It kind of is. In terms of action, it's faster. In terms of character development and plot, it's so slow as to go almost nowhere. I say almost because you do get a couple of moments where a character just suddenly flip flops.
@@erenbecomesdovecrying6016 I really don't understand this complaint. What is your idea of "connecting tissue" exactly? The film has a plot, and the scenes play out that plot in a linear, logical fashion.
@merlordmodding there's not a lot of build between the events. The movie jumps from one huge event to another without much plotting, conversation, or storytelling. I'm not saying it's bad necessarily, but it does move incredibly fast in terms of telling the story of Dune. I'm just pushing back on the idea that Dune 2 moves slow.
Brandon Sanderson is one of those people who is so prolific that I've wondered before, "How does this guy get so much done?"... here he is, signing autographs while simultaneously podcasting and talking in-depth about a complex story... I'm just like, "No wonder this guy gets so much done."
I agreed with Dan the first time I watched it - that the specific rationale for Paul's decision to head south AT THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT isn't very well conveyed. The second time I watched it, I realized that the tipping point was what immediately preceded Paul's decision: the Harkonnen raid of Sietch Tabr. In the aftermath of that, Paul says "I didn't SEE it coming". That's really the key line there. The whole first half we see him grappling with this decision - do I fight as a fremen among fremen and attain revenge by slowly bleeding out the Harkonnen apparatus, or do I step into the messianic role and accomplish the same in a fraction of the time, but with cascading consequences that spiral out into uncontrollable bloodshed. But when he realizes that his prescience fundamentally has limitations, he is forced to reevaluate what hangs in the balance of that choice. Knowing his prescience is 'incomplete', he comes to the uncomfortable realization that achieving victory as a mere fremen is far from guaranteed. That without being able to 'see further', nothing is guaranteed. And that's the moment that the scale tips ever so slightly but irreversibly towards the other direction. When confronted with a choice between uncertainty and control, he caves and picks the latter.
@@-tom-8720 You could definitely make that argument. But I also definitely like the movie more after a second watch because I caught things I didn't the first time around.
@@-tom-8720 Not really. Throughout the conversations in this podcast, Dan always seems to miss a lot of subtle details in everything he sees, and this might just be one more case of it. Brandon saw it as pretty obvious, and many other people as well, including people who haven't seen the original Lynch adaptation or read the books. The movie chooses to trust the viewer to put the pieces together, and that is a very respectable way of telling a story. Handholding is another, they both ask different things from viewers, but it is all a matter of preference.
At first, I was confused like Dan why Paul decided to go ahead and drink the water of life, but I realized his decision centered around the destruction of Sietch Tabr. after it’s destroyed, Paul says “I didn’t see this,” then he talks to Jamie in a vision of some kind and Jamie says to drink the water of Life and he will see, and then after Paul drinks the water, he says “I see everything now,” so in the end, his decision to drink the water of life is motivated by wanting to protect those he cares about.
I do think it was a little hard to follow his decision and that the movie could have done more to explicitly connect it with the destruction of Sietch Tabr. Because they didn't have the two year time jump in the movie he is not as connected with Sietch Tabr as he is in the book where that's been his home for two years. Also (book spoiler ahead) his and Chani's son dies in Sietch Tabr so there is another personal reason that that destruction is a catalyst. It's fine that the movie cut that, but I do think it would have been good for there to be more reason shown as to why the destruction of Sietch Tabr was so impactful for Paul.
Nah yeah Villeneuve fucked the story up a lot for me as a fan of the books... *Book 1 spoiler, don't read further if you if you intend on reading first book (which I highly recommend you do)* There is a time jump in which Paul and Chani have a son named Leto II, and Alia is already born.... when Sietch Tabyr is attacked baby Leto II is killed by Harkonnens and Alia is taken hostage to the emperors ship. It's not just their baby being killed but also Gurney holding a knife to Jessica's neck because he thought for 4 years straight that Jessica was the one who betrayed Leto and House Atreides. It's these events that motivate Paul to take the water of life because he couldn't see these events coming.
@@DHass-nl4jz agreed. See, going into the movie, I was expecting it to be after the time jump, so I wasn’t expecting it to pick up right where Part 1 left off. Made everything feel a little rushed. Still love the movie, but I think I like Part 1 better.
As good as the Dune movies were, going out of the cinema, I couldn't stop thinking that this is the treatment I want Misbtorn or Stormlight to get. A masterfully done passion project
@@srlong1123He would be a terrible fit for them, and I'm a Denis stan Sanderson's stories are all about fast paced action and clearly defined powers, fun dialogue and characters. Denis's style is the LITERAL opposite of that. Let's not just say we'd love a guy we like doing literally any project we also like the source material of...
Agreed, I don't think it's entirely fair to call him a villain (though I understand the choice of words cuz saying he is a hero is not quite true also). I can see why DV chose to portray the heel turn to make that known to the audience. But in the books we get a much more nuanced view of Paul's internal struggle. Ironically, having prescience and knowing the future illuminates for Paul just how little agency he has. He *will* become a messianic instrument of great strife regardless of what he does - locked in a seemingly endless pattern of human violence that plays out over and over again throughout the epochs
Probably, but they don’t really explain it well. Also, the book implies that the inevitability of the jihad was due to Paul’s hubris. This movie blames it on Jessica I guess. Also, he talks about a “narrow path” but it isn’t clear if that path was intended to avoid the jihad or what. So in the end when the jihad happens, was that him succeeding or failing at the narrow path.
Yeah, I feel like it's pretty undeniable that there was just no other way. Paul's alternative was to watch the Harkonnens slowly and inevitably destroy the Fremen, and eventually usurp the emperor, and turn the entire galaxy into their ceptic-tank world. I'm not seeing a huge range of options. Of course, the real question is, did Paul have to declare a holy war on the other houses once he got his revenge? My sense is that if he'd told the Fremen to just go back to the desert, that wouldn't have gone over well either. The bottom line was, the galaxy was primed for a war anyway, holy or otherwise. Paul wasn't the cause, he was the result of the emperor's choice to murder Leto. Everything ultimately resulted from the galaxy's rejection of Leto's humane governing style. Leto was the last hope of the galaxy to govern through mutual respect and popularity, rather than cruelty and violence.
@@rottensquid I agree but I'd add that that's the point! He's both a villain and seemingly the last hope, but only because no one else has been given a chance. The whole society runs on a strong patriarchal (or matriarchal) hierarchy that suppresses the populous and throws away lives to maintain power. Paul only sees one way, but who is he to choose the Path for everyone else? I read the whole series as a strong anti-authoritarian allegory (among other things). It gets more or less explicit in the fourth book when Leto II muses on his godliness, or lack thereof, in any case. Man, great series!
@@caden-reynolds I agree. The entire Dune series is far more dystopian than people seem to realize. There is no alternative to authoritarianism--and having Leto II wax poetic about "freeing" humanity through his own uber-authoritarianism is a level of absurdity that Frank Herbert clearly understood, but too few readers and proponents of The Golden Path can see.
Honestly your take that Paul is a villain is only barely beyond The superficial. Level one is seeing him as a traditional hero in a traditional hero arc. Level 2 is seeing that he is actually ultimately a dictator that oppresses humanity. Level 3 is seeing that he's a tragic hero who made terrible sacrifices and choices for the betterment of humanity, and ultimately chooses to die rather than continue down the path that costs him his full humanity. "Paul is actually a villain" is a cliff notes take on Dune that ignores any of the deeper philosophy of the books.
You could have more conflict with Rabban, have the middle be them defeating him, then Feyd takes over and attacks the Sietch and we end with Paul and the survivors heading south.
@@NateJones10 yeah this was the version I pitched to my friend the night I saw it. taking the momentum, putting harkonnen back on their heels, until feyd intervenes and they flee to the south, makes a perfect act 2 IMO. the version we got is rushed and confusing just to avoid being 2 movies long
We DID get to see Bautista's Rabban be a beast and a brute. The scene in the first film where he is beheading prisoners, and also his general foolishness and tactical mistakes. In Dune 2 he makes an attack against Fedaykin and they defeat his forces so utterly he immediately runs for his life. That's his fall, the beast has been put in its place, which is why he's not showing that "beast" for the rest of the film.
I think making a third middle film would have risked needing to either contrive a dramatic midpoint finale like the Hobbit films, or have sort of an anticlimax. As cool as the worm ride is, it wouldn't make much of a finale. I do hope that the third film, Messiah, illustrates the level of prescience Paul experiences that would explain his sudden change into a seemingly heartless leader
Hobbit was terrible as a 3 parter, and would have been far better as a 2 parter imo. I agree with these two in that Dune needed 3 films. So much was left out (especially mentats, Arrakeen culture more BG etc). Also, they could have made them a bit shorter while omitting less.
My guess is that the Messiah film will follow the POV of Chani and Irulan (now that Paul is prescient) and will involve Chani eventually leading the Fremen to rebel against Paul, and discovering in the end that Paul deliberately sacrificed himself to be toppled so the Fremen could unite around a leader from their own people. It would be a great way to cap off both characters and their relationship. Having the 3rd film end with Chani mortally wounding him, and discovering before he dies that he planned all of it as part of securing the future for the Fremen which she wanted, would be a pretty powerful ending which would let them topple Paul while still redeeming the character.
I wanted more of: the Guild Navigators, because leaving them out means we never really got a sense of the true importance of Spice; Gurney's backstory, as it really does explain his loyalty to the Atreides; a longer time span for Paul to become Muad Dib; Paul's reaction after taking the water of life, not just drink and become evil but him going through the surely immense mental rewiring that comes with being able to see everything all at at once.
I didn't see it as Paul becoming "evil" when he drank the Water of Life. I saw him making a choice to do something he knows will complicate things, so that he can more aptly choose the path he will follow, understanding the costs and benefits as he chooses.
I get that the movies can't be the books, but they cut out SO MANY important details, and without those details, the characters' motivations either made no sense, or were as contrived as of the lazy writing coming out of Hollywood these days. Not to mention the direction they took Chani really pissed me off. It really took the nuance out of what Herbert was trying to get across. Instead of a complex story about being forced to make make choices because of forces beyond your control for the good of your people, they reduced her down to a pouting brat.
Paul makes the "Decision" when he goes to commute with Jamis after he is being called by the council of leaders in the south, he goes talks to Jamis who tells him "You must see" which means that even Jamis wants him to go to the south and perform the ritual. Then he talks to Chani and tells her that he fears that if he goes South he might lose her, she assures him that he won't as long as he stays who he is, and there he makes the choice of basically going with the flow on this one instead of keep struggling against it. For as much power as Paul has, he is slave to destiny. I think both films are 10/10 Part 2 is much faster pacing wise and most of the changes from the book are pretty smart. Denis said he is adapting Frank Herbert's intention, not the book, because even that book is flawed, which led to Herbert writing Dune Messiah to clarify his intentions with the first book. Denis has this hindsight and decided to do just that from the beginning. Like Brandon says, that is the entire point of Part 2 and why the signposting is so strong in that direction.
Pretending you know the intentions of a dead author always sounds so arrogant, and typically ends up being what the director wishes the author intended, not what they actually intended. There are ways to better emphasize that Paul is not a hero besides changing Channi’s character and having her leave. In fact, I’d argue it diminishes the real horror of what Paul is. They should have shown the horrors of the Jihad. The billions killed. Not “Oh so sad the protagonist lost the girl.”
@@Florkl There's no need to "pretend" anything here. It is very well documented that Herbert was dismayed by the reaction people had to Paul in the first book, thinking of him as a heroic savior, which is exactly what Herbert was warning people about. Denis is not pretending to know intentions, he knows them, the same as many other readers who have gone beyond the book and started to learn about Herbert as a person and his own thoughts about his own work. There isn't arrogance in there, only respect. Chaging Chani's character is just one of the ways to make clear that Paul is on a path to destruction, but it is one of the most effective ones because it affects Paul on a personal level instead of just presenting the situation as a "Big Picture" kind of deal. It humanizes Paul even further, focuses on the irony of him being a walking God and still being a slave to destiny, it creates a tangible thing for him to lose, and it also creates a more dynamic Fremen society, which instead of being shown as a monolith, shows it as being composed of individuals with different beliefs and values, which is way more realistic. While Denis is adapting Herbert's intentions, which affect the movie on a character and thematic level the most, he is still working within the confines of the book, thus, showing the horrors of the Jihad and millions killed makes no sense because that war hasn't started, and it only begins in the last couple of minutes. These horrors are still alluded to in the film using Paul's visions, which feed into his reluctance to follow the path that has been laid before him. So, your solution ends up being something that goes outside the confines of the first book, and also makes the entire situation one-dimensional. Instead, the movie goes for a more layered approach that fits better the situation, the feelings and the logical conundrums that characters are facing within the story.
@@glass12 This is interesting - I misunderstood Herbert too, but in a way where I was always disappointed with the resolution to book 1. I always thought book 2 was a great pre-Sanderson-esque ending to the Paul Atreides story.
@@glass12I am aware of the regrets- that’s why I mentioned emphasizing the horrors of Paul’s actions. It’s everything beyond what’s documented that I have issues with. Slightly extending the scope of the timeline for the movie to show a bit of that jihad in action is still much less of a change than what they did to Chani. Especially since any adaptation of Dune Messiah will have to either be wildly different from the book, or else walk back the change, making it a waste of time and negating the message.
@@Florkl I disagree completely. Overextending the timeline to show that in this movie makes no sense, not only because that is not part of the first book, and thus scenes likes those are better saved for the third film but also because there wouldn't be enough time to make them justice, and it would only end up hurting the pacing and cohesion of this film. That's why Dune Messiah exist in the first place, and thus it makes sense to dedicate an entire film to those consequences, instead of an appendix in this one. What they did to Chani only creates a more complex character, which is always welcome in my opinion. Also, Paul very clearly states in this movie that he has seen that Chani will come around, and why not? They are clearly in love, and Chani's reaction is more than logical for the character she was established in the movie as, however, being a complex character and not just the idea of one, she, just like Paul will struggle to find a way to make their relationship work even if everything is put against, even themselves. Nothing done in Part 2 negates any message at all, it just adds more layers to the situation, as it should be. Also, the ending of this film with Chani going into the desert makes perfect sense if you go back to see Part 1 and how that movie ended and also how Messiah will end. Denis is clearly thinking ahead when making decision for each one of these films.
