Who doesn’t love a massive movie monster? If there was ever a monstrous big screen creature fit to captivate audiences, it would be the sandworms of Arrakis. These beasts can extend to hundreds of meters long (many times the length of a Blue Whale, the largest known animal to have ever lived). They are fiercely protective, and come racing toward the slightest rhythmic footstep of an invader. At least, that’s the wild, threatening sandworm that we saw in “Dune: Part 1.”
However, even those who weren’t really paying that much attention knew by the end of the first movie that there was more to the sandworms than that. We even get a glimpse of a distant Fremen riding a sandworm at one point in that film, and the marketing for “Dune: Part 2” made it clear early and often that the sequel was going to take that epic ride to the next level.
In Herbert’s books, the Fremen practice the deft art of catching and riding sandworms. They use them to travel vast distances, and there’s no doubt that the beasts have a ton of potential as oversized weapons of war, too (Paul himself notes their potential as “desert power” in the first movie). The chance to see a whole lot more of these giant creatures in all of their cinematic glory was one of the flashiest selling points of the sequel, and it made a trip to the theater as early as possible a necessity for many.
