I just watched Dune Part 2.

I'm so fucking pissed by the changes Vanillanoo is making to Frank Herbert's Magnum opus.

The changes to Chani's character are especially egregious. He made her so fucking juvenile man... He's setting up Messiah to be an absolute slopfest that thoroughly misunderstands what the books are about.

>Paul is the villain
No, he's fucking not, he's a tragic hero trapped in an inescapable fate.
Villeneuve is oversimplifying the narrative by projecting modern liberal democratic fears into a mythic story about self-sacrifice and fate.
Like, the message of Dune isn't anti-authoritarian. Look at God Emperor. Frank Herbert wasn't trying to explicitly warn people about tyrants. Dune isn't a cautionary tale against Fascism. Frank Herbert was exploring the nature power, the metaphysical responsibility of power, and the impossibly of utopia without suffering.

God I'm so fucking pissed rn.

Spice melange = LSD

>>211448903
LSD doesn't let you see the future.

>>211448178 (OP)
Thank you. I was starting to think i was the only one who understood this.

I need some spice milk

It's a fucking movie not Kant.

>>211449447

>>211449571
It's a movie adapting the greatest science fiction novel ever written you fucking imbecile.

>>211448178 (OP)
>Villeneuve is oversimplifying the narrative

Name 5 movies which don't do that

>>211448178 (OP)
>Frank Herbert wasn't trying to explicitly warn people about tyrants.
It's amazing how many people don't understand this. Dune isn't a warning about charismatic leadership, it's a warning for charismatic leaders - the more you make yourself the master of fate, in tandem shall your fate make you its slave.

>>211448178 (OP)
What the fuck did you expect from a midwit slopmaster like Villeneuve?

>>211449751
Yeah if you lived in the 60s or 70. There's been better. You're talking about what is essentially kungfu fighting in the desert. Get real.

211449884
Not even worth a (You).

hey OP i agree with you. but what can you do?

thats why the books are always better

>>211449794
Or even adaptations to TV as series or miniseries do that.

>Paul is the villain
Where is it said in the movies?

He is presented just as books do.
The cliche white savior helping natives against imperialistic forces.

>>211450496
You're mad but it's true. It's fuckin gay and when Paul becomes emperor he's just a giant shriveled penis. Gayer than Star wars which is saying a lot.

>>211448178 (OP)
It would never have been allowed to get made otherwise if it wasn't Orange Man Bad. We are living in Soviet-era propaganda.

fuck villeneuve honestly

>>211448178 (OP)
Paul is not portrayed as "the villain" in either of the movies, and if you ever read a single interview with Villeneuve you'd see he understands that perfectly. He cast a fan favorite zoomer arthouse actor. If anything, it showed him being even more conflicted with his position, just to make him extra sympathetic for normies. Here's your (you).

>>211448947
Are you sure about that?

>>211449808
Frank Herbert wasn't some Tolkien, in fact Tolkien couldn't even finish Dune he hated it so much. If people want "muh 40K For The Emperor" out of fucking Dune, they haven't even done fucking cursory research. They're literally just shitposting.

“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: 'May be dangerous to your health. '”

As a Dune knower and LSD taker I can confirm it does let you see the future. Now call me based

>>211451024
i think its more DMT

>Paul is the villain
Yes, he's the villain, so much in fact that Frank Herbert wrote Messiah to clarify that point.

>>211450706
Try harder. Your "arguments" aren't compelling enough to engage with, even as bait.

>>211450684
>Where is it said in the movies?
Subtext

>He is presented just as books do.
Not entirely, no. Due to the changes made to Chani's character, there's now an underlying theme in the movie about the oppressors and the oppressed, and it frames the non-natives as manipulative and evil due to using religion to acquire power. The Dune movies have a very clear anti-power narrative that start to frame Paul as a tyrant-to-be, because that is somewhat of a plot point in the Dune sequels. However, Paul in the books isn't power hungry, he pursues power because he must, despite knowing the bloodshed it will cause. The entire arc that centers around Chani in the films turns her into a mouthpiece for the audience that informs them how they should feel:
>She's the realist who stands against the machine
>She's angry at Paul for "betraying her" and chosing power over love
>She is the moral compass of the story that will reinterpret Paul's tragedy in Messiah as punishment
>The Jihad can now be treated as something that Paul caused out of ambition
The pieces are there in part 2, it's obvious as fuck

>The cliche white savior helping natives against imperialistic forces.
No see, that's exactly the oversimplifaction. Dune isn't a story about a white savior helping the natives against imperialistic forces. The Dances with Wolves story structure is there to form his Hero's Journey, but the narrative of Dune, Paul's arc, is a tragedy of a man who is the only one willing to bear the burden of inevitability. There's this entire mythic tone to Dune which is thoroughly undermined, like massively, with the changes to Chani's character simplifying the story down to one of oppressor vs. the oppressed. That's not what Dune is about.

