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Dune Part Two
Mar. 8th, 2024 08:30 amWe saw "Dune Part Two" on Tuesday night and it really stuck with me. We had seen the first part again so it's fresh in our mind and I have to admit I really couldn't see how the story ends from that halfway point.
At the end of "Dune Part One" Paul slinks into the Arakkan desert with his mom after his father and almost everyone else in his Great House were slaughtered by House Harkkonen. Even though his life is over and he knows the Emperor Himself orchestrated the fall of his house, he's at last met Jhani, the literal woman of his dreams and he's been accepted by the native Fremen. The story's not over, but there's a hope note. Here, at last, Paul will get the chance to rebuild his life. Maybe he'll even get revenge on the Harkkonens.
In Part Two, the seeds of Paul's destiny sprout and we see what terrible things we reap from it. We know revenge is on his mind, even though his mother warns him it's not what his father would have wanted. His mother wastes no time going full puppet-master, identifying the obstacles that might prevent her son from leading the Fremen in revolution and removing them from the shadows. Stilgar, the Fremen leader who takes Paul under his wing in Part One, plays the part of John the Baptist, announcing the coming of the Chosen One. Jhani, from the more-agnostic Southern tribes, doesn't buy in. But her viewpoint is increasingly marginalized. Once the dominoes start to fall, they do with an unstoppable cadence.
I've never seen a movie that takes you through the beats of a revolution story with such mounting dread. We know that Lady Jessica (Paul's mom) is pushing her son toward a dark end, but it's unclear if she knows the consequences of what she's doing and just doesn't care or if her belief in her own righteousness is what blinds her. Paul resists his calling at first. He knows that if he goes south to unite the Fremen, a holy way will blaze through the universe and kill billions of people. But every victory, and every counter-measure taken by the Harkkonens, leads him to this inevitable fate. By the time Rabban is replaced by Feyd-Rautha, it's a done deal.
Once Paul goes south...well, it all goes south. Timothy Chalumet seems to play Paul in a daze through the rest of the movie as he blossoms into a full-fledged cult leader. Lady Jessica, using the Voice, brute-forces the prophecy into reality. When Paul unites the Fremen in a rousing speech, the scene somehow feels claustrophobic. The trap closes. Paul can't escape.
That leads us to our third act of war and tragedy. The action set-pieces are as gorgeous as everything else in this movie, and it's awesome to see Fremen riding sandworms into the Harkkonen stronghold. Paul tells Jhani he loves her, then tells the Emperor he will marry his daughter and take the throne bloodlessly if he steps down. The Emperor concedes, but the Great Houses do not accept. Paul leaves Jhani and the free Arakkis behind to wage war.
It definitely felt like the bad ending to a video game where you made the wrong choice. But what I found so gripping about it was how...blameless Paul is in all of this. He is every much a victim of the forces around him as anyone else, but yet we give him the responsibility for what's happened because he's the leader. While Paul doesn't come out completely blameless, he really did try his best to stay focused on the mission: kick out the Harkkonens, free the Fremen, expose the Emperor. It's only after he goes south and drinks the Water of Life that he falls in line. And even then, it's not an embrace of his destiny -- more like a resignation.
He knows what he's doing will cause death and misery, but he also knows it must be done to prevent something worse. We don't get a sense of that in the movies directly so much, but director Villeneuve makes excellent use of a few tense dream-sequences and Chalumet does an excellent job making sure he always looks haunted by those visions.
Most folks see Dune as a warning against charismatic leadership, and I get that's Herbert's original intention. The movie feels more like a warning against the pursuit of power in general. The more direct control you have over the lives of others, the less able you'll be to prevent something monstrous. It's a sobering thought that *feels* true.
I'm still sitting with it, but there's also a lot of other stuff to do. The book is on my stack, after I'm done with my current few books.
At the end of "Dune Part One" Paul slinks into the Arakkan desert with his mom after his father and almost everyone else in his Great House were slaughtered by House Harkkonen. Even though his life is over and he knows the Emperor Himself orchestrated the fall of his house, he's at last met Jhani, the literal woman of his dreams and he's been accepted by the native Fremen. The story's not over, but there's a hope note. Here, at last, Paul will get the chance to rebuild his life. Maybe he'll even get revenge on the Harkkonens.
In Part Two, the seeds of Paul's destiny sprout and we see what terrible things we reap from it. We know revenge is on his mind, even though his mother warns him it's not what his father would have wanted. His mother wastes no time going full puppet-master, identifying the obstacles that might prevent her son from leading the Fremen in revolution and removing them from the shadows. Stilgar, the Fremen leader who takes Paul under his wing in Part One, plays the part of John the Baptist, announcing the coming of the Chosen One. Jhani, from the more-agnostic Southern tribes, doesn't buy in. But her viewpoint is increasingly marginalized. Once the dominoes start to fall, they do with an unstoppable cadence.
I've never seen a movie that takes you through the beats of a revolution story with such mounting dread. We know that Lady Jessica (Paul's mom) is pushing her son toward a dark end, but it's unclear if she knows the consequences of what she's doing and just doesn't care or if her belief in her own righteousness is what blinds her. Paul resists his calling at first. He knows that if he goes south to unite the Fremen, a holy way will blaze through the universe and kill billions of people. But every victory, and every counter-measure taken by the Harkkonens, leads him to this inevitable fate. By the time Rabban is replaced by Feyd-Rautha, it's a done deal.
Once Paul goes south...well, it all goes south. Timothy Chalumet seems to play Paul in a daze through the rest of the movie as he blossoms into a full-fledged cult leader. Lady Jessica, using the Voice, brute-forces the prophecy into reality. When Paul unites the Fremen in a rousing speech, the scene somehow feels claustrophobic. The trap closes. Paul can't escape.
That leads us to our third act of war and tragedy. The action set-pieces are as gorgeous as everything else in this movie, and it's awesome to see Fremen riding sandworms into the Harkkonen stronghold. Paul tells Jhani he loves her, then tells the Emperor he will marry his daughter and take the throne bloodlessly if he steps down. The Emperor concedes, but the Great Houses do not accept. Paul leaves Jhani and the free Arakkis behind to wage war.
It definitely felt like the bad ending to a video game where you made the wrong choice. But what I found so gripping about it was how...blameless Paul is in all of this. He is every much a victim of the forces around him as anyone else, but yet we give him the responsibility for what's happened because he's the leader. While Paul doesn't come out completely blameless, he really did try his best to stay focused on the mission: kick out the Harkkonens, free the Fremen, expose the Emperor. It's only after he goes south and drinks the Water of Life that he falls in line. And even then, it's not an embrace of his destiny -- more like a resignation.
He knows what he's doing will cause death and misery, but he also knows it must be done to prevent something worse. We don't get a sense of that in the movies directly so much, but director Villeneuve makes excellent use of a few tense dream-sequences and Chalumet does an excellent job making sure he always looks haunted by those visions.
Most folks see Dune as a warning against charismatic leadership, and I get that's Herbert's original intention. The movie feels more like a warning against the pursuit of power in general. The more direct control you have over the lives of others, the less able you'll be to prevent something monstrous. It's a sobering thought that *feels* true.
I'm still sitting with it, but there's also a lot of other stuff to do. The book is on my stack, after I'm done with my current few books.
