a source of exposition. She acts as a narrator to give the audience a rundown of the novel’s complicated world.

What do blue eyes symbolize in Dune?

Why Zendaya’s Eyes Are So Blue in ‘Dune’ –

In the books and the film, the blue eyes are related to “spice,” a psychedelic drug that plays a key role in (not to be confused with the real-world synthetic cannabinoids often known as spice).Spice, which is also called melange in Herbert’s 1965 novel, is found among the sands of the desert planet Arrakis, the home of the Fremen.The drug comes from the excretions of the younger form of the sandworms that are native to Arrakis, altered by heat and pressure (and the water that lies deep below the planet’s surface) into melange.Used as a psychedelic, the substance also has a second function that is crucial to the galactic economy—it gives its taker the ability to see a little into the future, which is called prescience.

After computers were outlawed in the world of Dune (it’s a long story), spice became crucial to navigation through space. That is why the Harkkonens and then the Atreides were willing to harvest it despite the huge dangers of sandworm attack. Similar to oil-rich countries in the real world, the noble houses that have large amounts of spice also amass great wealth and international influence. Zendaya in “Dune.” Her character has bright blue eyes. Warner Bros. Villeneuve’s film removes some of the moral judgments about spice in the book. Herbert’s novel states that blue eyes are a result of being addicted to spice. Perhaps not wanting to imply that an entire race is addicted to drugs, Villeneuve includes a scene explaining that the Fremen’s eyes have turned blue simply because of their constant exposure to spice in the sands of Arrakis.

How did the actors get blue eyes in Dune?

The overall approach to the VFX of Dune – b&a: Paul, it would be great to sum up your thoughts going into this huge project in terms of what you wanted to achieve, what Denis wanted to achieve and what you thought were the hardest things going in. Paul Lambert (overall visual effects supervisor) : From the outset, the goal for the visual effects was to try and keep everything as grounded and as photoreal as possible.

• We weren’t going to have any virtual cameras which could only be done in CG.
• We wanted to embrace all of the natural environments which we were going to visit.
• This was also one of the most collaborative projects I’ve been on, in that the DOP Greig Fraser was fantastic, Patrice Vermette the production designer was fantastic, everyone was.

We all got on really well and had a similar goal to try and come up with the best procedures and the best techniques on set to be able to give us the best basis for our visual effects work. Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2021 Legendary and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2021 Legendary and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. We spent a good six months in pre-production, coming up with various schemes and various different ways in which we were going to approach the work. I knew from the outset that Denis is not a big greenscreen or bluescreen fan.

If anything, it kind of depresses him to see anything like that. So we had to be creative to come up with different ways in which we could get everything we needed for visual effects knowing that we were going to be extending backgrounds and creating these amazing worlds. For example, for the interiors of the ornithopters, traditionally, you would shoot these inside of a studio up against a greenscreen or a bluescreen.

Now, the one thing which we weren’t going to do was to try to recreate daylight inside a studio, especially for when we’re trying to recreate the desert environment. I had done First Man with Tristan, and Greig Fraser had shot the first season of The Mandalorian, so obviously we talked about LED screens for potential sequences.

• But Greig knew that there was no way we could get that harsh, arid, hot, bright environment with an LED screen.
• So, that idea was abandoned pretty early on.
• Well, we did actually do one sequence with LED screens set in space above Arrakis which at one point was going to open the movie, but that never made the cut.

We knew that whenever we wanted something to be outside, we were going to shoot it outside. So what that meant, for example, for the interior ornithopter work, we went out and scouted and found the highest hill in Budapest, and we built our gimbal on top of this hill so we could get a nice flat horizon, and then around the gimbal we constructed a 25 foot high sand-colored 360 degree ramp.

1. What we called it was the ‘dog collar’, which circled the entire gimbal, the idea being that when it was a bright, sunny day, the sun would bounce off the dog collar into the ornithopter giving us the ideal lighting.
2. Now, the ornithopter was just like a glass bowl, so it was getting light from every direction.

