Dune Review Part 3

Welcome to the Dune Review Part 3, my final installment. Here, we finally finish Denis Villeneuve’s film and give my full impressions.

If you haven’t already, you should read part 1 and Part 2 before continuing:

Harkonnen’s take Arrakeen

Leto, Jessica, and Paul have all been drugged by Dr. Yueh as the Harkonnens attack Arrakeen. The Imperial Sardukar are at the tip of the Harkonnen spear and the Barron has finally achieved victory over this family feud which has dictated both Atreides and Harkonnen behavior for generations.

Leto awakens at his own dining table, the head of the bull which killed his father mounted on the wall. Across from Leto sits the massive form of the Barron Vladimir Harkonnen, gorging himself on food from the Atreides kitchens.

In the haze of waking from the drug, Dr. Yueh is walked into the room. Harkonnen asks what the traitor wants and Yueh reminds him of his promise to release Wana, his wife.

Harkonnen activates his suspensors which allow him to move his massive bulk with ease. Though he did not fly in the book and merely waddled on light feet, Stelan Skarsgard glides into the air and floats over the table, pressing into Yueh’s space at a good height above him. I cannot state how creepy the movement is. The 1984 film introduced the Barron’s ability to fly. In that film, it looked stupid. He bounced around like a balloon. Here, it’s a slow glide, making the Barron feel otherworldly. Like he is not bound by the same laws as the rest of us. Rather than being yet another thing that made the Barron stupid (in the 84 film) it’s something that adds to the power he has. A physical manifestation of his wealth.

The Barron fulfills his side of the deal, allowing Yueh to join his wife… in death. He severs the doctor’s head from his shoulders right then and there. This is not at all how it happened in the book. Book Barron did not enjoy violence to the same extent the film version does. Book Barron enjoyed power and domination. He got a thrill from the fear and reverence his underlings showed him. But he himself didn’t like performing the violence, instead allowing Piter De Vries, his twisted Mentat, to do the killing by stabbing Yueh in the back.

It’s a change to the character I feel was appropriate for the film. We don’t get at all the same amount of time with him, let alone his point of view, which we get several times over the course of the novel. Simplifying his motivations and psychology was, unfortunately, a necessary change if we wanted to get the movie to work. It’s also unfortunate that it had to be PG-13, but I’ll discuss that disappointment more in the wrap up.

I’m conflicted on this change because Book Barron is one of my favorite villains of all time. He’s truly and evil man. There’s no question about that. There’s no moral ambiguity about his actions what-so-ever. I tend to love moral ambiguity, but we get that in other places. The Barron is evil and consumed by gluttony and greed. He exists to consume, he’s obsessive compulsive, systematically touching things with his fingertips in regular patterns, in the book. The handle of a fork, the side of a plate, touching thumb and forefinger, then back to the fork. He has to constantly remind himself that he owns all these things. He will eat what he wants, claim what he wants, rape who he wants. All of it because, deep down, he’s fearful of having nothing. At least, that’s my interpretation of some of his behaviors. His sense of self-worth comes solely from the things and people he possesses.

One little detail, it’s blatantly clear that the Imperium supports slavery. The Emperor is described having a harem of bedslaves. The Barron makes great and terrible use of his bedslaves and other types. It’s a brutal culture, across planets. The Atreides don’t seem to use them from what I can tell.

A lot of the darker elements and a lot of the Barron’s complexities are stripped down to the bare essentials, a calculating opponent the Atreides underestimated. If book Barron was a historian, movie Barron is a high schooler who aced their world history class.

With Yueh taken care of, the Barron turns to Leto. We get another change here. Leto wasn’t stripped originally. But here, it’s another manifestation of the difference between book and movie Barron. At the same time, though, book Barron was a molester. Perhaps that’s the film’s attempt to communicate that without actually mentioning it.

Leto whispers something to the Barron. In his paranoia, even toward a drugged naked man, he flicks on his shield as he leans in to hear what the Duke has to say. I love that attention to detail. Book Barron truly is that paranoid and it’s such a fantastic way of showing that. As he leans in, Leto bites down hard on the false tooth Yueh planted in his mouth just before he fell unconscious. His final words are the Atreides words, “here I am, here I remain.” and he exhales a poison cloud, killing himself and everyone in the room, including Piter De Vries.

They added to the tragedy of this scene, if that’s even possible. Book Leto knew Yueh took the dukal ring to give to Paul. He died knowing that his family still had a chance to survive. Movie Leto dies believing Paul and Jessica are already dead. In both cases, he dies believing he’s getting his vengence. But movie Leto man… fuck. The hope that remained with Book Leto made it almost triumphant. Movie Leto’s death is a pure tragedy. I don’t prefer one or the other. I think both are good but the movie just loves hitting hard at the tragedy of this entire situation.

Unfortunately, since the Barron had turned on his shield, gas exchange between outside and inside is slower than without a shield. He manages to get enough distance that he is, in fact, the only one to survive Leto’s final act as a duke, a father, and a husband.

I’m tearing up as I write this because Leto was a good man. A hard man, and we didn’t get as much of that in the movie. Jessica saw her husband as 2 people. The loving husband and the duke. When he was the duke, he could do some pretty dark things, but over all, a man with that much power, being as good a person as he was, is impressive. Few men with that much pull remain decent, falling to their desires like the Barron. But now, he’s dead, and the Barron isn’t.

Paul and Jessica

Before Leto’s final scene, we get a moment in the book where the Barron and Piter stand over a bound and gagged Jessica. She must be restrained and gagged because of her Bene Gesserit training. With but a word she could get any of them to kill the others and set herself free. That could not be allowed. I’ve mentioned before how we didn’t get much of Piter. Well, this could have been the perfect place to do it, right before his death.