Paul's greatest torment is not that he becomes a tyrant, it's that he couldn't stop the machine, even when he tried. That's the whole point.

>>211451163
Of you believe that, then you don't understand Dune.

>>211451259
>Try harder. Your "arguments" aren't compelling enough to engage with, even as bait

Got the (you), I won. Enjoy your hemholtz homo fest.

>>211451081

It's definitely DMT.

>>211451259
God. This shit right here is why I dropped the class intro to cinema at my school senior year. I just wanted to watch movies and say I enjoyed it not delve deeply into why the director wanted to put meaning to jack nikolaons character running around China town.

>>211451001
It's really funny you're posting an oversimplified out of context quote when Herbert warned about oversimplified messaging. It's almost like he wrote several books to deeply explore what he actually wanted to say, because it's not something you could sum up in a single line in an interview for mainstream audiences....huh....

>>211451429
Sounds like you're too low IQ to be writing stories, if you can't think critically about them. Stick to Mouse Wars and Marvel Slop.

>>211448178 (OP)
>No, he's fucking not, he's a tragic hero trapped in an inescapable fate.
He sees literal oceans of possibilities. It's his lust for revenge against the Harkonnens that takes him down this particular path. He didn't sacrifice himself either, that was Leto II and muh golden path

>>211451329
>Of you believe that, then you don't understand Dune.
I understand what Herbert was trying to do up until God Emperor. Whatever he did afterwards was something else. That said, I don't find Herbert's own words on the matter trustworthy. He says that he wanted Dune as a warning label against Tyrants, but in the first Dune book Paul is mostly justified in all his actions, he is the aggrieved party and we root for him. Sure, Paul has visions of what is to come, but I don't think most of the audience takes this seriously. They don't read "Jihad" and think Paul is going to be space Hitler, we are too engaged with Paul's quest for revenge. Only after the events of the first Dune book do we really get any understanding of what Herbert was supposedly going for in the first place. That I would say is the biggest flaw of Dune. A bunch of people read it and thought "Holy shit, Paul is such a gigachad I want to be just like him" which is the opposite of what he supposedly intended.

>>211451588
This interpretation thoroughly ignores how BLATANTLY evil the Harkonnen are. Like, Dune couldn't be more black and white in the presentation of the two main houses.

>>211451259
feels like you are just triggered by Z and your overfocus on her
we are not told that she is the moral compass
she has reason to be skeptical and mistrust and not to believe in fate
thats added over braindead empty chani in the books but its not like she is suddenly the center
none of it does not changes the story

>She's the realist who stands against the machine
thats fine
>She's angry at Paul for "betraying her" and chosing power over love
she is betrayed, her reaction is not weird
>She is the moral compass of the story that will reinterpret Paul's tragedy in Messiah as punishment
What scene of her is saying that? paul scenes are saying that. He fears what will happen is shown in anguish
>The Jihad can now be treated as something that Paul caused out of ambition
neither the book nor the movies really go on explaining why paul did not stop after freeing arrakis
why his jihad that killed billions was justified
he embraced the future and chose to walk in the path he sees
only in later books its just that something worse would be off and there needed to be gene against prescience

>Dune isn't a story about a white savior helping the natives against imperialistic forces.
it is
it just keeps building it up and dressing it up
but what you call oversimplication is just getting down to the core
The mythic tone is there in the movies and done as well as we could have hoped for,
but in the end the core is the white savior of the natives is actually burdened by saving all of humanity

>Paul's greatest torment is not that he becomes a tyrant..
He walks the path of prescience, he gave up trying quite soon in his story
its presented as the good thing btw, so if you want to dramatize him more its that he walked the path he did not like but known it was for greater good..

Dune is seriously flawed because it introduces inevitability of something as justification why you have to accept that killing billions and ruling with iron fist as tyrant.

>>211451776
the atreides committed vastly more evil by the end, righteousness is the path of evil

>>211451726
But see, here you pretty much entirely contradict your statement here >>211451163

Paul isn't the villain, because in the first book, he's 100% NOT presented as such.

As he confronts impossible and unjust circumstances with courage, intelligence, and perseverance. The Hallmark traits of a classic hero.