"Except when I put my pants on, I make gold records". I once met ol Col. Angus down the way by Shady Thickets. What a distinguished man of culture he was!! Thoroughly impressed with the old codger.
always felt weird telling people I preferred the first movie because the hype online was crazy after Dune part 2 came out. Happy to hear that I wasn't the only one enjoying the first one more
I think Dune pt.1 is definitely the better stand-alone film (so long as you're OK with an open ending). I rewatched pt.1 the week before seeing pt.2 in preparation, and I do think pt.2 is absolutely incredible. so long as you consider Dune to be one very long film. Dune Pt.2 as its own thing, not so much.
Most of the dinner scene only makes sense because everything is explained about the secret phrase and why things are being said. To make that scene make sense you would need an entire movie alone of backstory so that everyone understands all the layers and references.
That is an odd quibble, about the Paul not saying "Desert Power" or in general the film being more expositional or literal. They show us the desert power for the entire middle portion of the film and then really flop it out at the end in a terrifying way. Like as cool as the battle of Arrakeen was, it was also an exacrt display of the exactr thing that Paul feared but couldn't escape. I feel it was as in your face as it could be without being told. Anything else would have been a heavy hand on something that was already fairly heavy handed. Zero subtlety. The only thing I missed from this adaption was not getting to see Chani and Paul lose their first child and that also cementing the bond so that the end scene doesn't feel like he is totally betraying Chani. He is betraying himself but not here. It will also make Dune Messiah a lot different if she is something of a foil to Paul. With the lack of a character like Otheym being set up, it almost feels like Chani might replace him in some way in Messiah. That being said, I have faith in Denis and his creative team because, this was a good an adaptation as we would get in a movie form. Sting or Patrick Stuart would have been great alternative casting for the Shaddam the IV, Sting would've (could still) be a cool Count Fenring. I don't need any cameos from the OG but if they were going to do that those spots would have fit well.
I think super terrifying resolution of Toddler Alia problem would be showing Jessica killing Harkonen and later showing a vision with Anya standing on the dessert with blood on her knife. Jessica already seemed crazy and possesed by her on the movie, this scene would emphasise that. Not including this have a devastating consequences on Alia's further character development.
I think that would work well for Alia. But make no sense for Jessica without further developing her hate for her literal father. Imo Paul was the best person to kill him for an on screen adaptation.
@@carontorliak2760 I mean that Alia would kill baron using her mother, controlling her. It wouldn't be Jessica's conscious decision. However she has as many reasons to hate baron as Paul (Vladimir's literal grandson).
Toddler Alia is OP in Dune. In Dune Messiah she is crazy and fucking over everyone. She is going to have no good phase. She has who claim to rule. Alia of the blade... Maybe she gets that name by slaughtering everyone who doesn't accept her rule, OMG.... Now we have a divided fan base. Haters going to hate and man haters going to love. The Baron was the enemy of the whole Fremen people. Who killed him directly with a knife? Little Fremen Alia. ALIA OF THE KNIFE! ALIA OF THE KNIFE! ALIA OF THE KNIFE!
St. Alia of the Knife In the Lynch film, whatever you think of it, there is one shot of her in the desert standing among the dead and dying Harkonnen & Sardukaur, with a bloody knife and a demented grin on her tiny face.
I disliked how they did Chani pitting her against paul works, but with the shortened timeline it undercuts their relationship massively for me and outright pitting her against the Fremen makes her feel distinctly not fremen. Whereas she was the window & anker point into that culture in the books
She can take the role of the Fremen who miss the old ways in Messiah and ultimately participate in the conspiracy. She sees herself as staying loyal to the Fremen while others have abandoned the culture in exchange for ruling the galaxy.
@@calebmauer1751 It still leaves a narrative void. Chani is a pivotal figure in Paul's life and their absolutely devotion to each other is a central motivator.
I'm guessing those are pages that will eventually get bound into books. Doing it that way is just less cumbersome than shipping him 50k 800 page hardcovers.
I feel like Dune dropped the ball pretty hard in the scene where Paul says he's going to marry Irulan. In the book there is the whole explanation that she's going to be the wife, but in name only, and that Chani as concubine is the favored person. Irulan is never going to even get to touch him. It is a big payoff for all the epigraphs written by Irulan that shows a kind of obsession with Paul, and as a slap in the face to the Bene Gesserit and their plotting.
@@haukionkannelThey just had to make a woman conflict with a man in this day and age there can never be harmony shown between men and women. Girl bosses have to boss.
@@haukionkannel Or. By cutting Hara and entire facet of Fremen culture to appease common western sensibilities diminish her character. Fremen where polygamous and Chani having problems with extra wifes is unFremenlike.
I don't agree, Paul tells Chani over and over again, most notably mere moments before saying he will wed Irulan, that he loves her and only her for as long as he breathes. Previously in the movie, Lady Jessica tells Paul that he will wed the most strategic partner. This does more than enough to get the message across that it's a power-establishing wedding and that it will never be anything but surface level.
Doesn't the whole idea of "The Golden Path" really undercut the idea of Paul as a villain? I mean, spoiler alert, but the books indicate that Paul's problem is that he wants to avenge his father and make the Universe a more just place for his family and the Fremen, but the Jihad is a consequence of that and is out of his hands once he's gone far enough down that road, and that he's unwilling to push the Jihad far enough to put them on the "Golden Path" he foresees, because he's horrified by it, and he leaves that up to his son to finish for him. That puts him more in the "tragic hero" position as a reader, although from a complete outsider perspective he's essentially Ghengis Khan but with a personal ethic that's more understandable to our civilization. I mean, the whole end of "The Golden Path" as I understand it is to make humans unable to be dominated by _anyone_ but that's part of what I like about Dune in the first place, the morality is really, really complex.
I would say the golden path undermines Lehto II as a villain. Paul doesn't have the guts to do it, can't make that sacrifice thus reinforcing him as a villain.
Paul is Darth Vader, he had the chance to achieve the Golden Path but stumbled on the way. Leto II is Luke, who managed to avoid the precipice Vader fell into.
@@glass12 Um, no. This misses the entire point of Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune... Paul is not Darth Vader. He saw the Golden Path and chose the "lesser of two evils" to save humanity, which required allowing evils to be done in his name. He became a figurehead, powerless in his own empire, with a government and religion springing up around him, (fueled by the revenge-obsessed Fremen and the Bene Gesserit Missionara Protectiva). Paul spent his life trying to avoid the worst futures he saw, while staying on the Golden Path to humanity's survival. After a certain point, he even worked toward tearing down the false figurehead that the Fremen had created out of him, along with the government and religion surrounding him. Leto is not Luke... I don't even know where to begin... there is no comparison here.
For Dan's comments on the dinner scene in part 1, the whole city felt completely unlived in, like the world is just comprised of singular hero types standing stoically in places, rather than a real lived in city. For me, the miniseries does the best job there making it feel lived in.
Seems like so many people did not read the Frank Herbert Dune books. Has everyone forgotten about the Golden Path? Bottom line is Paul separated himself from the path. The Golden Path was generations of a Theocracy with an iron hand for control with large amounts of death all in his name but the outcome would put the human race in the best possible position to survive. In doing so it would require him to be regarded as a despot, a tyrant king and also to be a God. Paul couldn't make that decision; he could skirt with it for the protection of his family and for the death of his enemies but he couldn't fully embrace it and so he abandoned it and in doing so removed himself from the Golden path. We learn later that his son Leto would see the path and make the decision to follow it. The path would be at the cost of his humanity, his family, and friends and eventually his life.
Context from Dune Messiah when he is abandoned in the desert - “He told me the future no longer needed his physical presence,” Tandis had reported. “When he left me, he called back. ‘Now I am free’ were his words.”
Thank you, the folks that are raving for this adaption have obviously never read the books or have forgotten them. Having read the books multiple times, watched all versions (the SpiceDiver’s as well) , I currently feel the SyFi version was a better adaptation (would be interesting to see what they could have done with a huge budget and a few more hours. The new version is visually stunning and beautiful, it does lose much of the plot and makes some jumps to fill gaps, for someone that’s never read the books, it works, although they will miss a lot that from the books. If anything maybe some folks will take the chance to pick up the books and get the full picture/experience.
@@michaelpayne8102I started to watch Dune part 1 and I think I was ten or fifteen minutes in when I ordered Herberts six books. It just drew me in. I wanted to know all about the magic system, the politics, the history. As I kept watching I just got more and more excited to get my brain on those books.
@@michaelpayne8102 Indeed. Dune has always been right outside of my intentions, for decades, the movie just pushed it right over the line. The only redeeming quality of the wheel of time series for instance has to be that it may bless some poor soul with the joy of reading the series who otherwise wouldn't have.
For me Paul’s “heel turn” is just him picking the best future for him, and a small group of his people. In the movie he mentions “enemies all around, but I see a narrow way through.” He is choosing the behaviors and actions that will lead to his success in the long term, despite the temporary damage he will do to his people.
It really bugs me how people misrepresent Paul's relationship with the Fremen. Yes, he used them as warriors, but he definitely did not exploit them in the way people are portraying it. He eventually terraforms the planet and literally gives them the green paradise they've yearned after for generations. They got exactly what they wanted from him. The conflict comes from the fact that they weren't prepared for such a radical shift in their lifestyle, and that causes a splinter faction of traditionalist fremen who want to go back to the old ways.
I believe that he is setting himself up to eventually be killed by Chani as a way of handing leadership of the Fremen over to her, so that they will truly be led by one of their own, just like he says they deserve to be in the 2nd film. My guess is that the Dune: Messiah film will be mostly from the POV of Chani and Irulan (now that Paul is omniscient, it would be difficult for him to be the protagonist) and him deliberately setting himself up to be toppled would align well with the character as presented to us in the 2nd film.
So after watching Dune 2 I did a relisten to the audiobooks and decided to power on past Children of Dune where I gave up last time. What I noticed is right at the beginning of God Emperor of Dune it starts with a heist wherein a young woman steals the journal of a seemingly immortal tyrant who has made himself a god and that journal is studied by conspirators seeking to kill the effectively unkillable god with excerpts of the journal used as interludes between chapters... (seems familiar doesn't it?) so the way i see it is it appears that Brandon took the point where most readers reading Dune myself included are turned off and put the story down (ie Leto choosing the golden path and becoming an immortal god emperor) and made it the starting point for Mistborn. It is also of note that in Dune House Atreides dovetails nicely with Preservation and House Harkonin Dovetails nicely with ruin and it is only by embracing his dual nature as both an atreides and harkonin that paul is able to overthrow the emporer... in my opinion Frank Herbert excelled at world building and philosiphising but the later stories lacked any characters with which the reader can truly connect I just didn't care what happened because I was just hearing words with no connection to any characters... Mistborn does a better job of giving me characters with whom I could connect and a narrative that was enjoyable beyond book 1.
The timing was a bit off for me in dune 2. She was pregnant the entire time but then Paul gathered all these people to follow him, millions of people in that short of a time frame? That’s tough for me.
It wasn't a short time though, it actually does take place over more time. That's why they said it's kind of like a montage, more time is implied to be happening than what we directly see on screen. Jessica going south happened quite a while after they got there, and then she was in the south for a long time. Rabban fought against the Fremen for a long time before Feyd Rautha gets involved. The way they show the ambushes on harvesters, implies that there are more we aren't seeing, and I don't think they're just doing them every day without ever going back home. Plus Gurney Halleck's story implies he had enough time to get a job he's already tired of. The movie was fast but it was depicting time passing, maybe even the two years from the books.
32:41 the Dune: Prophecy trailer was just released about the same time as this video it's indeed going the prequel route with bene gesserit! Dan Wells needs to rewarded a full case of soda :)
I'm so excited for Dune Prophecy. I'm a massive fan of the Brian/Kevin books, and I think the show will help people understand that Dune, as a saga, is about the Sisterhood and it saving humanity from itself
@@TK4K411 Me too. Especially after looking at the casting, I'm afraid of them just taking a few things from the source material and just making everything else up to try and get a new GOT. Then it fails and they say well audiences just don't want fantasy anymore 🙄
The changes to Jessica, Chani, and Stilgar make them mere vehicles for conflicting plot themes and diminish their characters and their connections to Paul immensely
A lot of people seem not to like Frank Herbert’s story. Let’s re-write it. Chani and Paul are enemies, not lovers . Mentants-let’s forget about that. Spacing Guild-lose it! Tlielexue-No, no. Bulterian Jihad-don’t mention it. Convention against using Atomics on your enemy-not important.
It is, what is clear is that he is being forced to take a path he doesn't want to because it leads to the death of billions. This perfectly fits the way Paul is portrayed in Dune Messiah. He is never depicted as an evil person, he is not a Sauron or a Voldermort type character, but did open up the path for countless atrocities to be done in his name, and he is conflicted about it, as he should. Things just got out of hand.
I agree 100%. In this movie it is not clear that he is a villain at all. For all we know, he could be right that defeating the Harkonnens and the emperor at all costs is the lesser of evils due to what they would do over time if he doesn't. I think people are using their knowledge of later books to inform their understanding of this movie, which doesn't say anywhere concretely that his decision was wrong or villainous.
@@glass12 This. This is why Paul is such a great character. People try and say he is the villian of the story but that is just as much an over simplification of him as saying he is the Chosen One. House Harkonnen and House Corrino are definitely villians in the story and I would argue that defeating them is a heroic moment. Atleast for the Fremen, who are the main viewpoint we are viewing the Harkonnen occupation from. And you could say that the lives of most of the Fremen improved from what Paul did. But it is a classic example of "do the ends justify the means", and why we shouldnt put people on pedestals. Paul doesnt feel good about it but I think he feels justified and there are terrible consequences for what happens. If he hadnt done what he did what would have become of the Fremen and the Harkonnens? Violence still would have occured.
