if you've seen the dune movie dune the
old movie read the dune book or even
done none of the above you probably know
that everyone in these stories is
obsessed with one thing spice spice
spice spice spice spice spice spice
spice spices spice spice spice spice
spice
spice in the world of dune it is the
most valuable resource in the universe
but what exactly is it well ladies and
gentlemen that is what i'm here to find
out today
hello internet welcome to film theory
how you dune did i just come out and say
this i loved dune it was so good like
normally i'm the guy who'd get really
mad about a movie where everything is
set up and nothing gets resolved by the
end but man i love this world i love the
characters i love the sounds and the
visuals even after three hours when the
credits hit i was like i need more i'm
not doomed yet i just wanted to watch it
again and what better way to justify
watching it once again than creating
monetizable content out of it that way
it qualifies as doing work so what do
you talk about when it comes to dune
well you talk about the one and only one
thing that everyone in the movie cares
about space the magic cinnamon powder
that floats through the air and gets you
to see visions of zendaya turning over
her shoulder in slow motion but what is
spice really is there an earthly
substance that we can reasonably compare
to spice well i think the answer is yes
and thankfully it's not some
experimental hallucinogen that's gonna
get this video demonetized i actually
think it's a very common thing that's
produced here on earth so strap into
your flying dragonfly copter thingies
because we're exploring the universe to
find out what the spice really is as a
disclaimer here at the top of the video
we're actually going to be focusing
primarily on the new movie universe dune
anyone who's read the series as novels
knows that these things are some thick
boys and that there's anywhere between 6
and 36 of them depending on which ones
you're counting also they get real weird
real fast see also the birth of
invisible children people turning into
sand worms and chair dogs you heard that
right dogs that are also chairs for the
six simplicity we're not going to be
covering those that said if you are
totally new to dune there will be some
spoilers in here not just for the movie
but possibly for more movies in the
series depending on how closely they
stick to the originals admittedly this
thing was published in 1965 so don't at
me for the spoilers friends anyway to
set the stage we know that dune takes
place on the desert planet arrakis a
profitable planet that's the universe's
sole source of something called spice
melange the forgotten spice girl in
reality melange is just a french word
for mix or blend so spice melange
ultimately just means spice blend
basically it's just the mrs dash of
interdimensional narcotics he knows
about the spice shortly after our hero
family the etradeezes arrive on the
planet they're attacked game of thrones
style by a rival house forcing our hero
paul and his mother to escape out into
the dunes that's the name of the movie
and these things contain a lot of spice
and it's out here that we start to get
real good clues about what the spice is
and what effects it has on the human
body from there we can take those
details and then start reverse
engineering them to figure out what this
stuff truly is the spice itself is a
light particulate powder that's able to
float through the air while this
initially doesn't seem like much to go
on we know canonically that spice
melange actually rises from under the
sand of the arrakis desert meaning that
it's less dense than sand and made of
lighter smaller particulates it's small
enough to become airborne it can
dissolve in water and some people say
that it tastes like cinnamon we also
know that it's solid even in the high
daytime temperatures of arrakis which
have been calculated to reach up to 158
degrees fahrenheit or 70 degrees celsius
this is important to know when you're
calculating chemical melting points so
those are the physical traits of spice
but what about its side effects we see
in the movie that spice exposure can
lead to vivid hallucinations and that
long-term exposure to the spice results
in a distinctive blue eye color the
movie also briefly mentions that spice
extends long time users lives and over
long long exposures actually helps them
to make super fast calculations about
space-time navigating the stars of
everything that we just talked about the
blue eyes are the most iconic part of
the dune canon so i'm gonna start there
i expect that one should help us narrow
down the field pretty darn quickly since
not many substances have that sort of
effect so how could something turn your
eyes blue well in reality blue eye color
is pretty interesting because it doesn't
mean that there's blue pigment suddenly
in your eyes it actually means that
there's no pigment in your eyes yeah
blue eyes aren't actually blue the blue
you see is in reality just the color of
light bouncing off the irises and
scattering off into the atmosphere blue
eyes are blue for basically the exact
same reason that the sky is blue so the