Book Piter wanted Jessica after the conquest of Arrakeen. The Barron promised him this. It’s so fucking twisted and I can’t help but feel like we missed out on a Mentat just as dark as his master. Then again, the Barron was also toned down way too much. Piter’s given a choice, Jessica and exile or rule over Arrakis in the Barron’s stead. Piter chooses the power, as the Barron knew he would. That was part of a plan I hope we see some of in the second movie, so I won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say, with Piter now dead, the Barron must recalculate.

The book and movie line up after that scene when Paul awakens as they’re being flown in a ‘thopter into the desert. The Barron promised not to harm either of them when he spoke with Reverend Mother Gias Helan Mohiam. To ensure that’s true, he has them shipped off into the desert where the worms or exposure will do the job instead. There’s a group of Harkonnen soldiers making sure the job is done, unbeknownst to them, they’ll be executed as soon as they do it. The Barron isn’t a man who leaves loose ends. He’s even gone so far as to assign a def soldier in the crew, just in case she gets the gag off. If he can’t hear her Voice, he won’t fall under its sway.

As they’re being flown to their deaths, one of the Harkonnens starts talking about how he’s never had a highborn before. The others agree with that sentiment, deciding to leave Paul first and “give Jessica a long goodbye.” As fucked as that is, are you really surprised? These are Harkonnen soldiers, after all. That entire society is pure in its brutish brutality.

Paul is not gagged, nor is he restrained with wire that tightens the more you struggle like Jessica is. She warns him not to do it the best she can, but they have no other options. He attempts to use the Voice. “Remove her gag,” he says. In response, he receives a punch to the stomach. He pitches his voice differently and tries again. This time, it works, and the soldier obeys the order.

Here we get a difference between how the Voice should really work and how they use it in the movie. Don’t get me wrong, this is easily the best adaptation of the Voice we’ve seen so far. Even so, it’s subtler than the movie’s interpretation. Here, Jessica orders the soldier to “kill him,” and “give me the knife.” then proceeds to kill the final surviving soldier.

In the book, Jessica has to be subtler with her manipulations, saying “there’s no need to fight over me,” planting the seed that they indeed should to fight over her. She has a whole discussion with one of the soldiers, convincing him that he wants her compliant and the best way to do that is let Paul live. Once freed, Paul attacks, actually helping eliminate the Harkonnen threat.

In the movie, she simply orders the soldiers to kill each-other and finishes off the last one before freeing Paul from his bonds.

I understand why they did it. One, it’s already pretty dark the way it is. Two, running time. But, I always found that scene in particular to be interesting. You aren’t giving orders and having them mindlessly obey. You’re speaking to their soul (figuratively), convincing their subconscious and conscious mind that YOU are correct and know what’s best. Simple orders like “sit down,” are performed automatically. But when you’ve only had a few minutes to gauge a person, and you’re getting them to do a more complex task, something they’d normally be against doing, you actually have to negotiate and figure out the right things to say, even while pitching to their ear perfectly.

It’s not a jedi mind trick. It’s NLP (Neural Linguistic Programming) after another 20,000 years of development and weaponization.

The ‘thopter shuts down and lands on the sand. They can’t fly it because, again, the Barron left no loose ends, as best he could anyway. They run off into the desert, leaving the ‘thopter to be eaten by a worm. Fortunately for them, Yueh managed to leave a fremkit on the ‘thopter for them, with a still-tent and some other necessary desert survival supplies.

They set up the tent, far away, and must contend with the elements.

The Tent

Inside the tend, they open the rest of the kit, finding a letter by Dr Yueh. He informed them about a beacon they could use for help, along with a thumper, something used by the Fremen to call worms. It thumps, sending pulses into the sand. They don’t, however, have stillsuits, the one thing they could really use. They also find the dukal ring, informing them that Leto is indeed dead. God, the acting is so good. Jessica starts crying and Paul takes a more stoic response, just like the book.

We cut away and get a great scene with Kynes overlooking the utterly destroyed Arrakeen. Her inaction brought death to thousands. Then Duncan flies in, demanding the truth. “The emperor sent us here to die,” he says. It’s so short, but man is it good.

Paul finds that there’s spice in the air of the tent. Since he’s sensitive to the effects, he gets another vision, his first spice vision in the book. It’s here I want to talk about the differences between the book’s spice trance and the movie’s. One is in the written language, the other is in a visual one. Though they’re essentially saying the the same things, the viewer/reader experiences them quite differently and gains different information from them. The book’s trances are very intellectual. We’re in Paul’s head with a layer of separation from the trances themselves. The text talks far more about what he gleams from them, rather than what he’s actually seeing. We don’t really get to see any of what he’s experiencing. Whereas in the movie we see his visions but don’t get much of the internal monologue leading to us understanding what we’re seeing. The visions are more vague but at the same time, we get more details about what he’s experiencing and why he comes to the conclusions he does. In the book, we just get, for the most part, the conclusions.

I hope I’m conveying that well. It’s a bit hard to explain without showing you the movie and the book side-by-side.

The vision itself shows Paul a battle in the sand between Sardukar and warriors in golden armor. Sand worms are erupting from the sand. and Paul has blue-within-blue eyes, they eyes of a Fremen, as he fights in the middle of the frey. There’s a knife, burning piles of bodies. It’s the future. Chani again, hand covered in blood. “Holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire,” he whispers. Thousands of warriors, those same golden armored ones, raising their arms to a cloudy sky, Caladan perhaps. Paul and Chani stand in a ship overlooking them. More burning. “Somebody, help me please.”

Jessica’s trying to talk to him but he’s not present.

“It’s coming. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner in my father’s name. Fanatical legions worshiping at my father’s skull. A WAR IN MY NAME!”  Everyone’s shouting his name.

