You are on a new world, full of supposed dangers and a threatening species of “merciless” humanoid like people with blue eyes that shine like silver. You look around, the sounds of alarms and flashing red lights fill the room. Panic is all around as your crew has an idea of what is coming. People are shouting, running, tripping, some only pray and freeze, awaiting what is to come.

Yet, before you can react a massive maw of teeth, thousands of them, rise from the sand like a trap that snagged its prey. The last thing you see was the hull of your craft getting swallowed by a creature of immense power and size.

This is not the sci-fi film you might have thought of, Star Wars might be the first in mind, Star Trek a close second, or maybe you thought of the world of Mad Max? Truth is, they might have taken inspiration from a film and novel series, Dune.

Recently, people tend to follow the other forms of new sci-fi media, Star Trek Discovery, the newest Star Wars sequel trilogy, and some of the newest MCU movies, namely the Spiderman series and Avengers: Endgame. But the oldest, and “grandfather” like figure of them all has to be Dune.

While not new, Dune has had several remakes, and redos. But only the newest version, released in 2021, has been a striking new hit on an old, and once thought forgotten series.

A big similarity to Star Wars is Dune’s main center of plot, “Arrakis” which is similar in appearance to Tatooine. But there might be a closer resemblance than first thought between the two worlds.

Arrakis is occupied by “The Emperor”, and the houses that follow him. The main house that has occupied the planet the longest is House Harkonnen, which lost the world in a successful sabotage to get rid of another far more powerful house, House Atreides.

The world itself has a resource called “Spice”, a dust-like powder resembling a red mist, that has the properties of a powerful hallucinogen. The Spice is then harvested amongst the sandy plains of the planet, a process that is dangerous due to the heat and species on the planet.

The native people, “Treman”, have been under a strict and aggressive war-like state with the empire over what is rightfully their Spice. The Treman have been able to adapt to the world’s harsh conditions of extreme heat, dehydration, and the most viscous and apex predator of the planet, Sand Worms, to which the empire has no idea how to counter or replicate effectively.

While this world resembles Tatooine with the endless desert expanse, the Imperial occupation, the Treman, and the Sand Worm (resembling the Empire/Imperials, the native “Tusken Raiders”, and the Krayt Dragon), are most present.

There are also many characters from other film franchises such as Oscar Isaac, most famously known as “Poe Dameron” from Star Wars, playing the leader of House Atreides, and Josh Brolin, the tyrant of Marvel known as Thanos’ voice and movement actor, Brings extra resemblances. But Dune will always have one major source of similarity for most sci-fi today, it was a series that inspired many.