In episode 2 of The Book of Boba Fett series, yet another common point between the Star Wars saga and the Dune universe slipped into the story of the famous bounty hunter in full conquest of Tatooine.
It’s no secret: George Lucas drew heavily on Dune, Frank Herbert’s literary masterpiece, to imagine and create his Star Wars saga. There are many similarities between the two universes and the second episode of the series The Book of Boba Fett reminds us.
In this spin-off of The Mandalorian, the famous bounty hunter (Temuera Morrison) tries with the mercenary Fennec Shand (Ming Na Wen) to take control of Tatooine, not by force but by commanding respect. This desert planet covered with rocks and sands is reminiscent of Arrakis in Dune and is home to many creatures similar to those of the universe of Herbert’s work such as the Sarlacc who had swallowed Boba Fett, very close to the Worm sands in Dune.
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In episode 2 of the Book of Boba Fett, the bounty hunter gets closer to the Tusken, also called the Men of the Sands, who are reminiscent of the Fremen of Dune. Boba helps the Tuskens bring down a sky train belonging to the Pyke Syndicate.
And this train carries a very valuable resource from the slave mines of Kessel: the Sansanna spice, a narcotic much sought after by criminals including Lom Pyke, the leader of the Pyke Syndicate on Oba Diah during the Clone Wars. This spice is also seen and mentioned in the animated series The Clone Wars.
Screenshot / Disney +
And the spice is an important element in Dune: also called Mixture, this substance produced on the planet Arrakis is a kind of drug which prolongs life, causes a form of foreknowledge and allows interstellar travel.
So the spices of Dune and Star Wars are not the same but this is again proof that Dune very largely inspired George Lucas for Star Wars. Even if this umpteenth wink in The Book of Boba Fett is not the first mention made of spice.
We recall that in the very first film of the saga, A New Hope, Luke Skywalker believed that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter … (NB: in the original version, Luke does speak of a “spice freighter” while in the French version he mentions “a space transport”, this information was “lost” in the translation.)
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