THE ribald rivalries that define the business world have long served as fodder for prestige television dramas such as Billions and Succession.

       But director Denis Villeneuve’s new science fiction film Dune, out tomorrow in the United States, takes inspiration from an unlikely, unsexy corner of capitalism: commodities trading.

       By spinning a complex tale about family, revenge, and destiny, it has the drag-on effect of making markets compelling and approachable to a slightly wider audience than usual.

       Set in the far, far future-the year 10,191, to be exact-in a galaxy not at all far away, Dune is a fairly faithful adaptation of roughly the first half of author Frank Herbert’s genre-defying 1965 novel. There are no talking aliens here, but plenty of palace intrigue. Mild spoilers follow.

       Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) is the sole heir of a noble family that commands increasing influence over the byzantine aristocracy that rules humanity under the Emperor Shaddam IV. The popularity of Paul’s father, Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), causes the emperor to hatch a plot against the Atreides, a scheme that puts them in control of the desert planet Arrakis (also known as Dune, hence the title).

       Their stewardship of the planet makes them responsible for harvesting and distributing a substance called “spice,” which is essential for space travel and offers various health benefits.

       That’s the pitch: William Shakespeare by way of Andrew Ross Sorkin, with a healthy splash of visual spectacle thrown in.

       In a lot of ways, the film’s scope is titanic, both in terms of the scale of the story it’s looking to tell and in the amount of stimulus it bombards viewers with.

       Dune invites comparisons to real-world events, with the film opening on Fremen attacking spice harvesters and a voice-over from Chani (Zendaya) describing the cruelty inflicted on her people by out-worlders coming to her planet to claim its riches.

       The sequence is reminiscent of Native American opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline and interactions between miners in Brazil and Indigenous groups.

       On an even larger scale, a dispute between Iraq and Kuwait over oil and energy production partially led to the Gulf War.

       The film spends a lot less time addressing the fact that its setting and premise are steeped in Orientalism and white saviour tropes, which are likely to be even more front and centre if the inevitable but yet-to-be-greenlighted sequel hews closely to the events of the novel.

       The source material indeed shows its age: Depictions of religious fanaticism seem heavy-handed at best and misguided at worst, and in this current climate of reckoning over representation in art and culture, not updating the text seems like a major misstep.

       Which begs a fundamental question: “Is an economic dispute enough to hang a two-and-a-half-hour-long drama on?”

       It’s a great question, and a fair one. And while not every element manages to come together perfectly, the framing does provide a solid bedrock for the action playing out on screen, as well as an opportunity to reflect on the economic systems that shape our world.

       If greed is intrinsic to capitalism and inevitably leads to conflict and inequality, that, and sandworms, should be avoided at all costs. — Bloomberg

       Max Reyes writes for Bloomberg. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.