Princes and Principalities
Villeneuve’s sweeping second installment of Dune skillfully portrays the epic’s depiction of the corrupting effect of unmitigated power in human hands.
Review by Alexander Pyles
The long-awaited second half of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune came as a relief to many, but it also left some mystified. For those of us who have read Herbert’s masterpiece, the adaptation satisfies as much as the first film, while also making pragmatic adjustments for modern audiences. The great payoff of seeing Paul (Timothée Chalamet) become a Fremen in everything but blood is offset by his also assuming the messiah role he had sought to avoid throughout both the first film and the first two acts of the second. In this second installment, Villeneuve offers the kind of layered epic that isn’t shown to wide audiences anymore. Furthermore, changing the perspective from the first film and centering Chani (Zendaya) as the main character is an interesting choice, but what becomes apparent is how expertly Villeneuve leverages this point of view as Paul, the hero we had come to love and root for, ultimately picks a darker path. (My wife overheard a line of conversation in the lady’s room after the film: “Wait—is Paul the bad guy?”)
The message of Dune is often misread, with many characterizing this story as a Hamlet-esque tale of revenge (with some ecological overtones). This reading, however, completely misses that the core of the story is the hazard of putting your trust in princes or heroes. Villeneuve understands this, and his direction highlights the gradual but inevitable turn that Paul takes over the course of the first and second Dune films.
The second installment picks up exactly where we left off with Paul, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Chani, and Stilgar (Javier Bardem), as we find them attempting to make sense in the fallout of the brutal eradication of almost all of House Atreides. Now Paul must decide between remaining in the desert and pursuing a vengeance that he knows will have dire consequences for the entire human race. Despite his recurring fears of being changed into someone unrecognizable by the inevitability of his rise, and despite his blooming romance with Chani, by the end Paul still allows himself to be persuaded to also drink the Water of Life, a secretion of the great sand worms which grants nigh omniscience and which would be ordinarily lethal to men, and thus to assume the position of the messiah figure the Fremen have been awaiting for centuries. The film shifts as the inevitable consequences of this choice unfurl, and the viewer is pushed more and more into Chani’s perspective as we watch the showdown between Paul and the Emperor.
Villeneuve’s sense of scale was always going to be an asset for these films. The immensity of the odds against Paul as he opposes the might of the Emperor (Christopher Walken), Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgaard), and the Landsraad (council of ducal families) had to be shown in a way the audience could grasp emotionally as well as rationally. The showpiece of the Emperor’s starship/throne room hovering over his forces in the southern desert of Arrakis is an awe-inspiring image (even if it closely resembles the spaceship shots from Arrival.) The denouement of the film moves very rapidly as we go from the mass of troops fighting at the behest of their ducal and imperial masters to the intimacy of the duel between Paul and Feyd Ruatha Harkonnen (Austin Butler), the switches in scale fluid, but unsettling.
The holy war of Paul’s nightmares immediately begins—on his orders—and he doesn’t so much as blink as it happens.
Fittingly, Dune: Part 2 doesn’t end as a triumph. In a scene only hinted at in the books, but now shown for the first time in a Dune adaptation, the audience watches as Stilgar leads hordes of Fremen to the captured ships, which lift off to scatter across the galaxy and bring the other Great Houses to heel. The holy war of Paul’s nightmares immediately begins—on his orders—and he doesn’t so much as blink as it happens, now resigned to his position of being able to see all the possible futures and having to pick the ultimately most beneficial path, despite its meaning that billions will lose their lives. It is in these final moments of Villeneuve’s film that Paul fulfills his portion of the prophecy of the Lisan Al Gaib (the Fremen word for messiah).