I think the big thing was the omission of the spacing guild. Without that it doesnt make sense how paul gets off world, doesnt explain why the spacing guild was hiding the fact that their was life in the south of arrakis and their conspiracy to smuggle spice out of the south. Also Fenrings scenes being cut also upset me a bit even more when i heard tim blake nelson played him.
All they needed was Stilgar sending the spice bribe to the guild, and guild agents preventing the great houses from landing at the end. Which would have been helped by the guild banker being at the dinner scene we lost in part 1
@@MrSmokinDragon I think knowing more about the space guild adds stakes that contribute to the themes. In the movie you kind of don't see the connection between spice and the ability for space travel to happen, so it's a little less clear why spice is important other than just being an addictive drug that can enable visions
For pronunciation, Frank Herbert did interviews where he pronounced Harkonnen as you hear it in Denis' movies.The fight of Paul against his cousin showcases Paul's transformation to villain. He denies Gurney's revenge after completing his own, for the sake of his own prestige.
I really don't think Paul is a villain in the books or the movies. It's incredibly nuanced, nowhere near as simple as "villain" or "hero" - he sees/feels the Jihad happening as an inevitability, even if he were to die right then and there. The momentum has begun and he can't stop it.
I don't see Paul as a villain. I haven't reread the books but I saw him as agonising between horrendous options. The alternative to Jihad was strongly implied if not outright stated to be even worse just not obviously his responsibility (but he'd know).
Right off the bat I'm very confused. The book does not skip them falling in love It does not skip him becoming Fremen and it does not skip hit him learning how to ride a sandworm.... That said, I completely understood why they didnt do the leap.
My only complaint was that the final assault scenes were too short, I hope there is an extended edition released one day with an additional 10mins of footage. It felt like a lot of build up for not quite enough pay off.
Denis extended that sequence as much as he could. In the book is like 1 or 2 pages and that's it. For me, it was enough, it showed how unprepared the Emperor really was, and like Brandon explains here in the podcast, he was only holding the throne by a thread. Denis also doesn't do Director's Cuts, his theatrical cuts are his final cuts, and everything left on the cutting room floor is there for a reason.
@@glass12the final attack is way more than 1 or 2 pages. The emperor's retinue preparing in his throne room with alia murdering the baron and Paul's forces breaking in all happens before the fight scene with feyd.
@@MR-TH-camChangedMyHandle We are talking about the assault scenes to the palace. The opener said it was too short and wanted more of an extended battle. Indeed, the battle outside the palace is like one page in the book, nothing more. Herbert was focused more on the characters inside the palace.
Probably a rare exception, but E.T. grossed almost $800 million IN THE 80s...and although Spielberg was tempted at one point, a sequel/prequel hasn't come out yet. Though, this is talking about a movie from the greatest movie director so he's going to have much more power over these things than most directors.
It's the inevitability of the jihad Paul was constantly fighting against in the book, and the heel turn is the acknowledgement that there is literally no holding back the galactic-level need for genetic refreshment after thousands of years of separation and stagnation. It's kind of the iron fate of Greek tragedies with a dose of Jung thrown in, I feel.
To me, I liked part 1 more. It had more of the trippy art- film nature that I think fit really well with the books. Part 2 had some of it but it felt more like a stock action-adventure block-buster.
Paul is not a villain in the books, nor this movie I think. He is meant to be a caution about over-trusting heroic figures. To accomplish that, Herbert wrote a mostly genuine heroic figure (I say mostly bc his motives for leading the Fremen are mixed), whose life led to tragic and horrible consequences. The Jihad and allowing the Fremen fanaticism is portrayed as something Paul cannot responsibly avoid. Therefore Paul is written as a tragic figure also, trapped in a course he clearly does not want. A villain would be depicted differently.
Paul was avoiding two outcomes - humanity's extinction and the golden path. The jihad was the "easy" middle ground between the two positions. Leto became the tyrant and followed the golden path because he was stronger than Paul because he was preborn like Alia but had Ghanima to help him not descend to abomination.
@@WHlSKYtx Nope. We could argue about whether Paul becomes evil, though I don't think Herbert intended him to be seen that way. But "villain" is a role in a story that Paul clearly does not fill. The Harkonnens, the Emperor, and to some extent the Bene Gesserit fill that and Paul is opposed to them. Movie (not book) Jessica comes close to fitting that role. Her motives can be seen as more nefarious because she's not seeing future possibilities and realizing there's no good alternative. After she takes the Water of Life in the movie, she shifts from being a mother to pretty much totally being driven to a need to realize the BG dream of producing a Kwisatz Haderach.
I read Dune in high school and spent the next 40 years wishing for a faithful film rendition. Now that there is one, I'm having second thoughts about the source material.
After I saw Dune Part 2, I felt like I might have missed something about Paul's process leading up to going south. So then I went back to see it on my own the next week! On rewatch, I could appreciate all the buildup, building blocks, and the moment of decision leading to it. The movie presents characters on a journey, but it doesn't hold your hand or explain everything to you. I honestly liked that I had to rewatch it to understand the film. 10/10 for me.
My take is that the movies were divided to focus on Paul's three roles. Part 1 feels like the Atreides movie, while Part 2 focuses on his role as the Lisan al Gaib. Part 3 will be about Paul navigating the powers/perils of being the Kwisatz Haderach.
So many people here posting comments that demonstrate their obvious ignorance of the books. Villeneuve got a lot wrong in this movie. Paul is not a messiah, villain or heel and he was not motivated by revenge. Everything he did was to try to help others and in opposition to Bene Gesserit scheming, but his insistence to avoid the Golden Path is what led to all the death and destruction in his name. Paul was ultimately a tragic coward who ran away from the sacrifice required to save humanity, a mantle taken up by his son. And a film adaptation of God Emperor would be amazing! Who wouldn't want to watch a giant human/worm hybrid god act like a total asshole for 2 hours? LOL
I have to agree with Dan on this one. Having never read the book, what I saw was Paul seeing himself become the villain and fearing that, only to suddenly be super on board. Him becoming a villain wasn't the problem, it was that I didn't know why. But everything that happened after he embraced that was absolutely riveting.
I get that everyone will interprest things differently. To me it seemed pretty clear: It was signposted by the emperor that he felt leto was weak because he put love before duty Paul resists the mantle of messiah until he is blindsided by feyd rautha Harkonnen's attack Moreover, he sees that if he keeps fighting the way he does, Chani will die So to save Chani, he becomes a villain (that chani cannot love) and embraces the false messianic mantle also, interestingly, the movie has a structure where effectively, the climax stands at the midpoint, when Paul decides to become the lisan al Gaib, where the whole second half feels more like dominoes falling into place than the protagonist overcoming obstacles. The tension lowers throughout the ending, with a rather anticlimactic final battle. I'm not sure how deliberate that is, but it feels like the writer and director don't want us to cheer to much at the end and make the battle underwhelming on purpose, conveying the inevitability granted by prescience, and resulting in something resembling a tragic 5 act structure more than an epic 3 act structure. The first part also culminated towards the midpoint, in the harkonnen attack and was more a journey towards the within after that, with smaller and smaller stakes throughout the last act, which I find interesting.
I think it's established early on that Paul is capable of both tenderness, empathy, compassion aswell as violence, coldness, vindictiveness so when the conflict between the Fremen and the Harkonnens reaches a boiling point with the destruction of Sietch Tabr, I felt that it makes sense for him to give into one of the 2 forces pulling at him throughout the story. He wasn't a "villain" at that point though but when he drinks the water of life he is filled with the pain and sorrow of all his male & female ancestors he begins to constantly live in the past and future all at once. All this combined with the revelation that he is part harkonnen, I felt it made sense to me but that being said, if it didn't hit for you then it didn't hit.
I think Dune Part 2 was a good film. I understand why some of the changes were necessary, but I'm somewhat baffled by the choices with Chani. Especially if he's going to adapt Dune Messiah. It's just a weird place to have to start from.
Paul became a villain for the same reason as Daenerys will (I think). It was the only way for his family to be safe. He has to overthrow the Harkonnens just like Dany had to overthrow the Lannisters. She was barefoot and pregnant in the desert and they still sent someone halfway around the world to kill her. Sometimes the only way to survive is to be on top, no matter how many skulls you have to pile up to get there.
@@isoldam I don't think of Dany as a villain either. They're both definitely tragic figures. Fire and blood was always in their future, whether they won or lost.
Oh! I understand that line now. "...by being Harkonnens." Ive seen it twice now and hadn’t understood that line but Dan's mere mention of it cleared that up. Cool, thanks guys!
Dune II is an ABSOLUTE master class on the art of omission. SOOOO many huge part of the book were omitted and it still ran beauuutifully, to the point i started to marvel at the beauty of the ommissions themselve. (space guild's plots, jessica's "betrayal", Allya, poison knife, paul's kid, the old mentats, the attempted assassination on daddy Harkonen (actually pretty small thing, but big for me personally)). In the hands of any SLIGHTLY LESS capable hands, even a single one of these ommissions could've been catastrophic.
With walken, for me I was a little underwhelmed, until the final few scenes when you see that last little bit of fight in the emperor. I think he was perfect as a once powerful ruler, watching it all slip away.
I feel like his character was portrayed poorly, on purpose. The typical "let's make him an old white and dumb guy and show how it's HER [Irulan] who should have ruled all along". Same with the "let's make the southern Fremen the dumb religious folks while the Northern woman (Chani) tells what's up (breaking the "Show, don't tell" rule) in her typical American accent VERY uncharacteristic of a Fremen.
I profoundly disagree with both of you regarding the ending of the movie. I thought what happened in the last 3rd was jarring and a betrayal of the subtle nature of the book: - throughout the movie we have a Paul that's soft-spoken and self-reflective, quite introverted in a way and preferring to hang out with Chani's friends and away from all the people whispering about Lisan al-Gaib. Then, after the water of life scene in the temple Paul suddenly becomes this screeching prophet that paces around a lot and gestures violently, a look that I think was supposed to be commanding but which I did not think Timothee Chalamet with his lithe figure managed to pull off well - Chani's turn was also jarring, one moment she was asking Paul to be with her forever and the next she was huffing and puffing at every turn until finally she left. The whole thing seemed comical to me, I saw those small acts of rebellion as the angry fits of a petulant child. But even if I'm wrong, we see a separation between Paul and Chani at the end of the 2nd movie which will now have to be completely undercut by their getting together again to have children, unless Denis Villeneuve decides to deviate even more profoundly from the books. I disliked Mr. Sanderson's blunt labeling of Paul as a villain. On reading the books I never saw him as either a villain or hero, but as a tragic figure who, despite being able to see the myriad future is in fact trapped by his role in history. I'm sure a lot of people agree with Mr. Sanderson's characterization of Paul as a villain, but wouldn't it be nice to have the freedom to interpret things for yourself as a viewer, the way the books allow you to? Instead, all of the complexity of Paul's character is undercut my Denis Villeneuve's decision to essentially have Paul go "ok, I'm going to be a bad guy now....EVERYONE, LOOK UPON YOUR GOD AS FORETOLD BY PROPHECY!" But hey, I was unimpressed by Zendaya's acting in this movie so maybe I'm just dumb.
Aquaman as duncan, poe damron as leto, dave bautista as the harkonnen guy, spidermans girlfriend as chani, those are all fine apparently, yet christopher walken as the emperor isnt? People are weird.
Totally with you. Only exception for me is Duncan, If the series ever went any further I think hes a good canidate for the themes his character shows in the books.
Great video, honestly, I think you guys are being generous 😄 Dune One is a 9/10 for me, Dune Two is a 6.5/10 in my book. Dune Two felt so cliché at times. Harconnen badies felt like usual movie villains…Colors were boring to my eyes. In dune one the desolation of the planet dune was so impactful exactly because we were able to experience Caladan before we went there. This was missing for me in Dune Two. The harconnen planet was too cliché. Black and white for villains is nothing new. Also, the duel, the finale was spoiled in the trailers…come on 😄
I have some thoughts. 1) Paul was not a villain in the books. He picked the Jihad as the easier of two really bad options, avoiding the golden path. If he had have done anything else, humanity would go extinct. Much is made of Herbert's comments about Dune being a warning about charismatic leaders, which it is - they change the world and not necessarily in ways you would like. But he clearly saw the technological threats of top down control and machine violence being the far greater dangers to humanity. 2) Chani was easily and by far the worst part of Dune part 2. It felt like someone picked up a modem Californian and then transplanted them into the world of Dune. 3) Two movies for the second half of Dune would have been too much. I'm glad Dennis did what he did (Chani notwithstanding).
I didn’t understand why they would attack the spice crawlers from underneath when they could just blast them from the side of the mountain tops. The first action, scene, where it showed Paul dodging the fire from the helicopter was a cool scene, but I felt like it didn’t make sense seeing that they could just shoot their blue lasers at them from the mountain tops and blow them up.
My take on it was they had to first disable the shields on the crawler. The book explains that hitting a shield with the laser beam causes an atomic bomb effect.
I had the same issue with Christopher Walken as the Emperor. I feel like someone like Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, or even Ian McKellan would have been able to meld with the character more. CW is an AMAZING actor, but he just was too jarring for me.
I don't care if it's not good, I don't care if it flops. I want to see general audiences react to a giant sandworm philosophizing and yeling "MONEO! Get my cart!" for 2-3 hours
God Emperor IMO is not as hard to adapt as people think. It would be hard if they adapt it literally and it's just 3 hours of monologue, but there's actually quite a lot of fascinating stuff that happened in those thousand of years during his rule.
I missed Alia, but she's my favorite character in the entire series. I understand what you're saying about how hard it is to do the child version but I think to do her character justice in the next movie there will need to be a lot of leg work to make up for lost time. People should be terrified of her, and they should have good reason. Plus she should be fremen through and through and I'm not sure how that will happen in the palace.
