Why do eyes turn blue in the ‘Dune’ movies and what is spice?

Soon, audiences will return to the world of Dune when Dune: Part Two opens in November. The sci-fi story with Middle Eastern undertones leaves some things unexplained, has a lot of dense lore, and many are wondering just what the blue eye color stands for.

To begin with, for those who have not seen the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s magnum opus or its earlier take in 1984, several characters on the heroic-ish side of the struggle have bright, blue eyes. This is seen on Zendaya’s Chani and other Fremen in the 2021 release and comes from prolonged exposure to the spice substance found on the planet of Arrakis. Also known as melange, it comes from the sandworms that lurk under the landscape of great dunes and is very difficult to mine for its use in interstellar travel due to the planet’s weather, destruction by the sandworms, and attacks from the Fremen who resent the exploitation of their planet. Certainly a stand-in for oil, spice also offers a number of other abilities to its users, too.

In addition to blue eyes, those exposed to the resource can also be granted a longer lifespan, increased vitality, and heightened awareness. Later books in the series reveal spice can also be used to make different physical products, and it is considered to be a rough combination of cocaine and petroleum in terms of what it can do and its overall value. Withdrawal from use causes certain death, and thousands of years later in the series, an artificial means of producing it comes to pass — though it is lesser than the natural.

In recent years, other authors who have worked in the Dune franchise have also created a variant called ultraspice, but it is unclear if we will see any of this brought into live-action on the big or small screen. Director Denis Villeneuve has said he is open to making a third film in the series and a spin-off television project is being eyed, but as the second film was only greenlit following the success of Dune: Part One, anything can happen. For now, all audiences and Herbert fans can do is wait and have hope. At the moment, this may be difficult, too, as the spin-off Dune: The Sisterhood series on HBO Max recently lost its director and star, and, as it has been reported the show is undergoing a major creative re-tooling, there is a chance it could be eliminated, too.