'Mashallah sister': New Dune 3 stills spark meme frenzy

New images of Dune: Part Three were released this week, including images and plot details, with one particular scene triggering a widespread response, some humorous and others critical.

The image that sparked the response included Timothee Chalamet as a shaved-headed Emperor, Paul Atreides, seated on a jade throne next to a fully covered Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays the sister to Chalamet's character, Alia.

The photos were released by Empire’s December 2026 issue, with Dune: Part Three set to release in cinemas and IMAX on 18 December.

The third part of the film is set 17 years after Part Two and is highly anticipated, continuing the sci-fi epic story about the rise and fall of an empire.

Taylor-Joy’s attire in the images prompted many people to take to social media to express how her clothing had a striking resemblance to the Jilbaab, modest wear worn by some Muslim women around the world, particularly during prayer.

Some joked about the images, with one person writing: “Dune after the 1979 Islamic Revolution”.

Dune after the 1979 Islamic Revolution

— kev joon (@never_oppressed)

October 15, 2026

Others rebuked the casting of the film, writing on X: “Hollywood would rather die than cast actors of Arab or north African origin”.

“People arguing whether hijabis deserved to breathe air and then here comes white people's orientalist fantasy movie with the actress in full hajj clothes you cannot make this up,” another said.

“Orientalism 101: Arab and Islamic aesthetics without Islam or Arabs,” one social media user commented.

The latest reaction is not the first time Taylor-Joy’s Dune wardrobe has sparked jokes online. In February 2024, her outfit for the Dune: Part Two premiere in London—a flowing white gown that covered her from head to toe—drew a very different kind of reaction.

Several Muslim fans pointed out that while the actor was being praised by the mainstream media for her unique look, the very same modest styles worn by Muslim women—hijabs, niqabs and burqas—are often met with suspicion or worse.

Dune: Part Three was filmed in various locations around the world, including Wadi Rum in Jordan and the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi.

The Dune novels, which the current movies are adapting, is notorious for its usage of Arab and Islamic imagery and philosophy in the story.

The Dune film features Islamic imagery as well as onlookers, given the name of Fremen, who wear face coverings and speak in a language similar to Arabic, but have caused some backlash over accusations of appropriating Islamic and Arab culture with no real inclusion.

Experts said this was an example of erasure and Orientalism, noting that having no Arabs in a prominent role in the film meant that the cast, it’s director and producers were profiting of Middle Eastern culture.

Nadeine Asbali, author of "Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain", previously argued that the problem with Dune goes beyond its representation of Muslims.

“It is symptomatic of a wider problem in the film industry, which primes the public to dehumanise Arabs and Muslims to the end aim of legitimising our slaughter. If every other blockbuster film centres around a backwards Arab being modernised by an altruistic white guy or bombed into liberation by a Western state, then we normalise that happening in real life - which, incidentally, it already is,” she wrote in an editorial article for The New Arab.