This episode came out 40 minutes ago, your comment is 23 minutes old, and the episode is 36 minutes long. It's easy not to comprehend something when you discount any opinion but your own.
Casting, for me: Zendaya. Before I'd seen the first movie I'd have said no way. After seeing it, I can't imagine anyone else in that role. Christopher Walken. The Emperor is famous. Walken is famous. Oh look, that guy! I'm fine with that. Anya Taylor-Joy. This is who should have played Princess Irulan. She looks high and royal. She LOOKS like she could be Walkens daughter. Florence Pugh. This is who should have been Alia. Partly because Alia will have a more major role in any following movie(s), and I'd love to see more of Florence. She rocks.
It wasn't good. It could have been good but then they did all those daylight desert scenes with faces exposed -the magically appearing mask was the absolute pinnacle though. I also found the atomics scene disappointing and that's one where this should have excelled.
10:30 Paul is NOT a pawn of the Bene Gesserit. That is literally, and I do mean literally, the entire premise of the whole Dune saga. Jessica disobeyed the Bene Gesserit orders to have a daughter because she truly loved Duke Leto. This produced the planned Kwisatz Hadderach at least one generation early, so that Paul, with the defiant eyes of his Father Duke Leto, had true individual agency. This is why although the BG co-opted the Fremen Lisan Al-Gaib prophecy for their own purpose, Paul is the genuine Mahdi, the true Messiah. He not only ticks the prerequisite boxes, but he actually delivers the green paradise to the Fremen, which was not in anyone's interest, including the Bene Gesserit, as seen throughout the sequels. This does not mean that Paul is perfect or wholly benevolent or altruistic, but he absolutely is a true Hero, and the pinnacle of individual human power and agency. It's all in the text, and Herbert has also explained it all explicitly in interviews. Please, for the love all that is good in the world, please, please pay attention and stop spreading misinformation.
Dude, exactly. Some people are upset at Herbert's writing of religion and also the movie's, but the Fremen religion was ultimately right and I think both mediums got that across really well. The Bene-Gesserit may have invented the religion, but it's possible that on a planet full of spice users, more real visions were had.
I think the big reason for the plot problem you all discussed was that the movies cut the most fundamental emotional subplots. In the book, the moment Paul made the decision to go villian was motivated by his infant son being killed by the Harkonnens. Because they cut the time jump, Paul no longer has a family, and thus no longer has such personal motivation for his jump. On the topic of what they'll call the next movie, I wish they'd called Part 2 Dune: Prophet, which was the name of part 3 in the book, so calling the next one Dune: Messiah works better.
What I brought out of the cinema was the way they Fremen sand-walk disappeared from the movie as soon as Paul rode his first worm. You have the scene with Chani mocking Paul for doing it badly and teaching him the proper way, and a scene with Paul and Stilgar doing it on the way to get the worm, and then you have at least half a dozen scenes across the rest of the movie where someone is walking through the open desert, shown from shoulder up, and walking normally or stomping petulantly, but always moving in a straight line with none of the bob-and-weave of a proper sand-walk. I might not have noticed if they hadn't had the scene with Chani calling attention to it.
Also it is specifically said in that same scene with Chani and Paul that they arent in worm territory yet. So there is clearly some spots where they can move with out doing the sand walk.
I must admit i was bummed about the change in the knife fight as well specially showcasing the mindgames and the scheming of the harkonnens like the barons plan with Rabban as a placeholder so that feyd is a saviour in arrakis eyes more obvious and i missed that Tim Blake Nelson was cut from the movie cause im pretty sure he was gonna be Count Fenrig and for a character that has like two scenes and four minutes of time im so certain he wouldve brought and Oscar worthy performance. He wouldve been absurdly good in that smallest of roles. But its a killer movie
That must be a big series, like Game of Thrones, even one book is way too long for a movie. One book would need like 3x3 hours to have a fighting chance. But I would love to see it.
@@AleksandarIvanov69 100% my thinking. His hatred of dialogue explains a lot but not why he enjoyed reading Dune. Also he'd want to stamp his vision on the films. And who cares about a director's vision? Unless they wrote the script, like Kevin Smith, I do not care about their vision. Their job with a book is to bring it to life on the screen, as faithfully as possible and correctly interpreted, and well shot. I want Brandon Sanderson's vision of his work, not someone else's. And he's still very much alive, so is around to tell them no. Just like Good Omens and Invincible are better because the creators have some input (though Good Omens might have been even better if Pratchett had been alive and well to help a bit but we'd at least have been 100% sure it's what he wanted instead of 90% sure).
Maybe it was just my theater but there were moments where the special fx TANKED legit segments that looked ripped out of killzone 2 for the ps3 ( potential spoiler: such as the scene towards the end where a guy in an aircraft is manning a turret) Anybody else have similar thoughts?
I'd say Chani's separation from Paul makes sense within the film but it complicates adapting the rest of the books. I liked Dune 2 a lot less because the finale was very anti-climactic, the battle lacked scale and the emperor came absolutely unprepared. Maybe if there was a huge fleet landed and the Fedaykin captured it... but the emperor comes in one shuttle? EDIT: Huh, after a second viewing, there are details I don't remember from the theatre, like the dropships (about 28), the ground army, the copters attacking the worms... weird.
As someone who didn’t read the book, I think the fight at the end was powerful both emotionally and plot wise. I was on the edge of my seat in the movie theater thinking Paul was gonna die, especially when he gets stabbed and the camera zooms in on his face, I was ready to see him die because I’m so used to main characters dying now in media
7:42 No. Wrong. Paul is never a villain. He is absolutely a hero, but in the wider context of the world he inhabits his actions are open to interpretation. Frank Herbert said this explicitly multiple times, and doubled down in God Emperor. Pay attention.
I was screaming in agreement this entire video. Part Two is just about as good for me as it could be under its structural constraints, but I'll die sad about it. I would have loved to hear y'all go into more depth you how effective you thought more alterations were.
I've read ALL the books, seen ALL the TV/movie versions. The universe and the story created in Dune is vast. With many choices for the storyline. I was happy with the choices made for this movie. Most try to tell too much and confuse the story more
That's funny you say he skipped the fun part I felt the same way when reading Dune. I was so gripped when Paul was learning the Fremen ways and stuff and was REALLY enjoying that part then the book just skipped over it all. It'd be like if they skipped over all rands aeil stuff in WoT. Also the water of life scene with Jessica was prolly my favorite part of the book and I didn't really like how they did it in the movie but still really liked the movie as a whole
As I understand the story of the books, Paul never really turned into a villain, he saw in his visions that the crusade was a kind of "lesser evil" and what would have happened hadn't he done it would have been even worse for humanity. A bit like in Infinity War/Endgame, when Doc Strange found one among thousands of possible futures where they succeed to win against Thanos, in which he must let Thanos get all the stones and do the deed. In fact, that aspect of the Marvel movies was possibly inspired by Dune and Paul's prescience. To me just a few months go go native and convince all the fremen to follow him into a war was way too little time.
Yes, I always thought that was very clear. Not a villain, just a guy doing horrible things because they're actually better than the alternative. Project out from Atreides being wiped out, and Harkonnens taking over the Imperial Throne. I mean... not so good.
The books painted Paul in a bad light in the long run because Paul, unlike Leto, was unwilling to give up his humanity and fuse with the sand trout to become the god emperor; he instead chose the holy war path.
@@mikeriggs3891 I never thought it was an either or. Like, never thought the merging into becoming the god-emperor instead of the jihad. How would him being a god-emperor have changed whether the jihad carried on? The Jihad would have continued whether he became the god-emperor or not. The holy war had already been going on for a while before Paul started contemplating the merger to create the God Emperor. Becoming the god-emperor was about Paul, (or Leto II - who actually did what his father refused), to maintain firm and consistent dominance over the Imperium while shaping humanity in such a way to prepare it for the inevitable arrival of the ultimate "Enemy"
@@mikeriggs3891 But the holy war consolidated his power over the human inhabited galaxy, and then his son as god emperor could rule for 3000 years. Had he just turned himself into a half worm being, without the holy war, that wouldn't have accomplished domination over the human worlds. But since Villeneuve apparently doesn't plan to do a fourth movie with LetoII turning himself into the God Emperor, the narrative in the story has to shift considerably.
Until recently, I remembered that Dune Messiah was my favourite book of the whole series. But I've recently re-read the trilogy of books, and it was DM, it was Children of Dune. Dune Messiah will have to be mostly ignored to MAKE A GOOD THIRD PART to the cinematic trilogy. I think you guys are right, Dune part 3 makes more sense. :)
I just hated how the made Chani some desert jock. She is the daughter of the Imperial Planetologist, a sayyadina, and Stiglar's niece, she would have be well versed in the political and religious movements on Arrikis. Instead they made her a good fighter who had no connection to these characters. She was Paul's equal in the books, I don't know why they made her some back water girl
I feel the opposite, I don’t feel any real nuance to her character in the book. The movie gave her a lot more autonomy and nuance. She does understand the politics in the movie and doesn’t agree with Paul’s ideals. But you’re right, she isn’t Kyne’s daughter in the movie.
I was just in Terry Brooks panel today at Rose City comic con. Shanara, the way he originally pronounced it is definitely how he's still pronouncing it. It's not how Brandon just said it was with the emphasis on the second sylable.
I have never read the books.I'm just starting now But I actually found the movies very easy to follow. Also I found The metaphors very easy to follow as well
![[#2024MAMA] G-DRAGON - 무제(Untitled, 2014)+POWER+HOME SWEET HOME+뱅뱅뱅+FANTASTIC BABY | Mnet 241123 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ox29z5Nf1Uk/mqdefault.jpg)
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
You guys always have some wild takes on movies. Dune Part Two being slower than part One, is one of those takes.
It kind of is. In terms of action, it's faster. In terms of character development and plot, it's so slow as to go almost nowhere. I say almost because you do get a couple of moments where a character just suddenly flip flops.
Yeah part 2 felt like a montage. It just jumps from one scenario to another with very little connecting tissue.
@@erenbecomesdovecrying6016 I really don't understand this complaint. What is your idea of "connecting tissue" exactly? The film has a plot, and the scenes play out that plot in a linear, logical fashion.
@@merlordmodding Dude's just trying to have a hot take
@merlordmodding there's not a lot of build between the events. The movie jumps from one huge event to another without much plotting, conversation, or storytelling. I'm not saying it's bad necessarily, but it does move incredibly fast in terms of telling the story of Dune.
I'm just pushing back on the idea that Dune 2 moves slow.
Brandon Sanderson is one of those people who is so prolific that I've wondered before, "How does this guy get so much done?"... here he is, signing autographs while simultaneously podcasting and talking in-depth about a complex story... I'm just like, "No wonder this guy gets so much done."
this is why he made a signature that wouldn't strain his hand after repeating the same movements hundreds of times
Also, seeing the glass of water made me realize that he's Mormon so he can't have caffeine.
He's doing all this completely without coffee.
I agreed with Dan the first time I watched it - that the specific rationale for Paul's decision to head south AT THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT isn't very well conveyed.
The second time I watched it, I realized that the tipping point was what immediately preceded Paul's decision: the Harkonnen raid of Sietch Tabr. In the aftermath of that, Paul says "I didn't SEE it coming". That's really the key line there.
The whole first half we see him grappling with this decision - do I fight as a fremen among fremen and attain revenge by slowly bleeding out the Harkonnen apparatus, or do I step into the messianic role and accomplish the same in a fraction of the time, but with cascading consequences that spiral out into uncontrollable bloodshed. But when he realizes that his prescience fundamentally has limitations, he is forced to reevaluate what hangs in the balance of that choice.
Knowing his prescience is 'incomplete', he comes to the uncomfortable realization that achieving victory as a mere fremen is far from guaranteed. That without being able to 'see further', nothing is guaranteed.
And that's the moment that the scale tips ever so slightly but irreversibly towards the other direction. When confronted with a choice between uncertainty and control, he caves and picks the latter.
Wouldn't that prove that Dan is right and Paul's arc in general is poorly conveyed?
@@-tom-8720 You could definitely make that argument. But I also definitely like the movie more after a second watch because I caught things I didn't the first time around.
@@-tom-8720 Not really. Throughout the conversations in this podcast, Dan always seems to miss a lot of subtle details in everything he sees, and this might just be one more case of it.
Brandon saw it as pretty obvious, and many other people as well, including people who haven't seen the original Lynch adaptation or read the books.
The movie chooses to trust the viewer to put the pieces together, and that is a very respectable way of telling a story. Handholding is another, they both ask different things from viewers, but it is all a matter of preference.
@@-tom-8720 not really, no. It was pretty clear if you paid attention
@@-tom-8720it is poorly conveyed in the movie because they removed his deep relationship with Chani and their son.
At first, I was confused like Dan why Paul decided to go ahead and drink the water of life, but I realized his decision centered around the destruction of Sietch Tabr. after it’s destroyed, Paul says “I didn’t see this,” then he talks to Jamie in a vision of some kind and Jamie says to drink the water of Life and he will see, and then after Paul drinks the water, he says “I see everything now,” so in the end, his decision to drink the water of life is motivated by wanting to protect those he cares about.
Agree. That's what I took away as the movie's intent as well.
I do think it was a little hard to follow his decision and that the movie could have done more to explicitly connect it with the destruction of Sietch Tabr. Because they didn't have the two year time jump in the movie he is not as connected with Sietch Tabr as he is in the book where that's been his home for two years. Also (book spoiler ahead) his and Chani's son dies in Sietch Tabr so there is another personal reason that that destruction is a catalyst. It's fine that the movie cut that, but I do think it would have been good for there to be more reason shown as to why the destruction of Sietch Tabr was so impactful for Paul.
Nah yeah Villeneuve fucked the story up a lot for me as a fan of the books...