Jessica moves in to hug him, telling him he knows who he is. He shouts at her to get off him, using the voice, declaring that her and the Bene Gesserit made him a freak. Then he collapses slightly, and begins weeping about the death of his father.

As much as there is information that we miss from the transition away from the super analytical view of this vision, we get far more emotional impact. As I’ve said previously, Herbert didn’t focus on the internal feelings of his characters. When he did, we were rather separate from them. He told us what they were feeling, rather than made us experience it through their actions and internal monologue.

The interaction is rather similar between Paul and his mother. He’s angry with the Benne Gesserit for what they did to him. He’s frustrated with his mother. and he even yells at her. But I remembered none of that until I re-read the scene. I’d read it as him kind of being blank, emotionally. Part of that reason is the emphasis on his Mentat training. He’s been unable to cry about his father’s death because he doesn’t feel it. He’s numb to it. All it is is another datum in his data set. Information to be processed and utilized. He does eventually break down and cry, but the scene is very stoic and matter-of-fact. This interpretation pushes the emotion because we can see the actors doing amazing work. And Timothée Chalamet did an amazing job of behaving like a boy in the throws of a terrifying and enthralling trance state induced by a highly intoxicating psychedelic.

I knew he wasn’t happy with the future he saw in the book. In the movie, I felt it. And that’s exactly what the movie wanted. It’s exactly what the characters were going through at the time, though perhaps a bit less emotion from Paul’s Mentat mind. I love this sequence here and I feel the importance of it, rather than understand it. Knowledge versus feeling. Herbert went for the knowledge and Villeneuve went for the feeling. The creative minds behind these different versions of the scene had a different focus for it. They wanted the audience to do and feel different things, I think.

I have a sense that more people will be able to identify with the film’s version of this scene. At the same time, the impact of the holy war and the destruction it will cause is easier to follow in the book. The film is emotionally engaging where the book is intellectually. Of course, that’s the sense I got from the book. Perhaps others felt similar shock and sadness reading it. I didn’t.

They awake the next morning and receive a ping from the Atreides beacon. They drink some of the recycled water made from their sweat and tears. They are now exiles on one of the most hostile places in the universe. They must begin to accept this new life. Book Jessica struggles with this for a time, refusing to fully accept it, still clinging onto the idea of the life she lived before. She tries to hold onto the happiness she had with her duke on Caladan. But that life is over. Now, they must join the desert or die.

We get a small scene with a desert kangaroo mouse, it drinks the sweat from its large ears and hops away. I love that they showed it because that mouse, and what it represents to the Fremen, will be important later.

A ‘thopter flies to their location. Paul knows institutionally that it’s Duncan. The book explains that his Mentat mind is able to observe the flight pattern, detecting the speed of his decent and landing, knowing that only Duncan flies that way. The movie doesn’t mention how he knows.

Duncan rushes to them and kneels before his new duke. Paul and Jessica share a look. It’s still surreal to both of them.

They fly into the desert with Kynes in the ‘thopter. Paul and Jessica find out about the Sardukar involvement, meaning the Emperor’s chosen sides. They ask what the judge of the change thinks and she explains that she can’t say anything. Yet, she helps them, risking everything.

The Caves

A sand storm is coming as they find shelter in a series of rocks with a cave system. Something about Arrakis storms is that they’re far more deadly than anything we have on Earth. The winds are so fast that the sand will shred flesh, bone, even metal. Few things but the desert rocks can survive, and no communication equipment works during them. That’s one of the reasons colonizing Arrakis has been so hard. and, of course, for some reason, the Spacing guild has refused to allow satellites around the planet. Of course, only parts of that are mentioned, because they aren’t important yet. But the storm is quite dangerous.

It turns out the cave is actually an old ecological testing station. The plan originally had been to tame the planet and free the water locked deep beneath the sands. But then the spice was discovered. Once that happened, no-one wanted the desert to go away. In the book, it wasn’t an old idea that was abandoned. It was, in-fact, Kynes father who’d originally come to the conclusion that Arrakis could be turned into a paradise.

Here is where we found out that Kynes and Liet were the same person. But the Fremen calling her Liet has none of the book’s significance since they’d abandoned that plot threat all together. Sadly, it’s left a bit vague who Kynes is to the Fremen. We can guess, sure, but it’s not as clear. In the book, we understand that he’s the planetary leader. All Fremen answer to him, because he wants to continue his father’s dream.

In the novel, we’ve gotten Kynes’ perspective several times, including now. He likes these Atreides. They’re good people, more concerned with their subjects than the spice, as shown with Leto’s willingness to abandon the spice during the worm attack. He’s been conflicted. He should hate these outsiders, yet he’s helping them. Why?

Well, Paul sees this with his Mentat analysis and pulls a stroke of political maneuvering, convincing Kynes that he is indeed the Lisan al-gaib, their voice from the outer world who will deliver them from this hell and into paradise. He must speak to the Landsraad, the assembly of great houses, and tell them what happened on Dune, to incite war between the great houses and the emperor. With one possible alternative, to marry Paul to one of his daughters, since he has no sons. Keep things quiet and make Paul the new Emperor. Both book and movie Kynes are hesitant at first, but eventually agree to do this thing.

Just as this is happening, a squad of Sardukar glide into the area and begin an assault. We get to see one of the coolest ways the Fremen know how to fight, they launch into attack from under the sand just as the Sardukar walk above them, flinging dust into the air as a distraction and slaughtering many of them. We actually get to see this in the book, though it’s so much more impactful when you see it rather than have it described over a couple of sentences. Again, Herbert never spent time on the action or violence.

Orignially, we see it happen just before Thufir Hawat is captured by the Sardukar.

Duncan knows something’s wrong, opening the door to the room Jessica, Paul, and Kynes are talking in. He calls out, warning them. Then hits the door controls, saluting to Paul one last time as they seal them inside. Paul rushes to the door, but gets there too late.