And any attempt to make him seem evil would have to intentionally ignore how evil the Harkonnen are, and Paul's inherent tendency toward moral goodness. The fact that he ushers a jihad is never presented as something he desires, he actively tries to avoid it.

He's not flawless nor morally pure, no, but the whole point is that Paul is fighting a stagnant, corrupt, and evil rigged system, which HE is a product of. Which is what makes his struggle meaningful, he wins, but it costs him everything.

That's what makes him a tragic hero, like Macbeth. He sees what's coming. He understands the bloodshed. But is ultimately powerless to stop it, because there is other path to take BUT that one. The whole point of the first book is that the universe is ruled by decaying powers that need to be overthrown, and Paul, like mythic figure, brings that change through struggle, struggle, and conquest.

There is no anti-authoritarian message in Dune book 1. The critique is of decadent authority, not power itself. Which is why Paul is the Hero, he cannot dismantle a broken system, so he conquers it and becomes it's center, because no one else can.

Then what Messiah does, is it deconstructs Paul entirely, by showing us a man who tried to refuse the mantle of godhood, by inertia of religion and myth, and despite that, he STILL doesn't become evil.

He becomes isolated, tortured, and blinded. Literally and metaphorically. He is a prisoner of destiny. And in the end, he STILL sacrifices himself for humanity, walking into the desert so that myth can persist, while he, the man, fades away.

Calling him "the villain" literally ignores all of that.

>>211449447
when AI is advanced enough I will re-do the movie with it, and she is staying in the cast

>>211452310
>Reddit spacing

>>211448178 (OP)
>"Messiah was Frank's attempt to course correct because he didn't want the public to like Paul as much as they did"
>"Messiah and Dune at large is about the danger of hero worship"
Do we know how these lies actually started? I had heard this rhetoric BEFORE I read the books so I was actually biased to believing it. But then I read Dune, Messiah and Children and was left really confused because that was not the message I got at all. Frank wasn't excusing Paul's actions nor was he exaggerating or vilifying them, he was exploring them. Explaining. If the series stopped at Messiah, then I could see how you could have this view but if you went on to read Children of Dune let alone God Emperor I don't know how you can believe this

Anyway you can shut down anyone who tries saying this by simply pointing out when Herbert began writing Messiah. That is, while he was writing Dune. It was not a "reaction" to anything. Messiah was supposed to be in the same book as Dune at first

>>211451001
>Tolkien couldn't even finish Dune he hated it so much
Hey moron, Tolkien didn't hate Dune. Get your information somewhere other than youtube videos

>>211452086
Simple counterargument.

Why did he make the changes to the story if it's as insignificant as you say?

The book isn't written that way, then why did he change it if his goal wasn't to add an anti-authoritarian message? Why couldn't he adapt Chani's character faithfully? Having her be loyal, mature, abd respectful to the prophesy, like she was in the books. Paul's most trusted confidant, who doesn't feel threatened by ceremony as she understands that she has Paul's heart, and she understands there are greater things at stake here than her personal feelings. Why infantalize her like that to inject pointless melodrama that neuters Paul's myth and the fatalism of the Dune universe?

The whole point of Chani was that she understood she walked beside a God but never let herself get lost in his shadow. And as such, she endured quietly, as in Dune, strength isn't defiance, it's composure and the acceptance of unbearable truths.

By changing her character, he took what was a spiritual partnership between two tragic figures, and turned it into a shallow subplot.

That change was not necessary at all, and hurt the story as a result.

So again, why he did make that change if the goal wasn't to use her to inject an anti-authoritarian message into the story?

>>211452740
>Why did he make the changes to the story if it's as insignificant as you say?
Because its easier to get currently famous lead actress if her role goes beyond 3 lines and looking pretty for the hero to fuck.
It also is not that much of a change, she is just skeptic on the whole prophecy thing and the movies are showing us that she is wrong, big time.

>she understands there are greater things at stake here than her personal feelings. Why infantalize her like that to inject pointless melodrama that neuters Paul's myth and the fatalism of the Dune universe?
the movies actually humanizes her, she likely will accepted all that, since they have to have kids but why not show that she has emotional struggle about the fact that the love of her life is going to wed someone else...

