Dune Poster.

Summary of the Script
by
Alexandro Jodorowsky

Note: Looking for details of the full script? Take a look at Jodorowsky's Dune - Uncovered

[Translated from the summary of the script that appeared in the Press Kit.]

Already 20,000 years ago
that the Earth burst...
Man conquered the Galaxy,
but he realizes
that he still lives on an Island:
the Galaxy itself is encircled by
an insuperable Magnetic Wall.
No one could cross it.
Not having anything more
to discover,
to conquer,
Man delivers himself completely
to the pleasure,
give his capacity to machines
and degenerates in the luxury.

Rising generation,
all the Genetic Monsters,
Fact the Revolution counters the Machines,
destroyed the gigantic
Host Computer,
burns the flags,
symbol of the Constitutions of each Planet
and organizes
The Large Galactic Company of Plain Planets.

Never use atomic weapons.
A Universal Law
Prohibition to forever
build machines which
replace the work of the men.
The computers are substituted
by Mutants
with hypertrophied brain.

Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

One creates a Neo-Medieval Company.
An Emperor is crowned,
One creates a Senate of Planets
which has the capacity to elect and dethrone
Emperors.
The value of money is restored.

One discovers on a Planet lost
with the borders of the Galaxy,
Dune,
a kind of Mushroom,
who prolongs the Life during several centuries
and allows to see
the Future.

Immediately this Planet becomes the
center attention of the Galactic Empire
and, in the same way that exists today
the Petrol-dollars
over there creates
Mushroom-Dollars,
the Spice.

To gather the valuable Spice,
is very difficult: Dune is a sand Planet
without a drop of water
with hurricanes which blow at more than
800 kilometers hour, and,
Giant Worms of,
400 meters length,
true guardians of Spice;
These worms devour the machines which try
to extract the precious substance.

Chinese Head.

The Senate consists of
Major houses and of
Minor houses.
The Major Houses are in small number,
but have the economic capacity:
one of these Major Houses comes down
from former Chinese, the second the old Slavic ones,
and the third of former Americans.
The Houses Minor in great number
but very poor and are divided;
the single person able to make a success of the Union
of the Minor Houses is an honest,
sincere and revolutionary man:
The Duke Leto.

Duke Leto Atreides.

The Emperor, passing in addition to
capacities of the Galactic Senate,
organize an enormous Spice smuggling
with the complicity of one of the Major Houses.

Knowing that the Duke Leto discovered
this smuggling, the Emperor
sends him to Dune as Governor...
Helped by a commercial group
which dominates the Banks and
has the Monopoly of the Space Voyages:
The Spacing Guild,
the Emperor causes an
economic blockade which isolates
the Duke Leto in this infernal Planet
called Dune.

Lady Jessica.

Jessica,
the concubine of the Duke Leto
belongs to a Secret society of Women:
Bene Gesserit,
who, using
psychophysiological and magic
drives make genetic experiments to produce
a Messiah.

The only inhabitants of Dune are
the Fremen
People divided, warlike,
who can remain in the desert by drinking
four water drops per day.
They use a clothing that they
never remove: Stillsuits
that transforms physical waste
into water, which they drink.
Fremen have the "white" of the eyes
completely Blue.

The Duke Leto lives in the hope
to reinforce his army with Fremen.
But these wild people do not understand
the political ideas of the Duke.
They admire it but do not follow it.

Blockade of Dune
is fatal to the Duke.
Helped by the Major Houses
and the colonists who exploit the desert,
the Emperor assassinates the Duke
and destroys his army.

Paul Atreides.

Jessica and her son
Paul
succeed in fleeing and survive
the dangers of the desert.
They join the Fremen
and nourish Spices.

Thanks to a Legend
spread by the Bene Gesserit
among Fremen announcing
the arrival of a Messiah
Jessica and Paul
become the Religious Chiefs of the Community.

At the Beginning, Paul was wary
of the plans of his mother, but
thanks to Spice, he undergoes
a Vision
of his Capacities and realises
that he is really
the awaited Messiah.

Paul, while mixing political and religion, becomes the
Divine Chief of the Fremen.
At their head, he destroys the galactic armies.
He discovers that the Spice cannot grow,
without the Giant Worms.
He invents a method to eliminate the Worms.
Having the capacity to control Spice,
he becomes Master of Spice.
Being a Master of Spice,
He becomes Master of the Galaxy.

Paul, New Emperor,
leaves in a Galactic Crusade
to change, once more, Civilization.

He succeeds, with all the human ones, to form
a Collective Being
and releases Man
of the prison, Space and Time.