Warning! Warning! Spoilers ahead for Dune: Edge of a Crystknife – Rage of Shai Halud #1!
With Edge of a Crystknife, Dune is giving movie fans the direct prequel to the film they wanted, suggesting that the spin-off series Dune: Prophecy might have been too much of a deep cut for wider audiences. The show currently holds a 70% Rotten Tomatoes score, suggesting it scratched many viewers’ itch for more Dune, but could’ve satisfied more.
Dune: Edge of a Crystknife – Rage of Shai Halud #1, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, with art by Andrea Scalmazzi and Frank Mazzoli, is the latest one-shot comic detailing Shadout Mapes’ backstory.
Set on Arrakis in the years leading up to Dune, audiences might have preferred this to Prophecy’s dive into the depths of the franchise’s past.
Dune’s Shadout Mapes Prequel Story Might Have Succeeded On Screen Where “Dune: Prophecy” Faltered
Dune: Edge of a Crystknife – Rage of Shai Halud #1, Written By Brian Herbert And Kevin J. Anderson; Art By Andrea Scalmazzi And Frank Mazzoli
Rage of Shai Halud, and the preceding one-shot, Hiding Among Harkonnens, are adapted from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s story “Edge of a Crystknife,” which first appeared in the 2022 collection Sands of Dune. Though the emphasis is on revealing more of Shadout Mapes’ character, that comes in the context of her role in the Fremen struggle against the Harkonnens.
The story takes place several decades before the events of Dune, and it has tangible connections to the events of the book/movie. At the end of Rage of Shai Halud, the Fremen succeed in driving an “incompetent” Harkonnen governor off Arrakis, only for him to be replaced by the far more cruel and calculating Vladimir Harkonnen.
Dune: Prophecy, by contrast, takes place a full 10,000 years before Dune on the franchise’s vast timeline. Though the makers of the series attempted to make the connections between the two clear, the great gulf between time periods necessarily made it harder for casual fans to understand how the show tied back to the movie/book.
For hardcore fans of Dune, the idea of taking a huge leap back into a primordial era in the franchise’s history obviously made Prophecy appealing. However, the goal of the series was to capitalize on the new, wider audience cultivated by Denis Villeneuve’s films. In that regard, Edge of a Crystknife would have likely been the better way to go.
“Dune: Prophecy” Is A Good Prequel, But The Franchise Has Greater Stories Worth Adapting
How Edge Of A Crystknife Could’ve Better Served Viewers
Dune: Prophecy’s plot chronicles the origins of the ancestral conflict between Houses Atreides and Harkonnen, the role of the Bene Gesserit in galactic history, and adds to the mythology surrounding the development of the Kwisatz Haderach, which culminated with Paul Atreides in Dune. On a visual level, the show aligns itself with the aesthetic of Villeneuve’s films.
The show effectively fulfills the promise of a prequel. Prophecy’s 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes makes it clear that plenty of people did enjoy the show, which is expected to return for Season Two sometime next year. Still, it’s fair to say more casual fans had to resort to Googling “how is Valya Harkonnen related to the Baron?” and other similar questions.
More than that, Prophecy asks viewers to get invested in an entirely different conflict, within an entirely different context from the main Dune storyline. By contrast, Edge of a Crystknife is an extension of the same conflict fans are already deeply immersed in: the attempt to liberate Arrakis from the Harkonnens once and for all.
The way Edge of a Crystknife enhances readers’ understanding of Dune’s story is immediate, and there is a direct impact on the chronologically earlier story on the events of the latter. In addition to familiar characters, notably Shadout Mapes, its themes and motifs are more overtly a direct extension of the original story than Prophecy could offer.
Not Everyone Who Liked The “Dune” Movies Will Like “Prophecy”; “Edge Of A Crystknife” Could’ve A Different Story
The Dune Franchise Is Testing Its Limits
Shadout Mapes first appeared in Frank Herbert’s Dune, but she struck a chord with many fans exposed to the story for the first time by Villenueve’s Dune movies. She is exactly the kind of protagonist audiences are primed to root for in a prequel, because they already know her fate, and want to learn more about what put her on the path.
Dune: Prophecy introduces many intriguing mysteries into Dune lore. This might seem like a positive for the series at first, but in fact, it forces the show to succeed on its own merits, rather than on its role as a companion piece to the existing story. As much as it functions as a prequel, Prophecy also strives to be its own distinct thing.
And that may very well be at the root of why it doesn’t have a stronger Rotten Tomatoes score. Prophecy tests viewers’ commitment to being a Dune fan. “Are you really all in on this franchise, wherever it takes you,” it seems to ask, “or did you just want more of what you were already enjoying?”
Dune: Prophecy still has a chance to reward viewers who stick with it, and to truly make its mark on Dune canon, but for the viewers who have already tapped out, it is fair to say that a prequel like Edge of a Crystknife would have been a preferable follow-up to the Dune movies instead.
Dune: Edge of a Crystknife – Rage of Shai Halud #1 is available now from Boom! Studios.
- Created by
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Frank Herbert
- Cast
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Kyle MacLachlan, Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista
- Movie(s)
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Dune, Dune, Dune: Part Two, Dune: Part Three
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