*Book 1 spoiler, don't read further if you if you intend on reading first book (which I highly recommend you do)*
There is a time jump in which Paul and Chani have a son named Leto II, and Alia is already born.... when Sietch Tabyr is attacked baby Leto II is killed by Harkonnens and Alia is taken hostage to the emperors ship. It's not just their baby being killed but also Gurney holding a knife to Jessica's neck because he thought for 4 years straight that Jessica was the one who betrayed Leto and House Atreides. It's these events that motivate Paul to take the water of life because he couldn't see these events coming.
@@DHass-nl4jz agreed. See, going into the movie, I was expecting it to be after the time jump, so I wasn’t expecting it to pick up right where Part 1 left off. Made everything feel a little rushed. Still love the movie, but I think I like Part 1 better.
Why does the Emperor order Duke Leto to Arrakis?
As good as the Dune movies were, going out of the cinema, I couldn't stop thinking that this is the treatment I want Misbtorn or Stormlight to get. A masterfully done passion project
Denis Villeneuve directing a Cosmere adaptation would be incredible for sure
literally my thoughts while watching these in imax
@@srlong1123He would be a terrible fit for them, and I'm a Denis stan
Sanderson's stories are all about fast paced action and clearly defined powers, fun dialogue and characters. Denis's style is the LITERAL opposite of that.
Let's not just say we'd love a guy we like doing literally any project we also like the source material of...
@@LeoSkyro yes he's literally said he doesn't care about dialogue just how stuff looks on screen. Really weird take for a director of fiction.
@@LeoSkyro Michael Bay Mistborn!
I don’t think Paul has villainous intent. He resists his fate as long as possible, but in the end sees no other way.
Agreed, I don't think it's entirely fair to call him a villain (though I understand the choice of words cuz saying he is a hero is not quite true also).
I can see why DV chose to portray the heel turn to make that known to the audience. But in the books we get a much more nuanced view of Paul's internal struggle.
Ironically, having prescience and knowing the future illuminates for Paul just how little agency he has. He *will* become a messianic instrument of great strife regardless of what he does - locked in a seemingly endless pattern of human violence that plays out over and over again throughout the epochs
Probably, but they don’t really explain it well. Also, the book implies that the inevitability of the jihad was due to Paul’s hubris. This movie blames it on Jessica I guess. Also, he talks about a “narrow path” but it isn’t clear if that path was intended to avoid the jihad or what. So in the end when the jihad happens, was that him succeeding or failing at the narrow path.
Yeah, I feel like it's pretty undeniable that there was just no other way. Paul's alternative was to watch the Harkonnens slowly and inevitably destroy the Fremen, and eventually usurp the emperor, and turn the entire galaxy into their ceptic-tank world. I'm not seeing a huge range of options.
Of course, the real question is, did Paul have to declare a holy war on the other houses once he got his revenge? My sense is that if he'd told the Fremen to just go back to the desert, that wouldn't have gone over well either. The bottom line was, the galaxy was primed for a war anyway, holy or otherwise. Paul wasn't the cause, he was the result of the emperor's choice to murder Leto. Everything ultimately resulted from the galaxy's rejection of Leto's humane governing style. Leto was the last hope of the galaxy to govern through mutual respect and popularity, rather than cruelty and violence.
@@rottensquid I agree but I'd add that that's the point! He's both a villain and seemingly the last hope, but only because no one else has been given a chance. The whole society runs on a strong patriarchal (or matriarchal) hierarchy that suppresses the populous and throws away lives to maintain power. Paul only sees one way, but who is he to choose the Path for everyone else? I read the whole series as a strong anti-authoritarian allegory (among other things). It gets more or less explicit in the fourth book when Leto II muses on his godliness, or lack thereof, in any case. Man, great series!
@@caden-reynolds I agree. The entire Dune series is far more dystopian than people seem to realize. There is no alternative to authoritarianism--and having Leto II wax poetic about "freeing" humanity through his own uber-authoritarianism is a level of absurdity that Frank Herbert clearly understood, but too few readers and proponents of The Golden Path can see.
Honestly your take that Paul is a villain is only barely beyond The superficial.
Level one is seeing him as a traditional hero in a traditional hero arc.
Level 2 is seeing that he is actually ultimately a dictator that oppresses humanity.
Level 3 is seeing that he's a tragic hero who made terrible sacrifices and choices for the betterment of humanity, and ultimately chooses to die rather than continue down the path that costs him his full humanity.
"Paul is actually a villain" is a cliff notes take on Dune that ignores any of the deeper philosophy of the books.
That's basically book 1, 2, and 3 in order, lol. Book 3 pretty much lays out your 3rd point immediately after Leto II's symbiosis begins.
2:03 "Dune Part 2 didn't feel as urgent, it was a little slower" Idk man, to me it felt complete opposite 😅
Becoming Fremen is not enough of of a plot to warrant a separate film. As it doesn't feel like a major threat, the same way an enemy does
You could have more conflict with Rabban, have the middle be them defeating him, then Feyd takes over and attacks the Sietch and we end with Paul and the survivors heading south.
@@NateJones10 yeah this was the version I pitched to my friend the night I saw it. taking the momentum, putting harkonnen back on their heels, until feyd intervenes and they flee to the south, makes a perfect act 2 IMO. the version we got is rushed and confusing just to avoid being 2 movies long
Watching Paul become Fremen would be so boring, IMHO.
We DID get to see Bautista's Rabban be a beast and a brute. The scene in the first film where he is beheading prisoners, and also his general foolishness and tactical mistakes. In Dune 2 he makes an attack against Fedaykin and they defeat his forces so utterly he immediately runs for his life. That's his fall, the beast has been put in its place, which is why he's not showing that "beast" for the rest of the film.
You just described the note, that you dont get to see this charactet in his prime, you just see him falling
@@PropheticShadeZ What's Rabban's 'prime' in the book?
I think making a third middle film would have risked needing to either contrive a dramatic midpoint finale like the Hobbit films, or have sort of an anticlimax. As cool as the worm ride is, it wouldn't make much of a finale.
I do hope that the third film, Messiah, illustrates the level of prescience Paul experiences that would explain his sudden change into a seemingly heartless leader
Hobbit was terrible as a 3 parter, and would have been far better as a 2 parter imo.
I agree with these two in that Dune needed 3 films. So much was left out (especially mentats, Arrakeen culture more BG etc).
Also, they could have made them a bit shorter while omitting less.
My guess is that the Messiah film will follow the POV of Chani and Irulan (now that Paul is prescient) and will involve Chani eventually leading the Fremen to rebel against Paul, and discovering in the end that Paul deliberately sacrificed himself to be toppled so the Fremen could unite around a leader from their own people. It would be a great way to cap off both characters and their relationship.
Having the 3rd film end with Chani mortally wounding him, and discovering before he dies that he planned all of it as part of securing the future for the Fremen which she wanted, would be a pretty powerful ending which would let them topple Paul while still redeeming the character.
I wanted more of: the Guild Navigators, because leaving them out means we never really got a sense of the true importance of Spice; Gurney's backstory, as it really does explain his loyalty to the Atreides; a longer time span for Paul to become Muad Dib; Paul's reaction after taking the water of life, not just drink and become evil but him going through the surely immense mental rewiring that comes with being able to see everything all at at once.
I didn't see it as Paul becoming "evil" when he drank the Water of Life. I saw him making a choice to do something he knows will complicate things, so that he can more aptly choose the path he will follow, understanding the costs and benefits as he chooses.
I get that the movies can't be the books, but they cut out SO MANY important details, and without those details, the characters' motivations either made no sense, or were as contrived as of the lazy writing coming out of Hollywood these days. Not to mention the direction they took Chani really pissed me off. It really took the nuance out of what Herbert was trying to get across. Instead of a complex story about being forced to make make choices because of forces beyond your control for the good of your people, they reduced her down to a pouting brat.
Bro wanted a 10 hour movie 💀
@@firstNamelastName-ho6lvYou didn't?
I think there’s a directors cut in the works…. So many scenes were shot and then cut.
Paul makes the "Decision" when he goes to commute with Jamis after he is being called by the council of leaders in the south, he goes talks to Jamis who tells him "You must see" which means that even Jamis wants him to go to the south and perform the ritual. Then he talks to Chani and tells her that he fears that if he goes South he might lose her, she assures him that he won't as long as he stays who he is, and there he makes the choice of basically going with the flow on this one instead of keep struggling against it. For as much power as Paul has, he is slave to destiny.
I think both films are 10/10 Part 2 is much faster pacing wise and most of the changes from the book are pretty smart. Denis said he is adapting Frank Herbert's intention, not the book, because even that book is flawed, which led to Herbert writing Dune Messiah to clarify his intentions with the first book. Denis has this hindsight and decided to do just that from the beginning. Like Brandon says, that is the entire point of Part 2 and why the signposting is so strong in that direction.
Pretending you know the intentions of a dead author always sounds so arrogant, and typically ends up being what the director wishes the author intended, not what they actually intended. There are ways to better emphasize that Paul is not a hero besides changing Channi’s character and having her leave. In fact, I’d argue it diminishes the real horror of what Paul is. They should have shown the horrors of the Jihad. The billions killed. Not “Oh so sad the protagonist lost the girl.”
@@Florkl There's no need to "pretend" anything here. It is very well documented that Herbert was dismayed by the reaction people had to Paul in the first book, thinking of him as a heroic savior, which is exactly what Herbert was warning people about.
Denis is not pretending to know intentions, he knows them, the same as many other readers who have gone beyond the book and started to learn about Herbert as a person and his own thoughts about his own work. There isn't arrogance in there, only respect.
Chaging Chani's character is just one of the ways to make clear that Paul is on a path to destruction, but it is one of the most effective ones because it affects Paul on a personal level instead of just presenting the situation as a "Big Picture" kind of deal. It humanizes Paul even further, focuses on the irony of him being a walking God and still being a slave to destiny, it creates a tangible thing for him to lose, and it also creates a more dynamic Fremen society, which instead of being shown as a monolith, shows it as being composed of individuals with different beliefs and values, which is way more realistic.
While Denis is adapting Herbert's intentions, which affect the movie on a character and thematic level the most, he is still working within the confines of the book, thus, showing the horrors of the Jihad and millions killed makes no sense because that war hasn't started, and it only begins in the last couple of minutes. These horrors are still alluded to in the film using Paul's visions, which feed into his reluctance to follow the path that has been laid before him.
So, your solution ends up being something that goes outside the confines of the first book, and also makes the entire situation one-dimensional. Instead, the movie goes for a more layered approach that fits better the situation, the feelings and the logical conundrums that characters are facing within the story.
@@glass12 This is interesting - I misunderstood Herbert too, but in a way where I was always disappointed with the resolution to book 1. I always thought book 2 was a great pre-Sanderson-esque ending to the Paul Atreides story.
@@glass12I am aware of the regrets- that’s why I mentioned emphasizing the horrors of Paul’s actions. It’s everything beyond what’s documented that I have issues with. Slightly extending the scope of the timeline for the movie to show a bit of that jihad in action is still much less of a change than what they did to Chani. Especially since any adaptation of Dune Messiah will have to either be wildly different from the book, or else walk back the change, making it a waste of time and negating the message.
@@Florkl I disagree completely. Overextending the timeline to show that in this movie makes no sense, not only because that is not part of the first book, and thus scenes likes those are better saved for the third film but also because there wouldn't be enough time to make them justice, and it would only end up hurting the pacing and cohesion of this film.
That's why Dune Messiah exist in the first place, and thus it makes sense to dedicate an entire film to those consequences, instead of an appendix in this one.
What they did to Chani only creates a more complex character, which is always welcome in my opinion. Also, Paul very clearly states in this movie that he has seen that Chani will come around, and why not? They are clearly in love, and Chani's reaction is more than logical for the character she was established in the movie as, however, being a complex character and not just the idea of one, she, just like Paul will struggle to find a way to make their relationship work even if everything is put against, even themselves. Nothing done in Part 2 negates any message at all, it just adds more layers to the situation, as it should be.
Also, the ending of this film with Chani going into the desert makes perfect sense if you go back to see Part 1 and how that movie ended and also how Messiah will end. Denis is clearly thinking ahead when making decision for each one of these films.
The Emperor in Dune: "I got a fever, and the only prescription is more Spice!"
Walk without a rhythm. And you wont. Attract. The worm.
@@chickenmonger123Oh man, now we know why Christopher Walken talks without rhythm!
"Except when I put my pants on, I make gold records". I once met ol Col. Angus down the way by Shady Thickets. What a distinguished man of culture he was!! Thoroughly impressed with the old codger.
now you've ruined these movies for me FOREVER 😂😂😂
Sadly that's how I felt whenever I saw him on screen. It kind of took me out
always felt weird telling people I preferred the first movie because the hype online was crazy after Dune part 2 came out. Happy to hear that I wasn't the only one enjoying the first one more
i prefer the first one too!
@@tofujordi me too..first one was fantastic, second one just good. Very good, but not fantastic!
I think Dune pt.1 is definitely the better stand-alone film (so long as you're OK with an open ending).
I rewatched pt.1 the week before seeing pt.2 in preparation, and I do think pt.2 is absolutely incredible. so long as you consider Dune to be one very long film. Dune Pt.2 as its own thing, not so much.
Most of the dinner scene only makes sense because everything is explained about the secret phrase and why things are being said. To make that scene make sense you would need an entire movie alone of backstory so that everyone understands all the layers and references.
It makes sense that they skipped it. The goal of an adaptation is to adapt the story to a new, very different medium, not re-create.
That is an odd quibble, about the Paul not saying "Desert Power" or in general the film being more expositional or literal. They show us the desert power for the entire middle portion of the film and then really flop it out at the end in a terrifying way. Like as cool as the battle of Arrakeen was, it was also an exacrt display of the exactr thing that Paul feared but couldn't escape. I feel it was as in your face as it could be without being told. Anything else would have been a heavy hand on something that was already fairly heavy handed. Zero subtlety.
