Another source of laughter is that the book ridiculously mixes sci-fi names like Leto Atreides and Gurney Halleck with distinctly Earthbound names like Duncan Idaho and Paul.
Quite how much of the film the online comics have watched, however, is debatable. The majority of the memes are about how “Dune” sounds like “doing” or “don’t,” or the fact that there is a lot of sand in the film. Nonetheless, people have managed to mine comedy gold out of these basic elements.
Some of the best memes are about the film’s title, with many mashing Dune up with Shrek (“what are you Dune in my swamp?”), Friends (“how you Dune”) and Shania Twain (“that Dune impress me much”).
The desert-set video for Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much” leads us to the next category of memes: Jokes about the amount of sand in the movie.
One sub-category of memes saw Twitter users compare the movie to other notably sandy pop cultural moments. These includes the Parks and Recreation scene with Leslie Knope falling down the pit, the scene in Sex and the City 2 that saw Carrie and co walking through the desert, plus the music video for the Spice Girls’ “Say You’ll Be There.”
The funniest of these is probably the one that compares the movie to John Travolta’s over-the-top reaction when he sees Olivia Newton-John in Grease.
The Spice Girls, of course, have a Dune pun built into their name, something a viewer of Adele’s Vogue “73 Questions” video made the most of.
The jury is out on how much director Denis Villeneuve is up-to-date with internet culture, but whoever cast Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa and Timothée Chalamet in one film has a clear idea of the people the internet has decided are their boyfriends.
Isaac, in particular, was the recipient of some thirsty memes, perhaps due to his nude scene.
Of the memes that actually referenced the movie rather than just mocking things you could work out about Dune from its poster, here are some of the best:
Winner of the most detailed Dune reference, however, is this uber-specific erotic text that has enough puns to launch a thousand icky porn parodies.
Dune is in theaters and on HBO Max now.
