Dune: Part Two is beautiful. Director Denis Villeneuve has not for an instant allowed the overt influence of any recent science fiction film to inform his vision. It takes a broad, complex, and politically complicated story and makes it accessible, fulfilling, and constantly interesting. He does this without sacrificing one of the primary things people like about Dune: how bloody alien the world is.
Buy Dune: Part Two Blu-rayBecause Dune is nothing like modern life. There’s an empire with several competing families flung across an entire galaxy. There’s bizarre factions and semi-magic abilities (though, and this is important to the world: no aliens.) It’s about politics, ecology, and warfare. But thankfully, it is not a dull analog to the 20th century politics in which it was written. It has higher ambitions than that, and this adaptation respects… some of them.
In the last film, the Atreides family takes over Arrakis, the planet colloquially known as Dune. This is the only place in the galaxy where the precious spice is produced. Spice is necessary for intergalactic travel, and so the galactic economy. But the Atreides are betrayed by the Harkonnen, and apparently the emperor. They are killed to a man… except for the heir, Paul, and his mother, Lady Jessica.
These two come to live with the Fremen, Dune’s native population. They’re seen as worthless rats by the Harkonnen overlords. This is a mistake. They have been honed, like their Crysknives, into fierce warriors by the brutal environment in which they live. The line between life and death on Arrakis is measured by ounces of water. We see this brutally when the Fremen, after defeating a Harkonnen squad, attach devices to suck the moisture out of the fallen… even those not dead. Every drop counts. Even tears of mourning are discouraged.
Paul and his mother are distrusted, but eventually his fighting and tactical acumen are appreciated. Especially by the woman Chani, who helps adapt Paul to the Fremen ways. Organized, they begin to disrupt the production of spice on the planet, making the Harkonnen look weak and stupid to the empire.
The Harkonnen Beast Rabin is the brutal overlord, and he is constantly frustrated by the Fremen attacks. They are led by some new messianic figure, Maud’Dib… who is, of course, Paul Atreides, who is supposed to be dead.
It is impossible to do an accurate summation of the story of Dune in brief because it is complicated, with wheels inside of wheels and political machinations. The Fremen are religious fanatics waiting for a messiah. They think Paul is the one. His mother encourages it, while Paul resists the notion. But his ascension to messianic status might be all that stands between the Fremen and their destruction. However, Paul, after eating the spice, begins to have visions of the future (the spice does that) and sees his ascension might lead to the death of billions. He doesn’t want to go down that road.
And neither does Chani, who becomes his lover, and is a part of a group of skeptics who think this prophecy stuff is all propaganda. And here’s where we come to a point of contention between the film and the book. None of the skepticism about the prophecy is in the books. The Fremen are essentially a human monoculture, all living on the knife’s edge. Every day is a challenge. This factionalization adds a pressure which could be fatal and would almost certainly not be tolerated.
It’s important to the story that Paul’s rise not be seen as just a hero coming to power, but as a potential catastrophe for the galaxy. He comes to know this and wants it to stop. The problem is he does not see an offramp that doesn’t lead to personal destruction. It is important that this skepticism is introduced to the story. However, Chani is perhaps the worst possible vehicle for it. Amongst the alien Fremen (meaning different because there are no aliens in Dune), she seems like an annoying modern insert, a skeptic whose primary emotions are eye-rolling and scowling.
The changes to her character are problematic for the eventual sequel as well since several things that need to happen in Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune require her character to be in a very different position.
But those are adaptation concerns, and this review should be about this film. And this film, which I have many caveats and qualms about, is also a stunner. It’s beautifully produced. There’s a reality and uniqueness to the various worlds we visit that is sometimes breathtaking. The standout is the Harkonnen world Giedi Prime, briefly seen in the first film. The world is always shrouded in darkness because of its atmosphere and volcanoes, which this film depicts by having every outdoor scene in stark black and white. Skin tones and colors only show up in artificial light. It’s a brutal and striking design.
Dune: Part Two is a beautifully made, intelligently constructed movie that has an absolute beast of a task of adapting a multi-leveled, complex political story. I almost think my familiarity with the source material is a double-edged sword when reviewing it, because I can fill in blanks and maybe give the film credit it does not deserve. But I also see where the streamlining and changes to the story do damage to what is a very carefully constructed narrative.
This film is a visual marvel. It tells a layered, interesting story. It does not, necessarily, connect emotionally. So many of the character decisions are cold and political. This is another problem introduced by making changes in the adaptation, since the book Chani connected Paul to humanity. The movie Chani mainly scowls and complains.
I am disappointed at some of the choices made to make the story accessible, since I think it is less than it could be. Not that I fault anyone for loving it. I just wish it was closer to the damn book. But Dune: Part Two is an amazing spectacle, and though it just hints at the political and spiritual complexities evoked by the novel, that makes it deeper than most other science fiction films made in the last couple of decades.
Dune: Part Two has been released on Blu-ray by Warner Brothers. There are several video extras, including “Chakobsa Training” (5 min), about the Fremen language; “Creating the Fremen World” (12 min), about the production design; “Finding the Worlds of Dune” (6 min), about the different worlds of Dune; “Buzz Around the New ‘Thopter'” (4 min), about the visual effects around the ornithopters; “Worm-Riding” (10 min), about the creating the effect of character riding the sand words; “Becoming Feyd” (8 min), a feature on Austin Butler and his performance as Feyd-Rautha; “A New Set of Threads” (8 min), on the costume design; and “Deeper into the Desert: The Sounds of the Dune” (13 min) on the sound design.