The only thing I missed from this adaption was not getting to see Chani and Paul lose their first child and that also cementing the bond so that the end scene doesn't feel like he is totally betraying Chani. He is betraying himself but not here. It will also make Dune Messiah a lot different if she is something of a foil to Paul. With the lack of a character like Otheym being set up, it almost feels like Chani might replace him in some way in Messiah. That being said, I have faith in Denis and his creative team because, this was a good an adaptation as we would get in a movie form.
Sting or Patrick Stuart would have been great alternative casting for the Shaddam the IV, Sting would've (could still) be a cool Count Fenring. I don't need any cameos from the OG but if they were going to do that those spots would have fit well.
4:25 Exactly. He chose to interpret Dune instead of adapt it. Great as the film is, Dune Part Two is not part two of Dune.
I think super terrifying resolution of Toddler Alia problem would be showing Jessica killing Harkonen and later showing a vision with Anya standing on the dessert with blood on her knife. Jessica already seemed crazy and possesed by her on the movie, this scene would emphasise that. Not including this have a devastating consequences on Alia's further character development.
Oh I like that. I really dont mind the way the movie does it, but this could have worked.
I think that would work well for Alia. But make no sense for Jessica without further developing her hate for her literal father. Imo Paul was the best person to kill him for an on screen adaptation.
@@carontorliak2760 I mean that Alia would kill baron using her mother, controlling her. It wouldn't be Jessica's conscious decision. However she has as many reasons to hate baron as Paul (Vladimir's literal grandson).
Toddler Alia is OP in Dune. In Dune Messiah she is crazy and fucking over everyone.
She is going to have no good phase.
She has who claim to rule. Alia of the blade... Maybe she gets that name by slaughtering everyone who doesn't accept her rule, OMG.... Now we have a divided fan base. Haters going to hate and man haters going to love.
The Baron was the enemy of the whole Fremen people. Who killed him directly with a knife? Little Fremen Alia. ALIA OF THE KNIFE! ALIA OF THE KNIFE! ALIA OF THE KNIFE!
St. Alia of the Knife
In the Lynch film, whatever you think of it, there is one shot of her in the desert standing among the dead and dying Harkonnen & Sardukaur, with a bloody knife and a demented grin on her tiny face.
I disliked how they did Chani
pitting her against paul works, but with the shortened timeline it undercuts their relationship massively for me
and outright pitting her against the Fremen makes her feel distinctly not fremen. Whereas she was the window & anker point into that culture in the books
She can take the role of the Fremen who miss the old ways in Messiah and ultimately participate in the conspiracy. She sees herself as staying loyal to the Fremen while others have abandoned the culture in exchange for ruling the galaxy.
@@calebmauer1751 It still leaves a narrative void. Chani is a pivotal figure in Paul's life and their absolutely devotion to each other is a central motivator.
Legend has it, Brandon is still signing booklets
I'm guessing those are pages that will eventually get bound into books. Doing it that way is just less cumbersome than shipping him 50k 800 page hardcovers.
@@rottensquid now that makes sense, I was like what kind of booklet things is he signing and why
I feel like Dune dropped the ball pretty hard in the scene where Paul says he's going to marry Irulan. In the book there is the whole explanation that she's going to be the wife, but in name only, and that Chani as concubine is the favored person. Irulan is never going to even get to touch him. It is a big payoff for all the epigraphs written by Irulan that shows a kind of obsession with Paul, and as a slap in the face to the Bene Gesserit and their plotting.
It also makes Chani much better character than she is in the book. More believeable and suits better is different time scale!
@@haukionkannelThey just had to make a woman conflict with a man in this day and age there can never be harmony shown between men and women. Girl bosses have to boss.
@@haukionkannel Or. By cutting Hara and entire facet of Fremen culture to appease common western sensibilities diminish her character. Fremen where polygamous and Chani having problems with extra wifes is unFremenlike.
@@pofruin that’s not her problem LOL. Her problem is he becomes something she doesn’t want to follow.
I don't agree, Paul tells Chani over and over again, most notably mere moments before saying he will wed Irulan, that he loves her and only her for as long as he breathes. Previously in the movie, Lady Jessica tells Paul that he will wed the most strategic partner.
This does more than enough to get the message across that it's a power-establishing wedding and that it will never be anything but surface level.
Doesn't the whole idea of "The Golden Path" really undercut the idea of Paul as a villain? I mean, spoiler alert, but the books indicate that Paul's problem is that he wants to avenge his father and make the Universe a more just place for his family and the Fremen, but the Jihad is a consequence of that and is out of his hands once he's gone far enough down that road, and that he's unwilling to push the Jihad far enough to put them on the "Golden Path" he foresees, because he's horrified by it, and he leaves that up to his son to finish for him. That puts him more in the "tragic hero" position as a reader, although from a complete outsider perspective he's essentially Ghengis Khan but with a personal ethic that's more understandable to our civilization.
I mean, the whole end of "The Golden Path" as I understand it is to make humans unable to be dominated by _anyone_ but that's part of what I like about Dune in the first place, the morality is really, really complex.
I would say the golden path undermines Lehto II as a villain. Paul doesn't have the guts to do it, can't make that sacrifice thus reinforcing him as a villain.
You sir are 100% correct, Thank you for mentioning it. I said as much in my comments as well.
Paul is Darth Vader, he had the chance to achieve the Golden Path but stumbled on the way.
Leto II is Luke, who managed to avoid the precipice Vader fell into.
@@glass12 Um, no. This misses the entire point of Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune...
Paul is not Darth Vader.
He saw the Golden Path and chose the "lesser of two evils" to save humanity, which required allowing evils to be done in his name. He became a figurehead, powerless in his own empire, with a government and religion springing up around him, (fueled by the revenge-obsessed Fremen and the Bene Gesserit Missionara Protectiva).
Paul spent his life trying to avoid the worst futures he saw, while staying on the Golden Path to humanity's survival. After a certain point, he even worked toward tearing down the false figurehead that the Fremen had created out of him, along with the government and religion surrounding him.
Leto is not Luke...
I don't even know where to begin... there is no comparison here.
Yea, it entirely justifies all his actions and means he’s not a villain. Really wish people would stop saying he is
For Dan's comments on the dinner scene in part 1, the whole city felt completely unlived in, like the world is just comprised of singular hero types standing stoically in places, rather than a real lived in city. For me, the miniseries does the best job there making it feel lived in.
Yes…yes it was
Came here to find and like this comment.
IMO I'd put Dune 2 at a 10/10 and Dune 1 at a 9/10
@@BioStormX yup. I’m a harsh critic, normally. Dune 2 was the best movie since Fellowship of the Ring.
@@BioStormX So rare for a sequel to do better, not since maybe Empire Strikes Back
@@error.418What do people always forget Wrath of Khan when discussing superior sequels??
Seems like so many people did not read the Frank Herbert Dune books. Has everyone forgotten about the Golden Path? Bottom line is Paul separated himself from the path. The Golden Path was generations of a Theocracy with an iron hand for control with large amounts of death all in his name but the outcome would put the human race in the best possible position to survive. In doing so it would require him to be regarded as a despot, a tyrant king and also to be a God. Paul couldn't make that decision; he could skirt with it for the protection of his family and for the death of his enemies but he couldn't fully embrace it and so he abandoned it and in doing so removed himself from the Golden path. We learn later that his son Leto would see the path and make the decision to follow it. The path would be at the cost of his humanity, his family, and friends and eventually his life.
Context from Dune Messiah when he is abandoned in the desert - “He told me the future no longer needed his physical presence,” Tandis had reported. “When he left me, he called back. ‘Now I am free’ were his words.”
Thank you, the folks that are raving for this adaption have obviously never read the books or have forgotten them. Having read the books multiple times, watched all versions (the SpiceDiver’s as well) , I currently feel the SyFi version was a better adaptation (would be interesting to see what they could have done with a huge budget and a few more hours. The new version is visually stunning and beautiful, it does lose much of the plot and makes some jumps to fill gaps, for someone that’s never read the books, it works, although they will miss a lot that from the books. If anything maybe some folks will take the chance to pick up the books and get the full picture/experience.
@@michaelpayne8102I started to watch Dune part 1 and I think I was ten or fifteen minutes in when I ordered Herberts six books.
It just drew me in. I wanted to know all about the magic system, the politics, the history.
As I kept watching I just got more and more excited to get my brain on those books.
@@ramudon2428 That’s the one blessing for the movies, the opportunity to get more ppl to read the actual work.
@@michaelpayne8102 Indeed. Dune has always been right outside of my intentions, for decades, the movie just pushed it right over the line.
The only redeeming quality of the wheel of time series for instance has to be that it may bless some poor soul with the joy of reading the series who otherwise wouldn't have.
For me Paul’s “heel turn” is just him picking the best future for him, and a small group of his people. In the movie he mentions “enemies all around, but I see a narrow way through.”
He is choosing the behaviors and actions that will lead to his success in the long term, despite the temporary damage he will do to his people.
It really bugs me how people misrepresent Paul's relationship with the Fremen. Yes, he used them as warriors, but he definitely did not exploit them in the way people are portraying it. He eventually terraforms the planet and literally gives them the green paradise they've yearned after for generations. They got exactly what they wanted from him. The conflict comes from the fact that they weren't prepared for such a radical shift in their lifestyle, and that causes a splinter faction of traditionalist fremen who want to go back to the old ways.
I believe that he is setting himself up to eventually be killed by Chani as a way of handing leadership of the Fremen over to her, so that they will truly be led by one of their own, just like he says they deserve to be in the 2nd film.
My guess is that the Dune: Messiah film will be mostly from the POV of Chani and Irulan (now that Paul is omniscient, it would be difficult for him to be the protagonist) and him deliberately setting himself up to be toppled would align well with the character as presented to us in the 2nd film.
@@derek96720 Dude you are replying to has obviously never read the books.
@@EvilMagnitude You know the books have been around for 50 years right? No need for your terrible ideas.
So after watching Dune 2 I did a relisten to the audiobooks and decided to power on past Children of Dune where I gave up last time. What I noticed is right at the beginning of God Emperor of Dune it starts with a heist wherein a young woman steals the journal of a seemingly immortal tyrant who has made himself a god and that journal is studied by conspirators seeking to kill the effectively unkillable god with excerpts of the journal used as interludes between chapters... (seems familiar doesn't it?)
so the way i see it is it appears that Brandon took the point where most readers reading Dune myself included are turned off and put the story down (ie Leto choosing the golden path and becoming an immortal god emperor) and made it the starting point for Mistborn.
It is also of note that in Dune House Atreides dovetails nicely with Preservation and House Harkonin Dovetails nicely with ruin and it is only by embracing his dual nature as both an atreides and harkonin that paul is able to overthrow the emporer...
in my opinion Frank Herbert excelled at world building and philosiphising but the later stories lacked any characters with which the reader can truly connect I just didn't care what happened because I was just hearing words with no connection to any characters...
Mistborn does a better job of giving me characters with whom I could connect and a narrative that was enjoyable beyond book 1.
spice = atium
spice is derived from the worms atium is pieces of a gods body
spice gives users prescient visions atium gives mistborn prescience into a near future
Damn, never made the connection before. Especially the atium stuff, good insight.
spice is used as a basis for monetary exchange atium is used as monetary exchange
The timing was a bit off for me in dune 2. She was pregnant the entire time but then Paul gathered all these people to follow him, millions of people in that short of a time frame? That’s tough for me.
It wasn't a short time though, it actually does take place over more time. That's why they said it's kind of like a montage, more time is implied to be happening than what we directly see on screen. Jessica going south happened quite a while after they got there, and then she was in the south for a long time. Rabban fought against the Fremen for a long time before Feyd Rautha gets involved. The way they show the ambushes on harvesters, implies that there are more we aren't seeing, and I don't think they're just doing them every day without ever going back home. Plus Gurney Halleck's story implies he had enough time to get a job he's already tired of. The movie was fast but it was depicting time passing, maybe even the two years from the books.
I’ve never felt more seen than when they mentioned how upset they were that the dinner scene was cut 🎯
32:41
the Dune: Prophecy trailer was just released about the same time as this video
it's indeed going the prequel route with bene gesserit!
Dan Wells needs to rewarded a full case of soda :)
Came to share this trailer.
I'm so excited for Dune Prophecy. I'm a massive fan of the Brian/Kevin books, and I think the show will help people understand that Dune, as a saga, is about the Sisterhood and it saving humanity from itself
@@Spoonishpls I am little worried that it is giving to much GOT vibes. Could be bad. But maybe not
@@TK4K411 Me too. Especially after looking at the casting, I'm afraid of them just taking a few things from the source material and just making everything else up to try and get a new GOT. Then it fails and they say well audiences just don't want fantasy anymore 🙄
@@SpoonishplsGiven how butchered WoT was I'm very sceptical about this series...
The changes to Jessica, Chani, and Stilgar make them mere vehicles for conflicting plot themes and diminish their characters and their connections to Paul immensely
A lot of people seem not to like Frank Herbert’s story. Let’s re-write it. Chani and Paul are enemies, not lovers . Mentants-let’s forget about that. Spacing Guild-lose it! Tlielexue-No, no. Bulterian Jihad-don’t mention it. Convention against using Atomics on your enemy-not important.
I actually think the signposting for him becoming a villain is kinda ambiguous, leaving it open to interpretation.
It is, what is clear is that he is being forced to take a path he doesn't want to because it leads to the death of billions.
This perfectly fits the way Paul is portrayed in Dune Messiah. He is never depicted as an evil person, he is not a Sauron or a Voldermort type character, but did open up the path for countless atrocities to be done in his name, and he is conflicted about it, as he should.
Things just got out of hand.
I agree 100%. In this movie it is not clear that he is a villain at all. For all we know, he could be right that defeating the Harkonnens and the emperor at all costs is the lesser of evils due to what they would do over time if he doesn't. I think people are using their knowledge of later books to inform their understanding of this movie, which doesn't say anywhere concretely that his decision was wrong or villainous.