Duncan goes up against waves of Sardukar in that hallway, slaughtering each of them as he’s slowly cut down. He’s stabbed through the chest and knocked falls. The Sardukar go to the door with a lasgun to cut it open. But Duncan gets up like a badass motherfucker, rips the sword out of his chest, lets out a battle cry, and keeps on fighting, giving the three enough time to escape through a secret passage. Duncan finally falls dead on the ground as more Sardukar come.

We got none of that in the book. He just gets sealed off and we only follow the three as they escape. I must say, I prefer movie Duncan to book Duncan, especially the death. We learn more about him in later books through stories and events I won’t mention here. But when he was alive, he wasn’t much of a character. He was just kind of there. He shared none of the same comradery with Paul. In-fact, movie Duncan pretty much took the place that book Gurney Halleck had in relation to Paul, making this death much more impactful, making his film character and death better, in my opinion. Of course, part of that was Jason Momoa. You can tell he liked the character and wanted to give him justice.

Kynes splits from Paul and Jessica, telling them to take a hidden ‘thopter and fly into the storm. High up, it’s mostly dust. One of the many secrets those who aren’t native to Arrakis don’t know.

Right after Duncan gets a better death than his book counterpart, we get Kynes also going out better than in the book. Book Kynes is captured by the Sardukar and left in the middle of the desert with a cut stillsuit, slowly dying from dehidration. He hallucinates his father talking to him as he’s roasting in the sun. It turns out he’s on a pre-spice mass, the thing that happens right before spice bursts onto the sand’s surface. It happens below, with the little makers (explained later) errupting, flinging the mix of spice to the surface while sucking the surface sand beneath. Kynes is consumed by this mass.

Movie Kynes is on her way to escape from the rocks. She slips out, throws a thumper into the sand to summon a worm. She then pulls out two hooks and stands away from the thumper. Then she’s stabbed in the back by a Sardukar. Water spurts from her chest in place of blood, feeding the PG-13 while also giving homage to how the Book counterpart died. She tumbles down the dune she’d crested. THe Sardukar move in, declaring her a traitor to the emperor.

“I serve only one master, and his name is Shai-Hulud.” She then pounds on the sand with her fist. As the Sardukar raises his sword to end her, the sand around them shifts and the ground opens up to reveal the mouth of the sandworm. I must admit, I love it. Yes, she dies, but she takes the fuckers with her. She accepts her death with a warriors grace.

As this happened, Paul and Jessica find the ‘thopter. It won’t start and the camera keeps cutting to the entrance to the ‘thopter-pad. But it gets up and they start flying toward the storm as the Sardukar give chase in their own ‘thopters. They launch missiles at the ‘thopter. Paul has to dive into the storm and take evasive manuvers, not high enough in the storm for it to not take with with the wind and begin shredding the glass/plastic windows. The wings are not happy as the glass begins to crack.

Jessica falls into the liteny against fear as Paul has another vision. Jamis, a character we’ll meet later, speaks to Paul. “THe Mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it.” Then movie Paul takes a queue from Star Wars and drops the controls and allows the ‘thopter to fly, by itself, through the storm, allowing the process to happen.

Originally, what Jamis said was a Mentat teaching quoted by Paul back on Caladan. Since movie Paul isn’t a Mentat, and since the Fremen truly do live according to that teaching, it makes perfect sense to repurposed it here. I’m not the biggest fan of him abandoning the controls though. In the book, they simply flew high enough and started gliding through the dusty storm for hours. In the movie, it’s much more dramatic with the ‘thopter starting to spin like a (seed spinner) in freefall. That’s one of the decisions I don’t really like.

The Harkonnens

The Beast Rabban finds his uncle in a strange black oily bath. It’s some sort of healing pool to aid in his recovery from the poison the Duke exhaled. Book Barron wasn’t injured at all, but I like that he was injured. Raban informs him that they chased Jessica and Paul into the storm, a storm that nothing could possibly survive. They’re most certainly dead. In the book, this scene happens in the Barrons bedroom.

The Barron sticks his head out of the bath comes out of the bath, thankful that the fighting is finally over. He commands Raban to squeeze hard and slaughter all the Fremen on the planet.

Now this makes no sense at all. Book Raban even asked the Baron if he could slaughter the Fremen. The Barron knew he couldn’t. They have a captive populous on Arrakis, a populous that can be used to help mine the spice. Book Barron is far more concerned with making the money back that he had to spend to get the Gild to ship in so many forces. Military might is extremely expensive to ship through space. Of course, the Emperor didn’t help pay for any of that, even though he wanted the work done. Harkonnen wants to use the locals as slave labor, not kill them all.

It’s a decision that both makes the Barron more intimidating and more stupid. Book Barron is a genius, plane and simple. Yes, he makes mistakes but he’s a manipulative mastermind. This guy is just ruthless and little else. Honestly, this is the worst scene with movie Barron because it directly goes against things his book counterpart said and did. Now, squeeze hard was important. He did want Raban to be ruthless and brutal. Hopefully we’ll see why in the next movie, so I won’t spoil his motives in case they’re planning on making that a big reveal later.

In the book, we know exactly why he wants him to squeeze, yet not slaughter everyone native to Arrakis. Ordering genocide isn’t conducive to income, which was book Barron’s top priority.

Into the Desert

Back with Jessica and Paul, they find they’re in the safe zone of the storm and begin gliding through it, one of their wings having decided to crap out. It’s a very pretty scene, high up in the dust. Slowly but surely, the ‘thopter starts to fail and Paul goes in for a crash-landing, resulting in them being stranded in the desert, alone. They make their way for the rocks and begin their journey.

