The Volokh Conspiracy
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Review of Dune: Part 2
It's a powerful film that lives up to the promise of Part 1. But there are a few flaws.
NOTE: This review contains some plot spoilers.
I recently saw Dune: Part 2. It's an impressive and powerful film that lived up to the promise of Part 1, which I also reviewed favorably. The acting, storytelling, and visual images, are all topnotch. Like Part 1, this movie also does a generally good job of conveying the complex plot of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, on which it is based. That's no mean feat, given the difficulty of the task. But I do have reservations about parts of its treatment of the political themes of the book.
The plot revolves a struggle for power between two noble houses—the Atreides and Harkonnens—centered on the desert planet of Arrakis, which is the only known source of the Spice, the most valuable substance in the universe, because it is necessary for interstellar navigation and also greatly extends human lifespan. The Harkonnens ruled Arrakis for decades until Emperor Shaddam IV—ruler of the known Universe—ordered them to transfer it to the Atreides. Until that time, they brutally oppressed the native Fremen people.
Paul Atreides, is the son and heir of the Atreides leader Duke Leto. He is revealed to have vast psychic powers. Near the end of Part 1, a surprise attack by the Harkonnens and the Emperor kills Duke Leto and wipes out almost all of the Atreides forces. Paul and his mother, Jessica, flee to the Fremen. With the aid of legends that suggest he may be the long-awaited Fremen religious messiah (the "Mahdi"), Paul gradually becomes the leader of the Fremen in their struggle to overthrow the Harkonnens and the Emperor.
Frank Herbert famously said he "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.'" This movie conveys that message brilliantly, though far less subtly than the book.
Some less careful readers of the novel come away with the impression that Paul is the hero and we should root for his triumph. The message of the movie is much more unambiguous. What initially seems like a war of liberation against oppressive occupiers gradually becomes a war to replace one awful authoritarian regime with another that seems likely to be just as bad or worse.
In the book, Paul and Jessica are more ambivalent about their gradual takeover of the Fremen; they often come off as sympathetic characters who only seek power because they have no other good option. The movie versions have fewer qualms, especially in the case of Jessica. The movie is also unequivocal in driving home the point that the prophecies that legitimate Paul's assumption of power were actually planted by the manipulative Bene Gesserit order (though the book is pretty clear on this, as well).
Some left-wing critics of the book series have argued that it is a "white savior" story, where a white outsider (Paul) liberates an indigenous people (the Fremen). That interpretation is grossly unfair to the book. The movie makes it even more difficult to advance this critique with a straight face.
Part 2 does give us a window into the evil of the Harkonnens and the Emperor, with the former coming off as cruel and vaguely fascist, and the latter an amoral political manipulator mainly interested in preserving his own power. Paul is right to oppose them. But the alternative he represents seems little better.
In most respects, Part 2 vividly brings to life key themes of the book, especially its warnings about the dangers of concentrated power and charismatic leadership. But there are two important deviations.
First, like Part 1, this movie tends to paper over the negative aspects of Fremen culture, as depicted in the book. The Fremen society we see in the book is rigidly hierarchical and deeply sexist. For example, when Paul kills the Fremen warrior Jamis in single combat, he inherits Jamis' "property" - including his wife Harah, and his children. Paul had the option of choosing to accept Harah as "wife" or as "servant" (he decides on the latter).
This incident and others like it are almost entirely omitted in the movie. Instead, the Fremen are portrayed as much more egalitarian, including giving women the same rights as men. Paul's Fremen paramour Chani even talks about about how the Fremen are all "equal." This would come as news to the Fremen in the book!
In my review of Part 1, I noted that director Denis Villeneuve "buries the negative aspects of Fremen society, and thus at times seem to buy into a crude 'natives good, white colonialists evil' narrative." This flaw is even more clear in Part 2. With the important exception of the manipulative legends implanted by the Bene Gesserit, Fremen culture is depicted as largely good, its problems caused almost entirely by evil outsiders.
I would have preferred that the movie stick closer to the book on this point. Like most real-world "indigenous" cultures, the Fremen society in the book has many injustices, and falls well short of liberal egalitarian ideals. This doesn't excuse the oppressive policies of occupying powers like the Harkonnens. But it does add a valuable layer of complexity and moral ambiguity to the story.
The second big divergence between the book and the movie is closely related to the first: the depiction of Chani. In the book, once Chani becomes Paul's lover, she also becomes completely devoted to his cause, and rarely seriously questions his actions. By contrast, movie Chani is skeptical of Paul's claims to leadership (she knows the prophecy is fake), worries that they will override Fremen self-determination, and gradually seems to turn against him. She becomes a kind of Fremen conscience of the story.
In the book, when Paul decides he must make a political marriage with Princess Irulan (the Emperor's daughter), Chani quickly accepts his decision to relegate her to the status of concubine (though we learn she will remain Paul's sole sexual partner; the arranged marriage is purely political). In the famous last lines of the book, Jessica reassures Chani that Irulan will "never know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name concubine – history will call us wives" (here, Jessica refers to her own former status as Duke Leto's concubine). In stark contrast, movie Chani clearly views Paul's choice as a betrayal of both her and the Fremen more generally.
I am not sure how to assess this change. Book Chani struck me as somewhat implausibly tolerant of Paul's behavior, even given the sexist mores of the society she was raised in. The movie version probably leans too far in the opposite direction. For related criticisms of the movie's depiction of Chani and other female characters, see this analysis (though I don't fully agree with it).
I have some smaller quibbles with the movie, as well. But, overall, Dune: Part 2 is an impressive film version of one of the most famous of all science fiction novels. If you liked Part 1, you will probably like this film even more. Villeneuve has indicated he intends to do a movie version of the next book in the series, Dune Messiah. I can't wait.
But I do, nonetheless, have some qualms about the film's depiction of some of the political themes of the novel. We'll have to see if these problems persist in Part 3.