@@glass12 This. This is why Paul is such a great character. People try and say he is the villian of the story but that is just as much an over simplification of him as saying he is the Chosen One. House Harkonnen and House Corrino are definitely villians in the story and I would argue that defeating them is a heroic moment. Atleast for the Fremen, who are the main viewpoint we are viewing the Harkonnen occupation from. And you could say that the lives of most of the Fremen improved from what Paul did.
But it is a classic example of "do the ends justify the means", and why we shouldnt put people on pedestals. Paul doesnt feel good about it but I think he feels justified and there are terrible consequences for what happens. If he hadnt done what he did what would have become of the Fremen and the Harkonnens? Violence still would have occured.
No, you’re supposed to agree with Chani cause she’s a woman
I mean I think the whole story is very clear that he's the villian, but builds up enough threads of doubt as to make it interesting.
I think the big thing was the omission of the spacing guild. Without that it doesnt make sense how paul gets off world, doesnt explain why the spacing guild was hiding the fact that their was life in the south of arrakis and their conspiracy to smuggle spice out of the south. Also Fenrings scenes being cut also upset me a bit even more when i heard tim blake nelson played him.
All they needed was Stilgar sending the spice bribe to the guild, and guild agents preventing the great houses from landing at the end.
Which would have been helped by the guild banker being at the dinner scene we lost in part 1
none of that is essential to the telling of the core themes of Dune
@@MrSmokinDragon I think knowing more about the space guild adds stakes that contribute to the themes. In the movie you kind of don't see the connection between spice and the ability for space travel to happen, so it's a little less clear why spice is important other than just being an addictive drug that can enable visions
@@DHass-nl4jz One of the first lines in the first movie is how spice makes interstellar travel possible
@@OzymandiasMDyeah but then it’s never really discussed or shown again. I just think that could have been more emphasized to add stakes
For pronunciation, Frank Herbert did interviews where he pronounced Harkonnen as you hear it in Denis' movies.The fight of Paul against his cousin showcases Paul's transformation to villain. He denies Gurney's revenge after completing his own, for the sake of his own prestige.
I really don't think Paul is a villain in the books or the movies. It's incredibly nuanced, nowhere near as simple as "villain" or "hero" - he sees/feels the Jihad happening as an inevitability, even if he were to die right then and there. The momentum has begun and he can't stop it.
YES! and maybe he saw something happening to humanity worse than the Jihad. Its like no one every reads God Emperor.
@@Chris-iz1rw hardcore agree! I talk about this a lot in my video analyses
@@miscellaneousgab Cool! I'll check it out.
He's a Tragic Hero. In the ancient or classical sense.
I don't see Paul as a villain. I haven't reread the books but I saw him as agonising between horrendous options. The alternative to Jihad was strongly implied if not outright stated to be even worse just not obviously his responsibility (but he'd know).
Dune Messiah would be a great part 3 because that concludes Paul's story
Right off the bat I'm very confused. The book does not skip them falling in love It does not skip him becoming Fremen and it does not skip hit him learning how to ride a sandworm....
That said, I completely understood why they didnt do the leap.
My favourite part of Dune was when Paul joined the FBI and went to investigate a mysterious murder in a small Pacific northwest town.
Grade-a reference 👍
When I realized it didn't look anywhere near as epic or vast as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia I knew they'd got the sense of scale entirely wrong.
My only complaint was that the final assault scenes were too short, I hope there is an extended edition released one day with an additional 10mins of footage. It felt like a lot of build up for not quite enough pay off.
It's only shown for around a page in the book iirc
I was expecting some helms deep type battle and then it was already over in 5 mins.
Denis extended that sequence as much as he could. In the book is like 1 or 2 pages and that's it. For me, it was enough, it showed how unprepared the Emperor really was, and like Brandon explains here in the podcast, he was only holding the throne by a thread.
Denis also doesn't do Director's Cuts, his theatrical cuts are his final cuts, and everything left on the cutting room floor is there for a reason.
@@glass12the final attack is way more than 1 or 2 pages. The emperor's retinue preparing in his throne room with alia murdering the baron and Paul's forces breaking in all happens before the fight scene with feyd.
@@MR-TH-camChangedMyHandle We are talking about the assault scenes to the palace. The opener said it was too short and wanted more of an extended battle.
Indeed, the battle outside the palace is like one page in the book, nothing more. Herbert was focused more on the characters inside the palace.
Probably a rare exception, but E.T. grossed almost $800 million IN THE 80s...and although Spielberg was tempted at one point, a sequel/prequel hasn't come out yet. Though, this is talking about a movie from the greatest movie director so he's going to have much more power over these things than most directors.
It's the inevitability of the jihad Paul was constantly fighting against in the book, and the heel turn is the acknowledgement that there is literally no holding back the galactic-level need for genetic refreshment after thousands of years of separation and stagnation.
It's kind of the iron fate of Greek tragedies with a dose of Jung thrown in, I feel.
To me, I liked part 1 more. It had more of the trippy art- film nature that I think fit really well with the books. Part 2 had some of it but it felt more like a stock action-adventure block-buster.
Paul is not a villain in the books, nor this movie I think. He is meant to be a caution about over-trusting heroic figures. To accomplish that, Herbert wrote a mostly genuine heroic figure (I say mostly bc his motives for leading the Fremen are mixed), whose life led to tragic and horrible consequences. The Jihad and allowing the Fremen fanaticism is portrayed as something Paul cannot responsibly avoid. Therefore Paul is written as a tragic figure also, trapped in a course he clearly does not want. A villain would be depicted differently.
He’s closer to the villain than the hero lol
Paul was avoiding two outcomes - humanity's extinction and the golden path. The jihad was the "easy" middle ground between the two positions. Leto became the tyrant and followed the golden path because he was stronger than Paul because he was preborn like Alia but had Ghanima to help him not descend to abomination.
@@WHlSKYtx Nope. We could argue about whether Paul becomes evil, though I don't think Herbert intended him to be seen that way. But "villain" is a role in a story that Paul clearly does not fill. The Harkonnens, the Emperor, and to some extent the Bene Gesserit fill that and Paul is opposed to them.
Movie (not book) Jessica comes close to fitting that role. Her motives can be seen as more nefarious because she's not seeing future possibilities and realizing there's no good alternative. After she takes the Water of Life in the movie, she shifts from being a mother to pretty much totally being driven to a need to realize the BG dream of producing a Kwisatz Haderach.
@@WHlSKYtx No. Read the books before commenting next time.
I read Dune in high school and spent the next 40 years wishing for a faithful film rendition. Now that there is one, I'm having second thoughts about the source material.
After I saw Dune Part 2, I felt like I might have missed something about Paul's process leading up to going south. So then I went back to see it on my own the next week! On rewatch, I could appreciate all the buildup, building blocks, and the moment of decision leading to it.
The movie presents characters on a journey, but it doesn't hold your hand or explain everything to you. I honestly liked that I had to rewatch it to understand the film. 10/10 for me.
huh, when i rewatched it my takeway was that he randonly sees jamis who says something random and suddenly paul goes south
I havent read the Dune books. But ive enjoyed both movies so far. Looking forward to #3.
My take is that the movies were divided to focus on Paul's three roles. Part 1 feels like the Atreides movie, while Part 2 focuses on his role as the Lisan al Gaib. Part 3 will be about Paul navigating the powers/perils of being the Kwisatz Haderach.
I love Dan's dad addition to this discussion.
Beard-Guy Halleck!
So many people here posting comments that demonstrate their obvious ignorance of the books. Villeneuve got a lot wrong in this movie. Paul is not a messiah, villain or heel and he was not motivated by revenge. Everything he did was to try to help others and in opposition to Bene Gesserit scheming, but his insistence to avoid the Golden Path is what led to all the death and destruction in his name. Paul was ultimately a tragic coward who ran away from the sacrifice required to save humanity, a mantle taken up by his son. And a film adaptation of God Emperor would be amazing! Who wouldn't want to watch a giant human/worm hybrid god act like a total asshole for 2 hours? LOL
I’m so like Dan’s Dad my Dune was from the 80’s
I have to agree with Dan on this one. Having never read the book, what I saw was Paul seeing himself become the villain and fearing that, only to suddenly be super on board. Him becoming a villain wasn't the problem, it was that I didn't know why. But everything that happened after he embraced that was absolutely riveting.
I get that everyone will interprest things differently.
To me it seemed pretty clear:
It was signposted by the emperor that he felt leto was weak because he put love before duty
Paul resists the mantle of messiah until he is blindsided by feyd rautha Harkonnen's attack
Moreover, he sees that if he keeps fighting the way he does, Chani will die
So to save Chani, he becomes a villain (that chani cannot love) and embraces the false messianic mantle
also, interestingly, the movie has a structure where effectively, the climax stands at the midpoint, when Paul decides to become the lisan al Gaib, where the whole second half feels more like dominoes falling into place than the protagonist overcoming obstacles. The tension lowers throughout the ending, with a rather anticlimactic final battle.
I'm not sure how deliberate that is, but it feels like the writer and director don't want us to cheer to much at the end and make the battle underwhelming on purpose, conveying the inevitability granted by prescience, and resulting in something resembling a tragic 5 act structure more than an epic 3 act structure. The first part also culminated towards the midpoint, in the harkonnen attack and was more a journey towards the within after that, with smaller and smaller stakes throughout the last act, which I find interesting.
One line "I didn't see it coming" When feyd attacked helped me understand why he had to do it.
I think it's established early on that Paul is capable of both tenderness, empathy, compassion aswell as violence, coldness, vindictiveness so when the conflict between the Fremen and the Harkonnens reaches a boiling point with the destruction of Sietch Tabr, I felt that it makes sense for him to give into one of the 2 forces pulling at him throughout the story. He wasn't a "villain" at that point though but when he drinks the water of life he is filled with the pain and sorrow of all his male & female ancestors he begins to constantly live in the past and future all at once. All this combined with the revelation that he is part harkonnen, I felt it made sense to me but that being said, if it didn't hit for you then it didn't hit.
I think Dune Part 2 was a good film. I understand why some of the changes were necessary, but I'm somewhat baffled by the choices with Chani. Especially if he's going to adapt Dune Messiah. It's just a weird place to have to start from.
Paul became a villain for the same reason as Daenerys will (I think). It was the only way for his family to be safe. He has to overthrow the Harkonnens just like Dany had to overthrow the Lannisters. She was barefoot and pregnant in the desert and they still sent someone halfway around the world to kill her. Sometimes the only way to survive is to be on top, no matter how many skulls you have to pile up to get there.
Yes, exactly. I've never thought of Paul as a villain, though. He seems like a tragic hero to me.
@@isoldam I don't think of Dany as a villain either. They're both definitely tragic figures. Fire and blood was always in their future, whether they won or lost.
Dany doesn’t have a family.
Oh! I understand that line now. "...by being Harkonnens." Ive seen it twice now and hadn’t understood that line but Dan's mere mention of it cleared that up. Cool, thanks guys!
Dune II is an ABSOLUTE master class on the art of omission. SOOOO many huge part of the book were omitted and it still ran beauuutifully, to the point i started to marvel at the beauty of the ommissions themselve. (space guild's plots, jessica's "betrayal", Allya, poison knife, paul's kid, the old mentats, the attempted assassination on daddy Harkonen (actually pretty small thing, but big for me personally)). In the hands of any SLIGHTLY LESS capable hands, even a single one of these ommissions could've been catastrophic.
I recently read "We are legion, we are Bob". For some reason, I couldn't help but envision Bob as Brandon Sanderson.
Well, that's affecting my reading. Thanks!
With walken, for me I was a little underwhelmed, until the final few scenes when you see that last little bit of fight in the emperor. I think he was perfect as a once powerful ruler, watching it all slip away.
I too thought he was great, just tragically under-utilized.
I feel like his character was portrayed poorly, on purpose. The typical "let's make him an old white and dumb guy and show how it's HER [Irulan] who should have ruled all along". Same with the "let's make the southern Fremen the dumb religious folks while the Northern woman (Chani) tells what's up (breaking the "Show, don't tell" rule) in her typical American accent VERY uncharacteristic of a Fremen.
Would have loved to see Mads Mikkelsen as the emperor.
I profoundly disagree with both of you regarding the ending of the movie. I thought what happened in the last 3rd was jarring and a betrayal of the subtle nature of the book:
- throughout the movie we have a Paul that's soft-spoken and self-reflective, quite introverted in a way and preferring to hang out with Chani's friends and away from all the people whispering about Lisan al-Gaib. Then, after the water of life scene in the temple Paul suddenly becomes this screeching prophet that paces around a lot and gestures violently, a look that I think was supposed to be commanding but which I did not think Timothee Chalamet with his lithe figure managed to pull off well
- Chani's turn was also jarring, one moment she was asking Paul to be with her forever and the next she was huffing and puffing at every turn until finally she left. The whole thing seemed comical to me, I saw those small acts of rebellion as the angry fits of a petulant child.
But even if I'm wrong, we see a separation between Paul and Chani at the end of the 2nd movie which will now have to be completely undercut by their getting together again to have children, unless Denis Villeneuve decides to deviate even more profoundly from the books.
I disliked Mr. Sanderson's blunt labeling of Paul as a villain. On reading the books I never saw him as either a villain or hero, but as a tragic figure who, despite being able to see the myriad future is in fact trapped by his role in history. I'm sure a lot of people agree with Mr. Sanderson's characterization of Paul as a villain, but wouldn't it be nice to have the freedom to interpret things for yourself as a viewer, the way the books allow you to? Instead, all of the complexity of Paul's character is undercut my Denis Villeneuve's decision to essentially have Paul go "ok, I'm going to be a bad guy now....EVERYONE, LOOK UPON YOUR GOD AS FORETOLD BY PROPHECY!"
But hey, I was unimpressed by Zendaya's acting in this movie so maybe I'm just dumb.
Aquaman as duncan, poe damron as leto, dave bautista as the harkonnen guy, spidermans girlfriend as chani, those are all fine apparently, yet christopher walken as the emperor isnt? People are weird.
