Dune: Part Two
Long live the fighters.
Follow the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.
Wokeness: 40%
Overall Score: 70%
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User Submitted Reviews
Tonic1080
Unnecessary Feminist, Anti-Messiah Retcon
In the actual story of Dune: Chani (played by Zendaya Coleman) is a "ride-or-die" character that stands by and supports Paul Atreides no matter what decision he makes. In the movie they made an explicit choice to change the story and the character to be against him choosing the path of the Messiah. Rather than support, she pushes and influences. This coincides with a blatant anti-messiah/anti-Christ philosophy that is the cornerstone requirement of leftist/progressivist/collectivist/WOKE ideology ("there is no such thing as exceptionalism").
This was not a required change to the story, meaning it was purposeful in order to change a fundamental point of the story that conflicted with their ideology.
Created: 03-09-2024
JohnLogan
Created: 04-10-2024
Jon Loder
Is the novel the standard? If so, it missed some important points.
Part one was reasonably well done with the blatant and unnecessary substitution of Dr. Kynes. After all, the original story has women controlling the political and social structures through the Bene Gesserit order. Also, the Fremen women are just as vicious fighters as their men. in the book. Part Two has a more troubling change. Chani isn't the devoted supporter of Paul that the novel portrayed. The novel has Chani gladly accepting her role as Paul's consort while he's married, in name only, to the Emperor's daughter. This movie has Paul intentionally leaving her behind to fulfill his role as Kwisatz Haderach and Chani growing more bitter. The movie ends with the implication of some major conflict between Paul and Chani. The movie also left out the characters of Paul and Chani's son as well as Jessica's daughter. That changed things. I'm not impressed.
Created: 04-15-2024
Michaels
Woke is the mind-killer
This film has the veneer of great science fiction. Just beneath, however, it rots from woke.
If you have not read the book, you might be blissfully unaware that everything in the film has been distorted by a Leftist lens. I will list a few examples:
*Spoilers follow.*
* The film adds Northern Fremen. They are anti-religious feminists who belittle the religious fundamentalists in the Deep South. Hmm.
* Chani in the book is a trad warrior/wife, whereas film Chani is an insufferable negative force who undermines Paul's destiny to be the Fremen Messiah. "What about me?" I don't blame film Paul for "trading up" for Princess Irulan, LOL. A seething Chani is the close-out to Dune 2, so this conflict will be central to Dune 3, which is already green-lighted.
* Fremen were isolated for millenia, so they should be a relatively uniform color - brown in the books - but here we have sub-Saharan blacks with the browns.
* "Jihad" from the books was replaced with "holy war".
* In the book, Paul drinks the Water of Life on his own to usurp the plans of women (the Bene Gesserit), but in the film he is manipulated into doing it by his mother, a Bene Gesserit.
Woke deviations aside, I found it entertaining. The tension was palpable, despite my knowing how it should end. I still favor David Lynch's Dune (1984), which is a masterpiece.
Created: 05-11-2024
J T
Liked it
Some woke stuff, but nothing that I thought took away from the movie.
Created: 09-18-2024
NoWo
The sleeper should have awakened by now
Lynch brought many personal additions that were quite fantastic, possibly because he was close enough in age to Herbert.
Villeneuve, not so much. He does get a little bit more freaky, with his hairless, B&W Harkonnen aesthetics. Not unpleasant, but short of a success. His overall take is off the mark, as I see it.
He tried to flesh out the Fremen, and I say, why not?
The forced diversity of colour still makes sense only to the leftist, so racist, mind. The Fremen are a brutally homogeneous people, which is one of their main strength. So yeah, multikulti motto of diversity being strength in full action. To be fair, Lynch's Fremen were very white, but probably due to logistics and budget. And well, Berbers and Kabyls, so there's that.
Also, Bardem is the whitest actor, and the natural leader, so yeah, usual lefty racism confirmed. Bardem in one heck of a Stilgar, I have to admit.
On the other hand, a character is only as intelligent as its writers, which is a severe limitation here. Hand-to-hand may look bad-arse, but shields can't be used in the desert, because worms. Meaning it should be a rifleman's battlefield.
Also, shield + laser equals big boom. Patrol ornis use shields, and the Fremen's objective is utter destruction. Why risk your men when one or two fire teams can wreak total havoc on the enemy's harvesters by detonating the scouts?
Since combat is melee, women participate, as in all zeroes of historical examples, and are at least as good as men, because intersectionality of missing dick and heightened melanin.
Zendaya is the main offender; flying arm-lock takedowns may look cool, but how she crosses the distance every time without getting eviscerated is as mysterious as her continued employment in Hollywood.
Speaking of which, she should contractualize not appearing in scene with other females, as all and any other actress has more presence than her. Including incidental, two-lines characters.
And then there's the split between Northern and Southern Fremen (South being for the religious extremists), which makes no sense either (thus the reason for not existing in the books), and feels like modern politics injection. How can it even be stable, with the South being both safe and an overwhelming majority, one would wonder.
Herbert, not Villeneuve, has created a body of work with rabid following, which included quite a lot of effort for logical, sensical world-building. Maybe Villeneuve should learn some amount of humility, and not 'fix' the work of his betters.
All in all, Herbert was famous for his world crafting, Villeneuve can hope for infamy.
Speaking of which, no weirding modules. What Lynch was snorting at the time, science may never uncover.
Zendaya's purpose is uncovered in Part Deux: to spew blank slate, pseudo-egalitarian poppycock mixed with essentialist, hard-core racism. Quite a feat, really. And trying to bring Chani to the center of everything, which is very much neither the story nor the characters.
A lot of time is wasted on 'building' Feyd-Rautha's character. He's cartoonishly evil without the over-the-top campiness of Sting in space panties. "He can be controlled", says the BG mastermind. Yeah. Right. If _that_ is your plan B, you've already failed.
Princess Irulan's role has been puffed up, which is coherent with the books. Madsen was rather bland, but stunningly beautiful. Pugh is just bland.
Chalamet is still struggling with his character, Walken is tired, so is Skarsgard, Rampling has her Gom Jabbar stuck up her arse, and Seydoux fails at her femme fatale attempt, of all things. They're all competently going through the motions.
All in all, a better movie than the previous installment, mostly due to the easier, rising conflict narration, but less and less Dune.
Created: 02-12-2025