>>211448178 (OP)
>Frank Herbert's Magnum opus
The book was shit
The movies are shit
All of Dune is shit

>>211449751
Herbert wishes he could write on the level of even heinlein

>>211452465
Fag

>>211451001
>Tolkien couldn't even finish Dune he hated it so much.
Why he hated it?

chani was such a non character in the book that i’m instantly suspicious of anyone crying about her character in the films, they almost invariably reveal themselves to be incels or people just not being honest that they hate zendaya (which is fine just admit it you morons)
if Chani was a hot big boned ginger chick with the exact same writing almost no one would be crying about her

>>211453049
>Because its easier to get currently famous lead actress if her role goes beyond 3 lines and looking pretty for the hero to fuck.
Worked just fine in the first film. If she's not happy with that, then the role should have been given to someone who respects the story.
>It also is not that much of a change, she is just skeptic on the whole prophecy thing and the movies are showing us that she is wrong, big time.
It's a massive change. She acts as a mouthpiece for modern liberal sensibilities and thus neuters the mythology of the story and the fatalism that defines Dune.

The entire point was that the Fremen's belief that Paul was not meant to be questioned from with, that was the tragedy. Villeneuve reshaped the narrative arc into a post-colonial revisionist tale, which undermines the metaphysical stakes of Paul's journey.

Like, Paul is burdened by destiny as he's ascending into Godhood and fulfilling a prophesy, and here she goes screaming like a maniac
>This is how THEY control us, don't you SEE?!?!
That was never the point.

>the movies actually humanizes her,
It absolutely does not. She was far more sympathetic when she bore her burden with dignity and diligence. In the movies she comes off as extremely selfish and nearsighted.

When she dies in Messiah, there's a greater tragedy to her death because her connection to Paul was spiritual. But the movie pretty much lights that on fire by turning her into a selfish heretic.

Which leaves me wonder about what other changes he'll start to make once he adapts Messiah.

>>211448903
*Psilocybin mushrooms

>>211453288
*big boooooobed

>>211453049
>It also is not that much of a change
Except it is, a lot of Messiah straight up doesn't work with Chani being sheboss that knows better. Messiah adaptation will be heavily rewritten to accommodate that.

>>211453333
Fuckin checked
Based post.

>>211453333
holy retard you actually thought the prophecy was real and not just manipulation of hope and that he was actually “destined” to become what he was? you’re a massive moron and Frank would spit on you

>>211453529
Bro, holy fuck.... You're fucking dumb. There's an explicit point made in the books that due to prescience, whether or not the prophesy is actually true or or just a simple fabrication is intentionally, extremely ambiguous.

You forget that the Bene Gesserit can literally see the past, present, and future.

Like, there are several times in the books where the characters question if it's just a simple Bene Gesserit scheme or if there's legitimacy to the prophesy.


Like holy fuck, I can tell your only experience with Dune is the shitty films. This is what I mean by oversimplifying the narrative. It flattens everything and removes all nuance, to an extremely nuanced book.

>>211453689
yes and people question in real life if the prophecies of hundreds of religions are real when the answer is obviously no, it sounds like the last time you read the book was when you were a retarded child who grew up into an even more retarded adult
i bet you don’t even realize that denis is following the “hello grandfather” alternate timeline EXPLICITLY spelled out in the book, that’s how dumb and filtered you are

>>211453870
This is textbook Reddit-brain thinking—confusing Herbert’s exploration of myth, archetype, and metaphysics with a simple real-world critique of organized religion.

Herbert wasn’t writing about Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism.
He was writing about the role of myth in the psychohistorical evolution of humanity—how belief can become literal destiny when combined with power, charisma, prescience, and cultural conditioning.

It’s not about whether prophecy is “real” like a biblical prediction—it’s about how power and myth become indistinguishable when filtered through enough human will and time.

>i bet you don’t even realize that denis is following the “hello grandfather” alternate timeline
LMAO

These visions are part of the many branching futures Paul sees. It's a what-if, not canon. Herbert uses these moments to show how uncertain and dangerous prescience is—not to establish some alternate reality.

It’s not an “alternate timeline” like some Marvel multiverse nonsense.
It’s a fragment of Paul’s vision—one he doesn’t choose. It’s shown to emphasize that even with sight, choice is limited. It's Herbert's way of dramatizing the paralysis of seeing too much.

ou're clinging to a single line from Paul's prescient spiral and treating it like canon—when the whole point of prescience in Dune is that it's a trap of uncertainty, not a roadmap. You're citing 'hello grandfather' like it's a fixed event, but Paul sees hundreds of futures and none are certain. That's the literal theme of the book, you brain-dead Reddit-tier pseudo-intellectual.

And if you think Denis is adapting that with fidelity, then you've clearly replaced Dune with The Notebook with sand.

>>211452310
Good post. I liked Dune but largely disliked Messiah. Are Children and God Emperor worth reading?