That’s how we shot it, with the glass in, we had the actors inside the ornithopter and we had Greig on the camera. Say Greig had focused on Paul (Timothée Chalamet) or Leto (Oscar Issac) and everything was out of focus in the background, it almost looked as if you were over the desert. But then for the overall sequence, which included the flying, what we did was we had shot hours of footage flying over the UAE in a helicopter with six cameras mounted in an array to get super massive resolution plates. What the artists did back at DNEG was, rather than doing a full extraction on those plates, because we had such subtle reflections, and we had reflections of reflections, instead of trying to extract that and produce a composite–you would basically be trying to rebuild those reflections and just starting again–so it was more of an overall blend between the elements.

What that gave you was, you kept all the reflections, you kept all the subtleties which we shot, and it made for a far more believable composite. The general philosophy of the shoot for the movie was in that particular vein. For example, another one is when the Sardaukar are coming down in this massive structure and they’re trying to attack the Fremen.

It’s a sequence which Brian had supervised. Again, with this structure, which we called the Nexus, they’re actually coming in through a daylight opening in the structure, and Patrice spent forever trying to find a place in which we could do this, where we could have enough space, with natural sunlight coming through.

But we couldn’t find anywhere suitable. So in the end, we took two of the studios in Budapest, and we connected the two studios with cloth along the top, basically made a massive box connecting the two studios, cut out a hole at the top, and we had sunlight pouring into this area. Now, we could only shoot for two hours in the day, because obviously, with the changing position of the sun, the light would be pushed up against the wall rather than on the floor where we needed it.

But being able to get the ideally lit plates, which we could then extend out, was instrumental to the believability of the scene. I was always saying to Greig, ‘Look, Greig, we’re in a position in visual effects that you can give me any footage and I can put any background behind it.

1. I could put Disneyland behind you right now.
2. But if the foreground doesn’t correlate to what the intent is in the background, there’s not much we can do.’ b&a: I want to ask Brian and Tristan about that from DNEG’s perspective.
3. Brian, what is that like, getting as much real as possible, say for those environments that Paul mentioned? Brian Connor (visual effects supervisor, DNEG) : Well, for me, it’s a blessing, and it’s almost a luxury to have all of these environments and set pieces and machines built for real, and be outside, especially, but inside as well.

I’m definitely not an actor by any stretch, but I don’t have to pretend I’m there on Arrakis or at the Space Port or just in one of the massive, almost cavernous sets. You’re definitely there, you’re immersed. The lighting is all there. The visual reference that I need to add more ornithopters, it’s all in camera.

All of the answers for things we need to add or to extend things, which is a lot of what we did, it was already on a massive set. It just makes our jobs easier, because we’re grounded in reality. Of course we’re doing all of the data wrangling to add to that. So later in dailies with the laser pointer, we can point to the real thing, it makes it easier.

Usually we have to study the image and the sequence and try to figure things out. It makes it that much easier to add that higher level of photorealism to the shot, in general. b&a: What about you, Tristan? What’s your perspective on that as well? Tristan Myles (visual effects supervisor, DNEG) : The answers are always in the plate. It’s been shot that way, so you have perfect reference to work with. And as Paul has already mentioned, with the use of the sandscreen, you’ve got the tone and the luminance in the plate for the background already, a little nudge here or there and you’ve got quite a decent edge around the guys to work with.

1. So you don’t end up with these cut-out characters against backgrounds, which you sometimes get with greenscreen shots.
2. I quite like that way of working.
3. Plate is sacrosanct, keep as much as you can.
4. If you do any work, it’s got to sit in with that plate and that lighting.
5. Paul Lambert : We were never in a position on set where the idea was we would ‘fix it in post’.

That mentality never came up. Everybody was on the same page of trying to do the best they could on set. Yes, obviously, things did get through. Sometimes when you put up a greenscreen or a bluescreen, certain parts of the crew switch off, because it is going into post.

