Everyone Who Saw ‘Dune: Part Two’ Has The Same Question About The Sandworms

Dune: Part Two is a very good movie, maybe even one of the best science-fiction films ever made. But the entire time I was watching it, something was bugging me: how do the Sandriders get off the sandworms?

Please stop giggling. This is a serious question. We see Paul (Timothée Chalamet), Chani (Zendaya), Stilgar (Javier Bardem), and the rest of the Fremen ride the sandworms, but at no point do we witness them removing themselves from the speeding, legless beasts. Do they jump? Do they use their maker hooks? Do they have one of those inflatable slides, like on airplanes?

Thankfully, I’m not the only one with this question:

The question was even posed to director Denis Villeneuve. “I know how, but there was no time to show it in Part Two,” he told reporter Tara Hitchcock. “If ever there is such a thing as Dune Messiah, then I’ll be able to show you how you get off. But I have a strategy.” This, among other reasons, is why there needs to be a third Dune movie.

Thankfully, there’s decades of Dune lore — and a subreddit — to explain it.

Reddit user ichiban_saru wrote, “From the expanded books, the worms get tired after a while and begin to slow and come to a stop. The riders repel down and then the worm eventually dives under the sand.” This explanation was confirmed by user JohnCavil01, who added, “They generally just slide off and get away. If there’s no sufficient shelter nearby then they just try to exhaust the worm as much as possible to dissuade it from wanting to try to eat them.”

New life goal: slide off a tired sandworm, ideally with Rebecca Ferguson.

Dune: Part Two is out in theaters now.