>>211453994
>dude there are branching futures but also destiny but also choices but also prophecies
keep your copes straight moron

>>211454146
Yes. Ending it at Messiah pretty much ends the story at purely a tragedy and misses the deeper metaphysical exploration of the ideas of power and destiny. It:s why calling Dune anti-authoritarian makes absolutely no sense to anyone who read God Emperor of Dune, where extremly tyrannical power is held for 3500 years by Leto II in order to set humanity on the Golden Path that will prevent their extinction.

If you found Messiah underwhelming, Children of Dune is a return to the grandeur and mythic scope of Book 1, with way more political intrigue and cosmic stakes.

God Emperor, though, is something else entirely. It’s slow, dense, and philosophical, but if you stick with it, it’s one of the most profound sci-fi books ever written.

>>211454286
I accept your concession.

>>211454395
>woman has an orgasm watching Duncan Idaho climb a wall
>most profound sci-fi
I hate that youre still not exactly wrong, but its that the bar in sci-fi is just so much lower than other genre.

>>211454286
I'm sorry your IQ is too low to understand Dune. It's not for everyone.

>>211454472
I mean, my favorite genre is Horror with my favorite book being Frankenstein, so I will agree. But it's still pretty damn profound, especially if you like the writings of Nietzsche and Jung.

>>211454504
If you actually thought the prophecy was real, there's really no point in discussing anything seriously with you.

>>211454674
You really are too dumb to understand Dune, I thought you were just shitposting.

Let me educate you for a bit then:

The Prophecy in Dune Is Not Simple

Is it a Bene Gesserit fabrication? Yes—in part.

Does it tap into something deeper, more real? Also yes—and that’s the key tension.


This is Herbert playing with Jungian archetypes, mythic recursion, prescience-as-trap, and the power of belief to manifest reality.

Herbert never gives a clean answer because he’s not interested in absolutes. He’s showing you how prophecy can be:

A political weapon (as the BG use it),

A spiritual lens (as the Fremen experience it),

A cosmic mechanism (as Leto II weaponizes it),

And a self-fulfilling inevitability (as Paul becomes it).

This ambiguity is intentionally embedded in the text—is exactly what Herbert wants readers to wrestle with.

It's made explicit in the books that even though the Bene Gesserit set the frame into motion, Paul transcends it, and MAKES IT REAL. That's why it's extremely ambiguous, and why Paul's ascension into Godhood is legitimate.

Like, if you're just seeing "the prophesy is a fake tool done by the space witches" and taking that at face value, then it's no wonder you're confused, especially when you're getting your info from the movies which go a long way to strip that nuance, and make the entire prophesy seem artificial.

You're effectively doing an excellent job at proving my point that the changes to Chani's character, neuter the mythology in the story, and makes the entirety of the prophesy seem fake and artificial. Which is not how it's presented in the books. The books constantly leave you wondering if the BG actually willed a prophesy into being through their machinations and Paul's will. It's what makes the books feel more mythological.

The fact that you're even arguing this proves you're a movie-only fag.

>>211455040
reddit spacing
>still headcanoning that I haven't read the books
go do more of whatever addiction you have frying your brain

>>211455121
Like, if you’re just gonna keep repeating “the prophecy was fake lol” as if that’s a serious analysis, then it’s obvious your understanding comes from the films—not the books. And yes, Villeneuve’s films go out of their way to flatten the mythology—especially with his Chani rewrite—which is exactly the point I’m making.

Chani’s modernized rebellion arc turns the prophecy into an obviously artificial construct, stripping away the ambiguity and spiritual weight that the books built. In the novels, the reader is meant to wonder whether the Bene Gesserit planted a prophecy that accidentally touched something real—or whether Paul’s godhood created a myth retroactively.

If you don’t grasp that tension—if you can’t see the nuance in how Herbert plays with faith, destiny, and reality—you’ve completely missed the point of Dune.

I’d recommend re-reading the books without Reddit-tier cynicism next time. Or better yet—read them for the first time.

>>211448178 (OP)
Not even the best Dune adaptation. Just read the first books, watch the 1984 film and play the games.

>>211455435
Aesthetically, 1984 was a lot better imo. It got that steampunk vibe right.

>>211448178 (OP)
I think the changes to Chani were done to balance against what they did to Stilgar. Chani the cynic vs. Stilgar the believer. I know in the books Stilgar eventually becomes a follower, but it was really speedran in the movie and the tragedy of his character arc is lost (losing a friend and gaining a pet). I don't like any of it either.

>>211448947
skill issue

>>211455579
Agreed. The colors, the outfits, the general aesthetics, etc were all more vibrant and charming.