So, certain things don’t get cleaned up because it’s going to post anyway, and we never had that. Just to what Tristan was saying, the sandscreens were something which we came up with in pre production. We had the backlot in Budapest, just outside the studios, where basically we covered this massive area.

Rather than a traditional blue or green, we actually covered it in sand color. So that was our screen, the idea being that because this was generally going to be Arrakis or it was going to be the desert, it was going to be that color. We were about a month into this, building all these screens, and we had big 20 by 20 screens on the backlot and I was walking with one of the producers, and he said, ‘Paul, how are you going to do this? This is all going to be roto’.

What I did then was I took a picture on my iPhone of the set, and then I brought it into a standard app and I made a negative of it. And then I showed him, and that’s when he realized that the entire thing was a bluescreen. It’s just a little trick. Even though the intent was to try and do it with an inversion, I know that some compositors actually swapped channels instead, but the idea was that as long as it’s a constant color, you can pull the key from that.

The fact that it was sand colored was very relevant to Dune, obviously, because we had a sand colored world.

Why does Paul see Chani stab him?

Paul’s visions in Dune: Part One explained – Paul tells Duncan about his dreams. Warner Bros For the most part, all of Paul’s visions in Dune: Part One are impressionistic. Almost nothing he sees in his future visions is literal but instead serves as a visual metaphor for what will happen. Here are some examples from the film:

Paul sees Duncan living with the FremenChani stabs PaulPaul becomes friends with JamisPaul sees himself in battle armor

With the possible exception of that last one, the first three of these visions don’t come “true” in a literal sense. Yes, Duncan went to live with the Fremen for a little while, which kind of forged the path for Paul and Jessica to find them. But the exact scene as it’s shown in the vision doesn’t happen.

Obviously, Paul isn’t stabbed by Chani, but because Chani gives him the crysknife to fight Jamis, this “destroys” the old Paul Atreides. So, Paul’s vision of Chani stabbing him is a metaphor. The same goes for the sweet visions of Paul becoming friends with Jamis. In the dream, it seems like Jamis will guide Paul to learn the ways of the Fremen.

But, then, in “real life,” Paul is forced to fight Jamis. But, in doing this, Jamis does teach Paul the ways of the Fremen. So again, the dream was true but only from a metaphorical standpoint. The question is, what does this mean for Paul in Part Two ?

Does Chani love Paul?

Dune – In Dune, Paul’s prescience begins manifesting itself through dreams while he is still living in his ancestral home on the planet Caladan ; he sees Chani in these visions, though they have not yet met. Paul and the Atreides come to the desert planet Arrakis, but Paul’s father Duke Leto is soon killed by the Harkonnens and Paul and his mother Lady Jessica are forced to flee into the desert.

They are reluctantly taken in by a tribe of the planet’s native Fremen, and Chani is the Fremen woman put in charge of protecting and guiding Paul. They soon become lovers, and Paul rises as a religious leader among the Fremen, and is called Muad’Dib, Already a talented warrior before meeting Paul, Chani becomes deadly after training by Paul and Jessica in the Bene Gesserit martial arts called the ” weirding way ” by the Fremen.

Chani later manages to bring Paul out of the deep spice trance he falls into after using spice essence to enhance his powers. Paul and Chani’s first child, Leto II (not to be confused with their later son, Leto II Atreides ), is killed as an infant in a Corrino raid on their home in the deep desert.

To cement his control of the Empire after deposing Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, Paul takes Shaddam’s daughter, the Princess Irulan as his wife. Chani understands the political reasons, but Paul reassures her: “I swear to you now, that you’ll need no title. That woman over there will be my wife and you but a concubine because this is a political thing and we must weld peace out of this moment, enlist the Great Houses of the Landsraad,

We must obey the forms. Yet that princess shall have no more of me than my name. No child of mine nor touch nor softness of glance, nor instant of desire.” Jessica adds: “Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she’ll live as less than a concubine—never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound.

