Dune: The Disgusting Fremen Detail The Movies Ignore

The Fremen have it pretty bad, as sci-fi franchise populations go. Not only do they have to live in the vast, waterless deserts of Arrakis and deal with the terrifying "Dune" sandworms, but they also rely on special stillsuits that recycle their sweat into water and control their body temperature, thus allowing them to survive in the ruthless environment. That's how it works in Villeneuve's movies, anyway. In Frank Herbert's "Dune" books, the stillsuit is designed to recycle far more than just sweat — it deals with any and all human waste.

Yes, the book version of the stillsuit is designed to also process excrement and urine — and yes, this means that the Fremen routinely poop their pants while they're wandering out in the desert, and the suit recycles the waste matter. We even know the exact way the stillsuit goes about this, courtesy of Dr. Liet-Kynes in Herbert's "Dune." "Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads," he helpfully and quite unforgettably lets the reader know, stressing that every single stillsuit-wearing character is effectively running around with yesterday's lunch sloshing in their sci-fi cargo pant pockets.

In Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part One," Dr. Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) also gets to make a whole expository speech about stillsuits for Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), thus informing the audience about the suits and their properties. However, the film skips the line about excrement processing, presumably to avoid eliciting an immediate and disgusted reaction from viewers.

Whether fans knowing about the suit's more ... advanced recycling properties would have helped or hindered "Dune: Part Two" at the box office, the world will never know. Still, while leaving this very specific function of the suit out of the movie  — or at least not referring to it in any way — is a change from the source material, it's hard to imagine too many fans up in arms about this particular omission. After all, viewers might find it hard to focus on the plot when they constantly wonder which stillsuit-wearing character is using their portable bathroom at any given moment, or the mess-hiding thigh pads keep drawing their eye.

The Fremen's backstory in "Dune" is a great example of supposedly backward people who are nevertheless incredibly capable survivors with a complex culture. Considering that the inclusion of the thigh pad line might have risked turning these deep and multifaceted people into a "walking toilet" meme, it may be best to consider this one an adaptation win.

One reason why Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" movies may have chosen to downplay some of the stillsuits' more unsavory functions is the classic "disgusting villains, beautiful heroes" trope that Villeneuve deploys to the maximum. Where the protagonists are played by notably attractive actors like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Oscar Isaac, the key antagonists of the Harkonnen family are all made up to be just about as creepy as the movies could believably get away with. 

An early standout representative of the villainous ick factor is Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), whose black goo bath is one of the standout visuals of "Dune: Part One." Dave Bautista's pale and ruthless Glossu "The Beast" Rabban is also far creepier-looking than previous versions of the character. However, the gold standard of Villeneuve leaning on the gross villain aspect is Austin Butler's Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, whose intense, black-mouthed visage is a far cry from the conventionally attractive looks the character traditionally has.   

While no one was expecting the movies to actually show the pants-pooping and thigh-pad processing elements of the stillsuits, the merest mention of them might very well have ruined all the visual work the movies put in to make the Harkonnens as despicable as possible. After all, it's hard to care about the villain wallowing in a creepy oil pool when the heroes are running around wearing adult diaper overalls.