next time you stare romantically into
someone's blue eyes just know that
you're staring straight into the back of
their eyeball because there's no melanin
pigment between the iris and the outside
world the pigment melanin is always
brown so people with hazel or brown eyes
just have different layers of melanin on
top of their iris underneath we're all
blue-eyed this then helps us when
talking about dune since everyone's eyes
mysteriously turn blue under the
influence of spice it means that
something in the spice is removing all
the melanin from the user's eyes over a
long period of time thereby exposing the
iris underneath and turning the eye blue
unfortunately turning your entire
eyeball blue isn't exactly a cosmetic
procedure is an incredibly serious
condition known as blue sclera and
happens when the collagen in your eyes
breaks down exposing the parts of your
eye under the surface that just reflect
back blue light while the movie portrays
these blue eyes as glowing and fun and
cool and dangerous it's the dangerous
part that's probably the most true to
life that missing melanin was actually
serving an important function for the
eye protection from uv damage people
with albinism or a lack of melanin have
trouble seeing in bright light because
there isn't a layer of melanin
protection and as you might imagine uv
protection is going to be important when
you're living on a bright sunny desert
planet like arrakis and believe it or
not but canonically the dune series
actually has points that support all of
this later in the series paul's eyes
turn blue after years of heavy spice
usage that combined with the blinding
sun and reflective sand of arrakis
actually causes him to go almost
completely blind now in the narrative of
the story he develops other senses and
second sight to help make up for this
but we know that paul is experiencing
biological blue sclera because he
experiences the negative side effects of
this very real condition blue sclera
most commonly occurs as part of a
serious genetic condition but there are
a few substances that can cause blue
sclera without needing any genetic
component so let's throw those
substances up onto the board to get some
contenders for what our spice could
potentially be looking at this list you
can immediately note that none of these
are illicit drugs youtube whew i don't
have to spend the rest of this episode
talking about crystal meth or something
demonetizable now of these six there are
a few that we can remove right off the
bat amiodarone is used to treat heart
arrhythmia and has almost no incidences
of causing hallucinations or having
psychotropic effects like we see with
the spice same goes for the antibiotic
minocycline phenothiazines are a class
of medication used to treat a variety of
mental health issues including
schizophrenia initially something that
alters your mental state might seem like
it's a good bet but these medications
are specifically designed to reduce
auditory and visual hallucinations so
you're actually going down the wrong
track there years ago and i'm talking
like year one of game theory we did a
video about colloidal silver and how
people take it to extend their lives and
ward off illnesses one of the side
effects that high doses though is that
it turns your skin blue but it's
unlikely that it's the culprit for our
spice because if it were then all of
arachus would be populated by smurfs
rather than bronzed warriors and diaz
epinephrine is also on this list which
is another form of adrenaline and could
cause someone to feel strong or even
euphoric for short periods of time
because it basically tells your body
that you're on a roller coaster every
second that said the fun side effects
would be almost immediately overshadowed
by your heart palpitations your ashy
skin your vomiting and seizures you do
not want too much of this one in your
system friends which leaves us with
prednisone which honestly is a pretty
interesting candidate if prednisone
sounds familiar to you it's because it's
one of the most commonly prescribed
steroids for autoimmune diseases like
arthritis and crohn's disease it's not
one of those stereotypical steroids that
are often associated with that word you
know the ones that athletes tend to
abuse when looking to get their swole on
those are anabolic steroids prednisone
is actually in a different class called
a corticosteroid used for regulating
your immune system obviously there are a
ton of reasons to not take prednisone or
honestly any medication casually in real
life but there are a good number of
reasons to believe that prednisone is a
big part of our spice melange prolonged
prednisone exposure is known to cause
blue sclera which checks off our first
major symptom of the spice and prolonged
overuse of the drug can also cause major
eye problems like glaucoma and when you
know it blindness which correlates to
what we'll see later from paul in the
movies the new dune movie notes that on
arrakis the fremen are considered some
of the strongest in the galaxy and that
their consumption of spice extends their
life well lucky for them it's because
they're inhaling a major