They fact they shot on location makes all of this feel so much more real. Because it is. The desert is hot and dry. The rocks are dusty and ancient as the planet itself. Paul teaches her how to wear her stillsuit. Now they must find the Fremen. Paul has another vision, this time with Chani showing him a desert mouse nest. The knife again, Jamis will guide him, teaching him the ways of the desert. I LOVE this. Jamis only showed up when we met him in the book, never in Paul’s visions. It makes their interaction so much more interesting when it finally happens.

We get a little bit of them in their desert trek. The novel spends a lot more time on their survival as they climb deeper and deeper into that unforgiving wasteland. There’s even a moment where Jessica gets consumed by a sand-slide on the side of a steep slope. Paul had to figure out a way to dig her out without loosing more sand. During the slide, he also managed to lose their fremkit, so they have none of their food or extra water, and no tent. Using desert ingenuity and what little they have, they manage to create foam using the acid in their paracumpass to buffer the sand as they dig it out. Jessica reinforces some basic Bene Gesserit training after the ordeal because Paul freaked out and lost his calm. They can’t afford to do that.

Also, we don’t get any of Jessica’s fear. Ever since the trance in the tent, something had changed within Paul. He’s no-longer the boy he was. He’s becoming the Kwisatz Haderach plus the Mentat capabilities that were not part of the Bene Gesserit program. He’s a seed for something more, something unpredicted by the Reverend Mothers, growing as his visions become stronger and he learns how to interpret them. She fears what he is now. There are a few times where she’s genuinely unnerved by her son and his new mind. But, he’s still not in total control, hence his panic when she was buried in the sand.

We also begin to understand his visions around now. Paul can see into the future and the past. But not into the certain future. It’s more like probabilities. In-fact, the first time I read Dune, I interpreted it as purely his mind formulating computations for possible outcomes. Upon further readings and seeing what others have to say about the work, it’s a bit more than that. There is a layer of mysticism to it. He has access to things his body and mind have no reason to know. He can see things a simple computation could never predict because he can sometimes see the unforeseen variables. His mind is awakening to some kind of extra-body sense system, accessing the flow of time and the universe itself. His time sense is like the flowing waves in the ocean, an analogy used through the series. Sometimes he’s at the crest, sometimes the trough. Always, time changes and you can see more or less depending on the swell around you. So he takes it upon himself to do whatever it takes to not allow this holy war to happen. He refuses to allow it and will find a way to stop it, doing things that he hasn’t seen in his visions to hopefully change the course of the future.

Back to the movie, Jessica and Paul have to cross open sand. Paul informs Jessica about the sand walk. Walking with no pattern so the sandworms don’t detect a prey item in their territory. Step, slide, step, pause, step, step, slide, pause, slide, etc. Paul learned this in a filmbook during his Arrakis studies. That’s not how it worked in the book. Like Liet and Kynes being the same man, much of the ways the Fremen survived in the desert had been kept secret from anyone who wasn’t Fremen or an honorary member of their people. In-fact, the sand walk was something they had to be told of and observe Fremen doing. I get it, it’s easier this way. But at the same time, part of what made the Fremen so interesting was their secretive nature. They’ve made the desert their home and have done a fantastic job at hiding how they’ve done that from the Imperium.

Something I forgot to mention about the sandworm attack on the crawler was that there were two figures hiking away from the site after it was consumed. Kynes claimed they were just stragglers, but Paul knew they were Fremen and that they must have a way to walk over the sands without getting a worm’s attention. Little details, like how information is learned, mattered so much in the book. Yet, they abandoned a lot of the subterfuge, along with the mind-games. It’s unfortunate because I found desert survival being such a secret far more interesting.

Exhausted after many long hours of hiking through shifting sands in an awkward and uncomfortable walking pattern, they rest. But there’s a worm nearby. A big one. They’re nearing the other side of the pass, with massive rocks for safe passage, when they hit drum sand. Drum sand is what happens when sand becomes compact and acts as a drum. Once you walk on it, it sends a massive vibration into the ground. The worm hears this and attacks, chasing Jessica and Paul. They sprint as hard as they can, barely making it across the last stretch and to the safety of the rocks.

The worm looms ominously over them, lifting its massive head above the sand. It’s round mouth, filled with thousands of spiky teeth, leering at them as it tries to find where they are. Then a thumper starts somewhere off in the distance and the worm moves on. Someone turned on that thumper.

Something I was a bit disappointed with was the worm’s size. It’s pretty damn big, and would easily swallow them both with plenty of room for more. But the book worm that chased them… its mouth was over 300 feet wide. It was a massive beast. Shai-Hulud. A maker of the deep desert. An elder worm, larger than a Gild high-liner. They are in the deep desert now and worms grow gigantic out here. The worm we see in the film is hardly an infant in comparison to the grandfather they barely escape from.

Sure, it didn’t have to be quite that big. It’s a bit insane even trying to imagine a worm of that size, but maybe twice, if not three times as big as what we got, would have been good enough for me. The one we get has a mouth that’s maybe 20 feet across? Come now. We’ve seen big worms before. The one who ate the crawler was big, though it wasn’t as big as the book counterpart. That one’s mouth was twice the size of the crawler, where the movie version barely got the crawler down.

Finding the Fremen

Jessica and Paul start hiking through the cliffs, finding they’re in a man-made path. The book emphasizes small plant life. That’s why they crossed in the first place. Plants rarely grow naturally, so, there must be Fremen here. The shadows are also much starker. Morning is approaching in the film, but it was the dead of night for what comes next.

