What’s good y’all?
Since my last post I’ve been to see the new Dune Part 2 so there’s spoilers in this blog post. If you haven’t seen it yet go do that then come back. Pirates ye be warned….I have to say that while it was in fact incredible it just couldn’t in my mind anyways topple my all time favorite version of the famous book by Frank Herbert. Back in 2000 the SyFy channel first aired the Dune miniseries starring Alec Newman as Paul Atreides. It was an awakening experience for me growing up and I have fond memories of sitting on the couch with my dad and brother watching galactic intrigue and knife fights.
My personal opinion of the new Dune movies is that while they were good., they changed overarching character behavior and certain storylines. In both the books and SyFy miniseries the Lady Jessica is pregnant when she ingests a substance known as the water of life. This grants her access to all her previous generational knowledge and experiences it also unfortunately also awakens consciousness in her unborn child Alia.
In both book and SyFy miniseries Alia is born and Paul and Chani have had their first child Leto I. There’s a kind of joint force of the Baron Harkonenn’s troops and the Emperors Sardukaur and being enraged by the Fremen’s continued attacks on spice production and the Emperor basically is like make it go away and orders just indiscriminate bombing of one of the sietches in which Paul and Chani’s first child is killed by the Harkonnens. During this raid/ massacre the Harkonnens being under order from the Emperor I can still remember the scene and the first time I saw it I was like what. the. fuck. They straight murdered a kid. Like an infant child. But there wasn’t any of that in DV’s Dune part two. There was a whole scene in the book/ SyFy miniseries after Paul receives reports his son has been killed he basically says to Chani we will mourn him but there will be others (meaning children).
I dunno, I guess I just feel like all those little scenes add so much more context. And in DV’s Dune part two we didn’t have any of that. The Lady Jessica is walking around with a tatted up face, pregnant with Alia talking out loud seemingly to her unborn child and all the Fremen around her are like yo what the hell is going on. Fair reaction let’s be real. Whereas in the book/ SyFy miniseries Jessica certainly isn’t rocking the dope face tattoos.
By the time of Paul’s final assault on the city of Arakeen two years have passed since Paul and Jessica’s flight of escape into the desert. In fact Alia is the one who puts an end to the Baron Harkonnen with what is revealed to be the Atreides gom jabbar poisoned needle. Whereas in DV’s Dune part two Paul having entered the palace just straight up walks up behind the Baron and knifes him in the back a couple times brutally in front of literally everyone in the palace.
In the instance of the character of Chani Zendaya’s portrayal wasn’t true to the SyFy series let alone the book. There’s several pivotal moments in Dune and one of those is towards the end of the book where Paul who is partnered with Chani tells her essentially to negotiate the marriage contract to The Princess Irulan, and says that though she is technically his wife, she will never have any affection from him. Basically a marriage of political meaning with no emotional attachment. There’s even a whole monologue from the Lady Jessica at the end of the book/ SyFy miniseries where Jessica explains to Chani that it’s the concubines who history will recount as wives.
Whereas it’s fairly evident in both Frank Herbert’s book as well as the SyFy miniseries Dune 2000 that Paul only has eyes for Chani. The whole stomping out of the throne room and being big mad at Paul before summoning a sandworm to ride away from Zendaya’s Chani felt in my opinion incredibly forced. There’s some speculation that Dennis Villanueva is going to bring Zendaya’s Chani back as she is a major character and in DV’s 2021 Dune part 1 there was a spice vision Paul had where he, Chani, the Lady Jessica and other people were back in some sort of vehicle above the Planet Calladan but I’m not entirely sure how that’d work.
Another big difference from the books and SyFy 2000 miniseries against DV’s Dune part two is the final fight scene in the throne room between Paul and Feyd Rautha. In the DV Dune part two version Paul is all casually like hey we’re cousins best of luck. Whereas in both the book and SyFy miniseries Paul and Feyd are like mid knife fight and things aren’t looking good for Paul after Feyd activates a hidden poison needle mechanism on his belt. It looks like Paul is about to eat it when all of a sudden he says “I’m sorry cousin and this is the first and last real interaction between them because that’s the deciding moment that throws Feyd and in the split second of confusion Paul plunges his knife home.
Personally I liked Alex Newman’s portrayal of Paul Atreides, I feel like he really tapped into the source material from Frank Herbert which is considerable. I just finished re-reading my copy of Children of Dune and I have to say…Previously there hasn’t been the technology available to just capture certain things on film. For example becoming an enlightened man-worm. Yes you read that right.
I will say there’s certain things I like about DV’s interpretation of Dune. In part one very near the beginning of the film Paul is challenged by the Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam to place his hand in the box. I happen to like this version of this scene the best Timothée Chalamet’s Paul goes through agony with his hand in the box and the poisoned needle of the Gom Jabbar at his neck as the Reverend Mother looks down on him from a seated position of power.
Through this scene you can see Paul’s reaction the swelling of the the music and him go from a seated kneeling position to standing a head taller than the reverend mother in her seated position and her shrinking away from his dominant gaze. There’s several lessons I’ve taken from Frank Herbert’s masterpiece Dune. Chief among them? The litany against fear.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Alongside not being led by fear, one of the other chief messages to come from Frank Herbert’s Dune series is to beware heroes. Herbert said in 1980 in “Dune Genesis”, an essay in Omni, Vol. 2, No.2 (July 1980), p.72-74
“Don’t give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero’s facade you will find a human being who makes human mistakes. Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero. And sometimes you run into another problem. It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced — in a word, insane.”
I mean…I wasn’t around during the 80’s but I’ll be damned if this thinking doesn’t apply to today’s day and age. Speaking of things that are absolutely wild, I’d seen it advertised literally ALL over TikTok and other social media platforms about the (in)famous Dune popcorn bucket. Which the internet dubbed the Shai-Hulussy or Wormussy depending on your preference. All I gotta say is that whoever was on the marketing team for this hot lil pop culture collectible knew exactly what they were doing.
One of the characters in DV’s Dune part two absolutely took off like an ornithopter trying to outrun a sandstorm. Stilgar’s comments and reactions to basically everything Chalamet’s Paul does is the equivalent of oh my god he ‘s the one which goes back to Herbert’s warnings about hero worship. Stilgar has a few comments of “as written” or as was foretold. With the belief that Paul is the Lisan al Gaib, essentially the chosen one, messiah etc.
As anything that can be turned into a meme poor Stilgar definitely was in rather spectacular fashion.
Lawl. As for me? I’m curious as to how DV will come up with a third part to his Dune movies as I personally didn’t feel like there really was an ending that lined up with things according to any previous iteration of this franchise. Then again…who knows? Unlike Paul with his powers of prescience for us? The future is yet unwritten.
Holy Water, Burning Man 