anti-inflammatory medication for their
entire life prednisone is used to treat
an overactive immune system the fremen
by consuming spice then are
inadvertently taking a major
anti-inflammatory which would suppress a
lot of the medical issues that could
shorten their lifespans the list of
conditions that are treated with
prednisone are massive from heart
problems to gout so the fremen would be
much more resistant to a huge number of
ailments the problem of course is that
when you're on a long-term steroid there
are other issues like in this case
immune suppression your immune system
actually gets weaker because it's
depending on the drug but to counteract
that remember the fremen are an
extremely isolated population known as
venturing out into the siege with kovid
most germs and viruses in their
environment would be killed off almost
instantly when exposed to the extreme
desert sun on top of all of that fremen
tend to wear their own still suits and
recycle their own fluids practically all
the time so they're never truly exposed
to anyone else's germs the usual
immunosuppressive issues that long-term
prednisone users face aren't going to be
present here because no one is exposed
to anything and while we're on the
subject of side effects one of the most
common side effects of corticosteroid
usage is fluid retention because
steroids actually cause you to hold on
to your body's salt for most people this
is going to be really annoying and
potentially dangerous but on arrakis
there's pretty much only one thing that
everyone's trying to do retain their own
water still suits are of course the way
that they ensure that all their water
gets recycled but fremen by inhaling the
spice are literally gonna be able to
store more water in their bodies because
they're continually retaining salt as a
result of their exposure to prednisone
the desert power that leto refers to in
the movie is mostly portrayed as a set
of cultural practices that he wants to
learn from the fremen but it could also
be an actual power like the power to
suppress your own inflammatory systems
and retain water in the most arid
environment in the galaxy so far we've
been checking a lot of boxes but this
story was created back in the 1960s so
where are all the psychedelic properties
and hallucinations that we see in the
movie well it turns out that we're
actually covered there as well go figure
a system-wide medication like prednisone
actually affects all your systems
steroid psychosis is a reality which is
obviously incredibly scary and dangerous
in the real world but continues to fit
our narrative for the hallucinogenic
effects of the spice the real world
range of symptoms for steroid psychosis
are incredibly broad but among them are
euphoria hallucinations delirium and
overall personality change we know from
this first movie that the spice causes
euphoria and hallucinations and
canonically future dune movies are going
to reveal to us that the spice causes
major personality change in paul and
delirium in his mother so check check
check and check the perfect visions of
the future yeah that one still lives
squarely on the phi side of sci-fi but
in terms of the symptoms that we can
actually address in the real world we've
already covered a huge range and all of
this is without even mentioning that
prednisone also looks and behaves like
the spice it's formulated as a powder
that's significantly finer than sand and
melts at 233 degrees fahrenheit almost
100 degrees hotter than arrakis meaning
that it's a powder even at the surface
of the desert it's soluble in water and
can be taken as a tablet a liquid an
injection or concentrate basically any
way that you can consume spice
prednisone fits the bill it's also
technically possible that frank herbert
could have used prednisone as a model
for the side effects of spice in the
universe from a historic perspective
since prednisone isn't exactly the new
kid on the block it was patented in 1955
so it would have been a well-known
breakthrough medication for treating
arthritis by the time that frank herbert
was researching for dune in 1959 the
only two things that prednisone can't
explain are the flavor of cinnamon and
the ability to turn someone into a human
calculator capable of interstellar math
prednisone and steroid psychosis don't
tend to make you incredibly smart so
don't go trying to get your hands on it
before the math final now this is where
the melange part of the spice melange
would need to come into play to add some
sort of concentration stimulant into the
mix at the time that frank herbert wrote
dude strong illegal stimulant drugs like
cocaine were popular so that could have
been the inspiration there and hey the
navigators who can calculate
interstellar travel are these horrible
deformed creatures living in tanks so uh
maybe a clear message to say no to drugs
kids as for that cinnamon taste well we
eventually come to learn that the spice
is basically pooped out by sand worms so
maybe that gives it its distinctive
flavor you know what they say one worm's
turd is actually a human's
hallucinogenic anti-inflammatory steroid
but hey that's just a theory a film
theory and cut
[Music]
you