They aren’t alone. No, they’re surrounded by Fremen. Neither of them heard a thing but the natural sounds of the desert. Stilgar speaks up, apparently the leader of this troop. Now they have two offworlders, plump with moisture. They will take their water. Jaimis is there too, eager to get the job done, though Stilgar is arguing patience. Paul was there during the meeting between Leto and Stilgar. He’s still young and can learn the ways of the desert. Perhaps he is or isn’t the Lisan al-Gaib. He must be tested for that. But Jessica is too old to learn and would do nothing but slow them down and give them away to their enemies. So Stilgar moves in to kill Jessica.

All at once, Jessica lashes out and pins Stillgar. In the film, she takes his knife to his throat, in the book, she holds him in a neck-lock. Paul rushes up, incapacitating Jamis, taking his maula pistol (projectiles work in a desert where there aren’t any shields) and runs up the rock face, taking cover and a high-position.

The interaction is largely the same, but the subtleties are different. Stilgar keeps more stoic in the book but film Stilgar is very much afraid to die and does his best to calm Jessica. Jessica is a bit humorous here. Stilgar says “Why didn’t you say you were a weirding woman, and a fighter?” she replies with “our conversation ran short.” but in the book, she dismissed his comment, ordering one of the Fremen, who thought himself hidden, to lower his gun.

Another thing Frank Herbert didn’t do much of in his writing was comedy. Everything was super serious all the time. That’s something I’m working on in my own writing. It’s hard to throw in small jokes like that sometimes. But it’s good here.

They agree to let Jessica live. Though she cannot learn the ways of the desert properly, she can train them in her weirding ways, the Bene Gesserit martial arts.

It turns out that, right behind Paul, sits Chani, with a Maula pistol aimed at him. She’s called off of the attack and helps him back down. He took the hardest way up to his vantage.

This is probably the best place to voice another complaint I have. Stilgar is played by (), an (). Chainey and Jamis are played by Americans. The film didn’t even try to give them a unifying accent. They’re all from the same Siech, yet they speak very differently. Stilgar rolls his Rs and no-one else does. It’s again, a little thing. A nitpick. But it still brings me out of the movie. Technically speaking, they should all have some sort of Arabic accent, but at the very least have them all sound similar. They’re clearly not at all from the same place. But they’re supposed to have grown up in the same siech, the same tribe.

What comes next is a lot all at once. The coming events are spread out a lot better in the book. The movie is getting ready to end and really wants to get this next sequence through with.

Jamis is furious about the dishonor tht happened. A little boy disarmed and humiliated him. Jessica bested Stilgar, making her stronger than him. This means that she should technically be the leader now. He invokes the amtal, a sacred right to combat.

The book explains the situation way better. We get time to understand the basics because they travel to some caves nearby and rest for the evening. Jessica and Stillgar discuss the situation. She bested him, but an outsider cannot lead. One way around it is to marry. But if he marries her, others might think that Stilgar cares more for pleasures of the flesh than leading well. Some are already jealous that he was able to “touch her loveliness,” when she bested him. The other option is to be tested as a Reverend Mother. To see if she can truly be a Sayyadina. Oh yes, they use the term Reverend Mother in their religion. They’re the crones who give wisdom.

It’s a rather complex situation that would take a while to explain all the details with. suffice it to say, movie Stilgar simply says to Jamis, “you cannot challenge a Sayyadina.” Then Jamis demands she name a champion. Paul accepts.

The book’s situation isn’t that he can’t challenge a Sayyadina. It’s that Jamis refuses to accept that she IS a Sayyadina. She hasn’t been tested, though Stilgar and many others are already treating her as one.

The legend of the Lisan al-Gaib says the man will come with a Bene Gesserit mother. Her having bested Stilgar with skilled martial arts, or her weirding ways, suggests to many that she is indeed the mother of their savior. It’s all part of the Missionaria Protectiva’s control mechanisms which have bred a strong superstition into the Fremen over uncounted generations.

This one isn’t necessarily an omission, more like a gross simplification of a complex political scenario within the Fremen’s tribal ways. It bugs me how quickly it all goes down. One second, they’re taken under Stilgar’s protection. In literally the same scene, Jamis has already challenged Paul to a fight. That’s just… not how any of that worked.

But, we’re nearing the end of the movie and ending it with a knife fight that’s crucial to the plot makes perfect sense. Rather than waiting until they’re in the caves, they have their battle right there and then. Another issue with this is they’re wearing stillsuits for the fight. They were in their underwear in the book. Why knife fight in stillsuits? Those things are crucial survival equipment! Why knowingly damage such an important aspect of Fremen life? They are the single most important thing any person living in the deep desert owns.

Oh well.

As the sun rises, the Fremen gather to watch. Paul is preparing himself mentally for the battle, another vision. He’s killed in the fight. A whispering voice speaks in his mind. “Paul Atreides must die for Kwisatz Haderach to rise. Don’t be frightened. Don’t resist. When you take a life, you take your own.”

It’s a decent way of conveying this situation. Book Paul was scared as well, but he had a different problem. He was in a nexus point of the time flow. There were so many possible ways this scenario could play out that the tiniest action could have huge ramifications. He didn’t know if he’d win or lose. He was all but blind with his time sense. Anything could happen and he had no way of knowing what that was. It was the first time since he’d gained his new presence that he didn’t know what to do or how to do it.

Chani comes up to him and gives him a crysknife, saying it would be an honor to die with it in his hand. Jamis is a great fighter. She knows he will die. There’s no hope for him. I like this bit because we were in Jessica’s point of view when she gave him the knife and didn’t get to hear their conversation before the fight.

Another thing that happened right before the fight was Jessica attempted to get Jamis to back down, using the voice. But he felt what she was doing and claimed she was attempting a spell on him. She was commanded to not speak during the fight or she would be killed. Yet another thing that didn’t happen in the film.

The fight… is something else. I love it so much. They put in the effort to make it look and feel like a somewhat realistic knife fight. Use the tip, fast and deadly, trapping with the free hand while attempting to strike with the knife. It’s so damn good. The changes to the fight from the book make perfect sense.

