DUNE 2 : IS IT WORTH IT?

The much anticipated follow-up to Denis Villeneuve's first Dune movie will bring the story of Frank Herbert's beloved 1965 science fiction novel to a close. The novel follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet in the movies) as he becomes embroiled in a galactic battle for the valuable but deadly desert planet of Arrakis.

The first half of Herbert's novel was adapted for the screen in Dune: Part One in 2021. The story revolves around Paul's father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), who leads House Atreides and accepts stewardship of Arrakis. However, he is betrayed by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), the leader of rival House Harkonnen, with the covert support of Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV (played by Christopher Walken in Part Two), ruler of the Imperium, a galactic empire. Following the events of the previous film, Dune: Part Two finds Paul and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) forming an alliance with the Fremen, the indigenous inhabitants of Arrakis, in order to exact revenge on those responsible for the destruction of their family.

"This movie is far superior to Part One in my opinion. It contains something more vibrant. At a press conference in December, Villeneuve stated, "There's a relationship to the characters." "I was trying to reach for an intensity and a quality of emotions that I didn’t reach with Part One and that I did reach with Part Two."

Before seeing Dune: Part Two, make sure you know all about it.

Key Takeaways from Part One of Dune

The Dune world is not for the faint of heart; it is set tens of thousands of years in the future in a feudal interplanetary society in which numerous noble houses rule planetary fiefs. As Herbert's novel series continues, the tale becomes more and more convoluted and weird.

A young Fremen woman named Chani (Zendaya) narrates the events that have transpired on Arrakis since House Harkonnen took over the planet eighty years ago in the opening scene of Dune: Part One.

"Arrakis, my planet, is extremely lovely when the sun is low. You can smell the spice in the air as you roll over the sands," she remarks. "The harvesters of spices land at dusk. Outsiders have to beat the heat of the day in a battle against time. Right before our eyes, they devastate our lands. All I know is their cruelty to my people. The Harkonnens, these foreigners, arrived long before I was born. Their hegemony over the manufacture of spices made them immensely wealthy. more wealthy than the actual Emperor. Though our forces were unable to rescue Arrakis from the Harkonnens, they were eventually eliminated by an Imperial order. Why was this the Emperor's choice of path? And who will be our oppressors in the future?"

The "spice" that Chani mentions is actually a result of the enormous sandworms' life cycle, which makes it unique to the arid planet Arrakis. It's the most precious resource in the universe—a enigmatic, hallucinogenic drug that prolongs life, opens doors to interplanetary travel, and expands consciousness. In essence, the person in charge of the spice has the ability to reign.

Leto, in the meantime, is about to accept the Emperor's invitation to succeed the Harkonnens as caretakers of Arrakis on the oceanic world of Caladan, the ancestral home of House Atreides. Leto can't deny the Emperor's "gift" even though he feels there is foul play afoot. He has to get House Atreides ready for the perilous journey ahead, especially Jessica (his nameless bride whom he can't marry for political reasons) and their son Paul.Leto admits in a conversation with Paul that the Emperor fears Leto's increasing political influence and feels threatened by his popularity in the Landsraad, the assembly that consists of all the Great Houses in the Imperium. Leto claims that the Emperor intends to start a conflict between the Atreides and Harkonnens in order to weaken both families, but he also plans to form an alliance with the Fremen in order to harness their "desert power" and grow even more powerful.

Regarding Paul's mother, Jessica, she is a highly skilled and trained sister of the Bene Gesserit, an obscure all-female order whose members possess extraordinary mental and physical abilities that include the ability to speak with a voice that compels listeners to follow their every word. The Kwisatz Haderach, an unmatched Bene Gesserit male with the ability to access all of his ancestral memories (male and female) and see all possible futures, is the result of centuries of work by the Bene Gesserit, a formidable political, religious, and social force, to subtly exercise influence over the Imperium. Alternatively put, the selected one.

Jessica was meant to conceive a daughter with Leto, who would then conceive the Kwisatz Haderach with Vladimir Harkonnen's nephew, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (played by Austin Butler in Part Two), using the Bene Gesserit capacity to determine the sex of an embryo upon conception. Jessica felt that a son would be the chosen one, so she decided to become pregnant with him instead.

Jessica's Bene Gesserit superior, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), arrives while the Atreides are still on Caladan to try Paul's "humanity" by making him hold his hand inside a box that simulates extreme pain and threatening to pierce his neck with a needle tipped with a lethal poison that will almost instantly kill him if he pulls away. After he passes the exam, she tells him, "If you had been unable to control your impulses, like an animal, we could not have let you live." "You inherit too much power."

Paul discovers upon the Atreides' arrival on Arrakis that a large number of the indigenous population of the planet thinks he might be the Lisan-al-Gaib (or, "Voice from the Outer World"), a messiah who has been predicted to bring the Fremen to freedom. The operatives of the order have been proselytising among the Fremen, spreading this prophecy that was planted hundreds of years ago by the Bene Gesserit. Paul's prophetic talents are completely awakened as he starts to see future events more clearly after being exposed to the spice on Arrakis. These visions reveal to him Jessica's pregnancy.

Leto starts to gain ground with the Fremen, but the Harkonnens quickly launch an attack with the aid of Sardaukar, the Emperor's elite army. Leto and the rest of the Atreides are killed after one of their own, Dr. Yueh (Chang Chen), the family's personal physician, betrays them and thinks the Harkonnens are torturing and holding his wife captive.

However, Jessica and Paul are able to flee into the desert, where they finally come into contact with a group of Fremen headed by Stilgar (Javier Bardem) following a number of near-death experiences. Paul takes up arms on Jessica's behalf when she is challenged to a duel by Jamis (Babs Olusanmokun), one of the Fremen. Paul uses a crysknife—a weapon fashioned from the tooth of a deceased sandworm—that Chani gave him to murder Jamis, and Stilgar consents to return Paul and Jessica to their desert settlement.

Anticipations for Dune: Part Two

Dune: Part Two, without giving too much away, is the complete second part of Herbert's Dune, which tells the story of Paul's reluctant ascent to prominence among the Fremen and eventual uprising against the Emperor. The movie opens at about the same period as the book, instead of leaping ahead two years after Paul and Jessica join the Fremen. This modifies the chronological sequence in which certain portions of Herbert's story unfold, specifically concerning Jessica's pregnancy and the birth of Paul's sister, Alia Atreides.

Although Villeneuve does add his own unique touch to the original script, the filmmaker has stated that the purpose of Part Two is to clearly highlight an aspect of Herbert's story that is sometimes missed: the notion that Paul is not a hero.

"When Frank Herbert wrote the book, and then when the book came out, he was disappointed by how people perceived Paul Atreides," Villeneuve stated to Screen Rant. "He thought Paul was an anti-hero at the time because he thought people were talking about him as a hero. A shadowy figure, he was. He was warned of a Messianic figure in the Bible."