How old is Chani in Dune?

Behind the Scenes –

In the Prelude to Dune prequel novels, Chani’s birth year is given as 10174, making her even older than Paul. However, in the Dune Encyclopedia, her birth is given as 10177. Chani was played by Sean Young in the 1984 movie, by Barbora Kodetová in both the 2000 Dune miniseries and the 2003 Children of Dune miniseries and by Zendaya in the 2021 movie, In 2010, actress Sean Young posted a behind-the-scenes video, shot by herself with a Super-8 camera during filming, on her Youtube channel.

Does Chani get pregnant in Dune?

Pregnancy and Death – Chani (left, played by Barbora Kodetová) threatens Irulan (played by Julie Cox) in the Children of Dune miniseries. Seven years later, when Chani became pregnant once again, Irulan sought to usurp her and become the bearer of Paul’s children. She found support with the Bene Gesserit, who feared the impact of Chani’s largely-unknown bloodline on their breeding program.

1. However, Irulan’s attempts to terminate Chani’s pregnancy through drugs failed.
2. After a traumatic pregnancy (as it was accelerated by Spice, taking only five months instead of nine) Chani gave birth to twins, who Paul named Leto and Ghanima,
3. Irulan’s treachery did, however, bring a secondary result.
4. Chani died shortly after giving birth to the twins, due to complications stemming from the drugs Paul’s titular wife had been surreptitiously feeding her.

The Tleilaxu Scytale offered immediately to resurrect Chani in an Axlotl Tank, Yet despite the temptation, Paul refused, knowing the impact such an event would have on the Golden Path,

Why do they test for humanity in Dune?

What is the Gom Jabbar Test for Humanity? – All women who enter the Bene Gesserit order must take the Gom Jabbar Test for Humanity, The test is administered by holding the poisoned needle to an individual’s neck while they’re inflicted with some form of pain.

The goal of the test is to see if a person’s awareness is stronger than their instincts. The woman in the trailer testing Paul is a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother named Gaius Helen Mohiam ( played by Charlotte Rampling ), and she puts it simply: “An animal caught in a trap will gnaw off his own leg to escape.

What will you do?” The test is intended for the Bene Gesserit women and very rarely given to men. So why does Paul take this test and what purpose does it serve? Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary Pictures

Is Paul Atreides blind?

Dune Messiah – In Dune Messiah (1969), Paul has been Emperor for twelve years. His jihad has killed sixty billion people across the known universe, but according to his prescient vision, this is a fate far better than what he has seen. Paul is beleaguered by a need he sees — to set humanity on a course that does not lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time managing both the Empire and the religion built around him.

• A Fremen conspiracy attempts to assassinate Paul using a stone burner,
• The attempt fails, but the effects of the weapon destroy Paul’s eyes.
• Although he becomes physically blind, his prescience allows him to “see” by tightly locking in reality with his prescient visions.
• Despondent as a result of his prescience, Paul faces another assassination attempt by a conspiracy of the Bene Tleilax, the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild.

This attempt, made using a ghola (a resurrected clone) of Paul’s friend and mentor Duncan Idaho also fails, but the ordeal seemingly helps the Duncan ghola to regain his memories. At the same time, Chani dies in childbirth, bearing twins: a boy, Leto II, and a girl, Ghanima (which means “spoil of war”).

1. Paul, who did not foresee the birth of twins, loses his prescience after Chani’s death and becomes truly blind, although he conceals this.
2. With a knife over the babies, the Tleilaxu Scytale offers to make a ghola of Chani and restore her to life, in exchange for all of Paul’s CHOAM holdings and his effective abdication from the throne.

However Paul, seeing through his newborn son’s eyes, kills Scytale. Immediately afterwards, the dwarf Tleilaxu Master Bijaz makes the same offer regarding the Chani ghola; Paul orders Duncan to kill Bijaz. The blind Paul then walks into the desert to die alone, in accordance with Fremen law.

Why are there so many bulls in Dune?