Totally with you. Only exception for me is Duncan, If the series ever went any further I think hes a good canidate for the themes his character shows in the books.
Great video, honestly, I think you guys are being generous 😄 Dune One is a 9/10 for me, Dune Two is a 6.5/10 in my book. Dune Two felt so cliché at times. Harconnen badies felt like usual movie villains…Colors were boring to my eyes.
In dune one the desolation of the planet dune was so impactful exactly because we were able to experience Caladan before we went there. This was missing for me in Dune Two. The harconnen planet was too cliché. Black and white for villains is nothing new.
Also, the duel, the finale was spoiled in the trailers…come on 😄
That pun at the end was *chef's kiss*
I think its also important to note that paul saw that chani died if he stayed north. It was really easy to miss but important
I have some thoughts.
1) Paul was not a villain in the books. He picked the Jihad as the easier of two really bad options, avoiding the golden path. If he had have done anything else, humanity would go extinct. Much is made of Herbert's comments about Dune being a warning about charismatic leaders, which it is - they change the world and not necessarily in ways you would like. But he clearly saw the technological threats of top down control and machine violence being the far greater dangers to humanity.
2) Chani was easily and by far the worst part of Dune part 2. It felt like someone picked up a modem Californian and then transplanted them into the world of Dune.
3) Two movies for the second half of Dune would have been too much. I'm glad Dennis did what he did (Chani notwithstanding).
100% agree with you 👍
🤝 Chani is the weakest part of the movie
Completely agree on both
This is the correct take.
I didn’t understand why they would attack the spice crawlers from underneath when they could just blast them from the side of the mountain tops. The first action, scene, where it showed Paul dodging the fire from the helicopter was a cool scene, but I felt like it didn’t make sense seeing that they could just shoot their blue lasers at them from the mountain tops and blow them up.
My take on it was they had to first disable the shields on the crawler. The book explains that hitting a shield with the laser beam causes an atomic bomb effect.
The way y'all forgot lynch name is so funny
I had the same issue with Christopher Walken as the Emperor. I feel like someone like Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, or even Ian McKellan would have been able to meld with the character more. CW is an AMAZING actor, but he just was too jarring for me.
I don't care if it's not good, I don't care if it flops. I want to see general audiences react to a giant sandworm philosophizing and yeling "MONEO! Get my cart!" for 2-3 hours
God Emperor IMO is not as hard to adapt as people think. It would be hard if they adapt it literally and it's just 3 hours of monologue, but there's actually quite a lot of fascinating stuff that happened in those thousand of years during his rule.
I missed Alia, but she's my favorite character in the entire series. I understand what you're saying about how hard it is to do the child version but I think to do her character justice in the next movie there will need to be a lot of leg work to make up for lost time. People should be terrified of her, and they should have good reason. Plus she should be fremen through and through and I'm not sure how that will happen in the palace.
I genuinely can't comprehend how people can enjoy part one over part two
Sincerely I can not comprehend the opposite
I fully agree.
This episode came out 40 minutes ago, your comment is 23 minutes old, and the episode is 36 minutes long.
It's easy not to comprehend something when you discount any opinion but your own.
Part 1 one was better.
I agree. I feel that part 2 just turned everything up even further from part 1. It took what worked and made it even better.
I watched part 2 on hbo and fast forwarded probably through half of it. There's my answer.
Casting, for me:
Zendaya. Before I'd seen the first movie I'd have said no way. After seeing it, I can't imagine anyone else in that role.
Christopher Walken. The Emperor is famous. Walken is famous. Oh look, that guy! I'm fine with that.
Anya Taylor-Joy. This is who should have played Princess Irulan. She looks high and royal. She LOOKS like she could be Walkens daughter.
Florence Pugh. This is who should have been Alia. Partly because Alia will have a more major role in any following movie(s), and I'd love to see more of Florence. She rocks.
It wasn't good.
It could have been good but then they did all those daylight desert scenes with faces exposed -the magically appearing mask was the absolute pinnacle though.
I also found the atomics scene disappointing and that's one where this should have excelled.
33:40 Yes I can. ET never got a sequel.
Not the movie, but the book does have a sequel.
Also Titanic. Which would be a very weird sequel
@@MrTohawk You know what? James Cameron has earned my trust. I'd watch Titanic 2.
@@PlaylistWatching1234 To be fair though, who wouldn't watch Titanic 2 - Sink Harder?
There were sequels planned for both ET and Titanic. Just never made it to production.
I was anxious about the title but I respect y’all’s take.
10:30 Paul is NOT a pawn of the Bene Gesserit. That is literally, and I do mean literally, the entire premise of the whole Dune saga. Jessica disobeyed the Bene Gesserit orders to have a daughter because she truly loved Duke Leto. This produced the planned Kwisatz Hadderach at least one generation early, so that Paul, with the defiant eyes of his Father Duke Leto, had true individual agency. This is why although the BG co-opted the Fremen Lisan Al-Gaib prophecy for their own purpose, Paul is the genuine Mahdi, the true Messiah. He not only ticks the prerequisite boxes, but he actually delivers the green paradise to the Fremen, which was not in anyone's interest, including the Bene Gesserit, as seen throughout the sequels. This does not mean that Paul is perfect or wholly benevolent or altruistic, but he absolutely is a true Hero, and the pinnacle of individual human power and agency. It's all in the text, and Herbert has also explained it all explicitly in interviews. Please, for the love all that is good in the world, please, please pay attention and stop spreading misinformation.
Dude, exactly. Some people are upset at Herbert's writing of religion and also the movie's, but the Fremen religion was ultimately right and I think both mediums got that across really well. The Bene-Gesserit may have invented the religion, but it's possible that on a planet full of spice users, more real visions were had.
I think the big reason for the plot problem you all discussed was that the movies cut the most fundamental emotional subplots. In the book, the moment Paul made the decision to go villian was motivated by his infant son being killed by the Harkonnens. Because they cut the time jump, Paul no longer has a family, and thus no longer has such personal motivation for his jump.
On the topic of what they'll call the next movie, I wish they'd called Part 2 Dune: Prophet, which was the name of part 3 in the book, so calling the next one Dune: Messiah works better.
What I brought out of the cinema was the way they Fremen sand-walk disappeared from the movie as soon as Paul rode his first worm. You have the scene with Chani mocking Paul for doing it badly and teaching him the proper way, and a scene with Paul and Stilgar doing it on the way to get the worm, and then you have at least half a dozen scenes across the rest of the movie where someone is walking through the open desert, shown from shoulder up, and walking normally or stomping petulantly, but always moving in a straight line with none of the bob-and-weave of a proper sand-walk.
I might not have noticed if they hadn't had the scene with Chani calling attention to it.
Paul came and destroyed tons of traditions after he woke up, for sure.
Also it is specifically said in that same scene with Chani and Paul that they arent in worm territory yet. So there is clearly some spots where they can move with out doing the sand walk.
@@dericplummer9272 Exactly
I must admit i was bummed about the change in the knife fight as well specially showcasing the mindgames and the scheming of the harkonnens like the barons plan with Rabban as a placeholder so that feyd is a saviour in arrakis eyes more obvious and i missed that Tim Blake Nelson was cut from the movie cause im pretty sure he was gonna be Count Fenrig and for a character that has like two scenes and four minutes of time im so certain he wouldve brought and Oscar worthy performance. He wouldve been absurdly good in that smallest of roles. But its a killer movie
How do we get Denis Villeneuve for Stormlight books? I need that in my bones...
That must be a big series, like Game of Thrones, even one book is way too long for a movie. One book would need like 3x3 hours to have a fighting chance.
But I would love to see it.
I think sanderson has said he would prefer stormlight as an animated series. And I agree
You really want a director who has admitted to despising dialogue to lead a fantasy narrative whose focus is WORDS???
@@AleksandarIvanov69 Yes. Only dialogs characters say can be theirs ideals. It would be Epic as f..k
@@AleksandarIvanov69 100% my thinking. His hatred of dialogue explains a lot but not why he enjoyed reading Dune. Also he'd want to stamp his vision on the films. And who cares about a director's vision? Unless they wrote the script, like Kevin Smith, I do not care about their vision. Their job with a book is to bring it to life on the screen, as faithfully as possible and correctly interpreted, and well shot. I want Brandon Sanderson's vision of his work, not someone else's. And he's still very much alive, so is around to tell them no. Just like Good Omens and Invincible are better because the creators have some input (though Good Omens might have been even better if Pratchett had been alive and well to help a bit but we'd at least have been 100% sure it's what he wanted instead of 90% sure).
Maybe it was just my theater but there were moments where the special fx TANKED
legit segments that looked ripped out of killzone 2 for the ps3 ( potential spoiler: such as the scene towards the end where a guy in an aircraft is manning a turret)
Anybody else have similar thoughts?
I'd say Chani's separation from Paul makes sense within the film but it complicates adapting the rest of the books.
I liked Dune 2 a lot less because the finale was very anti-climactic, the battle lacked scale and the emperor came absolutely unprepared. Maybe if there was a huge fleet landed and the Fedaykin captured it... but the emperor comes in one shuttle?
EDIT: Huh, after a second viewing, there are details I don't remember from the theatre, like the dropships (about 28), the ground army, the copters attacking the worms... weird.
As someone who didn’t read the book, I think the fight at the end was powerful both emotionally and plot wise. I was on the edge of my seat in the movie theater thinking Paul was gonna die, especially when he gets stabbed and the camera zooms in on his face, I was ready to see him die because I’m so used to main characters dying now in media
7:42 No. Wrong. Paul is never a villain. He is absolutely a hero, but in the wider context of the world he inhabits his actions are open to interpretation. Frank Herbert said this explicitly multiple times, and doubled down in God Emperor. Pay attention.
I was screaming in agreement this entire video. Part Two is just about as good for me as it could be under its structural constraints, but I'll die sad about it. I would have loved to hear y'all go into more depth you how effective you thought more alterations were.
They were both fantastic
I've read ALL the books, seen ALL the TV/movie versions. The universe and the story created in Dune is vast. With many choices for the storyline. I was happy with the choices made for this movie. Most try to tell too much and confuse the story more
The answer is Yes. Dune 2 is actually good. Better than most of the hype surrounding it even. Possibly somehow underrated.
There was some on-the-nose dialogue that really broke the fourth wall for me.
Paul never really becomes a villain in the book. It’s more nuanced and I prefer that.
That's funny you say he skipped the fun part I felt the same way when reading Dune. I was so gripped when Paul was learning the Fremen ways and stuff and was REALLY enjoying that part then the book just skipped over it all. It'd be like if they skipped over all rands aeil stuff in WoT. Also the water of life scene with Jessica was prolly my favorite part of the book and I didn't really like how they did it in the movie but still really liked the movie as a whole
As I understand the story of the books, Paul never really turned into a villain, he saw in his visions that the crusade was a kind of "lesser evil" and what would have happened hadn't he done it would have been even worse for humanity. A bit like in Infinity War/Endgame, when Doc Strange found one among thousands of possible futures where they succeed to win against Thanos, in which he must let Thanos get all the stones and do the deed. In fact, that aspect of the Marvel movies was possibly inspired by Dune and Paul's prescience. To me just a few months go go native and convince all the fremen to follow him into a war was way too little time.
Yes, I always thought that was very clear. Not a villain, just a guy doing horrible things because they're actually better than the alternative. Project out from Atreides being wiped out, and Harkonnens taking over the Imperial Throne. I mean... not so good.
The condensed timeline def was the film's biggest issue imo, however it's still easily one of my fav, if not my number one fav movie of all time.
The books painted Paul in a bad light in the long run because Paul, unlike Leto, was unwilling to give up his humanity and fuse with the sand trout to become the god emperor; he instead chose the holy war path.
@@mikeriggs3891 I never thought it was an either or. Like, never thought the merging into becoming the god-emperor instead of the jihad. How would him being a god-emperor have changed whether the jihad carried on? The Jihad would have continued whether he became the god-emperor or not. The holy war had already been going on for a while before Paul started contemplating the merger to create the God Emperor. Becoming the god-emperor was about Paul, (or Leto II - who actually did what his father refused), to maintain firm and consistent dominance over the Imperium while shaping humanity in such a way to prepare it for the inevitable arrival of the ultimate "Enemy"
@@mikeriggs3891 But the holy war consolidated his power over the human inhabited galaxy, and then his son as god emperor could rule for 3000 years. Had he just turned himself into a half worm being, without the holy war, that wouldn't have accomplished domination over the human worlds.
But since Villeneuve apparently doesn't plan to do a fourth movie with LetoII turning himself into the God Emperor, the narrative in the story has to shift considerably.
Until recently, I remembered that Dune Messiah was my favourite book of the whole series. But I've recently re-read the trilogy of books, and it was DM, it was Children of Dune. Dune Messiah will have to be mostly ignored to MAKE A GOOD THIRD PART to the cinematic trilogy. I think you guys are right, Dune part 3 makes more sense. :)
I just hated how the made Chani some desert jock. She is the daughter of the Imperial Planetologist, a sayyadina, and Stiglar's niece, she would have be well versed in the political and religious movements on Arrikis. Instead they made her a good fighter who had no connection to these characters. She was Paul's equal in the books, I don't know why they made her some back water girl
I feel the opposite, I don’t feel any real nuance to her character in the book. The movie gave her a lot more autonomy and nuance. She does understand the politics in the movie and doesn’t agree with Paul’s ideals. But you’re right, she isn’t Kyne’s daughter in the movie.
@@ggroombr
Yes! Movie Chani is many times more believeable!
I was just in Terry Brooks panel today at Rose City comic con. Shanara, the way he originally pronounced it is definitely how he's still pronouncing it. It's not how Brandon just said it was with the emphasis on the second sylable.
Think both films are highly overrated, and part 2 is the poorer film
I have never read the books.I'm just starting now But I actually found the movies very easy to follow. Also I found The metaphors very easy to follow as well