The book focused more on the mind game than the martial arts of the fight itself. The film has Paul get the blade to Jamis’ neck and shout “do you yield?” But there is no yielding in this fight. One combatant must die. Paul hesitates, letting Jamis continue fighting. He gets the knife to his neck a few more times, Stillgar saying, “Is he toying with him?” Jessica replies with “He’s never killed a man.”

Book Paul had a different problem. He was super fast on the defense, but had been trained with shields in mind. So when he went in for the strike, he slowed down enough to get past the shield, giving Jamis time to maneuver. Stillgar asks Jessica if he’s toying with him but has to wave her off because she’s not allowed to speak.

One version is heady. The other is visceral. Both versions work well. I have no complaints about changing the dynamic of the fight because it would be much harder to convey him slowing down his attacks. In both versions, Paul finishes the fight. One with a stab to the chest, the other with a stab in the liver. Jamis dies on the ground.

Film Paul holds Jamis’ hand as he dies. Book Jamis was dead as he hit the floor.

I must convey something important the movie added rather than subtracted. Remember how I said we never saw Jamis in Paul’s visions? Well, that meant that Jamis was simply an antagonist to overcome. He was never a potential mentor to Paul. Had events gone differently, movie Jamis and Paul would have been friends.

I love that addition. I truly do. It adds so much more weight behind an already heavy situation. And it adds tragedy to the events that wasn’t there before. It’s a stroke of genius, in my opinion. Out of all the changes/additions this movie made to the source material, this is my absolute favorite.

I also must add a bit of a complaint. The distress Stillgar and the other Fremen felt when they thought Paul was playing with Jamis was emphasized way more in the book. Stillgar voiced his fear that he’d allowed a monster among them. I guess it’s not all that important but I’d always found it a crucial element that they only dedicate one line to. The danger of Paul being perceived as a monster isn’t emphasized at all.

Immediately, the Fremen wrap up Jamis in a type of tarp to save as much water as they can. If they’d fought in a sealed cave, they’d have been able to save all that blood too.

Jessica tries to convince the Fremen to get Paul off world. Paul denies it. His father came to Arrakis for the strength of the Fremen and he will follow that path. He will go with them and learn their ways, to become one of them.

The movie ends with a row of them walking through the morning sun (though Fremen only travel at night). Most of them don’t have their masks on, wasting water.

We see a sandworm with… a Fremen riding on its back.

Chani says the extremely overused line “this is only the beginning.” and they walk off into the desert with a swell of music as we cut to black and the credits roll.

Wrapping it all up

Here we are. It took me way too long to get this review done. I’ll try not to take this long again, but no promises.

2021’s Dune is a fantastic film. It doesn’t work as a stand-alone, because it needs a part 2 to complete the story. Villeneuve has said that he’s treating both parts like one film. This is act I and most of II. Thankfully, part 2 is already green lit and they’re working on it. Otherwise, my opinion of the movie would be far lower. Since this is a part 1, I shall treat it as such.

The cinematography is gorgeous. The locations, sets, and CGI complement each-other perfectly. They even went so far as to make the CG backgrounds a light brown for much of the shooting, instead of using green. It allows light reflections to be more realistic. The effort in this movie is astounding and I can’t wait for part 2.

This is the perfect movie to introduce new people to the Dune universe. If someone’s been on the fence about getting into it, I plan to show them this movie. It’s perfect for that. It’s a perfect doorway into this fantastic universe.

As an adaptation, it’s really good. It’s far better than most adaptations I’ve seen. It captures the soul of the story very well.

Unfortunately, the soul is about all it captures. Perhaps that’s all it could capture. But the lack of any mention of the Butlerian Jihad and the Mentats is a true shame. I don’t know why they left out two of the most important world building aspects. As a newcomer, you have no idea why no-one’s using AI or computers. It’s just not explained AT ALL! It’s one of the most important aspects of this setting and what separates it from almost all other sci-fi. I don’t think I’ve seen a single work beyond Dune that even attempted to strip computers away from the future of humanity.

The entire purpose of Dune revolved around that crazy idea. When I first heard that there were no computers or AI, I felt I wouldn’t be able to appreciate Dune like others did. I was a computer science major at the time. It turned out I was wrong. There’s a magic to it unlike anything else I’ve experienced. And to leave that out? To not give it even the slightest mention? I cannot fathom why they didn’t give us a couple of sentences, at the very least.

We get no mention of the Barron’s true sins either. He’s awesome in this, don’t get me wrong. I love what we did get. But we’re missing so much of what gives the Barron so much flavor. It’s like taking a gourmet recipe and only keeping the main ingredients. None of the spices or things that bring the true flavor are there. It’s still a good meal, but it’s not what the book said there should be. He’s obsessive compulsive and is way smarter than what we see here. Piter says, early on, that the Barron could easily out think any of those ancient computers people used to have. I don’t believe that was an exaggeration. I do think he’s on a Mentat level of intellect. That is what makes him so terrifying, not his gluttony or greed, not his money and power, not even his evil sexual obsessions (I understand why they left that out, it is a bit much for PG-13. It’s perfectly reasonable to omit that). His true menace is his intelligence and I don’t get the sense that he’s a genius here. We don’t get the caniving Barron I love to hate from the book.

We got none of the plot incriminating Jessica. I honestly don’t know how they’ll handle some things that come later on. That was a fundamental element that they totally abandoned.

Piter de Vries is a dark and twisted character. A main character for the first half of the book. I don’t think he was even named in the film and I’ve watched it 5 times now.

Leto was done perfectly. I felt more for the film version than I did the book.

The reordering of events was awesome. We get more time on Caladan and get more dread as the Atreides are preparing to move to Arrakis. The book’s Caladan is interesting for the lore and plot-line. They ramp up the tension quite a bit and give more flavor with the added “judge of the change” scene.

