I saw Part 2 today.
General impression is I liked it and thought it was well done, and a good fit to Part 1.
Small changes that didn’t really matter:
The reason Paul drank the Water of Life. In the book it’s because he doesn’t foresee the attack on Lady Jessica by a trusted servant. In Lynch’s movie it’s something else. This movie has it be a Harkonnen attack on the Seitch. Ok, in all cases he felt the future murky and needed to see.
Status of what is a Fedaykin. In the book they are a special guard to escort and safekeep Muad’dib. They are his chosen guard. Lynch had roughly that. Here, Fedaykin are just the name of Fremen warriors.
The duel scene and plot with the non-drugged Atreides warrior. In the book, the plot is Hawat’s plan within a plan that is from Feyd to fake the assassinating attempt and gain power over his uncle. Here it’s the Baron’s plan to give Feyd a real display of ability and build the legend of his intended heir.
It appears that the Fremen culture is more sexual equal, such that Chani is a Fedaykin, and some of the seitch leaders (Naibs) are women. This doesn’t match the text of the book, but Herbert does characterize his Fremen culture as supposedly more egalitarian than galactic society, and the women are described as just as fierce. So this feels like a more faithful depiction of the stated ideal.
Gurney gets to kill The Beast Rabban. So he gets his revenge, unlike the book.
Sandworms ride lower in the sand. Given that we’re not really privileged to the mechanism of motion, that isn’t wrong, but doesn’t match Herbert’s descriptions as well.
Somewhat more significant changes:
The timeline is compressed. The book has Paul’s training as a Fremen and training the troops, then begin the all-out assault on Spice production takes 2 years. Here, it plays out in less than 9 months. This has the effect of making the timetable feel to short.
It also means Alia is only a fetus, and so plays no role in the confrontation with the Baron. Different from the book, but for this movie it works well enough, perhaps better since we’re not given a precocious toddler.
There are two subpopulations of Femen. The southerners are the religious faithful while the northerners are the skeptics. Stilgar is somehow a southerner in charge of a northern seitch.
This is why Chani and her friends are more skeptical of Paul and challenging of the deferral to myth.
Feyd is given control of Arrakis sooner. This puts him in control of the planet when the Emperor comes knocking. I rather liked the Lynch version where the Baron gets his heads up about how much danger he’s in when he floats into the chamber to meet the Emperor and sees his nephew’s severed head.
Mounting the sandworm and taking control is depicted differently. Paul does use the Maker Hooks to open the sandworm’s ring segment leading edges and thus keep the worm on the surface and control direction. The top-down approach, while looking flashier, is less consistent with the book description, and frankly doesn’t work as well for me. He should just use the hooks to mount.
However some of that is that these worms move much faster and don’t slow down when taking the thumpers. It is much harder to catch and keep up with these from the ground.
This method also makes palequins different than my imagination. Also harder to use. It’s easier for me to see carrying them alongside and raising them by ropes.
Paul’s water of life transformation… in the book Paul sneaks off and takes a drop on his own and falls into a death trance, and it’s a couple of weeks before Chani arrives to help figure out what happened. Lynch did his desert scene with the worms as a second attempt after his first version was too long. That scene encapsulated several scenes he originally scripted.
What I didn’t like about this version was how Chani’s tears were a part of waking Paul. I the book she realizes he took too small amount of the WOL, something foreshadowed during Jessica’s scene. Now somehow she’s part of the prophecy?
I did like the way they incorporated elements depicting the religious manipulation. That is a strong one of Herbert’s themes, so I enjoyed seeing it depicted. How events were characterized and interpreted to fit the prophesy was textbook.
I enjoyed that there was more depiction of the Emperor and his interactions with the Princess, the one he was grooming to replace him. And showing her questioning had more to do with the Syfy version than anything else, but I liked that showing Irulan as smart.
The final confrontations are where things are a little off to me.
I do appreciate when Paul and the fremen penetrate the Emperor’s throneroom, and the Sardaukar march of into the breach, and then Paul and the fremen enter as of nothing happened. So much for the elite troops.
Similarly when he commands the guests be brought to the main hall and kill the Sardaukar. He didn’t offer them the opportunity to surrender, just had them dispatched as of nothing. Probably right in front of the Emperor, to prove a point about how easy it was.
The fight with Feyd was great, except the part they stole from Serenity and Paul ending up with two major stab wounds. I hope antibiotics don’t violate the sanctions on technology.
But what annoyed me most was Paul surprising Chani with announcing taking Irulan as his wife, as well as Chani’s reaction.
In the book, Paul was explicitly making a play for the throne via marriage, and Chani knew that. Not only that, Paul made clear to Chani that the marriage was political only, that Irulan would never have his love or even his touch, and that Chani would be the mother of his children.
Plus, Paul came from the aristocrat society where political marriage was expected. Witness his own parents.
But Chani came from the Fremen world, where in the book men tended to die alot in duels as well as combat, so there society was comfortable with polygamy. Paul even had the choice of taking Harrah, Jamis’s widow, as a wife. And she ultimately became Stlgar’s fourth wife, sharing with others.
So the idea of Paul having a formal Wife for his Empire and a dual wife arrangement on the fremen side should have been well understood by Chani. I suppose the idea of her accepting polygamy or a secondary official role was less comfortable for Villeneuve.
I did, however, appreciate how Paul had an active role in kicking off the Jihad. The book doesn’t really explain other than religious fanatics take off and Paul can’t stop it. This movie shows the Great Houses refusing to accept Paul’s victory, thus he has to send his troops out to subdue and passify them to unify his rule. That’s a great extra. He fought so hard to avoid it to then have to trigger it anyway.
As for the Great White Savior, Herbert was deliberately subverting the concept himself. Yes, Paul is the Chosen One, but he uses prophecy and manipulation, and moreso Jessica does, as a means for not just his survival, but revenge and ultimately the Emperorship.
And the Bene Gesserit don’t get what they were hoping for in their Kwizatz Hadderack, as Paul can see where they cannot look, but he is not their puppet, not even sympathetic to them. He won’t bow to them, won’t serve their desires, and even withholds his genes from their control.
And the galaxy gets a bloody holy war that destroys lives by the billions. Yeah, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Anyway, that’s my take.