What’s up with all the bullfighting imagery in ‘Dune’? The new adaptation of shows that many things are different in the year 10191. Space travel is accomplished thanks to spice found on a desert planet, soldiers have personal force fields, and if you’re a Baron, you can hook a device up to your spine that lets you float around any room in style.

One thing that has not changed? Bullfighting is still a thing. It’s really good for tourism. The ritual of a human walking into an arena and facing off with a bull has, for some reason, stood the test of time. new film loads everyone up with bullfighting imagery; he gives us giant space vessels, vast sand worms, and Zendaya, but he also keeps showing us a bull’s head mounted on a wall.

Why? The backstory of House Atreides and bullfighting, though mentioned in the movie itself, is more filled out in Frank Herbert’s book. Villeneuve including the detail (multiple times) makes us fascinated by its thematic relevance, so much so that we’re gonna go off the deep end with it.

1. The father of Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) was Paulus Atreides, usually called the “Old Duke” in the novel.
2. He fought bulls for sport, something that Paul (Timothée Chalamet) refers to in an early scene on Caladan.
3. Leto’s response is, “look what happened to him.” This is because Paulus Atreides died in a bullfight.

Right before this conversation, Leto is looking at a relief carving of his father being gored by a bull. We see a painting of Paulus a few times in the film, as well as the head of the bull that killed him. If hangs on the wall on Caladan, it gets packed up, and it gets put on the wall again on Arrakis.

1. Herbert tells us about it in the book, and Villeneuve includes it in the film.
2. There are a few bullfighting statues (possibly borrowed from Space MOMA) shown in the film as well.
3. The book goes a little further about the details, letting us know that the bull head still has the blood of Paulus Atreides on its horns; a fixative was used to ensure this.

Also, the bull was from Salusa Secundus, the same planet where the Emperor’s Sardaukar warriors are bred. That planet is only referred to in the first Dune novel — it is visited in sequels — but one scene takes place there in the new film, and that’s enough to make us want stay far away from it.

Very nice, good backstory all around, but still: What does all this mean? Why spend so much screentime flashing to this imagery? It matters because Villeneuve is taking this bull by the thematic horns and making a show of it. Paulus, full of honor and hubris, willingly walked into an arena. He did not expect to die, but the bull from Salusa Secundus gored him to death.

Leto does the same; full of honor, he walks right into a trap. He doesn’t expect to die, but look what happens to him. The bull from Salusa Secundus is emblematic of the Sardaukar, in turn emblematic of the Emperor, who conspired to topple House Atriedes.

Not only that, but House Harkonnen possibly takes its name from the Finnish “Härkönen.” This name may come from the word härkä which translates to “ox.” The bull represents both the Harkonnens and the Emperor, both of whom were conspiring to end Duke Leto and his house. They created the arena, sold tickets, and the honorable Leto walks right into it.

He goes down the same way that Paulus did, only on a much grander sci-fi scale. Again, very nice. Thanks for all of the parallels, but is that all there is? Not necessarily. It’s time to take a mad leap and discuss how this cycle affects Paul’s story. We may be really off-base here, but we’re going for it.

Hold on to your thumpers. Another image that Villeneuve repeatedly shows us is a crysknife lying in the sand. It is the sacred weapon of the Fremen, and is made from the teeth of the great sandworms. In the latter part of the film, Paul has visions of what he thinks is his own death. He keeps seeing images of a crysknife, and he wonders who will end up giving it to him.

It bears mentioning that before we ever see the real thing, we see a relief carving of a sandworm just like we saw the relief carving of the bull. Paul thinks that he is going to die on the blade made from the tooth of one of these big boys, but he struts onward anyway.

He doesn’t understand his dreams yet, so what else is he going to do? He doesn’t want to repeat the mistake of Paulus or the tragedy of Leto, but he walks into his own arena nonetheless. He does die, but not in the way that he thought he would. He is handed the crysknife in question by Chani (Zendaya) and winds up in ritual combat against a Fremen warrior.