The book starts off with the Gom Jabbar test in the first chapter. We know almost nothing about Paul or Jessica. Waiting a bit before we get that scene makes it tenser. We know Paul and want him to survive. I also love how they cut between his test and Jessica barely suppressing a panic attack outside the door. It gives her so much more humanity. In fact, though we lost a lot of Jessica’s depth, we got more emotional moments from her, lending a different sort of depth that I appreciate.

Paul being on the ground when the worm attacked the crawler made that sequence much more enjoyable and tense. It also gave Paul a bit more practice with his visions. Book Paul didn’t get out. He didn’t feel the need to. I think that’s due to the difference in book and movie Paul’s character. Movie Paul is much more immature when he starts out, lending to more of an arc one can follow without being in his head all the time. Book Paul had a powerful arc too, but it would have been a bit harder to keep track of if we only saw it through his actions and words.

Leaving out any of Dr. Yueh’s subplot was sad. We get no proper motivations from him and he’s barely a character here. Yes, we get the bare-minimum, but this is Dune we’re talking about. Bare minimum isn’t what Dune’s about. It’s about depth and complexity.

Film Paul isn’t a Mentat. Hell, Mentat’s don’t even seem to exist. So many pieces of the Kwisatz Haderach puzzle are thrown for a loop with his Mentat training. He’s something more than what the Bene Gesserit wanted. He’s dangerous and nothing like him has ever existed before. Leaving out Mentats, why they exist, what they’re for, and Paul being one, is a judgement call that I cannot comprehend. That might be the single worst thing they omitted. I hope they introduce it in the second film and rectify some of the damage to the story.

Jamis showing up in some of Paul’s visions, lending a tragedy to their encounter, was a stroke of brilliance. We also didn’t see much of Chani in the book visions. Here, she’s always haunting him. A destined soul mate that fate seems to be driving him toward. We get far more character through the visions this time around. The book visions are important for the story but they’re super intellectual and rather bland in comparison. Villeneuve wanted them to feel more like real dreams. A puzzle that requires a key. Paul doesn’t have that key.

The soundtrack is phenomenal. It’s probably Hans Zimmer’s best work yet. It adds so much to the film. A lot of the storytelling is done through the music.

The acting is amazing on all fronts. I’ve heard a couple complaints about the chemistry between actors. I don’t see that at all. I thought everyone worked together perfectly.

Seeing Duncan’s death made it so much better. He went down like a true badass warrior, worthy of being one of the few men alive the Sardukar feared.

I like the changes we got with Doctor Kynes, though throwing away the mystery about her Fremen name, Liet, was a shame.

I don’t know if I like the Harkonnens being hairless. It’s kind of weird. At the same time, it’s a style choice and most of the style choices were fantastic. It wasn’t how I saw them. That’s about the most I can say. I’m sure many things looked different for a lot of readers. The overall aesthetic matched my internal vision quite well and I preferred some of the changes.

I’d always seen the armor and outfits as even more ancient. Giving the Sardukar and some of the other soldier types a bit more futuristic stuff worked well.

Overall, I both love this film and was disappointed by it. I love it because it brought my favorite novel to the big screen in a way that was faithful to the source material and brought a new spectacle to the universe. Many of the film’s visuals will be with me when I read the book from now on. I was disappointed because of the things they changed or left out.

At the same time, it’s a 2.5 hour movie adapting 400 pages of dense novel. Not just novel, but dense. Every page is brimming with world-building, philosophy, psychology, politics, and so many other subjects. I can’t possibly fault the movie for leaving some things out and making changes. The things I’ve listed above were my major problems that I wish they’d managed to leave in. I want a 3 hour cut with just a few more things in it. But Villeneuve has said the theatrical release is his version and he doesn’t plan on making an extended cut. I feel, as well as this movie did, that we need that extended cut.

The Lord of the Rings director’s cuts are the fanbase’s definitive cuts. I don’t know a single person who prefers the theatrical over the director’s. I’m sure there are some, but I don’t know any. I feel Dune could use the same treatment. But that isn’t happening. We’re stuck with the awesome experience we have. I just wish there was more.

I think that’s my major gripe with Dune Part 1. There isn’t enough of it. Now, if that’s not the best sort of complaint you can have for a movie, I don’t know what is Most movies stick around way too long. They’re 2 hours when they should have been 90 minutes. Dune needed to be longer. At least 3 hours. Probably 4 would have been better. At that rate, people might start dropping off.

If they’d managed to keep Jessica’s accusation, the Butlerian Jihad and subsequent Mentats, the Barron being the smartest man in the room even with a Mentat present, and Piter being a bit more of his book self, I think this film would be a 10/10. That being said, the overall product is still one of the best book adaptations I’ve seen. Hell, it’s one of the best films of the past decade, if not this century. I think Herbert would be proud if he’d lived to see this magnificent piece of art.

I cannot wait for Part 2 and hope that some of my problems are resolved. I might have come across as frustrated a few times through these reviews. Truly, most of them are petty when compared to the overall product of that we got. I hope we get more Dune films and that this becomes a franchise. Frank Herbert wrote one of my favorite stories and the more people who can experience it the better.

I don’t like the concept of rating a movie. As you’ve seen, my thoughts on this are extensive. I probably have even more to say, but I’ve spent way too much time working on this already. If I’m to give this film a rating, it’s a 9/10. This is one of Villeneuve’s favorite books. As someone who loves Dune above all other books, I can very much tell. You can see he loves the source material and did everything he could to make the film the best it could possibly be. I just wish we got a bit more world-building and a bit less streamlining. Even so, he and everyone else who worked on this masterpiece of cinema did a phenomenal job.