What is Spice in Star Wars and how is it different from the Dune version?

There are quite a few similarities between Frank Herbert’s Dune series and the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. Both take writer and literature professor Joseph Campbell’s idea of ​​the Hero’s Journey from his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, both have a “chosen one” narrative, both have giant fangs worm monsters that live in the desertand both have lots and lots of sand. Desert planets play a big role in both Star Wars and Dune, and they also contain something that seems to share the franchises: spice.

Both Star Wars and Dune have a substance called spice (not to be confused with the very dangerous synthetic cannabiswhich is called “spice” in our world, but is it the same thing? Let’s take a deeper look at the spice melange in Dune and the banned substances collectively known as spice in Star Wars to define the differences once and for all.

Of the two franchises, spice plays a much larger role in Dune, which began with Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name. In Dune, spicy melange is the most important substance in the universe, and whoever controls the spice controls the universe. It’s less than subtle an allegory of our dependence on oil and the conflicts that arise from it in our reality, but it’s a little more complicated. The spice is not only a spice used to flavor food that apparently tastes like cinnamon, but it is also a drug that extends life, can give prophetic visions, and power spaceships. It’s oil, and then some, an almost magical creature that affects every aspect of life, not just for the Freemen who live on the desert planet of Arakis where spices are extractedbut for most people in the vast Galactic Empire of the King. In fact, in the novel Children of the Dune, Leia Atreides, the younger sister of the Chosen of Paul Atreides, explains that even the middle class of the empire ate a little diluted spice at least once a day to boost their health and extend their lives.

Spices can only be mined from Arrakis because they are the excrement of the sandworms that live there. Yes, the spice in Dune is sandworm poo. Extremely expensive, powerful sandworm feces. It is also something often used by spices such as the Freemen and the powerful Bene Gesserit religious order, their “blue within blue” eyes (called the “Eyes of Ibad”) memorably depicted in David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune and the films Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two” as a shock of cold colors in a warm environment. It also gave “Dune” one of its most powerful elements in pop culture: “The spices must flow.”

Partly because of its incredible self-seriousness, Dune is incredibly meme-able. The guys at “Mystery Science 3000” made a million jokes just from Sting’s ordinary delivery as Fade-Routa in Lynch’s 1984 film adaptationand the film led to another joke-friendly moment through its introduction through Virginia Madsen’s Princess Irulan. In the introduction, she says, “Spice must flow,” referring to its importance in the universe. “The spice must flow” became a huge internet meme in the early 2000s and never went away, gaining popularity again with the release of Villeneuve’s films. But this is far from the only reference in popular culture.

The spices used in Dune are mentioned in everything from King of the Hill to The Simpsons episode where Lisa eats food so spicy it allows her to see through time. Many comedies have references to “he who controls (insert whatever here) rules the universe,” even the 2016 movie Trolls , which might mean the joke is officially dead. “South Park” also riffed heavily on sharp mélange and blue in blue eyes 2019 episode “Turd Burglars”, in which football star Tom Brady’s poo becomes as desirable as Dune melange. Tom Brady poo, sandworm poo…same difference I guess?

Meanwhile, in the slightly more family-friendly Star Wars franchise, spice is actually just a banned substance used to intoxicate users, but comes in several different forms and varieties. Although many are only mentioned in supplementary material such as the Smuggler’s Guide book, there are varieties named Ryll, Booster Blue, Muon Gold, Sansanna Spice, and others. (There’s also Glitterstim, though it’s mentioned in the books that are part of it the former expanded universe now called Star Wars Legends i.e. no longer canon.)

While spice may be a very popular commodity in Star Wars, it doesn’t have the same uses as its counterpart in Dune. There are medicinal uses for various forms of drugs, including pain relief, but it does not give an entire population mental capacity or maintain youth. It’s a lot closer to something like opium than Dune’s delicious telepathic oil, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not very important.

Since Star Wars is mostly kid-friendly, we don’t see a ton of spice in Star Wars, other than a handful of pipe smokers in Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi though one of the greatest heroes once tried to carry it across the galaxy. In Star Wars: Episode VI – A New Hope, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is in trouble with Jabba the Hutt because he dropped a batch of spices when his ship was boarded by the Empire, resulting in his imprisonment in carbonite in Star Wars: Episode VI: A New Hope. Episode VI – Return of the Jedi”. (Notably, Jabba’s hookah pipe is very similar to the ones smoked in the Obi-Wan series.)

Spice ended up playing roles in several Star Wars films and TV series outside of the original trilogy, including storylines in the animated films Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, Part the story of a crime syndicate against the Mandalorians and the Lawmen about the series “The Book of Boba Fett” and the exciting part of the prequel film “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. In Solo, we finally get to see the origins of Kessel Run, in which a young Han (Alden Ehrenreich) the pilots of the infamous Kessel Run in just 12 parsecs, he reached the heavily guarded planet Kessel, where hot spices are extracted by slave labor, and left again. Spice isn’t as integral to Star Wars as it is to Dune, but it still played a surprisingly large role in the narrative.

Fans paying close attention might have figured out that Herbert’s Dune predated Star Wars by about 12 years, but was Lucas drawing directly from Dune? It’s likely, though he’s never publicly commented on it. There are several things in A New Hope that correlate with things in Dune, from the desert planet of Tatooine with its moisture farms to the similarities between golden boys paul atreides (Kyle MacLachlan/Timothy Chalamet) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), but there are little tricks that seem to suggest it’s more homage than outright theft. Not only that, since both men drew from Campbell’s history and politics and our own world, some of it is probably just a matter of a little creative fusion where the two ideas are unintentionally similar.

“Star Wars” and “Dune” have quite different directions, despite both being expensive substances to produce drugs, showing that even ideas that at first seem indistinguishable can really be turned into something unique in the hands of the right narrator. Let the spices flow, baby.