All of the bloody hand imagery that he’s seen isn’t applicable here, because he wins the fight. He’s never killed someone before, so any innocence he had left is gone. Paul has metaphorically died in this scene, and he is replaced with what he will eventually become.

The bull’s horns killed Paulus. Treachery from the Emperor and the Harkonnens killed Leto. Paul, however, not only survived the tooth of a sandworm, he transformed because of it. He will not fight this particular bull, he will join with it. He will use its teeth and its bulk as part of the “desert power” that his father talked about.

All of this is well and good for Paul Atreides at the end of Dune, but this is only Part One. The real consequences of Paul’s bullfight subversion may come in the, and there will almost certainly be a lot going on that he will not like. He already sees a lot of the problems coming thanks to his dreams, but he’s a true Atreides.

What color are the eyes in Dune?

They could give Cillian Murphy a run for his money. Denis Villeneuve ‘s movie adaptation of Dune is as puzzling as it is intriguing. Beyond familiar themes like politics and power, culture, religion, and even human nature, it’s safe to say that there are a lot of question marks floating around. Based on Frank Herbert ‘s acclaimed science-fiction novel, the film brings to life a whole new civilization, with elaborate practices, mannerisms, appearances, and whatnot.

• After taking all that into account, one word comes to mind; peculiar.
• In the midst of it all, there’s one particular question that’s probably seared into most people’s minds after seeing the film; why are their eyes blue? If you’ve seen the movie or read the books, you know we aren’t talking Ian Somerhalder baby blues.

In Dune, both iris and sclera turn a deep blue hue for a select few. It’s not that we don’t like the idea of a blue-eyed Zendaya or Javier Bardem, but it’d be criminal not to get to the bottom of this mystery. The phenomenon is only briefly explained in the movie, as opposed to the ample amount of exposition offered in the books.

1. So, it’s safe to say that you could probably get to the end of the movie and still wonder why they were so many blue-eyed characters.
2. However, the answer is pretty straightforward — spice.
3. Gear up for a one-line crash course; imagine oil, but before renewable energy sources became a thing.
4. The thing is, in more ways than one, spice may very well be more valuable.

Spice allows those who consume it to live and longer and so, makes space travel possible, making it the most sought-after substance in the Dune universe. Spice is the catalyst for the events of Dune, as House Atreides are chosen to replace House Harkonnen as the new ruler of Arrakis and to oversee spice production. Image Via Warner Bros. Pictures It is made crystal clear in both the book and movie, that the psychedelic drug-like substance itself delivers some pretty unique side effects. One of the least weird ones (take our word for it) is the extremely blue eyes.

1. Referred to as ‘eyes of ibad’ in the book, it typically points to one of two things.
2. On one end, excessive consumption leads to blue eyes.
3. So, for the most part, spice addicts are typically afflicted with this ocular discoloration which is why people in certain regions of the empire pop in contact lenses to appear “normal”.

So that leaves us with one particular question — is everyone in Dune high? Well, not particularly, and this is especially clear when you look at the Fremen who are native to the planet Arrakis. There is no stigma whatsoever attached to blue eyes mostly because the sandworms that excrete the stuff are also inhabitants of Arrakis.

Bottom line – blue eyes are practically their heritage and most Arrakians have them whether they choose to or not. The planet itself is an arid, desert land where copious amounts of spice are often mixed in with the sand. So, here we have the Fremen who are constantly exposed to the substance to the point that blue eyes have become some sort of an identifying factor for them.

Talking about spinning the narrative, the Arrakians don’t just consider eyes of ibad a good thing, but it’s a huge part of their way of life. As such, they have no need or desire to mask them, regardless of where they find themselves in the empire. KEEP READING: Why Is ‘Dune’ a Sci-Fi Film With No Computers? Let’s Explain

What kind of eyes do Zendaya have?

Eye Shape ( Round or Almond ): Zendeya has a beautiful almond eye shape.