This terrible undertaking confuses our human sensibilities, since after all, Paul has just enacted his revenge upon his enemies. Is this not the payoff we’ve been hungering for since the end of the first film? Instead, Paul’s victory immediately turns bitter as Chani shouts in disappointment and anger. She has been the thread of morality and the stand-in for the “everywoman” among these almost mythical figures. In the closing scenes of the film, she maintains silence in protest until finally just leaving, refusing to participate in or even lend countenance to the holy war the man she loves has just set in motion. The final shot is her simply staring into the distance with gritted teeth as she calls forth a worm, presumably to return to the desert, away from the machinations and ambitions of these heartlessly (inhumanly?) powerful men and women.
The tragedy of Chani’s heartbreak is set against the backdrop of Paul’s plans and stratagems. Paul, an outsider to the Fremen, co-opts her people and weaponizes them as a new base of support for House Atreides. In many ways, Chani represents the younger generation of Fremen, who treat the prophecies their elders believe in so earnestly as simple legends. She and the other Fremen youth are daily witnesses is the brutality of the Harkonnens and their people’s struggle for survival on harsh Arrakis. Why would they wait for a savior, when they are fully capable of defending their homes and providing for their people themselves? Yet even Chani’s skepticism breaks in the face of love. After Paul drinks the poisonous Water of Life, he becomes locked in a comatose state, alive, but not conscious. To fulfill the Fremen’s ancient prophecy, Chani mixes her tears with a drop of the Water of Life and places it on Paul’s lips. He is revived, and thus saving the man she loves makes Chani an accomplice in the messiah-making of Jessica, Stilgar, and the superstitious minority.
Is the message that Frank Herbert and Denis Villeneuve want us to take away simply that we cannot trust our supposed heroes? Or is that we can fully or partially excuse Paul for his actions, casting the blame on the fatalism that has been pulling him from the first film? It would be a disservice to this layered tale to think that any of these questions are easily answered, but to begin to answer any of them, we first should reflect on ourselves. How would we respond to the same conditions? Traumatized by the mass killing of friends and family, thrust into an unknown place surrounded by a harsh, unyielding people shaped by their equally harsh surroundings, Paul would seem to deserve a spot of sympathy, if not empathy. He is, after all, still just a boy. This is all not to mention the Bene Gesserit’s cultural control (they planted the prophecy to which Chani responds centuries later) and the genetic planning they’ve done over the course of centuries. The choice of Villeneuve to emphasize Chani’s agency, as opposed to the implicit acceptance she acts out in the novel, gives the story more humanity that can be felt throughout, but especially when she rejects the victory and goes her own way. Would that we would all be so firm in our principles.
I think that in turn, we, the viewers, are being asked to go our own way. We must reject Paul’s desire for revenge and power, even with the best intentions and against the truly wicked. We must carefully consider seemingly mythical figures as they arise, even if they appear exemplary and pure of intention. Herbert, and by extension Villeneuve, are certainly showing how absolute power can absolutely corrupt, since not even Paul’s purity of intention can shield him from becoming not only the Emperor he sought to replace, but a far more dangerous and fearful figure. What can be stated after all the dust settles, is that we have been given a modern epic in the fullest sense of the word, and I for one hope there will be more to follow in Dune’s footsteps. The uncomfortable lingering thought I’ve been mulling over since seeing Dune: Part 2 is the realization that even knowing the future does not negate the consequences of our own choices. To truly change the course of history, all Paul had to do was go with Chani into the desert and never look back—even though, trapped by revenge, history, and a culture’s liberation, his choice felt inevitable.
Alexander Pyles is a writer, editor, and reviewer based in the Chicago area. Originally from Virginia Beach, VA, he finds himself stranded in the Midwest among the corn. He holds an MA in Philosophy and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. His chapbook MILO was published by Radix Media as part of their Futures series. His nonfiction has appeared in the Chicago Review of Books, atmospheric quarterly, Full Stop Magazine, Analog Science Fact & Fiction Magazine, Ancillary Review of Books, On the Seawall, and others. When not writing or reading, he is attempting to cook or garden, when his kiddos allow it.
Dune: Part 2 was directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts. It is based upon the novel Dune by Frank Herbert and was released on March 1, 2024. You can stream it from a variety of services, or catch it in a few theaters still.
