Every Dune fan knows what a thumper is. But...what happens to them after they're used to summon a sandworm? One theory is particularly gross.
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00:00 Every Dune fan knows what a thumper is, but what happens to them after they're used to
00:05 summon a sandworm?
00:06 One theory is particularly gross.
00:09 In Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic Dune, the desert-dwelling
00:14 Fremen have learned a clever way to live in the wastelands of Arrakis, even as mile-long
00:19 destructive sandworms furtively burrow around under their feet.
00:22 For one, they've discovered that the sandworms are attracted to steady, regular ground beats,
00:28 and have altered their walking to be irregular in response.
00:30 "We're about to enter worm territory.
00:33 We can't walk like regular humans.
00:35 If we do, we're dead."
00:37 The Fremen have also learned how to ride on the backs of the sandworms using an elaborate
00:41 and dangerous lassoing method that takes years to refine.
00:45 A Fremen worm rider will climb to the top of a sand dune and insert a small, forearm-length
00:49 device called a "thumper" into the ground.
00:52 A thumper, as its name implies, regularly pounds on the ground, deliberately attracting
00:56 a sandworm.
00:58 When a worm explodes out of the sand and charges for the thumper, the Fremen rider will leap
01:02 on and attach grappling devices called "maker hooks" to its scales.
01:06 They can then climb up onto the speeding worm and keep it above ground by holding the flaps
01:11 of its scales open.
01:12 The reason this works is because the worm will do anything it can to stop sand from
01:16 working its way into the more sensitive tissue that lies beneath its scales.
01:20 The whole thing is extremely cool, but a question arises.
01:25 What happens to the thumper?
01:26 Did the worm eat it?
01:27 Does the Fremen rider grab it very quickly before leaping on?
01:31 It seems that the Fremen, whose resources are very limited, wouldn't want to waste thumpers
01:35 by leaving them behind or feeding them to their worm mounts.
01:38 It likely takes a lot of time and materials to make just one thumper.
01:42 The Fremen probably only have a limited supply.
01:45 In a new interview, Villeneuve was grilled about the thumpers, and he had a theory as
01:49 to what happens to them.
01:50 It involves worm poop.
01:52 "I don't believe you."
01:55 The ecology of Arrakis is bizarre, and the sandworms are a perfect example of this.
01:59 The worms, as Herbert explores in several Dune sequels, feed on sand plankton and their
02:04 more mature form, sand trout.
02:06 It seems that sand trout insist water sources and eventually grow into the massive worms
02:11 seen in the story.
02:12 The sandworms essentially feed on themselves, giving birth to their own food source.
02:18 Some fans assume that the spice melange, found only on Arrakis, is actually worm poop.
02:24 The spore is left behind by a species that is essentially devouring itself.
02:28 Keep in mind, that theory is not confirmed by any texts.
02:31 As far as we know, the worms digest and leave behind scat just like any animal.
02:36 This is certainly the theory posited by Villeneuve, one that he hastily invented during an interview
02:41 with Gizmodo when pressed about the potentially eaten thumpers used by the Fremen.
02:45 He said,
02:46 "Yeah, it's a thing you ask yourself.
02:48 Is there something that they can find back there out of the digestive system of the worm?"
02:53 In part one, we're trying to avoid the sandworms as much as possible.
02:57 In part two, you see that the Fremen embrace this beast and use them as a way of traveling
03:01 in the desert.
03:02 I thought it was super poetic and I absolutely loved it.
03:06 But yeah, it raises a question.
03:07 I'm sure the Fremen thought about that.
03:09 There are no funny scenes of Fremen digging through piles of worm poop like Laura Dern
03:13 in Jurassic Park, much to everyone's collective dismay.
03:17 "Dah!"
03:18 However, Villeneuve implied that's exactly what's happening when it comes to thumper
03:22 retrieval.
03:23 He continued theorizing, clearly not having given the latter much thought before making
03:27 his movie.
03:28 "I'm sure that there's a way to recycle, because it's a culture that is all about recycling.
03:32 It's a bit like people living in space.
03:35 It's an environment that's so harsh and they are very clever people.
03:38 So there's a way of recycling those thumpers to find them back."
03:42 We should ask a Fremen.
03:43 It seems that thumper retrieval wasn't of paramount importance to Villeneuve, which
03:47 makes sense.
03:48 There are plenty of other more important plot points to deal with.
03:51 Still, it makes us wonder.
03:53 Perhaps thumpers are easily constructed, allowing the Fremen to build as many as they might
03:57 need.
03:58 Or perhaps they have regular access to an abandoned Atreides storehouse containing millions
04:02 of thumpers and they're not yet concerned about running out.
04:05 It's hard to say.
04:06 As for worm poop, Villeneuve doesn't depict any on screen.
04:10 Some Dune fans have posited that the worms don't digest nutrients or grow like ordinary
04:14 animals because they aren't wholly organic.
04:17 Some wilder theories have said that the sandworms are ancient stone-based machines that contain
04:21 internal furnaces.
04:22 In Herbert's Children of Dune, Paul's son Leto II says the worms came from another planet
04:27 and ruined Arrakis.
04:29 The passage reads,
04:30 "The sand trout was introduced here from some other place.
04:34 This was a wet planet then.
04:35 They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them.
04:40 Sand trout insisted the available free water, made this a desert planet, and they did it
04:45 to survive.
04:46 When a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase."
04:50 Whatever the truth may be, it's still buried out there in the vast expanse of Arrakis.
04:56 [music]
05:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]