A Fremen is not complete without a crysknife. Zendaya shared a new photo of her character in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune. She plays Chani, a Fremen who will play a key role along with Paul Atreides. Vanity Fair shared the first look at Zendaya in the role early on Tuesday.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Excuse me while I take a minute.
As seen in the images above and below, Chani is wearing the signature Fremen stillsuit. The suit’s designed to recapture the maximum amount of moisture from the wearer—a necessity on the barren sands of Arrakis’ sprawling desert. Without processing every ounce of their own fluids, the Fremen native to that desert wouldn’t be able to survive.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures/Vanity Fair
Besides getting a detailed look at the stillsuit and its nose tube reclaiming vapor from every breath, we can call out a few more important things. There’s the sand-colored covering any Fremen can use to blend into the dusty surroundings. Note Chani’s blue eyes. Consuming melange (a.k.a. spice), a drug produced in Arrakis’ sands, gives one piercing blue eyes. In Frank Herbert’s novel, spice turns the consumer’s eyes entirely blue—iris and all.
But the coolest thing? A peek at a crysknife! Chani has her right hand on the sheath of this sacred Fremen weapon. Fremen craft crysknife blades from the teeth of dead sandworms, the beasts that roam under the surface of Arrakis. The crysknife is double-edged and typically poisoned on the tip. If a Fremen draws their crysknife, they cannot resheath it until the knife draws blood. They can’t even show it to outsiders without killing them or performing an elaborate cleansing ritual. So seeing a crysknife doesn’t usually mean anything good.
Except in this case, when it’s awesome.
Dune arrives in theaters on December 18, 2020.
Featured Image: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
and Legendary Pictures/Vanity Fair
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Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist and the author of Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
